BROWNSHIRTS
The media used to be a joke, lapdogs to the Communists in Universities and the Democratic party. Now the media is still a joke, but have forsaken any one party and are just spreading their legs as far apart as possible to curry favor with whatever Big Daddy Government party is in power at the time. Mercantilism, Fascism, Communist, National Socialist. It doesn’t matter anymore. They will lick the boots of whoever will allow them to continue making a profit upon their worthless product that would drive them out of business in a free market economy it is such drivel.
*
The Clintonista’s tried to burn the children of all the self-sufficient, government intolerant groups, tried to ban all guns and tried to ram socialized medicine down our throats. In an orgy of posterior suckling the media has saturated our meager brains with news of out of control medical costs and ( roll out the old seventies sob pictures of starving, downtrodden Seniors eating out of dog food cans ) the need for government to give us all a helping hand in order to pave the way for socialized medicine, the sequel. This time it shouldn’t face so much opposition as medical costs have really escalated in ten years, far more than inflation. And there are vast areas where medical spending ( at least half government money ) is the only employment offered as the local factories close down and ship over to China where, once oil becomes dear, we won’t be able to get the goods from. The voters of these regions will help scream for free medicine. Anyone who has ever been in the military can attest to what kind of care we have in store for us. If you never served, consider the story of the Post Office workers in Chicago that filled warehouses with mail so they didn’t have to bother to deliver it. That is the kind of service we’ll get ( don’t tell me how hard the peons at the PO work, I know the rank and file get screwed, I’m just using the civil servant mindset example ).
*
Whenever the media start to pucker up their face as if they had just bit a lemon and get a self righteous look on their face and a tear forms in their eye and they start to try to fake compassion for our suffering, watch out. Grab your semi-automatic carbine with bandolier of ammunition, your bullet proof vest, your attack dog and your fishing chest waders because you are going to have to fight your way out of a mountain of bull manure. The media will beat a news story to a bloody death, whipping a dead horse like the poor bastard has a chance of winning the Kentucky Derby. Whenever they focus on a story and repeat it, ask what the ulterior motive is. They are currently on the “no National Guard forces or equipment to help natural disaster victims” kick. I would normally say they are pushing for a democrat at the election ( don’t you just friggin love how the foul bastard scum sucking dill holes didn’t wait three or even two years before bombarding us about the national presidential elections but started in harping about it right away, worse than a darn wife ), but since we can’t leave Iraq no matter what because of the oil I can’t see it would matter much.
*
Then today there is a story in the paper that sent my normally placid and almost non-functioning paranoid radar into violent motion, jolting me out of my half consciousness that even coffee has a hard time penetrating. Our national security is compromised because so much of it is reliant on private sector security guards. It seems these near minimum wage lackeys are unable to function because, one, there is no national standards for training and two, they don’t make enough to give two craps and three, there are no background checks to ensure than Robby the Rapist or Corry the Crook or Alama Bin Badan Bin Sodom won’t work three years at crap pay in order to allow a mad bomber to get into Billy Bobs Pickled Pork’s Feet Canning Company and wreak havoc. Okay, you caught me, I was being a little sarcastic. They gave an example of the tallest building in L.A. being manned by private security. Because, you know, if we had Federal Jack Booters securing the place they would have much better luck keeping a plane load of terrorists crashing into the place. Or be able to stop a mortor or rocket attack on it from a distance.
*
I can hear the media’s secret message now. Let’s Federalize all security guards. We eventually get around to training them, sort of. In the mean time we highlight them helping out in a natural disaster. We give them bright shiny uniforms and some really effective firearm like a 9mm with full metal jacketed rounds and short M16 carbines ( please note sarcasm! ). Perhaps a brown shirted uniform. And tall boots! Hey, that would be cool! Suddenly several problems have been solved. The employment figures start to look a lot better. They need help with all the housing market employment gone ( and soon Detroit’s Union workers ). We replace all the functions of the National Guard and keep them overseas. We vastly expand the employment roles of the Federal government so they don’t have to rely on local help that is usually less than cooperative since the Fed track record does tend to speak for itself. Why, we take a bunch of cop wannabes and give them some real money, why, they would be more than happy to do the heavy work of killing gun owners or rioters trying to get away from a quarantine area. Instant loyalty combines with lack of inquisitive minds. Perfect.
*
This might sound crazy, but then so did instantly Federalizing airport security screeners. If our handlers want more troops in the fight against both oil producing regions and a restive home population, this is the perfect answer. If it happens, you heard it here first.
END
www.bisonpress.com for bison and amazon books
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
empire strikes back
EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, THE SEQUAL
You really have to wonder, are the powers that be incredibly stupid, having no fundamental grasp on history, or are they just so friggin lazy that they are stealing the playbook on how to run an empire directly from Great Britain. Either way, while it is quite profitable and I am sure vastly entertaining, it is not the way keep going for any length of time. The flame that burns twice as bright burns out in half the time kind of thing. But the point here is that the US empire so closely mirrors that of the UK that it is a bit scary. No, I am not saying that the Rothchild’s are controlling the Illuminati through London and pulling the strings in New York. I am saying that the torch was passed from London bankers to those in New York and the big oil companies jumped on the bandwagon and the politicians and lawyers followed so closely behind to pick up the scraps that they pretty much just buried their noses up the butts of the bankers and oil companies so that absolutely nothing went to waste by actually falling to the ground to get dirty and stepped on and wouldn’t the tree hugging granola crowd be happy that there is a closed loop of production, use and recycling.
*
In the period following the defeat of Napoleon and especially in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Britain began to seriously lag behind Germany in its Industrial sector. British equipment was old and far from state of the art. Rather than modernize and make the necessary adjustments, they took the easy way out by deciding to concentrate on the service sector. Sound familiar? They forced wages down by among other things allowing women and children to work. Free trade was introduced in agriculture so that imports made home production unprofitable. Unable to live off of their own production, farmers were forced to join the money economy and were unable to contribute to national food security. Instead of education and investment and hard work, most serious money was made in financial manipulation. As a result the country was weakened and stood little chance against Germany. This was 150 years ago and could be the headlines today by substituting the US and China for the UK and Germany.
*
World War One was not about an assassination and entangled alliances. Britain made and gave up allies at will, to suit her. She broke treaties as she saw fit. The reason WWI was fought was because of Germany threatening the economic welfare of Britain ( besides posing a threat against her navy ). And of course because the only way for Germany to transport oil from the middle east was a railroad constructed that went through the Balkans. The British thwarted her at every turn, even though initially Germany eagerly sought out British investment. But Oil was recognized as critical to the British navy. Britain could have remained self sufficient in coal for her ships but knew the tactical advantages were worth securing the rights to oil. Had Germany oil supplies in either world war, she would have done far better. Yes, the Nazis were evil. But Germany did have a legitimate grievance against how she was treated after the first war. Our hands were not without blood as the New York banks made a killing off war reparations.
*
During the first war, Britain dispatched about a million troops to the middle east to secure oil supplies. It was not as critical a resource as it would be twenty five years later, but the UK was definitely planning ahead. As a direct result of this France was forced to endure a disproportionate amount of fighting and causalities. If the US hadn’t entered the war France most likely would not have made it. And you wonder why they were so eager to surrender the second time around rather than being betrayed by one friend and having to wait until almost too late for the other to show up. The only reason the US entered the war was that the New York bankers were in danger of losing their investment and profits. Americans dying in the trenches bothered them not in the slightest.
*
And the British almost shot themselves in the foot by supporting the Nazi’s early on. Who better to stop the Communists than the Germans? Does this sound familiar? Muslin freedom fighters in Afghanistan. We are trying to control the oil supplies just as the Brits did. We are involved in Afghanistan to secure Russian advance. We are occupying Iraq. We have a lot of our troops there but have a lot of other global commitments besides.
*
We are letting our bankers dictate how the country is run and as a result we will go bankrupt. We ignore a crumbling country as long as the financial sector is shining like gold. We impoverish our workers and exploit all the “unworthy underclass” for profit. We think we have a unique set of problems but they are just the same results from the same type of exploitation from the monied class. Democracy and free trade are not designed to help or enpower us but to enslave us. And people believe the Federal Reserve is there to help us, to manage inflation! These people are our rulers! Global economic manipulation and mass resource theft are done by these guys before lunch time. Exploiting Americans doesn’t even break a sweat for them.
*
It might even be possible that the oil shocks of the seventies were a result of this kind of manipulation. Oil companies in America and Britain ( the seven sisters ) had heavy investments in Alaska and the North Sea. Between them and their banker buddies and those they controlled, a lot of manipulation of intelligence to Israel and the Arabs was done to both sides ( the Brits are/were absolute masters at the intelligence game and trained all our boys who set up our own spooks ) to start a conflict. In retaliation petrol spiked 400%. The higher prices saved the investments of our rulers and made them a lot of money. Deaths overseas and life savings lost here bothered them not at all.
*
The last one hundred years have all been about fighting for empire fueled by oil. This will not stop. And killing our own countrymen for more profit will also. Don’t be surprised by other strategically important events such as 9/11 to take place. NBC will be our cities air particles soon, not a TV station.
END
bison and amazon books www.bisonpress.com
You really have to wonder, are the powers that be incredibly stupid, having no fundamental grasp on history, or are they just so friggin lazy that they are stealing the playbook on how to run an empire directly from Great Britain. Either way, while it is quite profitable and I am sure vastly entertaining, it is not the way keep going for any length of time. The flame that burns twice as bright burns out in half the time kind of thing. But the point here is that the US empire so closely mirrors that of the UK that it is a bit scary. No, I am not saying that the Rothchild’s are controlling the Illuminati through London and pulling the strings in New York. I am saying that the torch was passed from London bankers to those in New York and the big oil companies jumped on the bandwagon and the politicians and lawyers followed so closely behind to pick up the scraps that they pretty much just buried their noses up the butts of the bankers and oil companies so that absolutely nothing went to waste by actually falling to the ground to get dirty and stepped on and wouldn’t the tree hugging granola crowd be happy that there is a closed loop of production, use and recycling.
*
In the period following the defeat of Napoleon and especially in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Britain began to seriously lag behind Germany in its Industrial sector. British equipment was old and far from state of the art. Rather than modernize and make the necessary adjustments, they took the easy way out by deciding to concentrate on the service sector. Sound familiar? They forced wages down by among other things allowing women and children to work. Free trade was introduced in agriculture so that imports made home production unprofitable. Unable to live off of their own production, farmers were forced to join the money economy and were unable to contribute to national food security. Instead of education and investment and hard work, most serious money was made in financial manipulation. As a result the country was weakened and stood little chance against Germany. This was 150 years ago and could be the headlines today by substituting the US and China for the UK and Germany.
*
World War One was not about an assassination and entangled alliances. Britain made and gave up allies at will, to suit her. She broke treaties as she saw fit. The reason WWI was fought was because of Germany threatening the economic welfare of Britain ( besides posing a threat against her navy ). And of course because the only way for Germany to transport oil from the middle east was a railroad constructed that went through the Balkans. The British thwarted her at every turn, even though initially Germany eagerly sought out British investment. But Oil was recognized as critical to the British navy. Britain could have remained self sufficient in coal for her ships but knew the tactical advantages were worth securing the rights to oil. Had Germany oil supplies in either world war, she would have done far better. Yes, the Nazis were evil. But Germany did have a legitimate grievance against how she was treated after the first war. Our hands were not without blood as the New York banks made a killing off war reparations.
*
During the first war, Britain dispatched about a million troops to the middle east to secure oil supplies. It was not as critical a resource as it would be twenty five years later, but the UK was definitely planning ahead. As a direct result of this France was forced to endure a disproportionate amount of fighting and causalities. If the US hadn’t entered the war France most likely would not have made it. And you wonder why they were so eager to surrender the second time around rather than being betrayed by one friend and having to wait until almost too late for the other to show up. The only reason the US entered the war was that the New York bankers were in danger of losing their investment and profits. Americans dying in the trenches bothered them not in the slightest.
*
And the British almost shot themselves in the foot by supporting the Nazi’s early on. Who better to stop the Communists than the Germans? Does this sound familiar? Muslin freedom fighters in Afghanistan. We are trying to control the oil supplies just as the Brits did. We are involved in Afghanistan to secure Russian advance. We are occupying Iraq. We have a lot of our troops there but have a lot of other global commitments besides.
*
We are letting our bankers dictate how the country is run and as a result we will go bankrupt. We ignore a crumbling country as long as the financial sector is shining like gold. We impoverish our workers and exploit all the “unworthy underclass” for profit. We think we have a unique set of problems but they are just the same results from the same type of exploitation from the monied class. Democracy and free trade are not designed to help or enpower us but to enslave us. And people believe the Federal Reserve is there to help us, to manage inflation! These people are our rulers! Global economic manipulation and mass resource theft are done by these guys before lunch time. Exploiting Americans doesn’t even break a sweat for them.
*
It might even be possible that the oil shocks of the seventies were a result of this kind of manipulation. Oil companies in America and Britain ( the seven sisters ) had heavy investments in Alaska and the North Sea. Between them and their banker buddies and those they controlled, a lot of manipulation of intelligence to Israel and the Arabs was done to both sides ( the Brits are/were absolute masters at the intelligence game and trained all our boys who set up our own spooks ) to start a conflict. In retaliation petrol spiked 400%. The higher prices saved the investments of our rulers and made them a lot of money. Deaths overseas and life savings lost here bothered them not at all.
*
The last one hundred years have all been about fighting for empire fueled by oil. This will not stop. And killing our own countrymen for more profit will also. Don’t be surprised by other strategically important events such as 9/11 to take place. NBC will be our cities air particles soon, not a TV station.
END
bison and amazon books www.bisonpress.com
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
population implosion
POPULATION IMPLOSION
If Peak Oil theory holds true and we see no surprise new large field discoveries ( odds are that we won’t, given the advances in finding reserves we have already utilized ) we are going to shortly see a “cliff fall” in production which should enter us into an immediate Depression and mass starvation. In the last economic Depression, a good amount of the population lived on farms and a large portion of urban dwellers had family members already living on working farms. We were also self sufficient in almost every way as a nation. We had our Central Bank already mucking up the economy, inflating the money supply and we had our involvement in a World War that did nothing but enrich the powerful and set up an economic firestorm. But we were on a gold standard and had the worlds best industrial economy and while the Depression was orchestrated and exploited by the bankers and politicians, it could have been a heck of a lot worse.
*
In Depression Two, it will be. We have no economic activity to speak of outside of financial manipulation and exploitation of oil, such as the building industry, the entertainment industry and the military industry. We have mostly only corporate controlled farms left, almost no independent family farms are left. Where in the last Depression the farms were draft animal powered or tractor powered with cheap plentiful oil, the next one will see our inability to power our farms by the lack of energy. Before we fertilized with green cover crops, animal manure and exports of guano deposits from South America. Now we use oil and natural gas exclusively. When those run out, how will we water and fertilize our farm soil? Don’t get me wrong, crop production will not cease immediately. We can muddle through to an extent for a time. But will we produce enough to feed our population of 330 million ( counting those illegals )? I seriously doubt it. As soon as our Stover Pot Pie inventory from the Wal-Mart freezer section drops too low and prices rise so high even Food Stamp recipients can’t afford them, social chaos will erupt.
*
Our Empire centric Federal government can pull levers behind the curtain for quite some time and hold things together at the center long past what would naturally occur. They can keep Humpty Dumpty on the wall even if he is obese and has no sense of balance. But when he gets to big and the wall section his fat ass is sitting on crumples, there is no way the government can put him back together again. Having a volunteer force in the military gives us a better educated soldier and relieves the social tension a draft would bring, but it also diminishes the number of warriors we have to enforce our global domination and control a populace at home in times of trouble. As soon as we hit a serious downturn, the military will cease to be of much use to the government. And that is if we even can bring them home. There are not enough active military, National Guardsmen, local police, county sheriffs, state troopers, armed Forest Rangers or Blackwater security troopers to keep the peace if they must face more than a few localized events.
*
In the Bering sea there is the island of St. Matthew. In 1944 a grand total of 29 reindeer were introduced to the island. At the time so much lichen had grown there due to lack of natural predators it was four inches deep. The reindeer thrived as never before. By 1963 there were 6,000 reindeer on the island and no more food for them. The next winter there was the great die-off. Something like forty females and one male remained. A population reduction of 99%. Now, we aren’t reindeer and we can eat more than moss. But this illustrates how a species will reproduce until it consumes all resources and then dies off back down to around its original numbers. The original number of earths population before the Industrial Revolution ( before coal power and then petroleum power ) was not more than one billion. But even that number might be overly optimistic. If we face a mass die-off due to resource depletion the global numbers should go much lower than that. A 99% die off means we are left with a global number of sixty million. Not in the US, globally ( the more oil centered areas will see a higher die-off initial, that means us ). We will then adopt and learn old school farming again and our numbers will increase up again to the holding capacity of a solar energy run globe. There will still be local die-offs as certain locations have environmental crises.
*
Can any of us imagine such a drop in numbers in such a short period of time? It seems impossible, given the number of mouths that we feed today. But remember, it is all petroleum based. We won’t run out of oil for quite some time, but we have already peaked in production in 2005. The good, easily extracted oil is now all gone. We are left with water saturated oil that must be separated, heavy sulfur oils, shale oil and oil sands that take a lot of natural gas to extract ( and we are running out of gas quickly ) and low grade coal. Uranium will last a bit longer but not forever and it is hard to turn nuclear power into food. And remember that when we had our 70’s oil supply problems we only experienced a disruption of under five percent. That disruption caused long gas lines, gas running out, trucker problems and worse of all Burt Reynolds movies such as Smokey And The Bandit and Cannonball Run as America desperately grasped at the illusion of the supremacy of the old car culture. What kind of problems will a five percent reduction of food bring? Remember, the oil was there, but withheld and it totally changed the direction of our country. What if five percent of our food was available but unable to be shipped? I can’t see anyone cinching up their belt in cooperation as we have become too greedy, materialistic, lazy, spoiled and driven into competitive niche groups.
*
And that is just the beginning. The start of the end of oil. If the start of a Depression disrupts more than that, actual starvation begins. We start with oil running out, couple that with our economy skidding to a halt and the combination is at least malnutrition and civil unrest. At the very least. The only known cure for an individual is to be out of the city, out in the boonies, self sufficient in food and strong in defenses. Which is not realistic for most of us. The next best thing is to feed and arm your neighbors and work together to build up intensive gardening on every available surface while defending your territory. Yeh, and good luck with that one too as few of us can stockpile enough food and ammo just for our own family, let alone for others. And forget last minute shopping. My local feed and grain never stocks more than two hundred pounds of wheat. The other local store is about the same. They order weekly, so in a town of 55,000 there are four hundred pounds of wheat for sale at any one time. Wal-Mart stocks how much rice, beans, flour? About the same. Add in the other markets, supermarkets as well as small specialty stores. I don’t think anyone stocks more than ten percent of one days supply of bulk storage food. Unless you have a local distributor or granary, your location is dependent on a daily shipment of food from the outside, all dependent on cheap, affordable, plentiful oil. Which is running out. Or, has run out for all intents and purposes. Things have never been better. We eat like pigs at a slop trough. We drive SUV’s around for entertainment or to frivolous jobs. We burn electricity and natural gas or heating oil like it will last forever. But we are at the peak of production. Of course things seem grand. Just beware the down side of that roller coaster. Weeeee! Mass starvation, pestilence, wars. Be very paranoid.
END
you buy now!! bison and amazon books www.bisonpress.com
If Peak Oil theory holds true and we see no surprise new large field discoveries ( odds are that we won’t, given the advances in finding reserves we have already utilized ) we are going to shortly see a “cliff fall” in production which should enter us into an immediate Depression and mass starvation. In the last economic Depression, a good amount of the population lived on farms and a large portion of urban dwellers had family members already living on working farms. We were also self sufficient in almost every way as a nation. We had our Central Bank already mucking up the economy, inflating the money supply and we had our involvement in a World War that did nothing but enrich the powerful and set up an economic firestorm. But we were on a gold standard and had the worlds best industrial economy and while the Depression was orchestrated and exploited by the bankers and politicians, it could have been a heck of a lot worse.
*
In Depression Two, it will be. We have no economic activity to speak of outside of financial manipulation and exploitation of oil, such as the building industry, the entertainment industry and the military industry. We have mostly only corporate controlled farms left, almost no independent family farms are left. Where in the last Depression the farms were draft animal powered or tractor powered with cheap plentiful oil, the next one will see our inability to power our farms by the lack of energy. Before we fertilized with green cover crops, animal manure and exports of guano deposits from South America. Now we use oil and natural gas exclusively. When those run out, how will we water and fertilize our farm soil? Don’t get me wrong, crop production will not cease immediately. We can muddle through to an extent for a time. But will we produce enough to feed our population of 330 million ( counting those illegals )? I seriously doubt it. As soon as our Stover Pot Pie inventory from the Wal-Mart freezer section drops too low and prices rise so high even Food Stamp recipients can’t afford them, social chaos will erupt.
*
Our Empire centric Federal government can pull levers behind the curtain for quite some time and hold things together at the center long past what would naturally occur. They can keep Humpty Dumpty on the wall even if he is obese and has no sense of balance. But when he gets to big and the wall section his fat ass is sitting on crumples, there is no way the government can put him back together again. Having a volunteer force in the military gives us a better educated soldier and relieves the social tension a draft would bring, but it also diminishes the number of warriors we have to enforce our global domination and control a populace at home in times of trouble. As soon as we hit a serious downturn, the military will cease to be of much use to the government. And that is if we even can bring them home. There are not enough active military, National Guardsmen, local police, county sheriffs, state troopers, armed Forest Rangers or Blackwater security troopers to keep the peace if they must face more than a few localized events.
*
In the Bering sea there is the island of St. Matthew. In 1944 a grand total of 29 reindeer were introduced to the island. At the time so much lichen had grown there due to lack of natural predators it was four inches deep. The reindeer thrived as never before. By 1963 there were 6,000 reindeer on the island and no more food for them. The next winter there was the great die-off. Something like forty females and one male remained. A population reduction of 99%. Now, we aren’t reindeer and we can eat more than moss. But this illustrates how a species will reproduce until it consumes all resources and then dies off back down to around its original numbers. The original number of earths population before the Industrial Revolution ( before coal power and then petroleum power ) was not more than one billion. But even that number might be overly optimistic. If we face a mass die-off due to resource depletion the global numbers should go much lower than that. A 99% die off means we are left with a global number of sixty million. Not in the US, globally ( the more oil centered areas will see a higher die-off initial, that means us ). We will then adopt and learn old school farming again and our numbers will increase up again to the holding capacity of a solar energy run globe. There will still be local die-offs as certain locations have environmental crises.
*
Can any of us imagine such a drop in numbers in such a short period of time? It seems impossible, given the number of mouths that we feed today. But remember, it is all petroleum based. We won’t run out of oil for quite some time, but we have already peaked in production in 2005. The good, easily extracted oil is now all gone. We are left with water saturated oil that must be separated, heavy sulfur oils, shale oil and oil sands that take a lot of natural gas to extract ( and we are running out of gas quickly ) and low grade coal. Uranium will last a bit longer but not forever and it is hard to turn nuclear power into food. And remember that when we had our 70’s oil supply problems we only experienced a disruption of under five percent. That disruption caused long gas lines, gas running out, trucker problems and worse of all Burt Reynolds movies such as Smokey And The Bandit and Cannonball Run as America desperately grasped at the illusion of the supremacy of the old car culture. What kind of problems will a five percent reduction of food bring? Remember, the oil was there, but withheld and it totally changed the direction of our country. What if five percent of our food was available but unable to be shipped? I can’t see anyone cinching up their belt in cooperation as we have become too greedy, materialistic, lazy, spoiled and driven into competitive niche groups.
*
And that is just the beginning. The start of the end of oil. If the start of a Depression disrupts more than that, actual starvation begins. We start with oil running out, couple that with our economy skidding to a halt and the combination is at least malnutrition and civil unrest. At the very least. The only known cure for an individual is to be out of the city, out in the boonies, self sufficient in food and strong in defenses. Which is not realistic for most of us. The next best thing is to feed and arm your neighbors and work together to build up intensive gardening on every available surface while defending your territory. Yeh, and good luck with that one too as few of us can stockpile enough food and ammo just for our own family, let alone for others. And forget last minute shopping. My local feed and grain never stocks more than two hundred pounds of wheat. The other local store is about the same. They order weekly, so in a town of 55,000 there are four hundred pounds of wheat for sale at any one time. Wal-Mart stocks how much rice, beans, flour? About the same. Add in the other markets, supermarkets as well as small specialty stores. I don’t think anyone stocks more than ten percent of one days supply of bulk storage food. Unless you have a local distributor or granary, your location is dependent on a daily shipment of food from the outside, all dependent on cheap, affordable, plentiful oil. Which is running out. Or, has run out for all intents and purposes. Things have never been better. We eat like pigs at a slop trough. We drive SUV’s around for entertainment or to frivolous jobs. We burn electricity and natural gas or heating oil like it will last forever. But we are at the peak of production. Of course things seem grand. Just beware the down side of that roller coaster. Weeeee! Mass starvation, pestilence, wars. Be very paranoid.
END
you buy now!! bison and amazon books www.bisonpress.com
Monday, May 28, 2007
another boonies business
ANOTHER BOONIES BUSINESS
Here is another idea for a boonies business. It might not be practical for everyone but it takes little talent and can be an investment anywhere from zero to only a few thousand dollars. It is all very well and good to talk about having an in demand job to live out in the boonies such as medical ( even EMT or C.N.A. take a lot of training ) or a welder or craftsman or whatever, but in reality most of us are low talent, low pay. There are no cashiers jobs at Lowe’s in the middle of nowhere. I talked before about writing for a living, but while satisfying it pays for crap. Here is something you can do with a fair amount of work but little in the way of skill ( you just need to be moderately intelligent ) or, relatively speaking, little in the way of investment.
*
Selling E-Bay land. Or, listing E-Bay land for sale. Let’s take the no investment one first. Listing the land sales. On any given day there is almost two thousand listings for land on E-Bay. Even with a high speed connection and search parameters, it is a daunting task to plow through it all. My idea is to do the searching for others. Most likely your only pay is going to be Google Ads. That might not be a bad thing, as perhaps real estate will pay more than the standard nickel a click. Or, it could pay very little. If you already have the computer and Internet connection, it will all be gravy for you. Perhaps the extra cash will help with preps. Or, even if small the extra cash will help motivate you to try to build it into a viable business over time.
*
My thought was to list a frugal land blog. You are cutting out all the expensive, worthless land. The ones that list for $100, but then are $395 a month for twenty years. Or the ones that are three times the cost of others in the area. You need to eliminate other land that doesn’t work for frugal types, such as those with monthly association dues. My guidelines ( yours can vary, for ideas only ) would be cost under $3,000. Or, if payments, under $200 a month and only three to five years payments. Zoned to allow travel trailers year round. Somewhat close to water and town, to allow the option of doing without a car and to allow for at least a casual income. A road to the land. Believe it or not, there are still plenty of cheap lots available. No longer under $500, but plenty under $1,000. Just this morning I noticed a West Texas lot for $900 ten miles from town. A north Arkansas lot with no restrictions or dues for about the same. A town lot in one of the Dakota’s for under a grand ( although I’m unsure of the zoning there ).
*
You spend nothing to list these, other than your time on a regular basis. You must be able to stay organized and focused. Pull the old links, daily post new ones. The good news is that you will never run out of work ( that’s the bad news also ). There are always new land coming on sale. Just focusing on straight sales rather than auctions will give you plenty to list. You can’t post any of their pictures, or cut and paste any of the sites for descriptions because of copyrights. Just develop your own system of listing and provide links. If you list your requirements on the blog page, everyone can assume each lot listed has the same characteristics unless otherwise listed ( for instance, they know trailers are allowed unless you say otherwise ). Put up a disclaimer stating something to the effect that you are going by other peoples descriptions and cannot legally be held liable for misrepresentation. It might not stop rabid attack lawyers but it is better than nothing. You may want to represent a group other than survivalists. Frugal living, or cheap back-to-the-land, or something to that effect. No reason to limit your customers.
*
The other way to do this and actual make decent money is to buy the land yourself and resell it. There should be plenty of informational books out there on how to sell land on E-Bay. Whatever commission is collected, just pass on the cost to your buyer ( in other words, if E-Bay charges $150 for the ad when you sell, the closing cost to the buyer is at least that amount ). This has an up front cost of thousands, but after a time old sales are paying for new acquisitions. Say you bought five lots of land for about $4,000. If you bought them for $800 each ( total cost ) and sold them for $49 a month for three years interest free, you would generate $250 a month in revenue. After four months you could buy another lot for cash and add another $49 a month to your revenue. Then you could buy the next one in three and a half months. Now you have almost $350 a month coming in. In three more months it only takes three months to buy another. Then two or two and a half. In no time at all you are earning $900 a month and buying a new lot every month ( at about two years ).
*
At three years you lose the revenue from the first five lots, but by then you are buying a new lot each month to replace the one you lose every month from then on. Plus having an income of at least $900 a month from then on. Not bad for $4,000 plus a few hours a day and the cost of an Internet connection. Some of you might scoff at a grand a month to live on but if you live frugal you can live like a king on this. If you are living on one of your lots by then there is no rent to pay. Close enough to town and you can either bike or drive a cheap beater. $50 a month Internet, a few hundred for food. $25 to $100 for propane. Spend $450 living expenses and the other half buying survival preps or other toys.
*
Now, granted, you might not find a suitable lot every month. You might have someone stop payment and forfeit the land. Extra money for you but you might need time to find another buyer. So you have to wait an extra month to buy another lot. But no big deal. It is all gravy after the first investment, and if your income drops one month by a payment or two, no big deal. You still have enough to live on. And there are always hurdles. For instance, I have no idea what kind of legal difficulties there are from buyers stopping payment. How much before you can’t repo, that kind of thing. Have these and other legal issues resolved before you start. Get a cheap web site to lump all your sales together, don’t make buyers wade through the whole E-Bay listing to find you. Then link your land back to E-Bay for the sale. Just like the listing job, specialize in one kind of land. Buy cheap land that is cash up front, then sell by payments so others don’t mind the mark up. And, a good idea is to only accept PayPal payments. No way they can blame the Post Office for a lost check, or a bounced check. Otherwise, demand an extra payment up front to cover a missed payment. But electronic payments are a lot less stress.
*
Now, you ask, why doesn’t Jim do this? He already has three lots he owns he could sell. He already has free Wi-Fi connection from staying in the trailer park. Well, let me tell you, I’m thinking about it. I just don’t have several thousand to invest. I don’t know how viable it would be to wait six months before I could buy another lot. But it is still a good idea even if I don’t do it. If you go with either idea, let me know. I can run a link to your site to get the ball rolling. Oh, and by the way. As with any business, there is risk. You could make zero sales and lose your shirt. But I think this has a good chance to succeed, if for no other reason that people will be losing their homes and some might be willing to move to an affordable lot and live primitive. The worse the economy, the better this business.
END
buy bison books, also new links page www.bisonpress.com
Here is another idea for a boonies business. It might not be practical for everyone but it takes little talent and can be an investment anywhere from zero to only a few thousand dollars. It is all very well and good to talk about having an in demand job to live out in the boonies such as medical ( even EMT or C.N.A. take a lot of training ) or a welder or craftsman or whatever, but in reality most of us are low talent, low pay. There are no cashiers jobs at Lowe’s in the middle of nowhere. I talked before about writing for a living, but while satisfying it pays for crap. Here is something you can do with a fair amount of work but little in the way of skill ( you just need to be moderately intelligent ) or, relatively speaking, little in the way of investment.
*
Selling E-Bay land. Or, listing E-Bay land for sale. Let’s take the no investment one first. Listing the land sales. On any given day there is almost two thousand listings for land on E-Bay. Even with a high speed connection and search parameters, it is a daunting task to plow through it all. My idea is to do the searching for others. Most likely your only pay is going to be Google Ads. That might not be a bad thing, as perhaps real estate will pay more than the standard nickel a click. Or, it could pay very little. If you already have the computer and Internet connection, it will all be gravy for you. Perhaps the extra cash will help with preps. Or, even if small the extra cash will help motivate you to try to build it into a viable business over time.
*
My thought was to list a frugal land blog. You are cutting out all the expensive, worthless land. The ones that list for $100, but then are $395 a month for twenty years. Or the ones that are three times the cost of others in the area. You need to eliminate other land that doesn’t work for frugal types, such as those with monthly association dues. My guidelines ( yours can vary, for ideas only ) would be cost under $3,000. Or, if payments, under $200 a month and only three to five years payments. Zoned to allow travel trailers year round. Somewhat close to water and town, to allow the option of doing without a car and to allow for at least a casual income. A road to the land. Believe it or not, there are still plenty of cheap lots available. No longer under $500, but plenty under $1,000. Just this morning I noticed a West Texas lot for $900 ten miles from town. A north Arkansas lot with no restrictions or dues for about the same. A town lot in one of the Dakota’s for under a grand ( although I’m unsure of the zoning there ).
*
You spend nothing to list these, other than your time on a regular basis. You must be able to stay organized and focused. Pull the old links, daily post new ones. The good news is that you will never run out of work ( that’s the bad news also ). There are always new land coming on sale. Just focusing on straight sales rather than auctions will give you plenty to list. You can’t post any of their pictures, or cut and paste any of the sites for descriptions because of copyrights. Just develop your own system of listing and provide links. If you list your requirements on the blog page, everyone can assume each lot listed has the same characteristics unless otherwise listed ( for instance, they know trailers are allowed unless you say otherwise ). Put up a disclaimer stating something to the effect that you are going by other peoples descriptions and cannot legally be held liable for misrepresentation. It might not stop rabid attack lawyers but it is better than nothing. You may want to represent a group other than survivalists. Frugal living, or cheap back-to-the-land, or something to that effect. No reason to limit your customers.
*
The other way to do this and actual make decent money is to buy the land yourself and resell it. There should be plenty of informational books out there on how to sell land on E-Bay. Whatever commission is collected, just pass on the cost to your buyer ( in other words, if E-Bay charges $150 for the ad when you sell, the closing cost to the buyer is at least that amount ). This has an up front cost of thousands, but after a time old sales are paying for new acquisitions. Say you bought five lots of land for about $4,000. If you bought them for $800 each ( total cost ) and sold them for $49 a month for three years interest free, you would generate $250 a month in revenue. After four months you could buy another lot for cash and add another $49 a month to your revenue. Then you could buy the next one in three and a half months. Now you have almost $350 a month coming in. In three more months it only takes three months to buy another. Then two or two and a half. In no time at all you are earning $900 a month and buying a new lot every month ( at about two years ).
*
At three years you lose the revenue from the first five lots, but by then you are buying a new lot each month to replace the one you lose every month from then on. Plus having an income of at least $900 a month from then on. Not bad for $4,000 plus a few hours a day and the cost of an Internet connection. Some of you might scoff at a grand a month to live on but if you live frugal you can live like a king on this. If you are living on one of your lots by then there is no rent to pay. Close enough to town and you can either bike or drive a cheap beater. $50 a month Internet, a few hundred for food. $25 to $100 for propane. Spend $450 living expenses and the other half buying survival preps or other toys.
*
Now, granted, you might not find a suitable lot every month. You might have someone stop payment and forfeit the land. Extra money for you but you might need time to find another buyer. So you have to wait an extra month to buy another lot. But no big deal. It is all gravy after the first investment, and if your income drops one month by a payment or two, no big deal. You still have enough to live on. And there are always hurdles. For instance, I have no idea what kind of legal difficulties there are from buyers stopping payment. How much before you can’t repo, that kind of thing. Have these and other legal issues resolved before you start. Get a cheap web site to lump all your sales together, don’t make buyers wade through the whole E-Bay listing to find you. Then link your land back to E-Bay for the sale. Just like the listing job, specialize in one kind of land. Buy cheap land that is cash up front, then sell by payments so others don’t mind the mark up. And, a good idea is to only accept PayPal payments. No way they can blame the Post Office for a lost check, or a bounced check. Otherwise, demand an extra payment up front to cover a missed payment. But electronic payments are a lot less stress.
*
Now, you ask, why doesn’t Jim do this? He already has three lots he owns he could sell. He already has free Wi-Fi connection from staying in the trailer park. Well, let me tell you, I’m thinking about it. I just don’t have several thousand to invest. I don’t know how viable it would be to wait six months before I could buy another lot. But it is still a good idea even if I don’t do it. If you go with either idea, let me know. I can run a link to your site to get the ball rolling. Oh, and by the way. As with any business, there is risk. You could make zero sales and lose your shirt. But I think this has a good chance to succeed, if for no other reason that people will be losing their homes and some might be willing to move to an affordable lot and live primitive. The worse the economy, the better this business.
END
buy bison books, also new links page www.bisonpress.com
Saturday, May 26, 2007
border wars
BORDER WARS
In the comments on my Canadian Bacon article, it seems some folks were offended. I thought I made it clear that Uncle Sugar was capable of ungentlemanly behavior. I wasn’t cheering him on. Just because I believe that in times of trouble we will have race wars does not make me a racist. When I said the US could attack Canada or Mexico I was just reporting the facts, not trying to piss off my readers in both countries. So let me make it clear. The US federal government is an empire out of control and capable of anything brutish and foul. And as far as the F-16 and ten city comment, I was just trying to convey the vulnerability of concentrated populations in a few urban centers. And the sniper target rich comment was pointing out how badly the government manages the border. Geesh, it just isn’t as cutting if I have to explain it. That said, let’s see how many more folks I can cheese off with today’s article on the coming border wars between desperate starving hoards of Mexicans and armed American militias.
*
Just to skim over the Peak Oil aspect for fear of putting you to sleep once again, all mature oil producing regions are losing production at about 10% a year. Saudi Arabia, Russia, Norway. Some are losing production even faster. Such as North Sea and even Iran. But it seems that Mexico is having about the hardest time of it with production drops in the range of 15-20% depending on the source you read. This means that in a very short period of time Mexico will no longer be able to import oil to the US and might even cease production before they are even depleted as the money needed for maintenance will not be there. Oil money accounts for most of the governments revenues and without it even more people are impoverished and desperately seeking a way out before they starve. They might start a stampede for the Rio Grande.
*
Now, they will easily overwhelm the Border Patrol, mainly due to government kid-gloving recent illegals both to keep the Democrats in power through extra voters and Republicans in power by allowing mass migrations to fatten the corporate bottom line through wage depression. And for the love of all the Gods and all that is holy, good and just, don’t complain about me hating Mexicans. I don’t. I think we should abolish all welfare and then fling open all borders with no restrictions. I don’t care who comes in. But that would only work in a totally free society, not like we have it now where corporations, bankers and politicians compliment each other to exploit the workers and get filthy rich and impoverish us through inflation. I am saying that under the current system, too many immigrants hurt the average worker. And while I can see these variables and tell the difference between what should be and what is, the average citizen will merely be angry about job loss and lash out against all Mexicans in general ( just as they don’t differentiate between Arab immigrants and Arab terrorists ).
*
And when drug smuggling vastly increases in an attempt to keep some kind of economic activity propping up the economy, a lot more people will get involved in trying to stop the new immigrants from arriving. Just like when we kill a block full of civilians to kill one terrorist ( or, to be honest about it, freedom fighter ), so too will American militias target both drug smugglers and innocent civilians just trying to cross the border in hopes of survival. Heck, if global warming does continue, imagine our water drying up and the Midwest drought forcing us up into Canada for productive farmland and think how they would react. If they were armed. You are going to see citizens from more than just the border states banding together to try to stop the migration. And you think it sucks to be a Border Patrol agent now with jagbags prosecuting them for doing their job, just think how much worse it is going to be when they have armed drug runners to the south of them, armed US militia members to the north of them and they are stuck in the middle. If I were an agent and I could, I would retire as quick as possible.
*
We already have all of this in embryonic form today with the regular border infiltrations and the huge drug problem. Many different reports make the border sound like a low intensity conflict zone. Now imagine how it would flare with the collapse of the oil fields leading to the collapse of border controls and the ten fold increase in drug shipments. When Billy Bob and company lose meat packing jobs and construction work to immigrants, it is at a slow enough of a pace to absorb it at a survivable rate. When the dam bursts and many more immigrants start a bidding war for jobs, many more US citizens ( perhaps even of Latino heritage ) are going to be up in arms, many literally. And as Latino gangs start taking over more and more areas, the backlash from everyone is predictable.
*
Every Joe Blow and his half sister or first cousin wife are out there on the hiways and byways this weekend, polluting the ozone as fast as their SUV and fishing boat can manage. $3.25 gas is nothing to these people. They bought quarter million dollar houses and $40k cars. The current gas prices might be viciously complained about, but it changes behavior very little. People are acting as though gas is merely inflation adjusted rather than running out. In other words, they think they are wronged but have actually seen no pain yet. A coming border war is just one more aspect of running out of cheap plentiful oil. You have not seen anything yet.
END
www.bisonpress.com for all your holiday shopping
In the comments on my Canadian Bacon article, it seems some folks were offended. I thought I made it clear that Uncle Sugar was capable of ungentlemanly behavior. I wasn’t cheering him on. Just because I believe that in times of trouble we will have race wars does not make me a racist. When I said the US could attack Canada or Mexico I was just reporting the facts, not trying to piss off my readers in both countries. So let me make it clear. The US federal government is an empire out of control and capable of anything brutish and foul. And as far as the F-16 and ten city comment, I was just trying to convey the vulnerability of concentrated populations in a few urban centers. And the sniper target rich comment was pointing out how badly the government manages the border. Geesh, it just isn’t as cutting if I have to explain it. That said, let’s see how many more folks I can cheese off with today’s article on the coming border wars between desperate starving hoards of Mexicans and armed American militias.
*
Just to skim over the Peak Oil aspect for fear of putting you to sleep once again, all mature oil producing regions are losing production at about 10% a year. Saudi Arabia, Russia, Norway. Some are losing production even faster. Such as North Sea and even Iran. But it seems that Mexico is having about the hardest time of it with production drops in the range of 15-20% depending on the source you read. This means that in a very short period of time Mexico will no longer be able to import oil to the US and might even cease production before they are even depleted as the money needed for maintenance will not be there. Oil money accounts for most of the governments revenues and without it even more people are impoverished and desperately seeking a way out before they starve. They might start a stampede for the Rio Grande.
*
Now, they will easily overwhelm the Border Patrol, mainly due to government kid-gloving recent illegals both to keep the Democrats in power through extra voters and Republicans in power by allowing mass migrations to fatten the corporate bottom line through wage depression. And for the love of all the Gods and all that is holy, good and just, don’t complain about me hating Mexicans. I don’t. I think we should abolish all welfare and then fling open all borders with no restrictions. I don’t care who comes in. But that would only work in a totally free society, not like we have it now where corporations, bankers and politicians compliment each other to exploit the workers and get filthy rich and impoverish us through inflation. I am saying that under the current system, too many immigrants hurt the average worker. And while I can see these variables and tell the difference between what should be and what is, the average citizen will merely be angry about job loss and lash out against all Mexicans in general ( just as they don’t differentiate between Arab immigrants and Arab terrorists ).
*
And when drug smuggling vastly increases in an attempt to keep some kind of economic activity propping up the economy, a lot more people will get involved in trying to stop the new immigrants from arriving. Just like when we kill a block full of civilians to kill one terrorist ( or, to be honest about it, freedom fighter ), so too will American militias target both drug smugglers and innocent civilians just trying to cross the border in hopes of survival. Heck, if global warming does continue, imagine our water drying up and the Midwest drought forcing us up into Canada for productive farmland and think how they would react. If they were armed. You are going to see citizens from more than just the border states banding together to try to stop the migration. And you think it sucks to be a Border Patrol agent now with jagbags prosecuting them for doing their job, just think how much worse it is going to be when they have armed drug runners to the south of them, armed US militia members to the north of them and they are stuck in the middle. If I were an agent and I could, I would retire as quick as possible.
*
We already have all of this in embryonic form today with the regular border infiltrations and the huge drug problem. Many different reports make the border sound like a low intensity conflict zone. Now imagine how it would flare with the collapse of the oil fields leading to the collapse of border controls and the ten fold increase in drug shipments. When Billy Bob and company lose meat packing jobs and construction work to immigrants, it is at a slow enough of a pace to absorb it at a survivable rate. When the dam bursts and many more immigrants start a bidding war for jobs, many more US citizens ( perhaps even of Latino heritage ) are going to be up in arms, many literally. And as Latino gangs start taking over more and more areas, the backlash from everyone is predictable.
*
Every Joe Blow and his half sister or first cousin wife are out there on the hiways and byways this weekend, polluting the ozone as fast as their SUV and fishing boat can manage. $3.25 gas is nothing to these people. They bought quarter million dollar houses and $40k cars. The current gas prices might be viciously complained about, but it changes behavior very little. People are acting as though gas is merely inflation adjusted rather than running out. In other words, they think they are wronged but have actually seen no pain yet. A coming border war is just one more aspect of running out of cheap plentiful oil. You have not seen anything yet.
END
www.bisonpress.com for all your holiday shopping
Friday, May 25, 2007
world according to jim
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO JIM
After a firestorm of criticism leveled by one or two disgruntled readers and the many answers to them by my loyal minions, I felt that perhaps instead of being small minded malcontents just like me they were just not educated with my worldview. A lot of times I might not make myself clear if I am consciously or even sub-consciously assuming you have read my writing before. I might assume you know where I’m coming from. I know it is dangerous to assume. So perhaps if I laid out a menu of my basic survival commandments there will be less misunderstandings. Of course, there might not be as next month a new reader sees something that offends him and we have to start over. So here is the world according to Jim. If I forgot one or two, let me know. I might be skipping a tree or two looking at the forest.
*
WHEAT. I advocate storing wheat for a survival pantry. A years supply of wheat is only about $80 plus containers if you buy from a feed and grain store. Assumes $20 per hundred pounds, one pound a day for about 1500 calories. I know that this is an incomplete diet and you need a protein source. It would be far better to add a bean to this to get a complete protein. However, for those that are dirt poor this is better than no food storage at all. Better a years supply of incomplete protein than six months of a complete one. Assuming a social collapse. If all you are preparing for is a few weeks supply disruption you can just overstock on canned goods. I harp on wheat but only because I’m advocating as much food as possible as cheaply as possible.
*
BOLT ACTION RIFLES. From the standpoint of social collapse when ammunition disappears only bolt actions will stretch out your ammunition supply. I only call for war surplus because I think a bayonet is important and they can stand up to more abuse than hunting rifles. And only bolts can supply a full size round so cheaply. I know semi-auto is better. They give you much more flexibility and can save your life. But frugal preppers can’t afford five times the ammo or the rifle cost plus magazines. And I know most people live back East and the terrain is better suited for carbines instead of battle rifles. But I assume it is better to have too much gun than not enough. And I know it is far better to have more than one kind of gun, but again, if you are poor you take what you can get.
*
TRAILER. I understand most people hate the thought of living in a trailer. They are very small and poorly insulated. Other than a few years while married to The Most Evil One when I lived in an apartment, for the last twenty years I have lived in only trailers or mobile homes. I prefer the trailers since you don’t lose anything if a mobile home park closes and you have nowhere to move the mobile to. Too many people lose their investment that way. But I have never cared about what kind of shelter I live in, as long as it keeps the rain off my head and I can stay somewhat comfortable. When I implore you to live in one I realize I am projecting my preferences. But it is the cheapest and fastest way to provide a half way decent shelter for yourself.
*
CHEAP LAND. Cheap land has almost nothing going for it. It is miles from town and has no utilities anywhere close to it. It is generally in a less than desirable area. The water table is too far down or employment is non-existent or the road to it is in bad shape. But it gives you a place to legally park. Even if it can’t produce food, at least a banker can’t repo it. I know some folks have relatives to go stay with. Even better, that is your support group. Just position beforehand bulk food to help feed them as your admission ticket. But for those on their own, this is the ultimate legal squat and retirement haven.
*
POLITICS. I think the Libertarians are too soft on government. I believe we should have none at all. I think the Republicans are fascist and the Democrats are communists. But I also think it is okay to go on welfare ( yes, even Social Security even if I rant against the recipients ). The system is so far gone and so hooked on inflation that anyone getting benefits can’t harm anything at all. It is not like it used to be when a welfare draw meant an increase in taxes. You might as well take advantage as the ship is sinking. Just don’t become too dependant on them, use as a help only.
*
FRUGAL LIVING. One reader complained frugal living is a sign of failure. As if not making a lot of cash is a failure. In my eyes, not making much cash is a sign of success. I am living as stress free as possible and cutting back on my reliance to Greenbacks. I can be flexible when I am suddenly unemployed. I can have much more material goods for far less money. I look at non-tangible rewards as better than cash. Leisure time, lack of health robbing stress. Not being targeted for theft. Being satisfied with less. Not having material goods needing my attention.
*
LOW WAGE JOB. Again, why hurt yourself at working is other things are more important to you. I would rather enjoy a sunrise than an extra couple of bucks working overtime. But more importantly than leisure is flexibility. I can move anywhere and find employment. I don’t have to stress about job outsourcing. Or factory closures. I can move to a more survival friendly area if desired. Or one with better weather. Or be close to family. I am not tied to an undesirable area because the job is there.
*
HARMFULL ADVICE. I don’t think any of my advice harms anyone. If nothing happens you still have a toolkit in case of future disasters. All at very low cost. If you move away from a perceived threat and nothing happens, what is the worse that can happen? You save money again and move back where you were. Sure, you might dump assets and not be able to recoup them, but after a certain point with any advice you can take things too far. That is on you. I am not telling anyone to overthrow the government or acquire fully automatic weapons. I am just advising to live cheaper, to stockpile the cheaper alternatives. I try to highlight all the negatives, but I also can’t foresee everything. As you are mauled by rabid dogs you might curse me for advising against semi-autos, but at least you saved money and can afford that first aid kit if you survive.
*
NO CAR. Long before Peak Oil became a consideration, I hated cars because of the massive expense they represented. Hard to live frugal if you have a car expense. Hard to retire on Social Security while paying on a SUV. Peak Oil just makes a further case against cars. Sure, own one if you must. I own the Hippy Bread Van, a cheap step van doubling as my emergency shelter. But I don’t depend on it for transportation, just as homeless insurance. A car should be viewed as a luxury, not as a necessity. That opens up a lot more options to you.
*
SARCASM. I am sarcastic, I know. Much more than I used to be. I’m becoming a surly old fart. But I just entered middle age, so know that I have many decades left to get any worse. But know that I can be sarcastic to make a point and yet still like that person. I dig on Survival Blog, but they have a lot of good information. I solidified my views on where my retreat will be because of Rawles advice and insights. I rag on some of the views, especially the need for expensive solutions, but there is also good advice. So take the sarcasm for what it is, a tool to make a point.
*
ARMCHAIR COMMANDO. I lot of what I write about I have done. Some I have not. I try to always be clear to you on those things I am passing along as theory. Some are a hybrid such as when I tell you to live on the retreat but I have not yet done so. I have the land and the equipment but stay where I am at present to be near family. It is still good advice even if I haven’t followed it completely. Or, I own equipment but have never tried it, such as the Zip stove. I know, bad habit. I’m only close to perfect, just not quite there yet. I am not God, just a minor diety. Never claim the top spot or you might be struck with a bolt of lightning. Seriously, I try to stay humble and just present the facts. That is why I like criticism, to keep me honest. But remember, constructive only please. Only I am allowed to be sarcastic.
END
www.bisonpress.com for e-books,samples, address,Amazon books
After a firestorm of criticism leveled by one or two disgruntled readers and the many answers to them by my loyal minions, I felt that perhaps instead of being small minded malcontents just like me they were just not educated with my worldview. A lot of times I might not make myself clear if I am consciously or even sub-consciously assuming you have read my writing before. I might assume you know where I’m coming from. I know it is dangerous to assume. So perhaps if I laid out a menu of my basic survival commandments there will be less misunderstandings. Of course, there might not be as next month a new reader sees something that offends him and we have to start over. So here is the world according to Jim. If I forgot one or two, let me know. I might be skipping a tree or two looking at the forest.
*
WHEAT. I advocate storing wheat for a survival pantry. A years supply of wheat is only about $80 plus containers if you buy from a feed and grain store. Assumes $20 per hundred pounds, one pound a day for about 1500 calories. I know that this is an incomplete diet and you need a protein source. It would be far better to add a bean to this to get a complete protein. However, for those that are dirt poor this is better than no food storage at all. Better a years supply of incomplete protein than six months of a complete one. Assuming a social collapse. If all you are preparing for is a few weeks supply disruption you can just overstock on canned goods. I harp on wheat but only because I’m advocating as much food as possible as cheaply as possible.
*
BOLT ACTION RIFLES. From the standpoint of social collapse when ammunition disappears only bolt actions will stretch out your ammunition supply. I only call for war surplus because I think a bayonet is important and they can stand up to more abuse than hunting rifles. And only bolts can supply a full size round so cheaply. I know semi-auto is better. They give you much more flexibility and can save your life. But frugal preppers can’t afford five times the ammo or the rifle cost plus magazines. And I know most people live back East and the terrain is better suited for carbines instead of battle rifles. But I assume it is better to have too much gun than not enough. And I know it is far better to have more than one kind of gun, but again, if you are poor you take what you can get.
*
TRAILER. I understand most people hate the thought of living in a trailer. They are very small and poorly insulated. Other than a few years while married to The Most Evil One when I lived in an apartment, for the last twenty years I have lived in only trailers or mobile homes. I prefer the trailers since you don’t lose anything if a mobile home park closes and you have nowhere to move the mobile to. Too many people lose their investment that way. But I have never cared about what kind of shelter I live in, as long as it keeps the rain off my head and I can stay somewhat comfortable. When I implore you to live in one I realize I am projecting my preferences. But it is the cheapest and fastest way to provide a half way decent shelter for yourself.
*
CHEAP LAND. Cheap land has almost nothing going for it. It is miles from town and has no utilities anywhere close to it. It is generally in a less than desirable area. The water table is too far down or employment is non-existent or the road to it is in bad shape. But it gives you a place to legally park. Even if it can’t produce food, at least a banker can’t repo it. I know some folks have relatives to go stay with. Even better, that is your support group. Just position beforehand bulk food to help feed them as your admission ticket. But for those on their own, this is the ultimate legal squat and retirement haven.
*
POLITICS. I think the Libertarians are too soft on government. I believe we should have none at all. I think the Republicans are fascist and the Democrats are communists. But I also think it is okay to go on welfare ( yes, even Social Security even if I rant against the recipients ). The system is so far gone and so hooked on inflation that anyone getting benefits can’t harm anything at all. It is not like it used to be when a welfare draw meant an increase in taxes. You might as well take advantage as the ship is sinking. Just don’t become too dependant on them, use as a help only.
*
FRUGAL LIVING. One reader complained frugal living is a sign of failure. As if not making a lot of cash is a failure. In my eyes, not making much cash is a sign of success. I am living as stress free as possible and cutting back on my reliance to Greenbacks. I can be flexible when I am suddenly unemployed. I can have much more material goods for far less money. I look at non-tangible rewards as better than cash. Leisure time, lack of health robbing stress. Not being targeted for theft. Being satisfied with less. Not having material goods needing my attention.
*
LOW WAGE JOB. Again, why hurt yourself at working is other things are more important to you. I would rather enjoy a sunrise than an extra couple of bucks working overtime. But more importantly than leisure is flexibility. I can move anywhere and find employment. I don’t have to stress about job outsourcing. Or factory closures. I can move to a more survival friendly area if desired. Or one with better weather. Or be close to family. I am not tied to an undesirable area because the job is there.
*
HARMFULL ADVICE. I don’t think any of my advice harms anyone. If nothing happens you still have a toolkit in case of future disasters. All at very low cost. If you move away from a perceived threat and nothing happens, what is the worse that can happen? You save money again and move back where you were. Sure, you might dump assets and not be able to recoup them, but after a certain point with any advice you can take things too far. That is on you. I am not telling anyone to overthrow the government or acquire fully automatic weapons. I am just advising to live cheaper, to stockpile the cheaper alternatives. I try to highlight all the negatives, but I also can’t foresee everything. As you are mauled by rabid dogs you might curse me for advising against semi-autos, but at least you saved money and can afford that first aid kit if you survive.
*
NO CAR. Long before Peak Oil became a consideration, I hated cars because of the massive expense they represented. Hard to live frugal if you have a car expense. Hard to retire on Social Security while paying on a SUV. Peak Oil just makes a further case against cars. Sure, own one if you must. I own the Hippy Bread Van, a cheap step van doubling as my emergency shelter. But I don’t depend on it for transportation, just as homeless insurance. A car should be viewed as a luxury, not as a necessity. That opens up a lot more options to you.
*
SARCASM. I am sarcastic, I know. Much more than I used to be. I’m becoming a surly old fart. But I just entered middle age, so know that I have many decades left to get any worse. But know that I can be sarcastic to make a point and yet still like that person. I dig on Survival Blog, but they have a lot of good information. I solidified my views on where my retreat will be because of Rawles advice and insights. I rag on some of the views, especially the need for expensive solutions, but there is also good advice. So take the sarcasm for what it is, a tool to make a point.
*
ARMCHAIR COMMANDO. I lot of what I write about I have done. Some I have not. I try to always be clear to you on those things I am passing along as theory. Some are a hybrid such as when I tell you to live on the retreat but I have not yet done so. I have the land and the equipment but stay where I am at present to be near family. It is still good advice even if I haven’t followed it completely. Or, I own equipment but have never tried it, such as the Zip stove. I know, bad habit. I’m only close to perfect, just not quite there yet. I am not God, just a minor diety. Never claim the top spot or you might be struck with a bolt of lightning. Seriously, I try to stay humble and just present the facts. That is why I like criticism, to keep me honest. But remember, constructive only please. Only I am allowed to be sarcastic.
END
www.bisonpress.com for e-books,samples, address,Amazon books
Thursday, May 24, 2007
canadian bacon
CANADIAN BACON
A reader to www.urbansurvival.com expressed concern that one of these days he thought the US might pose a threat to his country. As we run out of oil domestically and China strengthens her position in Africa and Saudi Arabia production starts to plummet and Mexico runs out of enough even for her own needs and Congressmen are forced to cut back on methanol production as food prices quadruple as more and more subsidies are given to AMD for corn fuel and as, horror of all horrors, Yuppie SUV drivers are forced to cut back on the number of trips to soccer practice if they still want to take the brood out to Chili’s for dinner and come home to watch a DVD on the plasma screen, could we be desperate enough to attack another country?
*
Of course we would. Wars have been fought for salt and spices which were essential to food preservation. Oil is essential to food production as our agricultural practices now stand. The current powers that be could not stand for going back to decentralized food production. Old farmland gives up a lot more in taxes when the land turns into McMansions. Multigenerational farms take away too much consumerism as instead of three sets of washer and driers and three sets of home furnishings and six different cars and three different dwellings you only have one ( plus the lack of grocery store shopping ). This effects the bottom line of bankers and mega-corporations and politicians. We can’t allow that to happen. Far better to get into wars to steal what we need to keep the current system in power.
*
Lincoln killed a lot of his countrymen to stay in power. FDR thought nothing of sending a third of a million GI’s off to their death. Bush is stingy with the casualties but that is only because our men in uniform are low in numbers and wearing body armor and using hardened vehicles. And spend a few million rounds on each bad guy. And don’t go too far from the Green Zones( not that I blame them, I would rather not be killed or wounded for Mobil-Exxon ). But not a great way to win a war. Does Bush care than over three thousand of our troops are dead? That close to thirty thousand are wounded ( it’s not always a patched up leg, sometimes its almost worse than dieing with life altering wounds )? That American civilians die because Guardsmen and their equipment are overseas? Of course not. His controllers say not to worry, to be happy.
*
While it seems far fetched to think we would invade Canada for her natural resources, it is not impossible. We invaded that burg once before ( or was it twice? ). We could do it again. Heck, we invaded Mexico for less reason. More than once. We have a long and proud tradition of invading weak and small countries to steal what we want or to enrich our corporations. And we already have the excuse we need. They have ( gasp!! ) less Gestapo tactics at their border so terrorist have gotten through to enter our Fatherland. Das ist ferbotten! ( excuse my spelling, I wasn’t sure whether to study Russian or German as I stayed in this country )
*
I know we encourage terrorists to infiltrate our southern borders with our policies. I don’t know if it is intentional or not, but illegals could smuggle in nuclear weapons as easy as they can future meat packaging workers or LA gardeners. If you could stay out of the laws way you could have a great career as a sniper down on the border, it is such a target rich environment. But as soon as one raghead sneaks down from Canada we are all righteous and indignant and start whining and crying and gnashing our teeth and generally carrying on worse than I do when someone criticizes my writing.
*
NAFTA was in general about our securing energy supplies in a favorable manner. No one cared about how many jobs would be lost. They were just focused on energy supplies. Clinton might have been a sleazy scum sucking worm but he knew enough to keep the US population content with cheap energy. Bush could have done the same but the oil industry that elected him ( assume any election is fixed from now on ) decided that with Peak Oil coming up it might be a good idea to make the profits while they could. And the bankers, who allowed the oil industry to get Bush elected, liked the profits from inflation that caused oil to increase in price. We never had a chance, and the sad part is that it is just now starting to get bad. Expect a lot worse, in orders of magnitude.
*
The rumors of a three country currency merger might be all that is needed to secure Canada’s resources. With Mexico and Canada at our mercy with a new currency we control, the illusion of sovereignty is maintained and we can pull all the strings we need to get what we want. Our oil companies clean up the Mexican oil fields and get them more productive, or baring that we move into oil areas not yet pumped. We have all the oil sands, timber and uranium we need. Plus hydro power, lots of that up in Canada. And all the expansion paid for with a new currency that can stand a lot more inflation than the dollar can. Gas will be back down to twenty five cents in the new Americo’s currency. Of course minimum wage will then be fifty cents an hour. When you start over again with a new currency you can start the inflating all over again. It took ninety years to kill the dollar, perhaps the bankers want another ninety years in power.
*
I don’t know why Canada and Mexico would go along with this. Why did they consent to NAFTA if it was mostly in our favor? I have no idea, perhaps it is seen as the lesser of evils. Perhaps Mexico realizes with her oil running out her economy has no other hope. Perhaps Canada’s prime minister is shown incriminating photos of himself with a donkey. Your guess is as good as mine. Perhaps we would come right out and tell them cooperate or F-16s start pulverizing all, what?, ten cities they have. It would be nice if we just took over both countries, then we could buy a nice retreat up in northern Canada or subtropical Mexico cheaply, and bring our semi-automatic rifles with us legally. But I doubt we will get that lucky. Besides, even if it happened and we set up a great retreat hundreds of miles from nowhere in pine forests, our luck it would be near a uranium mine or a forest clear cut and the land would lose its value even if cheap. Or the Feds would nationalize all the forests anyway. We can’t catch a break.
*
I don’t know what will happen, but I think it just might suck to be us ( any average person from any of the three countries ) real soon. How would you like to lose your job as we fling open borders with no restrictions? Lose all your local resources to American corporations? Lose your life’s savings when the currency changes? More fun to come!
END
bison and amazon books www.bisonpress.com
A reader to www.urbansurvival.com expressed concern that one of these days he thought the US might pose a threat to his country. As we run out of oil domestically and China strengthens her position in Africa and Saudi Arabia production starts to plummet and Mexico runs out of enough even for her own needs and Congressmen are forced to cut back on methanol production as food prices quadruple as more and more subsidies are given to AMD for corn fuel and as, horror of all horrors, Yuppie SUV drivers are forced to cut back on the number of trips to soccer practice if they still want to take the brood out to Chili’s for dinner and come home to watch a DVD on the plasma screen, could we be desperate enough to attack another country?
*
Of course we would. Wars have been fought for salt and spices which were essential to food preservation. Oil is essential to food production as our agricultural practices now stand. The current powers that be could not stand for going back to decentralized food production. Old farmland gives up a lot more in taxes when the land turns into McMansions. Multigenerational farms take away too much consumerism as instead of three sets of washer and driers and three sets of home furnishings and six different cars and three different dwellings you only have one ( plus the lack of grocery store shopping ). This effects the bottom line of bankers and mega-corporations and politicians. We can’t allow that to happen. Far better to get into wars to steal what we need to keep the current system in power.
*
Lincoln killed a lot of his countrymen to stay in power. FDR thought nothing of sending a third of a million GI’s off to their death. Bush is stingy with the casualties but that is only because our men in uniform are low in numbers and wearing body armor and using hardened vehicles. And spend a few million rounds on each bad guy. And don’t go too far from the Green Zones( not that I blame them, I would rather not be killed or wounded for Mobil-Exxon ). But not a great way to win a war. Does Bush care than over three thousand of our troops are dead? That close to thirty thousand are wounded ( it’s not always a patched up leg, sometimes its almost worse than dieing with life altering wounds )? That American civilians die because Guardsmen and their equipment are overseas? Of course not. His controllers say not to worry, to be happy.
*
While it seems far fetched to think we would invade Canada for her natural resources, it is not impossible. We invaded that burg once before ( or was it twice? ). We could do it again. Heck, we invaded Mexico for less reason. More than once. We have a long and proud tradition of invading weak and small countries to steal what we want or to enrich our corporations. And we already have the excuse we need. They have ( gasp!! ) less Gestapo tactics at their border so terrorist have gotten through to enter our Fatherland. Das ist ferbotten! ( excuse my spelling, I wasn’t sure whether to study Russian or German as I stayed in this country )
*
I know we encourage terrorists to infiltrate our southern borders with our policies. I don’t know if it is intentional or not, but illegals could smuggle in nuclear weapons as easy as they can future meat packaging workers or LA gardeners. If you could stay out of the laws way you could have a great career as a sniper down on the border, it is such a target rich environment. But as soon as one raghead sneaks down from Canada we are all righteous and indignant and start whining and crying and gnashing our teeth and generally carrying on worse than I do when someone criticizes my writing.
*
NAFTA was in general about our securing energy supplies in a favorable manner. No one cared about how many jobs would be lost. They were just focused on energy supplies. Clinton might have been a sleazy scum sucking worm but he knew enough to keep the US population content with cheap energy. Bush could have done the same but the oil industry that elected him ( assume any election is fixed from now on ) decided that with Peak Oil coming up it might be a good idea to make the profits while they could. And the bankers, who allowed the oil industry to get Bush elected, liked the profits from inflation that caused oil to increase in price. We never had a chance, and the sad part is that it is just now starting to get bad. Expect a lot worse, in orders of magnitude.
*
The rumors of a three country currency merger might be all that is needed to secure Canada’s resources. With Mexico and Canada at our mercy with a new currency we control, the illusion of sovereignty is maintained and we can pull all the strings we need to get what we want. Our oil companies clean up the Mexican oil fields and get them more productive, or baring that we move into oil areas not yet pumped. We have all the oil sands, timber and uranium we need. Plus hydro power, lots of that up in Canada. And all the expansion paid for with a new currency that can stand a lot more inflation than the dollar can. Gas will be back down to twenty five cents in the new Americo’s currency. Of course minimum wage will then be fifty cents an hour. When you start over again with a new currency you can start the inflating all over again. It took ninety years to kill the dollar, perhaps the bankers want another ninety years in power.
*
I don’t know why Canada and Mexico would go along with this. Why did they consent to NAFTA if it was mostly in our favor? I have no idea, perhaps it is seen as the lesser of evils. Perhaps Mexico realizes with her oil running out her economy has no other hope. Perhaps Canada’s prime minister is shown incriminating photos of himself with a donkey. Your guess is as good as mine. Perhaps we would come right out and tell them cooperate or F-16s start pulverizing all, what?, ten cities they have. It would be nice if we just took over both countries, then we could buy a nice retreat up in northern Canada or subtropical Mexico cheaply, and bring our semi-automatic rifles with us legally. But I doubt we will get that lucky. Besides, even if it happened and we set up a great retreat hundreds of miles from nowhere in pine forests, our luck it would be near a uranium mine or a forest clear cut and the land would lose its value even if cheap. Or the Feds would nationalize all the forests anyway. We can’t catch a break.
*
I don’t know what will happen, but I think it just might suck to be us ( any average person from any of the three countries ) real soon. How would you like to lose your job as we fling open borders with no restrictions? Lose all your local resources to American corporations? Lose your life’s savings when the currency changes? More fun to come!
END
bison and amazon books www.bisonpress.com
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
there can be only one
THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE
By way of introduction today, let me say that I know you are hearing the same old thing again. The good thing about paper publishing is that you make sure you have something to say before you spend the money to print it. The bad thing about the Internet is that anyone can write as much as they want at almost zero cost. Any slack jawed yokel can walk into the library and post online with absolutely no cost involved. So a lot more tends to get published. A lot is crap, a lot is repetition after a certain point. But the more that gets published the more you are liable to find exactly the information you want. I really have no business posting every day. Once a month I could put out a more original quality product. But for a variety of reasons I am posting a daily blog.
*
Number one, you don’t forget about me. Number two, half my small income comes from Google ads. You are stuck with me daily. But look at other types of postings. Kuntsler says essentially the same thing every week, how suburbs will doom us all. J.R. Nyguest is forever turning over a rock and seeing the Commies in Russia and China plotting to overthrow us. The Daily Reckoning has been going for something like five years of daily economic contrarians. Rawles is forever talking about MURS radios and buying pre-1899 rifles for lack of a paper trail. Yet I don’t get tired of them. The same thing over and over again and even if it is the same information rehashed, I still enjoy reading them. I feel like a fat middle age women that can never get enough romance pulp novels. I don’t even want to delve into the psychology behind it for fear of hearing about lack of retention or depth of comprehension. Or maybe it is as simple as what a reader just commented on, about needing a repetitive pounding to penetrate our thick skulls. I tried diversifying, yet the garlic to farm animal cure that could have killed off some types was enough egg on my face. I’m mostly sticking to what I know best. Economics, politics, frugal living and preps. And rants. I think I rant pretty good. I strive to present different topics, but you’ll still going to see duplicates on a regular basis.
*
When you advocate quality over quantity without being rich, you get into a sticky situation. If you must have a semi-auto battle rifle, the average Joe will find out that There Can Be Only One ( I always did love that movie ). It is hard enough to buy multiple units of certain things such as grain grinders or water filters. Even if they are only $50 each. So it certainly won’t happen with expensive firearms. The other day I downloaded the complete novel Lights Out ( I got it from www.survivalmonkey.com ). This is a huge undertaking. I spent five hours on it Saturday and about two on Sunday and am only about a third of the way through. In one section, after a EMP attack but before the food and water ran out our hero has a gun battle and the sheriff shows up and takes the rifle to use for evidence. Okay, great. The guy wasn’t arrested. But he just lost his one and only FAL rifle for who knows how long. This is a Yuppie Survivalist tale so he has more guns ( just not as good as the FAL ), but it got me to thinking again about only having single items. I already bored you with one article on that so today I’m just sticking with guns.
*
Lots of things could happen to your primary rifle. Government confiscation as in a gun grab. A legitimate self defense situation where you still must surrender your gun. Breaking the thing. Needing to barter with it for food or medicine. In all these cases, having a pretty, Billy Bad Ass semi-auto battle rifle with high capacity magazines is going to do you little good. Because the darn things are so expensive with all variables factored in that you can buy only one and so they are vulnerable. It is like owning a car. A fancy sports car is great, until it is stolen or breaks down. Far better to have two or three Metro’s. Or even Pinto’s for that matter ( okay, I’m joking about that one- perhaps Yugo’s ). Far better to have two or three old war surplus bolt action rifles than one Mini-14 or AR-15. If you manage to buy one M-14 or a FAL or even an HK, chances are good you can’t even afford enough mags or ammo for that one rifle, let alone a duplicate.
*
Everything you have needs to be duplicated and stashed in various locations. It is great to be prepared, but after you have the basics, duplicate. You don’t just have fire insurance, you also have a fire extinguisher and defensible cleared areas around the home. You don’t just have AAA, but also a basic tool and fluid kit. You don’t just work, you have unemployment insurance, savings and a food pantry. Same thing with your arsenal. You need more than one and in different locations. Same with the ammunition and cleaning supplies. If you need to accept owning a slightly inferior rifle to accomplish this, fine. The best is not always the best bet. You just need to think in terms of worse possible scenario. Just because you can afford a FAL doesn’t mean Murphy’s Law was somehow repealed just for you. Even if you can’t exactly duplicate, come as close as you can. Isn’t this all about increasing the odds of our survival?
END
buy my crap www.bisonpress.com
By way of introduction today, let me say that I know you are hearing the same old thing again. The good thing about paper publishing is that you make sure you have something to say before you spend the money to print it. The bad thing about the Internet is that anyone can write as much as they want at almost zero cost. Any slack jawed yokel can walk into the library and post online with absolutely no cost involved. So a lot more tends to get published. A lot is crap, a lot is repetition after a certain point. But the more that gets published the more you are liable to find exactly the information you want. I really have no business posting every day. Once a month I could put out a more original quality product. But for a variety of reasons I am posting a daily blog.
*
Number one, you don’t forget about me. Number two, half my small income comes from Google ads. You are stuck with me daily. But look at other types of postings. Kuntsler says essentially the same thing every week, how suburbs will doom us all. J.R. Nyguest is forever turning over a rock and seeing the Commies in Russia and China plotting to overthrow us. The Daily Reckoning has been going for something like five years of daily economic contrarians. Rawles is forever talking about MURS radios and buying pre-1899 rifles for lack of a paper trail. Yet I don’t get tired of them. The same thing over and over again and even if it is the same information rehashed, I still enjoy reading them. I feel like a fat middle age women that can never get enough romance pulp novels. I don’t even want to delve into the psychology behind it for fear of hearing about lack of retention or depth of comprehension. Or maybe it is as simple as what a reader just commented on, about needing a repetitive pounding to penetrate our thick skulls. I tried diversifying, yet the garlic to farm animal cure that could have killed off some types was enough egg on my face. I’m mostly sticking to what I know best. Economics, politics, frugal living and preps. And rants. I think I rant pretty good. I strive to present different topics, but you’ll still going to see duplicates on a regular basis.
*
When you advocate quality over quantity without being rich, you get into a sticky situation. If you must have a semi-auto battle rifle, the average Joe will find out that There Can Be Only One ( I always did love that movie ). It is hard enough to buy multiple units of certain things such as grain grinders or water filters. Even if they are only $50 each. So it certainly won’t happen with expensive firearms. The other day I downloaded the complete novel Lights Out ( I got it from www.survivalmonkey.com ). This is a huge undertaking. I spent five hours on it Saturday and about two on Sunday and am only about a third of the way through. In one section, after a EMP attack but before the food and water ran out our hero has a gun battle and the sheriff shows up and takes the rifle to use for evidence. Okay, great. The guy wasn’t arrested. But he just lost his one and only FAL rifle for who knows how long. This is a Yuppie Survivalist tale so he has more guns ( just not as good as the FAL ), but it got me to thinking again about only having single items. I already bored you with one article on that so today I’m just sticking with guns.
*
Lots of things could happen to your primary rifle. Government confiscation as in a gun grab. A legitimate self defense situation where you still must surrender your gun. Breaking the thing. Needing to barter with it for food or medicine. In all these cases, having a pretty, Billy Bad Ass semi-auto battle rifle with high capacity magazines is going to do you little good. Because the darn things are so expensive with all variables factored in that you can buy only one and so they are vulnerable. It is like owning a car. A fancy sports car is great, until it is stolen or breaks down. Far better to have two or three Metro’s. Or even Pinto’s for that matter ( okay, I’m joking about that one- perhaps Yugo’s ). Far better to have two or three old war surplus bolt action rifles than one Mini-14 or AR-15. If you manage to buy one M-14 or a FAL or even an HK, chances are good you can’t even afford enough mags or ammo for that one rifle, let alone a duplicate.
*
Everything you have needs to be duplicated and stashed in various locations. It is great to be prepared, but after you have the basics, duplicate. You don’t just have fire insurance, you also have a fire extinguisher and defensible cleared areas around the home. You don’t just have AAA, but also a basic tool and fluid kit. You don’t just work, you have unemployment insurance, savings and a food pantry. Same thing with your arsenal. You need more than one and in different locations. Same with the ammunition and cleaning supplies. If you need to accept owning a slightly inferior rifle to accomplish this, fine. The best is not always the best bet. You just need to think in terms of worse possible scenario. Just because you can afford a FAL doesn’t mean Murphy’s Law was somehow repealed just for you. Even if you can’t exactly duplicate, come as close as you can. Isn’t this all about increasing the odds of our survival?
END
buy my crap www.bisonpress.com
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
generator vs. solar
GENERATOR VS. SOLAR
The other day on our favorite Yuppie Survivalist web site, www.survivalblog.com a case was made for a diesel generator instead of a bank of solar panels. From a economic standpoint that is frozen in time it made a lot of sense. Why is it that Yuppie survivalists spend almost as much on fuel storage as they do on an arsenal? It is because they are Yuppies. They are pampered, spoiled, lazy slackers. They need generators, with all the power they can supply. And of course they need a large arsenal to defend the generator. As I said, a case can be made for generators on an economic basis. Even supplying just fifteen hundred watts of power from solar panels would cost you at least $6,000. I am assuming batteries for both types of power. A diesel generator supplying the same power would cost under $1,500.
*
Of course I don’t see how the fuel cost wouldn’t soon exceed the solar panel cost. Even a massive generator that supplied the equivalent of a days solar output in just an hour with one quarter of a gallon of fuel would cost about $250 a year in fuel cost. That assumes fuel costs never rise and you only buy a few gallons at a time to defray the tank cost. If solar panels last twenty years the end cost comparison is solar six grand and generator $6,200. Even if Peak Oil is just a sick lie spread about like idiots such as myself, inflation alone is going to send your fuel bill higher than we assume. And this is just the economics. This is not even factoring in supply disruptions, peace of mind, security or environmental factors.
*
If you are saving up your generator just for emergencies the economic aspects are far better. You would then spend less on a generator, assuming limited power disruption. But speaking from a money standpoint, it makes a lot more sense to arrange your lifestyle to where you need less power instead. Electricity makes our lives easier and richer. It is not a matter of life and death. In Africa where medicine needs to be refrigerated, okay, sure. Here in the US we could do without a lot of our juice and be just fine with it. Air conditioning is nice, but not necessary. Shade and a breeze does almost as well. If you are an old fart and might succumb to heat exhaustion, either move out of the humid areas or have a building that provides natural cooling. Needing a generator to power an AC is just setting yourself up for failure later down the road. Ice, refrigerators and freezers are nice to have. But you don’t really need them. If you can your meats and dairy and have a root cellar you can do without them. Back East where it is the hottest ( with the humidity ) is also where all the tornados and hurricanes are. You should have a root cellar to double as a storm cellar anyway.
*
Lights are where it is hard to substitute fuel for electricity. You can use kerosene lamps or propane lamps. But again, these are prone to supply disruptions. You can survive with light from LED’s and even use a $20 solar charger for rechargeable AA or D or C batteries. But unless you are hiding and want less light, florescent is a much better wide area light source. A single 15 watt solar panel and two 12v marine batteries will cost you $250. You can live with just that for power generation. Get a wind-up radio for news. Use LED flashlights. Use wood heat and wood cooking appliances. Even if you must have a fan to help cool you off, you could use your single solar panel. Charge one battery one day, then charge the second while you use the first. Assuming a fan is about thirty watts you might get all of four hours a day from the fan. You discharge the 12v enough that it shortens the life span and can only use the fan during the hottest part of the day. But it is cheap and better than nothing. A fan is great even if you are parked under a tree. But not life saving. Pick your poison, lights at night or a fan during the day.
*
Of course I am talking about long term use here, not about short term disasters. I usually focus on the worse case scenario. It makes me look like an idiot when nothing happens but it could save your life when aliens attack rather than a hurricane swinging by to say howdy. I think it is silly when anyone talks about spending the insane amounts of money on anything, be it food supplies or guns or a power supply. Stop thinking about continuing your pampered lifestyle and start thinking about roughing it cheaply. I have lived through Florida summers. If you have shade and a breeze you don’t need an AC and can even live without a fan. Of course a screened porch sure helps. I spend last summer living in my Hippy Bread Van and it usually heated up to 105 daily. No insulation except wall lined blankets. I got by okay ( well, it was miserable but livable ) with a portable D battery fan. I would have been cooler under a large tree instead of partially shaded by one scrawny sorry excuse for a tree, but we were “hiding out” and couldn’t let people know we were living in the van. Nosey neighbors and city ordinances to protect against riff-raff poor people. You can survive without AC, the human race did it for thousands of years.
*
You can do without a freezer. Just can your meat. You can do without a fridge, you just need to plan your meals to do away with leftovers. You need light, and it is nice not to have to burn a beef tallow candle. LED’s are great for cheap light. They suck for good light, but better than nothing in a power outage. For long term, think about fluorescents if possible. Of course those are only short term due to the bulb life span ( and ballast ), so have LED’s and rechargeable batteries for them. In the long run we will all be back to candles, but LED’s allow you to postpone that time longer than any other modern light source. To extend the battery life, discharge completely before recharging. With 12v batteries it is the opposite, discharge as little as possible before recharging.
*
A redneck survivalist does not need a generator. Just low cost alternate power sources. A generator allows one to spend lots of money and not give a thought to how to provide life’s basics. A little thought and you need spend almost no money. A little sacrifice and you can survive in passable style without a large cash outlay. Save your money for all my books at www.bisonpress.com and even the Amazon books listed there.
END
The other day on our favorite Yuppie Survivalist web site, www.survivalblog.com a case was made for a diesel generator instead of a bank of solar panels. From a economic standpoint that is frozen in time it made a lot of sense. Why is it that Yuppie survivalists spend almost as much on fuel storage as they do on an arsenal? It is because they are Yuppies. They are pampered, spoiled, lazy slackers. They need generators, with all the power they can supply. And of course they need a large arsenal to defend the generator. As I said, a case can be made for generators on an economic basis. Even supplying just fifteen hundred watts of power from solar panels would cost you at least $6,000. I am assuming batteries for both types of power. A diesel generator supplying the same power would cost under $1,500.
*
Of course I don’t see how the fuel cost wouldn’t soon exceed the solar panel cost. Even a massive generator that supplied the equivalent of a days solar output in just an hour with one quarter of a gallon of fuel would cost about $250 a year in fuel cost. That assumes fuel costs never rise and you only buy a few gallons at a time to defray the tank cost. If solar panels last twenty years the end cost comparison is solar six grand and generator $6,200. Even if Peak Oil is just a sick lie spread about like idiots such as myself, inflation alone is going to send your fuel bill higher than we assume. And this is just the economics. This is not even factoring in supply disruptions, peace of mind, security or environmental factors.
*
If you are saving up your generator just for emergencies the economic aspects are far better. You would then spend less on a generator, assuming limited power disruption. But speaking from a money standpoint, it makes a lot more sense to arrange your lifestyle to where you need less power instead. Electricity makes our lives easier and richer. It is not a matter of life and death. In Africa where medicine needs to be refrigerated, okay, sure. Here in the US we could do without a lot of our juice and be just fine with it. Air conditioning is nice, but not necessary. Shade and a breeze does almost as well. If you are an old fart and might succumb to heat exhaustion, either move out of the humid areas or have a building that provides natural cooling. Needing a generator to power an AC is just setting yourself up for failure later down the road. Ice, refrigerators and freezers are nice to have. But you don’t really need them. If you can your meats and dairy and have a root cellar you can do without them. Back East where it is the hottest ( with the humidity ) is also where all the tornados and hurricanes are. You should have a root cellar to double as a storm cellar anyway.
*
Lights are where it is hard to substitute fuel for electricity. You can use kerosene lamps or propane lamps. But again, these are prone to supply disruptions. You can survive with light from LED’s and even use a $20 solar charger for rechargeable AA or D or C batteries. But unless you are hiding and want less light, florescent is a much better wide area light source. A single 15 watt solar panel and two 12v marine batteries will cost you $250. You can live with just that for power generation. Get a wind-up radio for news. Use LED flashlights. Use wood heat and wood cooking appliances. Even if you must have a fan to help cool you off, you could use your single solar panel. Charge one battery one day, then charge the second while you use the first. Assuming a fan is about thirty watts you might get all of four hours a day from the fan. You discharge the 12v enough that it shortens the life span and can only use the fan during the hottest part of the day. But it is cheap and better than nothing. A fan is great even if you are parked under a tree. But not life saving. Pick your poison, lights at night or a fan during the day.
*
Of course I am talking about long term use here, not about short term disasters. I usually focus on the worse case scenario. It makes me look like an idiot when nothing happens but it could save your life when aliens attack rather than a hurricane swinging by to say howdy. I think it is silly when anyone talks about spending the insane amounts of money on anything, be it food supplies or guns or a power supply. Stop thinking about continuing your pampered lifestyle and start thinking about roughing it cheaply. I have lived through Florida summers. If you have shade and a breeze you don’t need an AC and can even live without a fan. Of course a screened porch sure helps. I spend last summer living in my Hippy Bread Van and it usually heated up to 105 daily. No insulation except wall lined blankets. I got by okay ( well, it was miserable but livable ) with a portable D battery fan. I would have been cooler under a large tree instead of partially shaded by one scrawny sorry excuse for a tree, but we were “hiding out” and couldn’t let people know we were living in the van. Nosey neighbors and city ordinances to protect against riff-raff poor people. You can survive without AC, the human race did it for thousands of years.
*
You can do without a freezer. Just can your meat. You can do without a fridge, you just need to plan your meals to do away with leftovers. You need light, and it is nice not to have to burn a beef tallow candle. LED’s are great for cheap light. They suck for good light, but better than nothing in a power outage. For long term, think about fluorescents if possible. Of course those are only short term due to the bulb life span ( and ballast ), so have LED’s and rechargeable batteries for them. In the long run we will all be back to candles, but LED’s allow you to postpone that time longer than any other modern light source. To extend the battery life, discharge completely before recharging. With 12v batteries it is the opposite, discharge as little as possible before recharging.
*
A redneck survivalist does not need a generator. Just low cost alternate power sources. A generator allows one to spend lots of money and not give a thought to how to provide life’s basics. A little thought and you need spend almost no money. A little sacrifice and you can survive in passable style without a large cash outlay. Save your money for all my books at www.bisonpress.com and even the Amazon books listed there.
END
Monday, May 21, 2007
land
LAND
A reader on the comments page asked me a question on land. His location is heavily into gun control and it is required that you own forty acres before you could discharge your firearm. Should he put up with intrusive government and neighbors or move out to the desert for peace. It seems a favorite past time is sitting on the porch and shooting things with a shotgun. So of course the first thing that came to my mind was, is moonshine involved in all this? Seriously, it comes down to too darn many people crowding in close together and sticking their nose in others business. Should you learn to live with it or move to a less crowded area? It all becomes complicated, tangled up in economics, employment, future threats and government.
*
What are you afraid of? If the “farming out” of food supplies ( sorry, it was a natural pun ) is troubling you ( personally I tend to think all the media hype over contamination might be setting us up for controls over private farming/ranching such as the NAIS ) you need a piece of land that can grow enough food to supplement your storage in the future and the grocery shopping now. To do that you need rain and fertile soil. Do not depend on a well as your only source of water. Too expensive, subject to neighbors drawing down the level of stored water, too prone to failure of dear parts. I have chosen the desert and have a lot of stored grain, but I realize it is a poor choice. Less population density and security from mobs means lack of farming. So what do you fear more, mobs or starvation? It really comes down to that. Make your choice, neither are perfect.
*
The desert is good for isolation. It sooths my soul ( even if I am now living in a city, freedom is visible over the next hill and that calms me ). It is also a poor choice for food production. Ranching/herding is the only long term solution out here. Back east of the Mississippi there is plenty of rainfall and fertile soil but also a mass of people. Yuck! But you can own a 50 by 50 lot of land cheap, plant a garden on it and go down to the creek to fish. A small plot of potatoes and corn and beans will see you through hard times, and you can raise a few chickens and go fishing. A small trailer, and you can live almost free. No rent, few groceries, if in the South no heating bills. The down side is a lot of neighbors. A lot. Feeding yourself in the coming Depression is easy. Feeding yourself in the coming social collapse after Peak Oil is not so easy, as others will try to steal your food ( plenty of city dwellers nearby ).
*
And of course there is the question of money. Do you already own land? Can you afford another piece? Can you afford any at all? Do you need to live in an undesirable location just because it is cheap, or are you stuck in an area because of a job? If you live on a piece of land that is bought and paid for, why give it up? If it is in a bad area, could you sell it, take a loss, and lower your living standards moving to a better area? That is what it has come down to. The real estate bubble has screwed us all. Prices are obscene, way past the level of wages. So no one is buying. You must take a loss and buy less in return. Or, if you are a long time renter, all land is now more expensive. Even the crap trailer lots I own are going for twice what they were three years ago. And they are all in no employment zones ( east Texas 60 miles east of Dallas, north central Arkansas in the middle of nowhere, east central Arizona thirty miles from town or water ). Even my Elko land has gone up in price and I think they were overpriced to start. The increase is less, but then I just bought it two years ago. I don’t look at this increase as a good thing, it makes it harder to buy other land if desired. I liked $500 lots. It meant you could buy a lot and not sweat it if you never moved there. Cheap insurance.
*
So I guess the question is, can you sacrifice now voluntarily or will you wait until you are forced to? You most likely must take a loss to move to a better location. Lose equity and lose a good paying job. A step down in life style. If you think it is unsafe where you are at, take the loss. Quality of life is not as easy to put a price tag on, but after the sacrifice you should find yourself richer. We all need money and tools to survive. The problem is most people don’t see past the money part. A good paying job in a metro area is money rich and peace of mind poor. I would rather reverse that equation.
*
Look, I am making little above minimum wage, $7.25 plus all the bread I want ( working at the food bank ). I live in a trailer in the trailer park one mile from work. I barely scrape by, having to set aside my tax return money for holidays, insurance, incidentals. But I came across another piece of land I just had to have. Still in Elko, but much closer to town and the river with less washboard dirt road to travel. I put $100 down and pay $100 a month. I need another piece of land like I need another Enfield rifle or hole in my head. But I am super paranoid about the end of Social Security and having no retirement, so my solution is to plan on reducing bills to almost nothing. Closer to town means no need for a car. Well worth the extra money. A little sacrifice now for a lot of peace of mind later. I can’t really afford the payments, but I can’t afford to ignore the need to plan on no car in the future ( I have no need for a car now but that is only because I live in town- itself expensive ).
*
The one thing I advise, regardless of how desirable a piece of land is, is to stay out of a mortgage to buy it. It is one thing to make payments for three years, where you can walk away if needed ( or it is cheap enough to be paid off by selling assets ). It is a whole different ballgame to live on land with a thirty year note. You could lose your job and be homeless. Being self sufficient in food on land is worthless if you are stuck in a mortgage which depends on your holding a good job you might lose. Think back to the Depression. The banks closed and folks lost their money. Then they lost their farm because they had no money to pay on the note. Then folks turned to government for help. Sad, as it was all orchestrated by TPTB in the first place. The Federal Reserve is created by bribing Congress. They inflate the money supply which leads to stock market bubbles. The stock market collapses, the banks independent of the Fed go bankrupt. The Fed now has complete control of the banking system. They foreclose on a lot of land and businesses. They get the President to steal everyone’s gold in exchange for paper currency. They expand government, scrap the Constitution and start a gigantic war to kill off the population and make billions. If they did all that before computers and nuclear weapons, think how bad it is going to be next time.
*
There are so many variables to land. Location, the price, employment, future problems. There is no perfect way to pick where to live. A lot depends on your personal circumstances. Just ask yourself what you would do if tomorrow was the last day of normal living. Could you have a hope of survival where you are? I know very few of us can get the perfect location given our lack of funds. It is, again, a Better Than Nothing situation. As in Y2K, it isn’t the odds but the consequences. Pick the lesser of evils and secure your place. Odds are, we see another muddle through scenario. But if not, you need that land to help you survive. Resolve the issue of land now, not in thirty years after the mortgage is paid.
END
www.bisonpress.com for e-books
A reader on the comments page asked me a question on land. His location is heavily into gun control and it is required that you own forty acres before you could discharge your firearm. Should he put up with intrusive government and neighbors or move out to the desert for peace. It seems a favorite past time is sitting on the porch and shooting things with a shotgun. So of course the first thing that came to my mind was, is moonshine involved in all this? Seriously, it comes down to too darn many people crowding in close together and sticking their nose in others business. Should you learn to live with it or move to a less crowded area? It all becomes complicated, tangled up in economics, employment, future threats and government.
*
What are you afraid of? If the “farming out” of food supplies ( sorry, it was a natural pun ) is troubling you ( personally I tend to think all the media hype over contamination might be setting us up for controls over private farming/ranching such as the NAIS ) you need a piece of land that can grow enough food to supplement your storage in the future and the grocery shopping now. To do that you need rain and fertile soil. Do not depend on a well as your only source of water. Too expensive, subject to neighbors drawing down the level of stored water, too prone to failure of dear parts. I have chosen the desert and have a lot of stored grain, but I realize it is a poor choice. Less population density and security from mobs means lack of farming. So what do you fear more, mobs or starvation? It really comes down to that. Make your choice, neither are perfect.
*
The desert is good for isolation. It sooths my soul ( even if I am now living in a city, freedom is visible over the next hill and that calms me ). It is also a poor choice for food production. Ranching/herding is the only long term solution out here. Back east of the Mississippi there is plenty of rainfall and fertile soil but also a mass of people. Yuck! But you can own a 50 by 50 lot of land cheap, plant a garden on it and go down to the creek to fish. A small plot of potatoes and corn and beans will see you through hard times, and you can raise a few chickens and go fishing. A small trailer, and you can live almost free. No rent, few groceries, if in the South no heating bills. The down side is a lot of neighbors. A lot. Feeding yourself in the coming Depression is easy. Feeding yourself in the coming social collapse after Peak Oil is not so easy, as others will try to steal your food ( plenty of city dwellers nearby ).
*
And of course there is the question of money. Do you already own land? Can you afford another piece? Can you afford any at all? Do you need to live in an undesirable location just because it is cheap, or are you stuck in an area because of a job? If you live on a piece of land that is bought and paid for, why give it up? If it is in a bad area, could you sell it, take a loss, and lower your living standards moving to a better area? That is what it has come down to. The real estate bubble has screwed us all. Prices are obscene, way past the level of wages. So no one is buying. You must take a loss and buy less in return. Or, if you are a long time renter, all land is now more expensive. Even the crap trailer lots I own are going for twice what they were three years ago. And they are all in no employment zones ( east Texas 60 miles east of Dallas, north central Arkansas in the middle of nowhere, east central Arizona thirty miles from town or water ). Even my Elko land has gone up in price and I think they were overpriced to start. The increase is less, but then I just bought it two years ago. I don’t look at this increase as a good thing, it makes it harder to buy other land if desired. I liked $500 lots. It meant you could buy a lot and not sweat it if you never moved there. Cheap insurance.
*
So I guess the question is, can you sacrifice now voluntarily or will you wait until you are forced to? You most likely must take a loss to move to a better location. Lose equity and lose a good paying job. A step down in life style. If you think it is unsafe where you are at, take the loss. Quality of life is not as easy to put a price tag on, but after the sacrifice you should find yourself richer. We all need money and tools to survive. The problem is most people don’t see past the money part. A good paying job in a metro area is money rich and peace of mind poor. I would rather reverse that equation.
*
Look, I am making little above minimum wage, $7.25 plus all the bread I want ( working at the food bank ). I live in a trailer in the trailer park one mile from work. I barely scrape by, having to set aside my tax return money for holidays, insurance, incidentals. But I came across another piece of land I just had to have. Still in Elko, but much closer to town and the river with less washboard dirt road to travel. I put $100 down and pay $100 a month. I need another piece of land like I need another Enfield rifle or hole in my head. But I am super paranoid about the end of Social Security and having no retirement, so my solution is to plan on reducing bills to almost nothing. Closer to town means no need for a car. Well worth the extra money. A little sacrifice now for a lot of peace of mind later. I can’t really afford the payments, but I can’t afford to ignore the need to plan on no car in the future ( I have no need for a car now but that is only because I live in town- itself expensive ).
*
The one thing I advise, regardless of how desirable a piece of land is, is to stay out of a mortgage to buy it. It is one thing to make payments for three years, where you can walk away if needed ( or it is cheap enough to be paid off by selling assets ). It is a whole different ballgame to live on land with a thirty year note. You could lose your job and be homeless. Being self sufficient in food on land is worthless if you are stuck in a mortgage which depends on your holding a good job you might lose. Think back to the Depression. The banks closed and folks lost their money. Then they lost their farm because they had no money to pay on the note. Then folks turned to government for help. Sad, as it was all orchestrated by TPTB in the first place. The Federal Reserve is created by bribing Congress. They inflate the money supply which leads to stock market bubbles. The stock market collapses, the banks independent of the Fed go bankrupt. The Fed now has complete control of the banking system. They foreclose on a lot of land and businesses. They get the President to steal everyone’s gold in exchange for paper currency. They expand government, scrap the Constitution and start a gigantic war to kill off the population and make billions. If they did all that before computers and nuclear weapons, think how bad it is going to be next time.
*
There are so many variables to land. Location, the price, employment, future problems. There is no perfect way to pick where to live. A lot depends on your personal circumstances. Just ask yourself what you would do if tomorrow was the last day of normal living. Could you have a hope of survival where you are? I know very few of us can get the perfect location given our lack of funds. It is, again, a Better Than Nothing situation. As in Y2K, it isn’t the odds but the consequences. Pick the lesser of evils and secure your place. Odds are, we see another muddle through scenario. But if not, you need that land to help you survive. Resolve the issue of land now, not in thirty years after the mortgage is paid.
END
www.bisonpress.com for e-books
Saturday, May 19, 2007
atlas shrugged
ATLAS SHRUGGED
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a small legal lot in the wilderness to escape out to? A metal storage shed to stock about twenty years worth of wheat and beans. Pan for gold or have a mail order/Internet business and only come into town once a month for supplies you can’t grow or hunt yourself such as iodized salt and reloading supplies ( and go to the library ). Anyone could do it for under ten thousand bucks. The land for two or three grand. The cargo container for two. A trailer for two. Three thousand for your food supply and other tools such as a solar panel and a surplus rifle arsenal and ammo. You could even do it for less if desired. First buy a small trailer and live in it at a trailer park to save money on rent. Then look for the other supplies. It can be done a small amount at a time. After you have it all you could live on $100 a month and that is buying most of your groceries in town and using propane.
*
Most of us wont because we have convinced ourselves that we need a lot more than that and can’t afford it. Or they don’t want to give up the luxuries in life. Or they need more and better land. That is why you should have a trailer full of stored food. When the grocery store closes and you can’t grow much food on your desolate waste land you have a stockpile. But some of you are asking yourself why you would want to bother. How about to escape the stupidity of others. That’s the best reason I can think of. So many people are scamming and cheating and stealing and being stupid that it would be nice to be able to leave it all behind.
*
We are at the end of our good life, as far as I can see. That is just my opinion, of course. Use at your own risk. I see the end of cheap and plentiful oil that we control. I see a coming end to tame inflation rates. I see an end to our economy, to our civil liberties, to our way of life. The Democrats are in an orgasmic lather over passing a massive illegal amnesty bill. Let the twenty five million already here become citizens so they can vote Democrat and go on welfare. Let even more than that sneak in as quick as possible and make them citizens too. We are already seeing massive business layoffs and it is only the start of the end of oil and the start of the housing bubble collapsing. How are they all going to find jobs? Not to fear, Hillary screeches in a Botox hyena face. We shall Federalize all jobs and live happily ever after in a Communist paradise where the proletarian masses skip through the flower laden fields, hand in hand with blissful smiles on their face as the evil capitalistic exploiters are banished to work in the tar sand pits, or shoveling manure into bio-gas digesters.
*
Even if the above scenario is not your cup of tea, you might want to consider somehow minimizing your contribution to the system of corruption, greed and stupidity. Even as we prepare for the end, let’s also consider stopping our support of it. Atlas can shrug. Not that it will stop our Federal masters ( bankers first and foremost, politicians and lawyers and corporate types their lieutenants ) but at least you can have the satisfaction of halting the little support you give it. I realize it would take all of us to effect the system and too many people are reluctant to do so. But for every person that willingly helps them, the stronger they get. And the important thing is, by withdrawing your support you make yourself stronger.
*
As much as possible, cut back on debt. This enriches the bankers. And this includes even a mortgage and car payment. They are only necessary if you fall for the party line. Some of you are stuck, so at least minimize future debt such as credit cards. Money in the hands of the bankers. Next, downsize your job. The more money you make the more taxes you pay, the harder it is to escape from an unwise living area, and the more stress you suffer. Why compromise your health so those on welfare ( yes, that includes you seniors ) can live better? Why sacrifice your one and only life for the parasitic hoards? Next, stop being a consumer as much as possible. This enriches the corporate elite that are screwing us all. Buy from thrift stores, or the cheapest places around when you have to buy. Do without consumer items such as a dryer ( use a clothes line ). And of course, stop voting. Number one, all the elections are rigged to provide the desired results. Number two, you are only giving your consent to being screwed over. Number three, the less votes every election, the more ridiculous the politicians look. A minor victory, but take what you can get.
*
One in a thousand survivalists, preppers, back to the landers, or other paranoids will ever consider going whole hog and rough it in the wilds. But there are plenty of other things you can do to minimize your support of our corrupt out of control system. Never buy a new car, or get rid of your old one. Thousands out of the pockets of the bankers and tax man. Only buy fresh unprocessed food and deny the big agri-corps their blood money. Buy cheap land to minimize tax to help fund the schools with their brainwashing. Don’t buy newspapers, watch the TV news or otherwise support the old media, a mouthpiece of our controllers. Minimize the need to support any of The Powers That Be. Every action is small, but could possible add up to big action. And even if it never amounts to anything more that a flea bite on the ass of an elephant, it helps you out by minimizing your dependence.
END
To the reader commenting on the gun shows. Sorry I have no advice for you on how to easily find a seller for a private sale. I stopped going to them years ago. After the militias were stomped down the shows stopped carrying inexpensive weapons and went more to collectables and high end items ( I guess lack of quantity prompted quality sales ). It is hard to break even in savings after the cover charge now. I guess I’m still not missing anything from your descriptions. Good luck.
Buy all of my crap in a monumental stupid moment of poor judgment www.bisonpress.com
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a small legal lot in the wilderness to escape out to? A metal storage shed to stock about twenty years worth of wheat and beans. Pan for gold or have a mail order/Internet business and only come into town once a month for supplies you can’t grow or hunt yourself such as iodized salt and reloading supplies ( and go to the library ). Anyone could do it for under ten thousand bucks. The land for two or three grand. The cargo container for two. A trailer for two. Three thousand for your food supply and other tools such as a solar panel and a surplus rifle arsenal and ammo. You could even do it for less if desired. First buy a small trailer and live in it at a trailer park to save money on rent. Then look for the other supplies. It can be done a small amount at a time. After you have it all you could live on $100 a month and that is buying most of your groceries in town and using propane.
*
Most of us wont because we have convinced ourselves that we need a lot more than that and can’t afford it. Or they don’t want to give up the luxuries in life. Or they need more and better land. That is why you should have a trailer full of stored food. When the grocery store closes and you can’t grow much food on your desolate waste land you have a stockpile. But some of you are asking yourself why you would want to bother. How about to escape the stupidity of others. That’s the best reason I can think of. So many people are scamming and cheating and stealing and being stupid that it would be nice to be able to leave it all behind.
*
We are at the end of our good life, as far as I can see. That is just my opinion, of course. Use at your own risk. I see the end of cheap and plentiful oil that we control. I see a coming end to tame inflation rates. I see an end to our economy, to our civil liberties, to our way of life. The Democrats are in an orgasmic lather over passing a massive illegal amnesty bill. Let the twenty five million already here become citizens so they can vote Democrat and go on welfare. Let even more than that sneak in as quick as possible and make them citizens too. We are already seeing massive business layoffs and it is only the start of the end of oil and the start of the housing bubble collapsing. How are they all going to find jobs? Not to fear, Hillary screeches in a Botox hyena face. We shall Federalize all jobs and live happily ever after in a Communist paradise where the proletarian masses skip through the flower laden fields, hand in hand with blissful smiles on their face as the evil capitalistic exploiters are banished to work in the tar sand pits, or shoveling manure into bio-gas digesters.
*
Even if the above scenario is not your cup of tea, you might want to consider somehow minimizing your contribution to the system of corruption, greed and stupidity. Even as we prepare for the end, let’s also consider stopping our support of it. Atlas can shrug. Not that it will stop our Federal masters ( bankers first and foremost, politicians and lawyers and corporate types their lieutenants ) but at least you can have the satisfaction of halting the little support you give it. I realize it would take all of us to effect the system and too many people are reluctant to do so. But for every person that willingly helps them, the stronger they get. And the important thing is, by withdrawing your support you make yourself stronger.
*
As much as possible, cut back on debt. This enriches the bankers. And this includes even a mortgage and car payment. They are only necessary if you fall for the party line. Some of you are stuck, so at least minimize future debt such as credit cards. Money in the hands of the bankers. Next, downsize your job. The more money you make the more taxes you pay, the harder it is to escape from an unwise living area, and the more stress you suffer. Why compromise your health so those on welfare ( yes, that includes you seniors ) can live better? Why sacrifice your one and only life for the parasitic hoards? Next, stop being a consumer as much as possible. This enriches the corporate elite that are screwing us all. Buy from thrift stores, or the cheapest places around when you have to buy. Do without consumer items such as a dryer ( use a clothes line ). And of course, stop voting. Number one, all the elections are rigged to provide the desired results. Number two, you are only giving your consent to being screwed over. Number three, the less votes every election, the more ridiculous the politicians look. A minor victory, but take what you can get.
*
One in a thousand survivalists, preppers, back to the landers, or other paranoids will ever consider going whole hog and rough it in the wilds. But there are plenty of other things you can do to minimize your support of our corrupt out of control system. Never buy a new car, or get rid of your old one. Thousands out of the pockets of the bankers and tax man. Only buy fresh unprocessed food and deny the big agri-corps their blood money. Buy cheap land to minimize tax to help fund the schools with their brainwashing. Don’t buy newspapers, watch the TV news or otherwise support the old media, a mouthpiece of our controllers. Minimize the need to support any of The Powers That Be. Every action is small, but could possible add up to big action. And even if it never amounts to anything more that a flea bite on the ass of an elephant, it helps you out by minimizing your dependence.
END
To the reader commenting on the gun shows. Sorry I have no advice for you on how to easily find a seller for a private sale. I stopped going to them years ago. After the militias were stomped down the shows stopped carrying inexpensive weapons and went more to collectables and high end items ( I guess lack of quantity prompted quality sales ). It is hard to break even in savings after the cover charge now. I guess I’m still not missing anything from your descriptions. Good luck.
Buy all of my crap in a monumental stupid moment of poor judgment www.bisonpress.com
Friday, May 18, 2007
logistics
LOGISTICS
We are all familiar with the logistics of immediate survival come the collapse of civilization. That is the primary focus of most discussion about preparations. What needs to be bought and stockpiled. But this is the most primitive form of logistics and really is on par with a housewife ( remember them, before they went to the workplace and gave up child rearing and domestic chores ) stocking the kitchen pantry closet. We add in firearms and ammunition to make it seem more macho, then instead of stocking up on girly type food such as flour and beans costing twenty cents a meal we spend $6 a meal on MRE’s. But we are doing more harm than good emulating the military. The new “digital” uniforms are worthless as camouflage and have Velcro pocket closures, for goodness sake. The AR-15 is an overpriced engineered disaster only marginally better than a .22 rimfire. But I digress.
*
Logistics in the big picture aspect which we must concern ourselves with come a social collapse is far beyond warehousing goods. That is an important part, but other elements must be added. First resources must be marshaled, then directed to procure the goods, then transport them. A good treatment of this was in the science fiction series, The Lost Regiment. Although there were rarely sufficient details given, at least the existence of a logistics system was given. Look, I find it very hard to believe that we will regress to the Stone Age. We may lack petroleum due to trade cut-offs but we will still have ethanol or vegetable oil powered diesel vehicles. We might lack semi-trucks but could use wood powered locomotives. We will not revert to bows and arrows or even muzzle loaded weapons. Even without modern primers or smokeless powder we can still build black powder and mercury based primer cased ammunition. So this science fiction concept might be darn close to the mark.
*
You need to find metal deposits, fuel sources, raw materials. Move workers to them. Process them and ship them. Then you need to get them to the fighting troops or civilians. While at the same time juggling other competing demands on manpower and material. Location does not win wars. Manpower does not win battles. Logistics and training and strategy win. In World War II the Japanese had superior training and strategy, but logistical problems. Just like the Germans, they made superior use of what they had, but in the end an almost endless amount of supplies enabled the US and the Soviets to win. For the most part they certainly didn’t win by strategy or tactics. Come a complete collapse, after initial supplies run out, expect a more level playing field. All regions will fragment and become small and conflict will be endless. Each local governing unit will need to fight to get supplies they need but don’t have.
*
Wars have always been fought over resources, be they oil for the last hundred years or salt before that. Food producing regions, mineral deposits, strategic locations are all reason for wars. It is a vicious Catch-22. You need supplies to fight and you fight to get supplies. Reality sucks. Unless you are on the top of a remote mountain you need to interact with other people and that means being forced to fight for the good of your group. If you are lucky and are able to demonstrate an aptitude for logistics you can avoid becoming cannon fodder. You need to be a big picture kind of person, able to get into details but not losing site of the larger whole. You need to know where resources are, how to get them, how to turn them into finished products, how to balance the needs of the military for manpower with the need for bodies on the farms, plus the need for factory workers, etc. You must enter the military perspective, the civilian, the governmental, etc.
*
Let’s say you are in the Rocky Mountains. You need to get salt. Trade and local supplies are insufficient. So you need to defeat a region with salt. To do that you need cannon and oxen or railroad to transport them. How do you harvest enough fodder or cut enough wood or get enough coal. You need to produce enough food to feed troops, but have enough farmers to grow the extra food while men are tied up training for war, while at the same time you need miners for ore ( we assume car salvaging has ended ) for weapons, to extract saltpeter, to build transportation. All for lack of salt. Now increase that complexity by needing other resources. Trade can be one way to acquire what you need and the current method of a superior military to police a region to ensure free-trade ( we’ll ignore colonization factors right now ) and a semi-capitalistic method to stimulate the economy are working now. But oil plays a huge role in helping this along, plus the nation-state. In the future neither one of these will exist. Things will return to old school. Fighting to take what you need rather than buying it. You must factor the military into the equation.
*
Read as many of the books in the series as you can cheaply get. It gives you a lot of ideas on the complexities of running any group above a hunter-gatherer level. It also points to the need for logistics which most of us are unaware of. Study logistics before you concern yourself with strategy. An army travels on its stomach, and all that.
END
www.bisonpress.com for e-books
We are all familiar with the logistics of immediate survival come the collapse of civilization. That is the primary focus of most discussion about preparations. What needs to be bought and stockpiled. But this is the most primitive form of logistics and really is on par with a housewife ( remember them, before they went to the workplace and gave up child rearing and domestic chores ) stocking the kitchen pantry closet. We add in firearms and ammunition to make it seem more macho, then instead of stocking up on girly type food such as flour and beans costing twenty cents a meal we spend $6 a meal on MRE’s. But we are doing more harm than good emulating the military. The new “digital” uniforms are worthless as camouflage and have Velcro pocket closures, for goodness sake. The AR-15 is an overpriced engineered disaster only marginally better than a .22 rimfire. But I digress.
*
Logistics in the big picture aspect which we must concern ourselves with come a social collapse is far beyond warehousing goods. That is an important part, but other elements must be added. First resources must be marshaled, then directed to procure the goods, then transport them. A good treatment of this was in the science fiction series, The Lost Regiment. Although there were rarely sufficient details given, at least the existence of a logistics system was given. Look, I find it very hard to believe that we will regress to the Stone Age. We may lack petroleum due to trade cut-offs but we will still have ethanol or vegetable oil powered diesel vehicles. We might lack semi-trucks but could use wood powered locomotives. We will not revert to bows and arrows or even muzzle loaded weapons. Even without modern primers or smokeless powder we can still build black powder and mercury based primer cased ammunition. So this science fiction concept might be darn close to the mark.
*
You need to find metal deposits, fuel sources, raw materials. Move workers to them. Process them and ship them. Then you need to get them to the fighting troops or civilians. While at the same time juggling other competing demands on manpower and material. Location does not win wars. Manpower does not win battles. Logistics and training and strategy win. In World War II the Japanese had superior training and strategy, but logistical problems. Just like the Germans, they made superior use of what they had, but in the end an almost endless amount of supplies enabled the US and the Soviets to win. For the most part they certainly didn’t win by strategy or tactics. Come a complete collapse, after initial supplies run out, expect a more level playing field. All regions will fragment and become small and conflict will be endless. Each local governing unit will need to fight to get supplies they need but don’t have.
*
Wars have always been fought over resources, be they oil for the last hundred years or salt before that. Food producing regions, mineral deposits, strategic locations are all reason for wars. It is a vicious Catch-22. You need supplies to fight and you fight to get supplies. Reality sucks. Unless you are on the top of a remote mountain you need to interact with other people and that means being forced to fight for the good of your group. If you are lucky and are able to demonstrate an aptitude for logistics you can avoid becoming cannon fodder. You need to be a big picture kind of person, able to get into details but not losing site of the larger whole. You need to know where resources are, how to get them, how to turn them into finished products, how to balance the needs of the military for manpower with the need for bodies on the farms, plus the need for factory workers, etc. You must enter the military perspective, the civilian, the governmental, etc.
*
Let’s say you are in the Rocky Mountains. You need to get salt. Trade and local supplies are insufficient. So you need to defeat a region with salt. To do that you need cannon and oxen or railroad to transport them. How do you harvest enough fodder or cut enough wood or get enough coal. You need to produce enough food to feed troops, but have enough farmers to grow the extra food while men are tied up training for war, while at the same time you need miners for ore ( we assume car salvaging has ended ) for weapons, to extract saltpeter, to build transportation. All for lack of salt. Now increase that complexity by needing other resources. Trade can be one way to acquire what you need and the current method of a superior military to police a region to ensure free-trade ( we’ll ignore colonization factors right now ) and a semi-capitalistic method to stimulate the economy are working now. But oil plays a huge role in helping this along, plus the nation-state. In the future neither one of these will exist. Things will return to old school. Fighting to take what you need rather than buying it. You must factor the military into the equation.
*
Read as many of the books in the series as you can cheaply get. It gives you a lot of ideas on the complexities of running any group above a hunter-gatherer level. It also points to the need for logistics which most of us are unaware of. Study logistics before you concern yourself with strategy. An army travels on its stomach, and all that.
END
www.bisonpress.com for e-books
Thursday, May 17, 2007
junk van 3
JUNK VAN 3
Before we start today, I want to start a regular feature that I have been ignoring. Not to be rude, just the regular “keep meaning to do it but keep forgetting” that I am so well versed with. Ever since I stumbled butt backwards into turning on the comments feature ( through no skill of my own ) usually every day at least two or three people make comments about that article. Now, some are mean and hurtful and say horrid things and I feel a tear well up in my eye and my bottom lip quivers ever so slightly and I look around for assistance or at least a friendly shoulder to lay my head on but since I am pretty much anti-social outside of work, and not even then too much, I can’t find anyone that cares and so end up just repressing it and burying it deep until one day I go slinking off into the wilderness and die of overexposure. Thanks a whole bunch, guys! Most people, however, are supportive of my sacrificing my life to the greater good and say positive things even when the article that day plainly just sucked. These people were raised properly by their mothers. A small minority ask questions. Sometimes these are answered in the comments page, other times no one answers. So it falls on me to lie and answer like I know what the heck I’m talking about.
*
My point, finely, is that I am going to answer those questions on a more regular basis instead of ignoring them as I have been. Always check the previous days comments, though. A lot of times a reader will add their knowledge and shed more light on it than I have, or correct me. Sometimes I will lash back in a spiteful way in case I disagree with them. Hey, it’s my blog, darn it. I reserve the right to act superior and pretend I’m special. And then you pay me on top of that. Suckers!
*
On the question about the buried compost trash can. If it is too tough to dig you are going to need to surround it with a bin and add insulation such as straw. The whole point in burying is to keep it insulated so the process works quicker, plus it keeps it from being knocked over by scavengers. As far as using a Mini-14 rather than an old was surplus bolt action, we are primarily a frugal survival site here. Get used to BTN ( better than nothing ), rather than WIP ( what is preferable ). A BTN wife is ugly and or fat. A WIP wife is a trophy wife, usually a spoiled Yuppie Barbie bitch. It is smarter to go with the BTN wife as they are less maintenance and cheaper. Same with survival gear. Wheat only sucks as food prep, but if it is all you can afford, it’s BTN. On the comment about an AK-47, I would suggest an SKS instead. It is less than half the cost, no mags to buy, it is a more accurate carbine and even is more robust. And you can fire it prone. Although the bayonet sucks.
*
Feel free to ask more questions on the comment page. I can answer them in detail the next day or so and on days where an article is hard to stretch out to 700 words I can use the answer to pad out the regular article.
*
A kind and helpful reader who never says mean things and is always trying to help ( if you are too broke to buy my crap, don’t fret- you can contribute with article ideas and informational links to help my research ) suggested using a van shell as a trailer. My comment in Junk Van 2 ( or was it the first one? ) was to pull a trailer made from an old pick-up bed with extended siding to haul more stuff if you had a family. The original Junk Van had a years supply of wheat for two under the bed. If you had a family you needed a trailer to haul more food. So why not instead use an old van shell, one without a engine ( or the drive shaft and tranny ). Put a tow hitch on the front, hook up wiring, license and use as a trailer. If you have the same size tires on both vehicles, that simplifies life. Also, you could keep the “trailer” gas tank filled for a lot of extra gas. You mechanic types can figure out how to electrically pump from one tank to another but I would say just have a siphon hose with the manual handle on it. You could even have a regular junk van to tow the engineless van. Gobs of space that way and as cheap as can be. Now, you could just build your trailer, load it up and plan on towing it come the collapse. But without it being legal and licensed you are running a risk of being detained at an inopportune time.
*
Say you are bugging out early, before the sheep wake up and panic. You don’t want to get pulled over for an illegal trailer. Or being stopped at a checkpoint. The hoops you jump through to make it legal and the small fees you pay are worth the no-hassle use. Plus, if you made it today and used it to haul scrap metal or other profitable junk you could write it all off as a business expense. Get a gallon of cheap paint and write on the sides, “Billy Joe-Bobs Trash Hauling Service” or whatever. Now any traceable payments are counteracted by this legitimate business expense. And when you go into town for grocery shopping stop by for a pick up or drop off and the whole trip is a write off. Come bug out time throw in all your prep crap and away you go.
*
Another use I have failed to mention is using the van as a greenhouse. Have a few five gallon buckets and fill with fertile soil and come winter you might be able to grow a few fresh crops. The van facing the south and getting sunshine during the day will keep you in greens all summer, rather than being forced to eat sprouts. Theoretically you are generating enough heat in the van to keep the little guys alive through the night. Obviously you will need to do a bit of research on greenhouse gardening, but at a minimum you can have five or so buckets up front growing veggies for you. If you have the second van as a trailer you can grow twice as much ( if no one is sleeping in that one at night, perhaps you will need to transfer the plants at night or on cloudy days to the van you are living in ). You will need a drain on each bucket and a catch basin under that. Otherwise your front van flooring will rust out. Heck, you could collect junk vans on your land and have a slew of greenhouses come winter. And with some insulation they could double as guest houses. Better than a tent to counter feral animals and small powered bullets.
END
bison and amazon books www.bisonpress.com
Before we start today, I want to start a regular feature that I have been ignoring. Not to be rude, just the regular “keep meaning to do it but keep forgetting” that I am so well versed with. Ever since I stumbled butt backwards into turning on the comments feature ( through no skill of my own ) usually every day at least two or three people make comments about that article. Now, some are mean and hurtful and say horrid things and I feel a tear well up in my eye and my bottom lip quivers ever so slightly and I look around for assistance or at least a friendly shoulder to lay my head on but since I am pretty much anti-social outside of work, and not even then too much, I can’t find anyone that cares and so end up just repressing it and burying it deep until one day I go slinking off into the wilderness and die of overexposure. Thanks a whole bunch, guys! Most people, however, are supportive of my sacrificing my life to the greater good and say positive things even when the article that day plainly just sucked. These people were raised properly by their mothers. A small minority ask questions. Sometimes these are answered in the comments page, other times no one answers. So it falls on me to lie and answer like I know what the heck I’m talking about.
*
My point, finely, is that I am going to answer those questions on a more regular basis instead of ignoring them as I have been. Always check the previous days comments, though. A lot of times a reader will add their knowledge and shed more light on it than I have, or correct me. Sometimes I will lash back in a spiteful way in case I disagree with them. Hey, it’s my blog, darn it. I reserve the right to act superior and pretend I’m special. And then you pay me on top of that. Suckers!
*
On the question about the buried compost trash can. If it is too tough to dig you are going to need to surround it with a bin and add insulation such as straw. The whole point in burying is to keep it insulated so the process works quicker, plus it keeps it from being knocked over by scavengers. As far as using a Mini-14 rather than an old was surplus bolt action, we are primarily a frugal survival site here. Get used to BTN ( better than nothing ), rather than WIP ( what is preferable ). A BTN wife is ugly and or fat. A WIP wife is a trophy wife, usually a spoiled Yuppie Barbie bitch. It is smarter to go with the BTN wife as they are less maintenance and cheaper. Same with survival gear. Wheat only sucks as food prep, but if it is all you can afford, it’s BTN. On the comment about an AK-47, I would suggest an SKS instead. It is less than half the cost, no mags to buy, it is a more accurate carbine and even is more robust. And you can fire it prone. Although the bayonet sucks.
*
Feel free to ask more questions on the comment page. I can answer them in detail the next day or so and on days where an article is hard to stretch out to 700 words I can use the answer to pad out the regular article.
*
A kind and helpful reader who never says mean things and is always trying to help ( if you are too broke to buy my crap, don’t fret- you can contribute with article ideas and informational links to help my research ) suggested using a van shell as a trailer. My comment in Junk Van 2 ( or was it the first one? ) was to pull a trailer made from an old pick-up bed with extended siding to haul more stuff if you had a family. The original Junk Van had a years supply of wheat for two under the bed. If you had a family you needed a trailer to haul more food. So why not instead use an old van shell, one without a engine ( or the drive shaft and tranny ). Put a tow hitch on the front, hook up wiring, license and use as a trailer. If you have the same size tires on both vehicles, that simplifies life. Also, you could keep the “trailer” gas tank filled for a lot of extra gas. You mechanic types can figure out how to electrically pump from one tank to another but I would say just have a siphon hose with the manual handle on it. You could even have a regular junk van to tow the engineless van. Gobs of space that way and as cheap as can be. Now, you could just build your trailer, load it up and plan on towing it come the collapse. But without it being legal and licensed you are running a risk of being detained at an inopportune time.
*
Say you are bugging out early, before the sheep wake up and panic. You don’t want to get pulled over for an illegal trailer. Or being stopped at a checkpoint. The hoops you jump through to make it legal and the small fees you pay are worth the no-hassle use. Plus, if you made it today and used it to haul scrap metal or other profitable junk you could write it all off as a business expense. Get a gallon of cheap paint and write on the sides, “Billy Joe-Bobs Trash Hauling Service” or whatever. Now any traceable payments are counteracted by this legitimate business expense. And when you go into town for grocery shopping stop by for a pick up or drop off and the whole trip is a write off. Come bug out time throw in all your prep crap and away you go.
*
Another use I have failed to mention is using the van as a greenhouse. Have a few five gallon buckets and fill with fertile soil and come winter you might be able to grow a few fresh crops. The van facing the south and getting sunshine during the day will keep you in greens all summer, rather than being forced to eat sprouts. Theoretically you are generating enough heat in the van to keep the little guys alive through the night. Obviously you will need to do a bit of research on greenhouse gardening, but at a minimum you can have five or so buckets up front growing veggies for you. If you have the second van as a trailer you can grow twice as much ( if no one is sleeping in that one at night, perhaps you will need to transfer the plants at night or on cloudy days to the van you are living in ). You will need a drain on each bucket and a catch basin under that. Otherwise your front van flooring will rust out. Heck, you could collect junk vans on your land and have a slew of greenhouses come winter. And with some insulation they could double as guest houses. Better than a tent to counter feral animals and small powered bullets.
END
bison and amazon books www.bisonpress.com
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
chrysler
CHRYSLER-BETTER THAN SELLING A BRIDGE
What is it with those Krauts? Here is a group of people so anal-retentive that they can do a profit and loss statement for Jewish labor. Freight costs, plus para-military labor cost plus camp construction, minus prisoner labor minus extracted silver and gold teeth filling minus salvaged clothes and shoes and hair equals a net gain. If American politicians were half as efficient they could replicate the idea using gun owners as the new Jews, but we suck at this kind of thing. Although the Germans sucked compared to the Soviets. Thirty million compared to six. And to think the Russians had an inferiority complex. They were the masters of killing off their own countrymen. But the Germans did it with much more flair. City air makes you free, indeed! Yet these same jerk-offs that fought on three fronts plus devoted so much manpower to internal suppression and made it payback better than most ever did ( modern techniques applied to looting on an industrial scale ) can’t figure out that buying Chrysler for $36 billion is a lousy idea. The liabilities on the pension costs alone is more than what the company is worth.
*
Of course, at this point a bunch of panicky Germans are running around slapping each other on the back and screaming in orgasmic joy that they unloaded this turd and it only cost them another $600 million. If they had stayed in it would have cost them a lot more. So they can’t be totally stupid. But because they lost, in effect, almost forty million dollars, I am happy as a pig in pungent slop. Take that, you foul German foreign bastards! Payback for that piece of crap Braun shaver you sold me that broke the second time I used it and cut my face up. Karma is indeed a bitch. And it only took twenty years. German quality my flabby butt. Now if only karma would visit the ex-wife and do a tap dance on her face.
*
An investment group is going to invest five billion into the company, and another one billion in the financial service, then take $650 million from Daimler for their trouble. Since Cerberus already owns half of GM financial, they can control a lot on the financing end. But they sure as heck don’t want the manufacturing concern. And they don’t want to be cutting checks to Dilbert the Door Welder when he retires. This investment company is in the business of investments and you can be sure that whatever happens is not going to help the workers there. Who knows what they have planned, but my guess in closings and layoffs and benefit shrinkage.
*
Anymore, the Union leadership is out to keep the organization alive for as long as possible. That pays their salary. But they know they are as obsolete as an oxen with a wooden plow blade. The Unions might gain a slow holding action if the Democrats take over, but it will just be a reprieve from death. The workers will suffer. The investors will gain, the managers will stay even or at least lose a lot less and the workers will get the high hard one. We have gone back a hundred years when we had to be thankful we at least had a job ( but with safer working conditions for the most part ). Welcome to the slow collapse. If you are in an area that is alive economically because of the auto industry, get out now. They are the dinosaurs AFTER the asteroid has hit and they are just waiting for the lack of sunshine to kill off all the plants. Be a little rodent and run underground to save yourself.
*
When the Dot-Com bubble burst it started the Second Great Depression. We just don’t know it yet. Number one, the housing bubble and the War On Terror covered it up. Number two, we have Peak Oil to finish us off. But at least out of the Dot-Com bust we got a lot of fiber optic cable laid, enough to keep the Internet Economy alive and well until the electric grid failures become too regular to support that activity. With the bust of Detroit nothing good can come of it. There is no redeeming values. At least with Detroit propping up a lot of the economy we had some private sector stimulus. Now it is just going to be road construction to carry all the Japanese and Chinese cars. With housing construction in the toilet and domestic car manufacturing a losing proposition the only thing left is public spending. Paid for by inflation of course.
*
And no one saw this coming? Detroit losing money is not new news. Someone sold the Germans the biggest con since the Brooklyn Bridge.
*
As the auto industry tanks, we will still use as much oil as ever before, just with foreign cars instead of domestic ones. But think about Peak Oil for a second. The bell curve production rate domestically is proven fact. Globally ( if holding to pattern and all things stay the same ) we were at the top of the curve for a bit. Then last year production started to slightly decline. The gentle down curve. At any time it is set to start on a very steep decline. In the 1970’s with the OPEC supply problems, we had an interruption of only about three to five percent. This caused prices to quadruple and shortages to appear everywhere. The down side of Peak Oil will have larger supply disruptions. Consider how you will retreat with only the gas in your car, as suddenly shortages appear one day. It is not going to be a smooth decline with plenty of warming from the media. We might not see a high enough price increase to cut back demand. Because of government controls stations are not allowed to raise the price enough to discourage consumption. If you bug out, have your gasoline supply beforehand. Top off now and never let the tank get too low. Have gas cans. Think of gas supply as you would electrical power. Always available, until suddenly without warming it is off.
END
Quick note- www.MajorSurplusNSurvivial.com has a sale on two metal LED flashlights for $5. Item # 5-8626
What is it with those Krauts? Here is a group of people so anal-retentive that they can do a profit and loss statement for Jewish labor. Freight costs, plus para-military labor cost plus camp construction, minus prisoner labor minus extracted silver and gold teeth filling minus salvaged clothes and shoes and hair equals a net gain. If American politicians were half as efficient they could replicate the idea using gun owners as the new Jews, but we suck at this kind of thing. Although the Germans sucked compared to the Soviets. Thirty million compared to six. And to think the Russians had an inferiority complex. They were the masters of killing off their own countrymen. But the Germans did it with much more flair. City air makes you free, indeed! Yet these same jerk-offs that fought on three fronts plus devoted so much manpower to internal suppression and made it payback better than most ever did ( modern techniques applied to looting on an industrial scale ) can’t figure out that buying Chrysler for $36 billion is a lousy idea. The liabilities on the pension costs alone is more than what the company is worth.
*
Of course, at this point a bunch of panicky Germans are running around slapping each other on the back and screaming in orgasmic joy that they unloaded this turd and it only cost them another $600 million. If they had stayed in it would have cost them a lot more. So they can’t be totally stupid. But because they lost, in effect, almost forty million dollars, I am happy as a pig in pungent slop. Take that, you foul German foreign bastards! Payback for that piece of crap Braun shaver you sold me that broke the second time I used it and cut my face up. Karma is indeed a bitch. And it only took twenty years. German quality my flabby butt. Now if only karma would visit the ex-wife and do a tap dance on her face.
*
An investment group is going to invest five billion into the company, and another one billion in the financial service, then take $650 million from Daimler for their trouble. Since Cerberus already owns half of GM financial, they can control a lot on the financing end. But they sure as heck don’t want the manufacturing concern. And they don’t want to be cutting checks to Dilbert the Door Welder when he retires. This investment company is in the business of investments and you can be sure that whatever happens is not going to help the workers there. Who knows what they have planned, but my guess in closings and layoffs and benefit shrinkage.
*
Anymore, the Union leadership is out to keep the organization alive for as long as possible. That pays their salary. But they know they are as obsolete as an oxen with a wooden plow blade. The Unions might gain a slow holding action if the Democrats take over, but it will just be a reprieve from death. The workers will suffer. The investors will gain, the managers will stay even or at least lose a lot less and the workers will get the high hard one. We have gone back a hundred years when we had to be thankful we at least had a job ( but with safer working conditions for the most part ). Welcome to the slow collapse. If you are in an area that is alive economically because of the auto industry, get out now. They are the dinosaurs AFTER the asteroid has hit and they are just waiting for the lack of sunshine to kill off all the plants. Be a little rodent and run underground to save yourself.
*
When the Dot-Com bubble burst it started the Second Great Depression. We just don’t know it yet. Number one, the housing bubble and the War On Terror covered it up. Number two, we have Peak Oil to finish us off. But at least out of the Dot-Com bust we got a lot of fiber optic cable laid, enough to keep the Internet Economy alive and well until the electric grid failures become too regular to support that activity. With the bust of Detroit nothing good can come of it. There is no redeeming values. At least with Detroit propping up a lot of the economy we had some private sector stimulus. Now it is just going to be road construction to carry all the Japanese and Chinese cars. With housing construction in the toilet and domestic car manufacturing a losing proposition the only thing left is public spending. Paid for by inflation of course.
*
And no one saw this coming? Detroit losing money is not new news. Someone sold the Germans the biggest con since the Brooklyn Bridge.
*
As the auto industry tanks, we will still use as much oil as ever before, just with foreign cars instead of domestic ones. But think about Peak Oil for a second. The bell curve production rate domestically is proven fact. Globally ( if holding to pattern and all things stay the same ) we were at the top of the curve for a bit. Then last year production started to slightly decline. The gentle down curve. At any time it is set to start on a very steep decline. In the 1970’s with the OPEC supply problems, we had an interruption of only about three to five percent. This caused prices to quadruple and shortages to appear everywhere. The down side of Peak Oil will have larger supply disruptions. Consider how you will retreat with only the gas in your car, as suddenly shortages appear one day. It is not going to be a smooth decline with plenty of warming from the media. We might not see a high enough price increase to cut back demand. Because of government controls stations are not allowed to raise the price enough to discourage consumption. If you bug out, have your gasoline supply beforehand. Top off now and never let the tank get too low. Have gas cans. Think of gas supply as you would electrical power. Always available, until suddenly without warming it is off.
END
Quick note- www.MajorSurplusNSurvivial.com has a sale on two metal LED flashlights for $5. Item # 5-8626
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
stupid and battery
STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES AND BACK-UP BATTERY
I really don’t mind criticism. If you write and call me the lowest form of life, a sniveling microscopic parasite for daring to make a mistake, then I get a little peeved. But constructive criticism, that I like. I have corrected a lot of persistent spelling errors because of reader input ( when one reader told me the difference in spelling between lose and loose using my wife as an example, it tended to stick in my mind the next time ). I was gently called to task for seeming to take credit for an idea, so since then I have tried to be careful to give credit when it is due. And I am grateful, since one day Hollywood agents are going to descend to my location and shower me with advance loyalty checks for my life story and by then I want to be able to give a more polished product. By my calculations, two minutes after that check clears an asteroid will hit earth and wipe out civilization ( some people are not meant to have wealth or fame ).
*
Today I opened an e-mail and a reader down in Mexico who was not in the slightest pleased that I had made a comment to the effect that you had to be an idiot be live down in Mexico. Now, I don’t remember which article that one was in, nor my exact words. It does sound like something I would write, of course. If memory serves I was saying that living in Mexico and being reliant on a check from our government was stupid. If you stop getting a check, what do you do? Making a living down there, using a Third World location to remain food self-sufficient when the oil runs out, that would be smart. But I don’t know the particulars of this reader. So I still don’t know if he is stupid, or not. He was sarcastic, but not insulting, so I am trying to clarify here rather than firing back. Surely it is not difficult to see my position. If Uncle Sugars check is the price of your being welcome to stay…
*
We are all being stupid in some aspect pertaining to survival come the collapse. Most of us are not where we should be, nor as prepared as needed. Hey, it’s a tightrope. Prepare too diligently and you alienate or lose family and miss good investments ( I could have already had a bought and paid for house if I wasn’t so paranoid over the years ). Prepare half-assed and you die come the crunch. Of course, some actions are worse than others. Like staying in a mega-city. Living on the coast below sea level or at the base of a volcano covered year round with ice and snow. Only having three weeks or three months of food stored ( when a year supply of wheat is $85, what excuse could you have? ). Or depending on the government for a check to survive. Sure, being on supplemental welfare is workable if you use it to invest in supplies now and can live without it later. But if you will starve without it, that’s not a good position to be in.
*
Improving a bad situation, even if the results are less than perfect, that is smart. Staying in a bad situation and doing nothing about it ( remember, all problems have a solution, we just don’t like picking between too choices that lead to unfavorable results so we stay in our rut ), that is stupid. Very few of us are where we want to be in preparations. As long as you are making forward progress to improve your situation, great. Only time will tell if your gamble pays off. But don’t sit and do nothing but pray it all works out. Any divine being could give two craps about your wishes. Opportunities abound, it is up to you to do the hard work to seize them. I’m talking attitude here, not wealth or even talent. You can do a lot with nothing more than the free public library. Stupid is as stupid does.
*
Monday’s post at www.survivalblog.com contained a paragraph on using a jump-start battery ( those plastic boxes with a sealed battery inside with jumper cables that you recharge from wall current ) to run your laptop computer during a power outage to communicate if the cell towers are down. The main concern was lose of business, but that is the part that pertained to survive types. My question is why not use a regular battery? A marine battery ( longer lasting than a car battery, no where near as expensive as the usual recommended golf cart batteries ) is about $60 at Wal-Mart. You can run the laptop and a small florescent bulb for light and a few other odds and ends if desired. If you have to lug around a box, why not just a regular battery? Of course the whole unit is pretty and doesn’t need a battery charger and comes with the 12v attachment. But if you are going to also buy a solar panel to always have rechargeable power, just go with a regular battery.
*
On that note, never buy a single unit of anything. Sure, a water filter is expensive, you will only start out with one. But plan on buying another and store separately ( remember my advice on the $50 filter ). Don’t just buy one solar panel, buy multiple panels of smaller rated watt charging. In other words, three five watt panels instead of one fifteen watt. Yes, it is a little more expensive. But if you are relying on solar power you need more than one panel in case of natural disaster or theft, or more than one battery in case of failure. Same reason to buy several cheap rifles instead of one expensive one. The Sherman tank was no where near as good as the Panzers. But we built a lot more of them and when one was destroyed we kept shooting with more. Having three Enfield’s or Mauser’s is better than having one Mini-14 ( ignore the large versus small caliber difference for this example ). You would love to have the Mini, but that’s not too smart if it is your only weapon.
END
Bison and Amazon books www.bisonpress.com
I really don’t mind criticism. If you write and call me the lowest form of life, a sniveling microscopic parasite for daring to make a mistake, then I get a little peeved. But constructive criticism, that I like. I have corrected a lot of persistent spelling errors because of reader input ( when one reader told me the difference in spelling between lose and loose using my wife as an example, it tended to stick in my mind the next time ). I was gently called to task for seeming to take credit for an idea, so since then I have tried to be careful to give credit when it is due. And I am grateful, since one day Hollywood agents are going to descend to my location and shower me with advance loyalty checks for my life story and by then I want to be able to give a more polished product. By my calculations, two minutes after that check clears an asteroid will hit earth and wipe out civilization ( some people are not meant to have wealth or fame ).
*
Today I opened an e-mail and a reader down in Mexico who was not in the slightest pleased that I had made a comment to the effect that you had to be an idiot be live down in Mexico. Now, I don’t remember which article that one was in, nor my exact words. It does sound like something I would write, of course. If memory serves I was saying that living in Mexico and being reliant on a check from our government was stupid. If you stop getting a check, what do you do? Making a living down there, using a Third World location to remain food self-sufficient when the oil runs out, that would be smart. But I don’t know the particulars of this reader. So I still don’t know if he is stupid, or not. He was sarcastic, but not insulting, so I am trying to clarify here rather than firing back. Surely it is not difficult to see my position. If Uncle Sugars check is the price of your being welcome to stay…
*
We are all being stupid in some aspect pertaining to survival come the collapse. Most of us are not where we should be, nor as prepared as needed. Hey, it’s a tightrope. Prepare too diligently and you alienate or lose family and miss good investments ( I could have already had a bought and paid for house if I wasn’t so paranoid over the years ). Prepare half-assed and you die come the crunch. Of course, some actions are worse than others. Like staying in a mega-city. Living on the coast below sea level or at the base of a volcano covered year round with ice and snow. Only having three weeks or three months of food stored ( when a year supply of wheat is $85, what excuse could you have? ). Or depending on the government for a check to survive. Sure, being on supplemental welfare is workable if you use it to invest in supplies now and can live without it later. But if you will starve without it, that’s not a good position to be in.
*
Improving a bad situation, even if the results are less than perfect, that is smart. Staying in a bad situation and doing nothing about it ( remember, all problems have a solution, we just don’t like picking between too choices that lead to unfavorable results so we stay in our rut ), that is stupid. Very few of us are where we want to be in preparations. As long as you are making forward progress to improve your situation, great. Only time will tell if your gamble pays off. But don’t sit and do nothing but pray it all works out. Any divine being could give two craps about your wishes. Opportunities abound, it is up to you to do the hard work to seize them. I’m talking attitude here, not wealth or even talent. You can do a lot with nothing more than the free public library. Stupid is as stupid does.
*
Monday’s post at www.survivalblog.com contained a paragraph on using a jump-start battery ( those plastic boxes with a sealed battery inside with jumper cables that you recharge from wall current ) to run your laptop computer during a power outage to communicate if the cell towers are down. The main concern was lose of business, but that is the part that pertained to survive types. My question is why not use a regular battery? A marine battery ( longer lasting than a car battery, no where near as expensive as the usual recommended golf cart batteries ) is about $60 at Wal-Mart. You can run the laptop and a small florescent bulb for light and a few other odds and ends if desired. If you have to lug around a box, why not just a regular battery? Of course the whole unit is pretty and doesn’t need a battery charger and comes with the 12v attachment. But if you are going to also buy a solar panel to always have rechargeable power, just go with a regular battery.
*
On that note, never buy a single unit of anything. Sure, a water filter is expensive, you will only start out with one. But plan on buying another and store separately ( remember my advice on the $50 filter ). Don’t just buy one solar panel, buy multiple panels of smaller rated watt charging. In other words, three five watt panels instead of one fifteen watt. Yes, it is a little more expensive. But if you are relying on solar power you need more than one panel in case of natural disaster or theft, or more than one battery in case of failure. Same reason to buy several cheap rifles instead of one expensive one. The Sherman tank was no where near as good as the Panzers. But we built a lot more of them and when one was destroyed we kept shooting with more. Having three Enfield’s or Mauser’s is better than having one Mini-14 ( ignore the large versus small caliber difference for this example ). You would love to have the Mini, but that’s not too smart if it is your only weapon.
END
Bison and Amazon books www.bisonpress.com
Monday, May 14, 2007
winter trailer living
WINTER TRAILER LIVING
If you act soon before the economy implodes and everyone loses their job and bums are living under freeway overpasses and the next door neighbors vacated home is stripped of interior wood to heat and cook with and government hired private security is sniping at armed citizens and looting their food stocks, you can buy a trailer very cheap. Right now they are unused, unwanted eye-sores that the pampered Barbie bitch insists that the husband dispose of. After the crunch of course, they will all be used as primary shelters after the banks foreclose the house that the trailer used to sit next to. It is kind of like used firearms. Before the combined forces of Bush prohibited a lot of importation and Clinton prohibited high capacity magazines, you could usually easily and routinely buy private sale firearms. Now they are still available but not cheap, and rarely the desired kind. The market got a lot tighter. You need to buy now while the market is saturated.
*
Sure, as soon as gas hits $10 a gallon and beef is $15 for a pound of fatty hamburger you might be able to buy motor homes that get five miles to the gallon a lot cheaper. Or perhaps not. They are still considered status symbols and might remain so ( what better way to look down your nose at the great unwashed proletariat than from on high in the cab of a Winnebago guzzling gasoline as the poor idiots huddle around trash barrel stoves on street corners ). But right now towed trailers old and beat to heck are beneath even the less refined tastes of the balding beer belly carrying unemployed blue collar factory workers. You can buy them very cheap. It is not unheard of to spend under $500 for a cab-over, or under a grand for a shorter towed trailer or under two grand for a nicer fifth wheel or a longer towed trailer.
*
Check Craig’s List on the computer. You will soon find a cheap used travel trailer. Then you can plot your escape to the country or small town. You pull into your parking slot, owned or rented, set up shop in an hour or two, break out the beer and the BBQ and relax before going to find a new job. No problem, rent is so cheap ( or non-existent ) that you can work for a fraction of what you could previously. Then, winter hits. You are going to be cold unless you burn more in propane than what your rent costs you. To live cheaply, you are just going to have to adjust to this fact. It is not enough cold to kill you, just enough to make any sunless cloudy day rather uncomfortable. Unless you move close to the Mexican border or down South you are going to have to deal with being cold in winter. Of course, the border states might get to be unstable with the desire to return the land back to its original inhabitants ( which according to the Mexicans is them, not the indigenous Indians ) and the South will degenerate into race wars and/or the Confederacy rising again.
*
It is all fine and dandy to speak of constructing straw bales around a trailer, or building an underground garage for it, or building a timber outer structure and insulating that, but realistically most of us are not going to be able to do that. We either wait too long to move, lose our jobs, or run out of money after moving. We may have no choice but to live in a mostly un-insulated trailer. So my thoughts are, how does one survive in a trailer through the winter? As civilization is still humming along fine, the old favorites work just fine. If in a park, use an oil filled radiator type electric heater. In my newer thirty foot trailer without drafts and with reflector windows, one of these heaters on low running 24/7 cost me about $90 a month to operate with the juice costing 13 and a half cent a kilowatt. It increases the temperature twenty degrees. With the natural trailer insulation providing ten degrees, this meant a twenty degree night was a cool but manageable fifty inside the trailer. This is the normal low here. This winter it got down to zero degrees once so I woke up to a trailer at thirty. Brrr. The majority of trailer windows face south and I got an extra ten degrees of heat on sunny days. If off the grid you need to use propane and a small heater giving out the equivalent BTU’s of heat will run you about the same with propane in dollar costs.
*
Once the propane gets more expensive or unavailable, there is little else to do except rely on wood. This will be hard to do in the high desert or plains area. In an economic downturn you can salvage any wood. In a collapse most areas will be striped bare very soon as there is no way nature can support our population just with wood for heating or cooking- we are dependent on petroleum. If you don’t have a woodstove bought and stored, or even a sheet metal camp stove folded away, you are screwed when things turn south. Stoves will disappear at affordable prices once oil and gas supplies run out or increase in price. Again, the time to buy is now. To install a stove in a trailer, the best guide I have found is from Travel-Trailer Homesteading Under $5,000 by Brian Kelling, available from my Amazon affiliates page at my web site www.bisonpress.com .
If you are without a stove, at least have some bricks ready to surround a slab of metal such as an old cast iron skillet that you can run a small fire from. The smoke can go up a vent hole already there. I would have enough insulation under the fire to avoid scorching the linoleum floor. Perhaps an extra pile of bricks, or insulation, then tin then bricks. Something.
*
This of course sucks as a solution. Who wants smoke stains on the ceiling, plus an insufficient fire? But better than nothing and it did work for the Indians in primitive shelters. If you have storage space, store a lot of blankets. Come summer, you should be able to buy up a lot of thrift store blankets really cheap. But, again, do it now. Thrift stores only stay open in a prosperous functioning economy. The blankets can be used as insulation hung from the walls, tacked on at the frame next to the ceiling. Cover the floors and ceiling. Windows also, if no sun is shining in. Wool would work great, but they are hard to find cheap. But have some kind. A pile of polyester blankets at night and cotton blankets on the wall are poor insulation, but better than nothing. Own a lot of thermal underwear. And good socks and indoor insulated slippers. A set of thermals, booties, a beenie and you can withstand a lot lower indoor temperatures than normal. The worse part of the day will be when it is time to strip and bathe. Have some kind of heat in the bathroom.
*
Blankets and underwear and winter gear are not completely free, but they are very cheap. A two or three dollar thermal top or bottom, wool socks at a fiver ( wear a pair of cotton underneath if too itchy, or if a long time between wool cleaning ) blankets at a buck or two each. The best place for new gear is www.sportsmansguide.com and the thrift stores or even Wal-Mart should have cheap blankets. Place a skirting around the trailer to help with keeping cold out from the bottom. A few bucks here and there and you can plan on surviving in a poorly insulated trailer.
END
If you act soon before the economy implodes and everyone loses their job and bums are living under freeway overpasses and the next door neighbors vacated home is stripped of interior wood to heat and cook with and government hired private security is sniping at armed citizens and looting their food stocks, you can buy a trailer very cheap. Right now they are unused, unwanted eye-sores that the pampered Barbie bitch insists that the husband dispose of. After the crunch of course, they will all be used as primary shelters after the banks foreclose the house that the trailer used to sit next to. It is kind of like used firearms. Before the combined forces of Bush prohibited a lot of importation and Clinton prohibited high capacity magazines, you could usually easily and routinely buy private sale firearms. Now they are still available but not cheap, and rarely the desired kind. The market got a lot tighter. You need to buy now while the market is saturated.
*
Sure, as soon as gas hits $10 a gallon and beef is $15 for a pound of fatty hamburger you might be able to buy motor homes that get five miles to the gallon a lot cheaper. Or perhaps not. They are still considered status symbols and might remain so ( what better way to look down your nose at the great unwashed proletariat than from on high in the cab of a Winnebago guzzling gasoline as the poor idiots huddle around trash barrel stoves on street corners ). But right now towed trailers old and beat to heck are beneath even the less refined tastes of the balding beer belly carrying unemployed blue collar factory workers. You can buy them very cheap. It is not unheard of to spend under $500 for a cab-over, or under a grand for a shorter towed trailer or under two grand for a nicer fifth wheel or a longer towed trailer.
*
Check Craig’s List on the computer. You will soon find a cheap used travel trailer. Then you can plot your escape to the country or small town. You pull into your parking slot, owned or rented, set up shop in an hour or two, break out the beer and the BBQ and relax before going to find a new job. No problem, rent is so cheap ( or non-existent ) that you can work for a fraction of what you could previously. Then, winter hits. You are going to be cold unless you burn more in propane than what your rent costs you. To live cheaply, you are just going to have to adjust to this fact. It is not enough cold to kill you, just enough to make any sunless cloudy day rather uncomfortable. Unless you move close to the Mexican border or down South you are going to have to deal with being cold in winter. Of course, the border states might get to be unstable with the desire to return the land back to its original inhabitants ( which according to the Mexicans is them, not the indigenous Indians ) and the South will degenerate into race wars and/or the Confederacy rising again.
*
It is all fine and dandy to speak of constructing straw bales around a trailer, or building an underground garage for it, or building a timber outer structure and insulating that, but realistically most of us are not going to be able to do that. We either wait too long to move, lose our jobs, or run out of money after moving. We may have no choice but to live in a mostly un-insulated trailer. So my thoughts are, how does one survive in a trailer through the winter? As civilization is still humming along fine, the old favorites work just fine. If in a park, use an oil filled radiator type electric heater. In my newer thirty foot trailer without drafts and with reflector windows, one of these heaters on low running 24/7 cost me about $90 a month to operate with the juice costing 13 and a half cent a kilowatt. It increases the temperature twenty degrees. With the natural trailer insulation providing ten degrees, this meant a twenty degree night was a cool but manageable fifty inside the trailer. This is the normal low here. This winter it got down to zero degrees once so I woke up to a trailer at thirty. Brrr. The majority of trailer windows face south and I got an extra ten degrees of heat on sunny days. If off the grid you need to use propane and a small heater giving out the equivalent BTU’s of heat will run you about the same with propane in dollar costs.
*
Once the propane gets more expensive or unavailable, there is little else to do except rely on wood. This will be hard to do in the high desert or plains area. In an economic downturn you can salvage any wood. In a collapse most areas will be striped bare very soon as there is no way nature can support our population just with wood for heating or cooking- we are dependent on petroleum. If you don’t have a woodstove bought and stored, or even a sheet metal camp stove folded away, you are screwed when things turn south. Stoves will disappear at affordable prices once oil and gas supplies run out or increase in price. Again, the time to buy is now. To install a stove in a trailer, the best guide I have found is from Travel-Trailer Homesteading Under $5,000 by Brian Kelling, available from my Amazon affiliates page at my web site www.bisonpress.com .
If you are without a stove, at least have some bricks ready to surround a slab of metal such as an old cast iron skillet that you can run a small fire from. The smoke can go up a vent hole already there. I would have enough insulation under the fire to avoid scorching the linoleum floor. Perhaps an extra pile of bricks, or insulation, then tin then bricks. Something.
*
This of course sucks as a solution. Who wants smoke stains on the ceiling, plus an insufficient fire? But better than nothing and it did work for the Indians in primitive shelters. If you have storage space, store a lot of blankets. Come summer, you should be able to buy up a lot of thrift store blankets really cheap. But, again, do it now. Thrift stores only stay open in a prosperous functioning economy. The blankets can be used as insulation hung from the walls, tacked on at the frame next to the ceiling. Cover the floors and ceiling. Windows also, if no sun is shining in. Wool would work great, but they are hard to find cheap. But have some kind. A pile of polyester blankets at night and cotton blankets on the wall are poor insulation, but better than nothing. Own a lot of thermal underwear. And good socks and indoor insulated slippers. A set of thermals, booties, a beenie and you can withstand a lot lower indoor temperatures than normal. The worse part of the day will be when it is time to strip and bathe. Have some kind of heat in the bathroom.
*
Blankets and underwear and winter gear are not completely free, but they are very cheap. A two or three dollar thermal top or bottom, wool socks at a fiver ( wear a pair of cotton underneath if too itchy, or if a long time between wool cleaning ) blankets at a buck or two each. The best place for new gear is www.sportsmansguide.com and the thrift stores or even Wal-Mart should have cheap blankets. Place a skirting around the trailer to help with keeping cold out from the bottom. A few bucks here and there and you can plan on surviving in a poorly insulated trailer.
END
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