GOOD GOVERNMENT A OXYMORON
One day a frog and a scorpion are at the river bank. They both want to get to the other side. We don’t know why they wanted to do this, perhaps a chicken was already there and they wanted to know why he had crossed. The scorpion tells the frog he wants a ride across. The frog is understandably not too keen on the idea and tells the scorpion to go blow himself. The scorpion remains calm, tells the frog that there is no way he would sting the frog. Why would he? Then the scorpion would drown. The frog, who unfortunately grew up in a protected environment and was a bit of a geek and went to college and applied logic to everything, agreed that the scorpion had a good point and so he would be more than happy the swim across with the scorpion on his back so they could both get to the other side. They started across and the scorpion started getting all antsy and twitchy, nervous and restless. The frog had a faint wisp of panic and ask the scorpion what he was doing. Nothing, replied the scorpion, just nervous on the water, plus he had just eaten something that didn’t agree with him and was about to get the squirts. So the frog continued on. But half way across the river, the scorpion could contain himself no longer and stung the frog. As the venom took hold and they were both about to sink to their deaths, the frog asked the scorpion why he had stung him, killing them both. Hey, said the scorpion, it’s in my nature.
*
It is in the nature of governments not only to become evil, but to destroy themselves in the process. We will skip over the self-destruction part today and just focus on the pure evil of government. To ensure compliance, governments must initiate force. And poses a monopoly on that use of force ( which in a weird way explains why suicide is illegal ). And power and force eventually bring out evil. Any government, regardless of how benign its intentions will eventually turn into a dictatorship ( communism being a dictatorship by committee ). There is no way around this. Why do I bring up this simple and obvious point? Because too many of us act like our government will abuse their power up to a certain point and then stop. As if there is a magic line in the sand. You may strut out your chest and stroke the butt of your AR-15 and sputter on about joining a militia and how Clinton sold missile designs to China for a few bucks to get re-elected ( either that or he played with a cigar with a cute female Chinese agent which really saved the commies a few bucks ). But deep down you are in denial about just how bad our government is going to get.
*
You keep paying on a mortgage, thinking the bankers and the Feds will never allow the economy to get so bad that you lose your job and can’t pay it off. Even if you do, you don’t think that property taxes will get so high you turn into a renter again, this time to the county government. You don’t think they will confiscate all of our guns. You don’t think a paper dollar will become worth less than a penny. You don’t think you could end up in a terrorist concentration camp. Even when you hear incredible stories about abuse, you think you will never end up like that. You hear stories of kiddy boot camp for politically incorrect acts in another state and think nothing of it. You hear of armed confrontations with tax protestors and turn the channel to news on celebrity marriages or divorces. You read the cleaned up sanitized version of our history and think that any government excesses will be corrected over time. You are in denial. Not because you are stupid, or because you lack imagination but because it is the only way to make it through the day with sanity intact. And that is unfortunate. Because when it comes to the government it pays to always be extra paranoid.
*
Who would have thought that we would evict American citizens from their homes and destroy everything they owned. Not just the Japanese internment camps in WWII, but the Missouri farmers near the Kansas border, who were thought to have a high probability of aiding guerrilla fighters. Martial law? During the War Of Northern Aggression. Gun control started to keep newly free blacks from owning a firearm. Massive currency devaluation has a long history, starting at the Revolutionary War with the Continental and not ending with the FDR gold heist and 40% ( or so ) loss from gold repricing. People debate whether our soldiers will fire on civilians rebelling. Of course they will. They did it in 1861. Not to mention the Whisky Rebellion. Here you are, a veteran that fought for independence. Naively thinking you fought for freedom you object to paying a heavy whisky tax. The cost of transporting your grain crop is prohibitive, the only way you can make enough of a profit to survive is to turn it into liquor. But the new royalty, the rich few that provoked you into fighting so they could be the new masters, they object to your objection and send in the entire federal army to suppress you. And this just after we gained our freedoms. But nobody took the lesson to heart.
*
I could go on and on about our supposedly free system oppressing the people. But other writers have done that much better than I ever could. You just need to keep in mind that whatever you plan for, from a short natural disaster to a full blown collapse, you need to be on full battle stations three alarm alert for government oppression. They will screw you over at every opportunity. From screwing you over with your home, or your kids, or your bank account or your retirement or your medical care, you will get screwed over. I had the misfortune of watching an episode of Law And Order last night. Much ado was made of the VA hospitals being in deplorable condition. The prosecutor dude was all miffed. How dare you do that to our heroes! This is the same guy that will send you to jail where you are butt humped, get AIDS and die before you get released, all for a victimless crime of using drugs. You can’t even see what an evil minion he is. The whole system is evil. Our soldiers, who’s only job should be to protect our nation from attack, are sent over and put into harms way to protect the oil. They think they are protecting freedom, bless them. But the government uses them, abuses them and then throws them away. And we are shocked?
*
We kill people for wanting to home school their kids and for not wanting to pay taxes to run an Empire. They kill kids, burn them to crispy critters to divide and conquer and instill fear in the populace. These are not nice people, expect the worse from them.
END
Buy Now!! www.bisonpress.com e-books, Amazon books and gear
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Monday, July 30, 2007
u.s., not global collapse
U.S., NOT GLOBAL COLLAPSE
Because we are Americans and tend to look down our noses at everybody else, we might be a smidge blind to global realities. I mean, who can blame us? The British still can’t keep beer cold, years after the refrigerator came along. The French still have illusions of grandeur after over a hundred years of being an also-ran. The Russians are so paranoid they watch not only each other but also themselves. The Chinese are always squinting, even on cloudy days. And they eat monkey brains. The Australians won’t come in out of the sun, Latinos have that whole machismo thing getting in their way. And the Canadians have too much Tory blood in them. Who didn’t I offend?
*
Americans are far from perfect, don’t get me wrong. We had everything pretty much handed to us on a silver platter and we totally blew it. There couldn’t have ever been a nation better blessed with natural resources and the least government oppression ever ( outside of a few tribes scattered throughout history, so they really don’t count ). We got our independence just as Adam Smith gave voice to the Industrial Revolution economic handbook. It took over one hundred and seventy-five years to use it all up, and we pretty much don’t have anything to show for it other than a few good stories. And a conceit that will not serve us well.
*
It’s just fine and dandy to strut around like the cock of the walk, proclaiming to one and all what a great guy you are. Tribal identity and sureness of superiority are needed to work and fight against outsiders. The trouble starts when we begin to believe our own hype. If you can’t be honest with ourselves we are blind to our weaknesses and vulnerabilities. And are we ever blind. The latest fiction we tell ourselves is that we might not have anymore manufacturing capability left, but we are the consumer of the world and all the other producing nations need us as their customer. At one time this might have been true. Although one could argue that the time where others gave up profit to gain market share are long past. Now other nations control the market share for almost all goods. Computer chips, clothing, cars, produce, processed foods. Lumber, paper goods, especially oil.
*
Did you forget about oil? We are at the mercy of the exporting nations for our oil. Which brings me to my point today. Oil is energy, energy is power and control and economic superiority and life itself. If in fact the global oil supply is contracting, if you were a foreign leader, what would be the easiest way to slow down the use for oil in order to keep the supply lasting a lot longer? How about keeping the US from getting it? We use so much darn oil that if we stopped importing it the rest of the world would get another twenty five percent to use. And the rest of the world is much more efficient than we are using that oil. We fill up our SUV’s, drive down to the beach and go puttering around in boats. Everyone else uses public transportation. We use a lot of oil getting meat on every table and in every barbeque. Most other countries raise meat more efficiently ( I could get into the whole thing with free range feed, but I think generally we can say we tend to stick with grain fed to get a better, more expensive product ).
*
Don’t misunderstand me. I love the ideal way of life, driving everywhere and eating beef every night with the po’ boys eating chicken and taking the bus. But in a world of Peak Oil, I can’t help but start to sound like a Hippie, long hair Commie freak trying to turn everyone into a tofu eater, taking the city bus to the next love-in where we all chant over crystals trying to realign the cosmic forces towards peace and harmony. Let’s face it, the only good thing to come out of the Summer Of Love was the music and the free love part ( assuming you were stoned enough to forget she smelled from lack of a bath, had underarm hair and was a complete moron ). But as energy starts to get scarce, it only makes sense to re-embrace a less wasteful life style. We don’t have to like it, just learn to live with it.
*
So, wouldn’t it be in the best interest of others to deny us their oil? I think the key will be the Saudis. If Saudi Arabia erupts into chaos, if the royal family loses power, our key supply from overseas is in jeopardy. All of our other sources are losing ground. Mexico, Canada, Venezuela, North Sea, Alaska. The Gulf of Mexico ( the Chinese need for steel and the Saudis desperate oil derrick building to slow the decreased flow means we can’t economically rebuild after Katrina ). The Iranians are not the only ones benefiting from our occupation of Iraq. Saudi Arabia needs us close to protect them. Not that it will do much good in the long run. They are a powder keg over there. Either one. Either we attack the Iranians to save our economy with full scale war or something will happen in Saudi Arabia. Then the oil is disrupted, and it becomes a mad scramble to secure oil for most other countries.
*
The two countries in the best economic shape to secure the oil will be Japan and China. And they are our two principle buyers of debt. They stop buying our debt as the oil supplies are disrupted by war or oil field/processing plant destruction. Our economy can’t take a huge price hike for oil ( a hundred percent upswing in the last six years is peanuts, a result of inflation ) and a loss of public debt purchases. We really start to hyperinflate then, to pay the bills. The economy goes into the toilet. Big time. If we can’t control the world militarily and force a dollar standard on others ( a process already unraveling ) then our economy is finished. Outside Hollywood movies and exporting scrap waste, we have little to offer. We have been more dependant than ever on others feeding us also. Of course, enough illegal immigrants to give us a population of about 320 million would have nothing to do with that.
*
I would speculate that our own bankers, politicians and corporations might deliberately induce a economic downturn in order to get rich and get more control as they did in the Great Depression, but we are no longer have anything other than fictional wealth in the form of paper assets. So I doubt it. It could happen, but what would they get? Overpriced homes and skimpy retirement accounts. It would seem they would prefer a “sort-a” working economy and keep us in perpetual lifetime debt to the company store. My bet is on the foreigners. At the first opportunity they will gang up on us and take back their oil, and sustain themselves a lot longer on it than we ever could. It ain’t about driving from the suburbs to work. We are too car-centric. It is about growing food and staying warm in winter. Others will surely fight us for that.
END
www.bisonpress.com for e-books, Amazon books and gear
Because we are Americans and tend to look down our noses at everybody else, we might be a smidge blind to global realities. I mean, who can blame us? The British still can’t keep beer cold, years after the refrigerator came along. The French still have illusions of grandeur after over a hundred years of being an also-ran. The Russians are so paranoid they watch not only each other but also themselves. The Chinese are always squinting, even on cloudy days. And they eat monkey brains. The Australians won’t come in out of the sun, Latinos have that whole machismo thing getting in their way. And the Canadians have too much Tory blood in them. Who didn’t I offend?
*
Americans are far from perfect, don’t get me wrong. We had everything pretty much handed to us on a silver platter and we totally blew it. There couldn’t have ever been a nation better blessed with natural resources and the least government oppression ever ( outside of a few tribes scattered throughout history, so they really don’t count ). We got our independence just as Adam Smith gave voice to the Industrial Revolution economic handbook. It took over one hundred and seventy-five years to use it all up, and we pretty much don’t have anything to show for it other than a few good stories. And a conceit that will not serve us well.
*
It’s just fine and dandy to strut around like the cock of the walk, proclaiming to one and all what a great guy you are. Tribal identity and sureness of superiority are needed to work and fight against outsiders. The trouble starts when we begin to believe our own hype. If you can’t be honest with ourselves we are blind to our weaknesses and vulnerabilities. And are we ever blind. The latest fiction we tell ourselves is that we might not have anymore manufacturing capability left, but we are the consumer of the world and all the other producing nations need us as their customer. At one time this might have been true. Although one could argue that the time where others gave up profit to gain market share are long past. Now other nations control the market share for almost all goods. Computer chips, clothing, cars, produce, processed foods. Lumber, paper goods, especially oil.
*
Did you forget about oil? We are at the mercy of the exporting nations for our oil. Which brings me to my point today. Oil is energy, energy is power and control and economic superiority and life itself. If in fact the global oil supply is contracting, if you were a foreign leader, what would be the easiest way to slow down the use for oil in order to keep the supply lasting a lot longer? How about keeping the US from getting it? We use so much darn oil that if we stopped importing it the rest of the world would get another twenty five percent to use. And the rest of the world is much more efficient than we are using that oil. We fill up our SUV’s, drive down to the beach and go puttering around in boats. Everyone else uses public transportation. We use a lot of oil getting meat on every table and in every barbeque. Most other countries raise meat more efficiently ( I could get into the whole thing with free range feed, but I think generally we can say we tend to stick with grain fed to get a better, more expensive product ).
*
Don’t misunderstand me. I love the ideal way of life, driving everywhere and eating beef every night with the po’ boys eating chicken and taking the bus. But in a world of Peak Oil, I can’t help but start to sound like a Hippie, long hair Commie freak trying to turn everyone into a tofu eater, taking the city bus to the next love-in where we all chant over crystals trying to realign the cosmic forces towards peace and harmony. Let’s face it, the only good thing to come out of the Summer Of Love was the music and the free love part ( assuming you were stoned enough to forget she smelled from lack of a bath, had underarm hair and was a complete moron ). But as energy starts to get scarce, it only makes sense to re-embrace a less wasteful life style. We don’t have to like it, just learn to live with it.
*
So, wouldn’t it be in the best interest of others to deny us their oil? I think the key will be the Saudis. If Saudi Arabia erupts into chaos, if the royal family loses power, our key supply from overseas is in jeopardy. All of our other sources are losing ground. Mexico, Canada, Venezuela, North Sea, Alaska. The Gulf of Mexico ( the Chinese need for steel and the Saudis desperate oil derrick building to slow the decreased flow means we can’t economically rebuild after Katrina ). The Iranians are not the only ones benefiting from our occupation of Iraq. Saudi Arabia needs us close to protect them. Not that it will do much good in the long run. They are a powder keg over there. Either one. Either we attack the Iranians to save our economy with full scale war or something will happen in Saudi Arabia. Then the oil is disrupted, and it becomes a mad scramble to secure oil for most other countries.
*
The two countries in the best economic shape to secure the oil will be Japan and China. And they are our two principle buyers of debt. They stop buying our debt as the oil supplies are disrupted by war or oil field/processing plant destruction. Our economy can’t take a huge price hike for oil ( a hundred percent upswing in the last six years is peanuts, a result of inflation ) and a loss of public debt purchases. We really start to hyperinflate then, to pay the bills. The economy goes into the toilet. Big time. If we can’t control the world militarily and force a dollar standard on others ( a process already unraveling ) then our economy is finished. Outside Hollywood movies and exporting scrap waste, we have little to offer. We have been more dependant than ever on others feeding us also. Of course, enough illegal immigrants to give us a population of about 320 million would have nothing to do with that.
*
I would speculate that our own bankers, politicians and corporations might deliberately induce a economic downturn in order to get rich and get more control as they did in the Great Depression, but we are no longer have anything other than fictional wealth in the form of paper assets. So I doubt it. It could happen, but what would they get? Overpriced homes and skimpy retirement accounts. It would seem they would prefer a “sort-a” working economy and keep us in perpetual lifetime debt to the company store. My bet is on the foreigners. At the first opportunity they will gang up on us and take back their oil, and sustain themselves a lot longer on it than we ever could. It ain’t about driving from the suburbs to work. We are too car-centric. It is about growing food and staying warm in winter. Others will surely fight us for that.
END
www.bisonpress.com for e-books, Amazon books and gear
Saturday, July 28, 2007
prepping with credit 2
CREDIT CARDS FOR PREPPING 2
Well, that will teach me to go off half cocked with the newest and greatest idea. For three days I tried my new schedule for writing e-books and it turned from a wonderful and tasty idea into a stinky putrid mess ( kind of like our government but on a much faster timeline ). My brain was overtaxed, I started getting cramps in my wrist and my tendons got sore, my book and my blog articles started to really suck. I’m sure I’ll try again, but I need to be at peace that for now it is an either/or deal. Doing both is not possible on my work schedule. So please forgive the last few days postings. I was embarrassed reading back over them. I might always be hard pressed to come up with newer and better, but at least if I am writing about an “old hat” subject I should be able to write them well. I’m going back to my old length of writing each article, one and a quarter to two pages.
*
Part of the reasoning here was that in the comments section there were ideas presented that I should have caught the first time around. But I was in too much of a hurry and cut the length too short. One good thing about longer articles is you are forced to think of more aspects of a subject. I was throwing in one aspect and calling it good. But the writers had good points I failed to cover. Credit card debt is unsecured debt, for one thing. I thank you for that, as well as for not mocking me for that slip up. Being in debt for a house can be great. In a stable economy you can beat the inflation game and come out ahead by not paying rent. Being tied down is not such a bad thing. In a dysfunctional economy being in debt for a mortgage for thirty years can be close to financial suicide. Yes, you come out ahead during worsening inflation. But the bad part is if you lose your job. And I think even those of you totally ignoring any economic news could admit that in today’s society there is absolutely no job security left. Nine times out of ten you trade down in benefits and wages after lay-offs instituted because of idiotic management.
*
Being in debt to credit cards in a stable economy is usually a bad idea. Consumer goods prices go down over time so buying on credit means you might overpay, as well as paying a high interest on it. In a dysfunctional economy it might make sense to use credit cards. As a reader pointed out ( was it the same one?- too lazy to go look ), the inflation rate on prepper items is higher right now than the interest on a credit card. Wheat, ammo, heck, even oil are at more than twenty two percent price inflation annually. Gold and silver perhaps, but if not now, soon ( I suspect banker manipulation is at work here, which would somewhat explain how the last guy that sold all of his countries gold at rock bottom prices is now the prime minister ). Just this morning wheat prices on the commodities market jumped from low $6 to $6.50. I realize it will gyrate all over the place, but a high like that speaks shortages to me. Enough to scare you into breaking out the plastic for stocking up.
*
In a few places that won’t take plastic, just get a cash advance. Although the penalties usually forbid it. Elsewhere, set your limit and start charging. You can go to the Internet and have a field day ordering prep item ( although most are toys, especially on my affiliates page ). Wal-Mart can supply all you want even if many items are poor substitutes ( such as their water filters which are crap- I found out the hard way ). Get out a piece of paper and sharpen up your pencil with Snoopy and other Peanuts characters. Make a list of essentials. Bare bones. Food, water, defense, shelter ( focusing on clothes, mainly- you can’t afford a bomb shelter ). Now buy the cheapest of each. If Wal-Mart is having a sale on hunting shells and you always wanted a shotgun, go for it ( assuming dense vegetation area ). A bolt action is preferred to a shotgun, a semi-auto to a bolt, but go with what is cheap and you will be comfortable with. Instead of wheat, if you prefer rice and beans, go with that. Saves on the grinder, if you really need to conserve assets. Your list, what makes you comfy. I think in these pages I have listed most options for most things. There is no right answer, and you are the one getting into debt with a 20% interest rate. Make sure you will be happy with it.
*
And no matter what you do, don’t exceed your ability to repay. Chances are good we will outlive the bankers if we prep, but they are like cockroaches and can’t be counted out too early. We could see another twenty years of “normalcy”.
*
One good thing about credit cards is that they are easier to walk away from. I’m not talking about just stopping payment, I’m talking about abandoning the house and moving out to your Aunts home when the Arabs bomb New York City with a nuke ( with all the hubbub going on in Pakistan, during a coup would be a good time to “lose” a number of bombs as happened with the Soviet Union- ten to one the new KGB sold them to patsies to use against us ) and your companies national headquarters goes up in smoke, along with the whole economy. Your house might be a contested item later but no one will care about credit card bills. If national unemployment becomes high, you will give up homes and cars, but chances are good no one will bother you about the unsecured debt.
*
The high price increases of prep items is scary. I covered that before, but failed to even think about comparing them to the credit card interest. A great call by a loyal minion. You could even take out money against your home if you are so deep into debt on it that a disaster anytime soon will see you lose it ( weighing the risks of legal liability for either the difference or the IRS taxable amount ). You need that trailer and junk piece of land, however. And lots of stocked grain and beans since most junk land won’t grow much but weeds ( from lack of water if nothing else ). If it is cheaper to get into debt than to wait to purchase, go for it. Few of us can afford cash. Most of us are in debt. Do what needs to be done NOW. Not later. Using a credit card might be the least of the evils. Starving with a perfect credit score is not the way to go.
*
Thank you for everyone that helped with this. Thank you for putting up with my dips into mediocrity. I’ll strive to improve.
END
An unusually great catalog this time, but a super screaming bargain is the solar battery charger at only $13. Item number 5-2930 at www.majorsurplus.com
My stuff is at www.bisonpress.com
Well, that will teach me to go off half cocked with the newest and greatest idea. For three days I tried my new schedule for writing e-books and it turned from a wonderful and tasty idea into a stinky putrid mess ( kind of like our government but on a much faster timeline ). My brain was overtaxed, I started getting cramps in my wrist and my tendons got sore, my book and my blog articles started to really suck. I’m sure I’ll try again, but I need to be at peace that for now it is an either/or deal. Doing both is not possible on my work schedule. So please forgive the last few days postings. I was embarrassed reading back over them. I might always be hard pressed to come up with newer and better, but at least if I am writing about an “old hat” subject I should be able to write them well. I’m going back to my old length of writing each article, one and a quarter to two pages.
*
Part of the reasoning here was that in the comments section there were ideas presented that I should have caught the first time around. But I was in too much of a hurry and cut the length too short. One good thing about longer articles is you are forced to think of more aspects of a subject. I was throwing in one aspect and calling it good. But the writers had good points I failed to cover. Credit card debt is unsecured debt, for one thing. I thank you for that, as well as for not mocking me for that slip up. Being in debt for a house can be great. In a stable economy you can beat the inflation game and come out ahead by not paying rent. Being tied down is not such a bad thing. In a dysfunctional economy being in debt for a mortgage for thirty years can be close to financial suicide. Yes, you come out ahead during worsening inflation. But the bad part is if you lose your job. And I think even those of you totally ignoring any economic news could admit that in today’s society there is absolutely no job security left. Nine times out of ten you trade down in benefits and wages after lay-offs instituted because of idiotic management.
*
Being in debt to credit cards in a stable economy is usually a bad idea. Consumer goods prices go down over time so buying on credit means you might overpay, as well as paying a high interest on it. In a dysfunctional economy it might make sense to use credit cards. As a reader pointed out ( was it the same one?- too lazy to go look ), the inflation rate on prepper items is higher right now than the interest on a credit card. Wheat, ammo, heck, even oil are at more than twenty two percent price inflation annually. Gold and silver perhaps, but if not now, soon ( I suspect banker manipulation is at work here, which would somewhat explain how the last guy that sold all of his countries gold at rock bottom prices is now the prime minister ). Just this morning wheat prices on the commodities market jumped from low $6 to $6.50. I realize it will gyrate all over the place, but a high like that speaks shortages to me. Enough to scare you into breaking out the plastic for stocking up.
*
In a few places that won’t take plastic, just get a cash advance. Although the penalties usually forbid it. Elsewhere, set your limit and start charging. You can go to the Internet and have a field day ordering prep item ( although most are toys, especially on my affiliates page ). Wal-Mart can supply all you want even if many items are poor substitutes ( such as their water filters which are crap- I found out the hard way ). Get out a piece of paper and sharpen up your pencil with Snoopy and other Peanuts characters. Make a list of essentials. Bare bones. Food, water, defense, shelter ( focusing on clothes, mainly- you can’t afford a bomb shelter ). Now buy the cheapest of each. If Wal-Mart is having a sale on hunting shells and you always wanted a shotgun, go for it ( assuming dense vegetation area ). A bolt action is preferred to a shotgun, a semi-auto to a bolt, but go with what is cheap and you will be comfortable with. Instead of wheat, if you prefer rice and beans, go with that. Saves on the grinder, if you really need to conserve assets. Your list, what makes you comfy. I think in these pages I have listed most options for most things. There is no right answer, and you are the one getting into debt with a 20% interest rate. Make sure you will be happy with it.
*
And no matter what you do, don’t exceed your ability to repay. Chances are good we will outlive the bankers if we prep, but they are like cockroaches and can’t be counted out too early. We could see another twenty years of “normalcy”.
*
One good thing about credit cards is that they are easier to walk away from. I’m not talking about just stopping payment, I’m talking about abandoning the house and moving out to your Aunts home when the Arabs bomb New York City with a nuke ( with all the hubbub going on in Pakistan, during a coup would be a good time to “lose” a number of bombs as happened with the Soviet Union- ten to one the new KGB sold them to patsies to use against us ) and your companies national headquarters goes up in smoke, along with the whole economy. Your house might be a contested item later but no one will care about credit card bills. If national unemployment becomes high, you will give up homes and cars, but chances are good no one will bother you about the unsecured debt.
*
The high price increases of prep items is scary. I covered that before, but failed to even think about comparing them to the credit card interest. A great call by a loyal minion. You could even take out money against your home if you are so deep into debt on it that a disaster anytime soon will see you lose it ( weighing the risks of legal liability for either the difference or the IRS taxable amount ). You need that trailer and junk piece of land, however. And lots of stocked grain and beans since most junk land won’t grow much but weeds ( from lack of water if nothing else ). If it is cheaper to get into debt than to wait to purchase, go for it. Few of us can afford cash. Most of us are in debt. Do what needs to be done NOW. Not later. Using a credit card might be the least of the evils. Starving with a perfect credit score is not the way to go.
*
Thank you for everyone that helped with this. Thank you for putting up with my dips into mediocrity. I’ll strive to improve.
END
An unusually great catalog this time, but a super screaming bargain is the solar battery charger at only $13. Item number 5-2930 at www.majorsurplus.com
My stuff is at www.bisonpress.com
Friday, July 27, 2007
copper mining
COPPER MINING
A week or two ago I’m reading the local fish wrap and I almost beshat myself with mirth. Some stupid jag off kills himself copper mining. Poor old misunderstood undereducated because the schools are without proper funding at ten thousand bucks a year per pupil, snubbed by society, nothing is his fault because he was trying to provide for his family ( which he doesn’t live with so they can be on welfare ), discriminated against type individual fries himself when he goes to steal copper that is still hooked up to power. You can’t make this kind of stuff up. Hell, I didn’t even have to read the comics that day I was so friggin entertained. The idiot wasted a lot of our oxygen over the years so thank goodness he is gone. At the time the paper was all teary eyed and doe faced over one of our beleaguered brethren suffering from an unequal economic system where due to our un-evolved Neanderthal types thinking they need a profit motive to get then out of bed in the morning and produce something to be taxed to support our needy poorly understood down trodden the underclass is discriminated against.
*
The writer obviously was under tremendous sorrow, almost but not quite to the point of donating some of his own money instead of our own to this worthy endeavor. He quickly got hold of himself, and now, composed and once again fearless in his Liberal quest, he went on to describe how this unfortunates charred body was found with bolt cutters and a police scanner. That really sounds like a guy driven to desperation to feed his family, since he had the foresight to stay one step ahead of the police. Well, evidently the word has gotten down to the political trolls in the newsroom that some serious profits are at risk, so the tone has now changed totally. Now the people mining copper from construction sites or power stations/lines are scum of the earth drug sodden desperadoes. The picture this morning showed a mug shot of a true degenerate, no comb or soap or toothpaste ever crossed his path. The Truckee area around the California side of the border is experiencing losses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
*
This is not the act of desperate folks feeding their families. It is idiots needing a fix on the one hand and organized rings on the other. They have trucks with power company logos on them and fake uniforms. Years ago steel manhole covers were shipped over to China, but now the big money is over in copper. How much do you want to bet we are going to see telephone and power disruptions in remote areas as this continues. All because, basically, we are encouraging China to build cities to support armies of factory workers to feed our ravenous appetites for more needless junk. Yes, it bespeaks of a crumbling society. But that is secondary.
*
You too can get into the copper game. Collect pre-1982 pennies. The copper content in each one is currently two cents. Get the kids involved, their sharp eyes can check the dates on pennies. A lot easier than collecting aluminum cans, worth only a cent. Copper pennies should not be melted for scrap, that’s illegal. But save them up for trade, especially post-Collapse. Much cheaper than buying silver bullion. Metal prices are only going to go up. Both due to energy costs increasing and supply shortages. Plus inflation. Put the kids to work now. If they won’t do it take away the video game. They think they hate this, just wait for sty mucking. Ah, the early stages of runaway inflation.
END
www.bisonpress.com for e-books, Amazon books and prep items
A week or two ago I’m reading the local fish wrap and I almost beshat myself with mirth. Some stupid jag off kills himself copper mining. Poor old misunderstood undereducated because the schools are without proper funding at ten thousand bucks a year per pupil, snubbed by society, nothing is his fault because he was trying to provide for his family ( which he doesn’t live with so they can be on welfare ), discriminated against type individual fries himself when he goes to steal copper that is still hooked up to power. You can’t make this kind of stuff up. Hell, I didn’t even have to read the comics that day I was so friggin entertained. The idiot wasted a lot of our oxygen over the years so thank goodness he is gone. At the time the paper was all teary eyed and doe faced over one of our beleaguered brethren suffering from an unequal economic system where due to our un-evolved Neanderthal types thinking they need a profit motive to get then out of bed in the morning and produce something to be taxed to support our needy poorly understood down trodden the underclass is discriminated against.
*
The writer obviously was under tremendous sorrow, almost but not quite to the point of donating some of his own money instead of our own to this worthy endeavor. He quickly got hold of himself, and now, composed and once again fearless in his Liberal quest, he went on to describe how this unfortunates charred body was found with bolt cutters and a police scanner. That really sounds like a guy driven to desperation to feed his family, since he had the foresight to stay one step ahead of the police. Well, evidently the word has gotten down to the political trolls in the newsroom that some serious profits are at risk, so the tone has now changed totally. Now the people mining copper from construction sites or power stations/lines are scum of the earth drug sodden desperadoes. The picture this morning showed a mug shot of a true degenerate, no comb or soap or toothpaste ever crossed his path. The Truckee area around the California side of the border is experiencing losses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
*
This is not the act of desperate folks feeding their families. It is idiots needing a fix on the one hand and organized rings on the other. They have trucks with power company logos on them and fake uniforms. Years ago steel manhole covers were shipped over to China, but now the big money is over in copper. How much do you want to bet we are going to see telephone and power disruptions in remote areas as this continues. All because, basically, we are encouraging China to build cities to support armies of factory workers to feed our ravenous appetites for more needless junk. Yes, it bespeaks of a crumbling society. But that is secondary.
*
You too can get into the copper game. Collect pre-1982 pennies. The copper content in each one is currently two cents. Get the kids involved, their sharp eyes can check the dates on pennies. A lot easier than collecting aluminum cans, worth only a cent. Copper pennies should not be melted for scrap, that’s illegal. But save them up for trade, especially post-Collapse. Much cheaper than buying silver bullion. Metal prices are only going to go up. Both due to energy costs increasing and supply shortages. Plus inflation. Put the kids to work now. If they won’t do it take away the video game. They think they hate this, just wait for sty mucking. Ah, the early stages of runaway inflation.
END
www.bisonpress.com for e-books, Amazon books and prep items
Thursday, July 26, 2007
prepping with credit cards
PREPPING WITH CREDIT CARDS
Before we start today, a quick detour into the unstable murky depths of my thought process. I have been like a mad alchemists, pouring over potion tables, mixing extract of frog tongue with morning dew of toadstool, trying to turn turds into gold. Over many years I have started, stopped, started again, changed format, switched from profit to non-profit to donations, trying to reach the masses with my pearls of wisdom and perhaps one day making enough each and every month to support me in a genteel poverty living in the wilds in a trailer. I think I have stumbled onto a winning formula with my daily blog, but still I feel the need to tweak it, to always change and experiment. So let’s try this. Instead of writing a minimum of a page and a quarter up to two pages for each article ( 600-1000 words ), let me cut it down to one page, 500 words. I want to still keep the humor going, the sense of banter and fun, but I also want to free some effort towards putting out some more e-books. Perhaps put some more Chicken Little issues out with them. Booklets, full size books, novels, even novelettes. Whatever, I’m not sure yet. But I feel like I have hit a rut, my original articles are fewer and farther apart. More of same subject just rewritten.
*
If you don’t like the change, let me know. I don’t want to get too short. I think a visit to a blog should leave a full, heavy feeling like a visit to the greasy spoon, not a small healthy snack that doesn’t fill you up. But if you feel a page is too little, let me know and I’ll rethink the whole thing. I think some of you prefer the old weekly newsletter of in-depth five or six pages on one subject, but I don’t know if I want to do that again. Unless I get an overwhelming response. Let me know, so you can enjoy this blog ( I already know what my critics think, but I’m not ceasing publication ). Unlike in real politics, here your vote counts. Today’s article was inspired by a royal minion making a comment in the comment section ( duh, where else? ). I bow in your general direction, tip my plastic hardhat with rotating emergency light. Thanks. I’m sure I have mentioned this before, but what the heck, the new victims here might like it.
*
If you go to my old web page ( due to expire, crash and burn in a month ) www.bisonnewsletter.com you will find my original article on survival preps under $500. The figure might be a bit higher now, what with inflation and all, but close enough. If you were giddy at the thought of supporting Bison you could buy the e-book version ( much expanded ) or the paper version ( although I make a better profit on the e-book ). Just follow the links at www.bisonpress.com . If you fully embrace the Better Than Nothing philosophy that I have been trying to push on your malleable psyches, trying to undo the Scientology programming Tom Cruise talked you into, you can easily get all your preps under $500. Granted, it will be more with an actual family. They insist on eating too. But if you can stop saying, I must have the proper tool and instead say, I will take whatever I can get to somehow get the job done, you can cheaply prep for everyone. The figures given was a monthly payment on a $500 cash withdrawal of $25 ( assuming 22% interest ). Who can’t afford that? Even if you go with a grand, you could cut one expense and not notice the payment. If you cut out cable and installed an outdoor antenna you could borrow up to $1500 and still have the same budget.
*
I hate being in debt, and you should too. You should get out and never return. Get rid of the house and make $100 payment on an acre in Elko Nevada. Live in an trailer you bought cheap. You could have all of your prep items and make land payments for no more than $200 a month. If you can’t do it any other way, getting preps on credit is okay as long as you do it as cheap as possible. The alternative is having no prep items as we crash. But of course, get into debt with the understanding that, just as easily, we could slow collapse and you will need to pay it all back. Nothing is certain, nothing is in stone. Always plan on as many contingences as possible.
*
If you must get into debt, cash out $1500. For $500 to a grand, buy a used travel trailer. Prep items with the rest. Wheat, grinder, water filter, bolt action rifle and ammo. Now start making land payments. $200 a month covers a place to live and emergency supplies. Crap land, crap supplies. But it is better than nothing to cover a wide range of emergencies. Far better to do it all with cash, perhaps with savings, selling unneeded items and a tax return combined. But if you feel a sense of urgency, use the credit and then pay it back as fast as possible. Myself, I would go into debt if needed. Better debt and supplies than no debt and no supplies.
END
Before we start today, a quick detour into the unstable murky depths of my thought process. I have been like a mad alchemists, pouring over potion tables, mixing extract of frog tongue with morning dew of toadstool, trying to turn turds into gold. Over many years I have started, stopped, started again, changed format, switched from profit to non-profit to donations, trying to reach the masses with my pearls of wisdom and perhaps one day making enough each and every month to support me in a genteel poverty living in the wilds in a trailer. I think I have stumbled onto a winning formula with my daily blog, but still I feel the need to tweak it, to always change and experiment. So let’s try this. Instead of writing a minimum of a page and a quarter up to two pages for each article ( 600-1000 words ), let me cut it down to one page, 500 words. I want to still keep the humor going, the sense of banter and fun, but I also want to free some effort towards putting out some more e-books. Perhaps put some more Chicken Little issues out with them. Booklets, full size books, novels, even novelettes. Whatever, I’m not sure yet. But I feel like I have hit a rut, my original articles are fewer and farther apart. More of same subject just rewritten.
*
If you don’t like the change, let me know. I don’t want to get too short. I think a visit to a blog should leave a full, heavy feeling like a visit to the greasy spoon, not a small healthy snack that doesn’t fill you up. But if you feel a page is too little, let me know and I’ll rethink the whole thing. I think some of you prefer the old weekly newsletter of in-depth five or six pages on one subject, but I don’t know if I want to do that again. Unless I get an overwhelming response. Let me know, so you can enjoy this blog ( I already know what my critics think, but I’m not ceasing publication ). Unlike in real politics, here your vote counts. Today’s article was inspired by a royal minion making a comment in the comment section ( duh, where else? ). I bow in your general direction, tip my plastic hardhat with rotating emergency light. Thanks. I’m sure I have mentioned this before, but what the heck, the new victims here might like it.
*
If you go to my old web page ( due to expire, crash and burn in a month ) www.bisonnewsletter.com you will find my original article on survival preps under $500. The figure might be a bit higher now, what with inflation and all, but close enough. If you were giddy at the thought of supporting Bison you could buy the e-book version ( much expanded ) or the paper version ( although I make a better profit on the e-book ). Just follow the links at www.bisonpress.com . If you fully embrace the Better Than Nothing philosophy that I have been trying to push on your malleable psyches, trying to undo the Scientology programming Tom Cruise talked you into, you can easily get all your preps under $500. Granted, it will be more with an actual family. They insist on eating too. But if you can stop saying, I must have the proper tool and instead say, I will take whatever I can get to somehow get the job done, you can cheaply prep for everyone. The figures given was a monthly payment on a $500 cash withdrawal of $25 ( assuming 22% interest ). Who can’t afford that? Even if you go with a grand, you could cut one expense and not notice the payment. If you cut out cable and installed an outdoor antenna you could borrow up to $1500 and still have the same budget.
*
I hate being in debt, and you should too. You should get out and never return. Get rid of the house and make $100 payment on an acre in Elko Nevada. Live in an trailer you bought cheap. You could have all of your prep items and make land payments for no more than $200 a month. If you can’t do it any other way, getting preps on credit is okay as long as you do it as cheap as possible. The alternative is having no prep items as we crash. But of course, get into debt with the understanding that, just as easily, we could slow collapse and you will need to pay it all back. Nothing is certain, nothing is in stone. Always plan on as many contingences as possible.
*
If you must get into debt, cash out $1500. For $500 to a grand, buy a used travel trailer. Prep items with the rest. Wheat, grinder, water filter, bolt action rifle and ammo. Now start making land payments. $200 a month covers a place to live and emergency supplies. Crap land, crap supplies. But it is better than nothing to cover a wide range of emergencies. Far better to do it all with cash, perhaps with savings, selling unneeded items and a tax return combined. But if you feel a sense of urgency, use the credit and then pay it back as fast as possible. Myself, I would go into debt if needed. Better debt and supplies than no debt and no supplies.
END
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
precious metals
PRECIOUS METAL USE
As I opened the paper this morning, weeping that live trees had been senselessly murdered to provide the sheeple with this utterly worthless drivel that passes for news ( at least the paper at work is shared by everyone and cuts back on the waste of us all getting our own copy ), I threw up my arms in joy and almost shed a tear of happiness. Oh, thank you massa! Thank you so much! I promise, I’ll be a good house slave now. A fifteen percent wage increase! Why, that’s one and a half percent increase a year!! Us po old trash get paid one third the rate of inflation. Why, think of it. We almost get half as much of an annual cost of living increase as those folks on geriatric welfare that don’t work at all and paid a heck of a lot less in taxes than we are. I would be embarrassed to take credit for passing the minimum wage hike after ten years. Look, I hate the welfare state. Minimum wage should not even exist. But as long as we have corporations buying and selling politicians, it is one of the few tools those on the lower end of the pay scale have of not ending up like a third world peasant digging through trash heaps to eat. A necessary evil in our present form of government.
*
But if you are going to have a minimum wage, at least try to make it look like it is keeping track with inflation. Which the politicians allow to happen because they saw what happened to Kennedy who probably wasn’t even serious but made the mistake of trying to win votes by threatening to abolish the monopoly of the Fed bank by transferring control of currency creation back to the government. The private entities that own the Fed were so pissed that he even brought the matter into the public light that they hired a few Mafiosi and gave them a Magic Bullet, just to make sure they didn’t miss. So the last person to oppose the debasement of the currency is going to be your Congressmen. If he did, he would be lucky that the best thing that happened to him would be PhotoShopped pictures of him molesting the party mascot. The worst would be going in for a colonoscopy and in three weeks learning his insides were glowing with radioactive waste and he had thirty days to live.
*
And that is why you need to hoard precious metal. Not because it will feed you. In starvation periods, a bushel of beans will not be traded for a gold coin. A gold coin will not protect you as well as a rifle and a few boxes of ammunition. What precious metals do is to preserve your wealth. Inflation can’t touch silver or gold. Silver and gold laugh at the feeble efforts of paper currency to bother them in the slightest. I realize that most of the time I am all hot and bothered about the newest and latest threat which will befall us. Whether zombies are unleashed upon us by the US Army Biological Lab, or Bush grows a short mustache and decides to cancel the next election for lack of interest, or Hillary and the CIA abolish the Constitution and install a Peoples Republic Of Democratic Political Correctness ( It’s For The Children! ), or perhaps Iran decides that nuclear armed ship mines would look really cool when they detonated in the Straights of Hormuz, whatever. I am always screaming like a little schoolgirl that the sky is falling. But there is an equal chance that a slow collapse will instead take place and you must survive in our present money economy instead of taking off to a mountain retreat and ambushing passing wagon trains to renew your harem.
*
It things only slowly get worse instead of crashing, you will need to preserve your purchasing power. If you don’t one day as you are old and gray and Social Security has been canceled and medical care is only available to millionaires you will find yourself old, gray and homeless. Just inflated property taxes alone can screw up your financial plans. Inflation is increasing, our purchasing power is decreasing. You need a debt free home ( not necessarily a house ), stockpiled food, a level of security. But if you can swing it at all, a small nest egg of precious metal can come in really handy to have an inflation proof saving account. Few of us can afford gold, but silver is still seriously under priced, even now at $13 an once. If you buy one ounce a payday you will be out $33 to $66 a month ( bullion price plus commission plus sales tax ). This is your Better Than Nothing savings account.
*
You can spend less by buying junk silver, the pre-65 coins. But then you will never have much of a stockpile. Just as you can never have enough ammunition, or wheat, or SMLE rifles, it is hard to have too much silver. Commit yourself to buy a set amount each month. It is the only way to preserve your wealth. Obviously, have all the basics, beans and bullets, first. I would even suggest a junk piece of land first. I don’t keep publishing my Dirt Cheap Dirt Blog for the ad revenue, I only make about a dime a day off of it. I keep publishing because I think this is a great prep item to have. Few things other than a stocked cupboard and a rifle over the mantle will bring as much peace of mind as a low taxed piece of land you bought for almost nothing. You can never be homeless. But after all the basics, think about precious metals. Society might just stay glued together, but even if it does you will see a falling living standard and fewer safety nets offered by the government. Silver and gold will freeze your wealth and neutralize inflation.
END
www.bisonpress.com for e-books & Amazon books and gear
As I opened the paper this morning, weeping that live trees had been senselessly murdered to provide the sheeple with this utterly worthless drivel that passes for news ( at least the paper at work is shared by everyone and cuts back on the waste of us all getting our own copy ), I threw up my arms in joy and almost shed a tear of happiness. Oh, thank you massa! Thank you so much! I promise, I’ll be a good house slave now. A fifteen percent wage increase! Why, that’s one and a half percent increase a year!! Us po old trash get paid one third the rate of inflation. Why, think of it. We almost get half as much of an annual cost of living increase as those folks on geriatric welfare that don’t work at all and paid a heck of a lot less in taxes than we are. I would be embarrassed to take credit for passing the minimum wage hike after ten years. Look, I hate the welfare state. Minimum wage should not even exist. But as long as we have corporations buying and selling politicians, it is one of the few tools those on the lower end of the pay scale have of not ending up like a third world peasant digging through trash heaps to eat. A necessary evil in our present form of government.
*
But if you are going to have a minimum wage, at least try to make it look like it is keeping track with inflation. Which the politicians allow to happen because they saw what happened to Kennedy who probably wasn’t even serious but made the mistake of trying to win votes by threatening to abolish the monopoly of the Fed bank by transferring control of currency creation back to the government. The private entities that own the Fed were so pissed that he even brought the matter into the public light that they hired a few Mafiosi and gave them a Magic Bullet, just to make sure they didn’t miss. So the last person to oppose the debasement of the currency is going to be your Congressmen. If he did, he would be lucky that the best thing that happened to him would be PhotoShopped pictures of him molesting the party mascot. The worst would be going in for a colonoscopy and in three weeks learning his insides were glowing with radioactive waste and he had thirty days to live.
*
And that is why you need to hoard precious metal. Not because it will feed you. In starvation periods, a bushel of beans will not be traded for a gold coin. A gold coin will not protect you as well as a rifle and a few boxes of ammunition. What precious metals do is to preserve your wealth. Inflation can’t touch silver or gold. Silver and gold laugh at the feeble efforts of paper currency to bother them in the slightest. I realize that most of the time I am all hot and bothered about the newest and latest threat which will befall us. Whether zombies are unleashed upon us by the US Army Biological Lab, or Bush grows a short mustache and decides to cancel the next election for lack of interest, or Hillary and the CIA abolish the Constitution and install a Peoples Republic Of Democratic Political Correctness ( It’s For The Children! ), or perhaps Iran decides that nuclear armed ship mines would look really cool when they detonated in the Straights of Hormuz, whatever. I am always screaming like a little schoolgirl that the sky is falling. But there is an equal chance that a slow collapse will instead take place and you must survive in our present money economy instead of taking off to a mountain retreat and ambushing passing wagon trains to renew your harem.
*
It things only slowly get worse instead of crashing, you will need to preserve your purchasing power. If you don’t one day as you are old and gray and Social Security has been canceled and medical care is only available to millionaires you will find yourself old, gray and homeless. Just inflated property taxes alone can screw up your financial plans. Inflation is increasing, our purchasing power is decreasing. You need a debt free home ( not necessarily a house ), stockpiled food, a level of security. But if you can swing it at all, a small nest egg of precious metal can come in really handy to have an inflation proof saving account. Few of us can afford gold, but silver is still seriously under priced, even now at $13 an once. If you buy one ounce a payday you will be out $33 to $66 a month ( bullion price plus commission plus sales tax ). This is your Better Than Nothing savings account.
*
You can spend less by buying junk silver, the pre-65 coins. But then you will never have much of a stockpile. Just as you can never have enough ammunition, or wheat, or SMLE rifles, it is hard to have too much silver. Commit yourself to buy a set amount each month. It is the only way to preserve your wealth. Obviously, have all the basics, beans and bullets, first. I would even suggest a junk piece of land first. I don’t keep publishing my Dirt Cheap Dirt Blog for the ad revenue, I only make about a dime a day off of it. I keep publishing because I think this is a great prep item to have. Few things other than a stocked cupboard and a rifle over the mantle will bring as much peace of mind as a low taxed piece of land you bought for almost nothing. You can never be homeless. But after all the basics, think about precious metals. Society might just stay glued together, but even if it does you will see a falling living standard and fewer safety nets offered by the government. Silver and gold will freeze your wealth and neutralize inflation.
END
www.bisonpress.com for e-books & Amazon books and gear
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
1% to collapse
1% TO COLLAPSE
Okay, a bit misleading. More like six or so. At one percent intervals for several years until it jumps to 4%. What am I talking about? The decline of oil supplies. In this mornings edition of Survival Acres Blog a chart was displayed. It took a base of $3.00 a gallon for gasoline and figured in the price at the pump if oil supply declined by one percent a year for the next several years. At one percent a year in just a few years we are paying almost $5 a gallon. A few after that as the decline goes to three or four percent and we are paying more for a gallon of gas than we are paying now for a barrel.
*
Before that happens of course, we will have already experienced an economic collapse. Gas went up a third after Katrina, and that was a disruption of 5% of our supply that was quickly filled in by those profiting by the price increase. Here we are talking about the global, total contraction of oil supply. We are seeing upper single digits of decline from Saudi Arabia, double digit declines from Mexico. Even adding in natural gas, we are using far more than we can replace. Our discovery rate has been declining since the 1960’s as our consumption has skyrocketed. Make no mistake, we are at the top of the Peak Oil bell curve. If you continue on as normal, you can live in luxury until it is all gone. Your job, your car, your home, your retirement. It is all totally dependant on petroleum. We can’t handle that much decline in energy before the economy implodes.
*
And this supply decline we are talking about is not factoring in inflation. Supply only. Now add inflation to the mix. All currencies are seeing a ten to fifteen percent inflation rate if credit, reserve banking ( for each dollar deposited the banker creates many more dollars to loan out ) and currency creation is combined. The foreigners that supply most of our oil are not interested in subsidizing our dollar decline like the Chinese and Japanese are. They want a price for their oil that compensates for its decline in value. As we inflate, they will raise the price. Not too much, there are other factors in play here such as producer competition and geopolitics. But by and large they are going to charge more each year as we debase our currency. Let’s say they are going to be kind to us, not derail our economy since theirs is little better and they need our business. Seven percent a year has been the norm recently, but let’s call it five to account for terrorist activity and natural disaster.
*
For the next few years at a modest one percent global supply decline we can expect at least a thirty percent increase in oil each year. At least one third factoring inflation but no natural disasters or terror attacks to the oil supply. Now, raise the price of everything by that amount, not just a gallon of gas at the pump. Oil is involved in every product and every service. Everything will go up in cost along with oil. Even if I am pedaling down the street in my Pee-Wee Herman bicycle, gleefully squeezing my rubber bulb horn at the long line of motorists waiting in line at the service station, when I get home to my pot of beans and rice I will have paid much more for them than last year. Most food prices went up 20% last year and that was mainly due to droughts and the ethanol program. Now we get floods and the ethanol program. Next year we get flood and droughts and double output from the ethanol program as motorists are introduced to $4 a gallon gasoline in all states, not just California.
*
But last years 20% increase in food prices are at a time when the worlds oil supplies are at the top of production. We have yet to experience a serious decline. Factor in bad weather, the ethanol program, global decreasing oil supplies and inflation. I foresee thirty to fifty percent price increases just in food yearly, and that will be the next few years when everything is going “good”. It will then get worse. This is best case scenario. We attack ( or Israel does ) Iran, terrorists attack a few major pipelines or refineries, a major weather event or natural disaster ( an earthquake knocking out 15% of Japans electric production is no picnic and that was a minor natural disaster ), these are things that can really screw the pooch. It would be silly to not even acknowledge the possibility of one or more of them occurring.
*
Small disruptions cause giant problems. It was forecast that if all motorists had filled up the tanks just prior to Y2K we would have had serious shortages. When just one or two percent change their behavior the effects are blown way out of proportion. Same with supply disruptions. Getting back to normal assumes a supply will be found elsewhere. We run out of lumber, Canada increases cutting. The ATM experiences a heavy withdrawal, a special deposit is made. The grocery store is stripped because of a blizzard, extra trucks are dispatched. If the entire global oil supply starts to contract, there is no extra supply. Things go to hell quickly. Take one example. Natural gas prices increase 20%. You go down to Lowe’s to buy some glass to add some south facing passive solar heat. But even with 300% price increases, all the glass is sold out because just a few other people thought about the same idea. Remember me telling you about the supply of bags of wheat in my town of 50k? One bag for every seven thousand people ( or thereabouts ). Because it is not an item normally needed. If one other person in town decided they suddenly needed a years supply of food, that is all she wrote. If things are normal, the next weeks shipment has replacements. Unless things are not normal and other people in other towns are doing the same thing. Nationwide supply problem.
*
Right now is the perfect time to stock up. Nothing is going to get cheaper, supplies will start to get scarce, and in real purchasing terms your salary is going to shrink every year. Do not delay, buy today. Everything. Even if global oil supply is not as gloomy as stated, things are, in general, steadily going down hill. Things are only getting worse. Buy it now. Have an escape if your job is lost and the house is repoed. A small lot of junk land, an RV ( not a great strategy if gas goes up in price, but better than nothing ). Whatever. One example of price jumps was given by the writer at Survival Acres Blog. He sells freeze dried foods and his cost for powdered milk just went up 300%. Granted, feed prices are driving up milk costs. But such an increase may never see a corresponding drop, since more folks will start prepping. All prep foods are going to get insane. Ammo price increases are already that way. Wheat is up 50%. Prep now, buy now. If you do go into debt ( better a bad credit rating than no supplies ) to get it, draw cash advances to buy your preps. I know the interest is steep, but you don’t want Uncle Sam or the Banker you will owe money to even after the house repo ( you will be legally liable for the difference between the selling and debt price ) to know what tangible assets you have.
*
Things are starting to happen, don’t put off the painful acquisitions you must do.
END
www.bisonpress.com for e-books, Amazon books and gear
Okay, a bit misleading. More like six or so. At one percent intervals for several years until it jumps to 4%. What am I talking about? The decline of oil supplies. In this mornings edition of Survival Acres Blog a chart was displayed. It took a base of $3.00 a gallon for gasoline and figured in the price at the pump if oil supply declined by one percent a year for the next several years. At one percent a year in just a few years we are paying almost $5 a gallon. A few after that as the decline goes to three or four percent and we are paying more for a gallon of gas than we are paying now for a barrel.
*
Before that happens of course, we will have already experienced an economic collapse. Gas went up a third after Katrina, and that was a disruption of 5% of our supply that was quickly filled in by those profiting by the price increase. Here we are talking about the global, total contraction of oil supply. We are seeing upper single digits of decline from Saudi Arabia, double digit declines from Mexico. Even adding in natural gas, we are using far more than we can replace. Our discovery rate has been declining since the 1960’s as our consumption has skyrocketed. Make no mistake, we are at the top of the Peak Oil bell curve. If you continue on as normal, you can live in luxury until it is all gone. Your job, your car, your home, your retirement. It is all totally dependant on petroleum. We can’t handle that much decline in energy before the economy implodes.
*
And this supply decline we are talking about is not factoring in inflation. Supply only. Now add inflation to the mix. All currencies are seeing a ten to fifteen percent inflation rate if credit, reserve banking ( for each dollar deposited the banker creates many more dollars to loan out ) and currency creation is combined. The foreigners that supply most of our oil are not interested in subsidizing our dollar decline like the Chinese and Japanese are. They want a price for their oil that compensates for its decline in value. As we inflate, they will raise the price. Not too much, there are other factors in play here such as producer competition and geopolitics. But by and large they are going to charge more each year as we debase our currency. Let’s say they are going to be kind to us, not derail our economy since theirs is little better and they need our business. Seven percent a year has been the norm recently, but let’s call it five to account for terrorist activity and natural disaster.
*
For the next few years at a modest one percent global supply decline we can expect at least a thirty percent increase in oil each year. At least one third factoring inflation but no natural disasters or terror attacks to the oil supply. Now, raise the price of everything by that amount, not just a gallon of gas at the pump. Oil is involved in every product and every service. Everything will go up in cost along with oil. Even if I am pedaling down the street in my Pee-Wee Herman bicycle, gleefully squeezing my rubber bulb horn at the long line of motorists waiting in line at the service station, when I get home to my pot of beans and rice I will have paid much more for them than last year. Most food prices went up 20% last year and that was mainly due to droughts and the ethanol program. Now we get floods and the ethanol program. Next year we get flood and droughts and double output from the ethanol program as motorists are introduced to $4 a gallon gasoline in all states, not just California.
*
But last years 20% increase in food prices are at a time when the worlds oil supplies are at the top of production. We have yet to experience a serious decline. Factor in bad weather, the ethanol program, global decreasing oil supplies and inflation. I foresee thirty to fifty percent price increases just in food yearly, and that will be the next few years when everything is going “good”. It will then get worse. This is best case scenario. We attack ( or Israel does ) Iran, terrorists attack a few major pipelines or refineries, a major weather event or natural disaster ( an earthquake knocking out 15% of Japans electric production is no picnic and that was a minor natural disaster ), these are things that can really screw the pooch. It would be silly to not even acknowledge the possibility of one or more of them occurring.
*
Small disruptions cause giant problems. It was forecast that if all motorists had filled up the tanks just prior to Y2K we would have had serious shortages. When just one or two percent change their behavior the effects are blown way out of proportion. Same with supply disruptions. Getting back to normal assumes a supply will be found elsewhere. We run out of lumber, Canada increases cutting. The ATM experiences a heavy withdrawal, a special deposit is made. The grocery store is stripped because of a blizzard, extra trucks are dispatched. If the entire global oil supply starts to contract, there is no extra supply. Things go to hell quickly. Take one example. Natural gas prices increase 20%. You go down to Lowe’s to buy some glass to add some south facing passive solar heat. But even with 300% price increases, all the glass is sold out because just a few other people thought about the same idea. Remember me telling you about the supply of bags of wheat in my town of 50k? One bag for every seven thousand people ( or thereabouts ). Because it is not an item normally needed. If one other person in town decided they suddenly needed a years supply of food, that is all she wrote. If things are normal, the next weeks shipment has replacements. Unless things are not normal and other people in other towns are doing the same thing. Nationwide supply problem.
*
Right now is the perfect time to stock up. Nothing is going to get cheaper, supplies will start to get scarce, and in real purchasing terms your salary is going to shrink every year. Do not delay, buy today. Everything. Even if global oil supply is not as gloomy as stated, things are, in general, steadily going down hill. Things are only getting worse. Buy it now. Have an escape if your job is lost and the house is repoed. A small lot of junk land, an RV ( not a great strategy if gas goes up in price, but better than nothing ). Whatever. One example of price jumps was given by the writer at Survival Acres Blog. He sells freeze dried foods and his cost for powdered milk just went up 300%. Granted, feed prices are driving up milk costs. But such an increase may never see a corresponding drop, since more folks will start prepping. All prep foods are going to get insane. Ammo price increases are already that way. Wheat is up 50%. Prep now, buy now. If you do go into debt ( better a bad credit rating than no supplies ) to get it, draw cash advances to buy your preps. I know the interest is steep, but you don’t want Uncle Sam or the Banker you will owe money to even after the house repo ( you will be legally liable for the difference between the selling and debt price ) to know what tangible assets you have.
*
Things are starting to happen, don’t put off the painful acquisitions you must do.
END
www.bisonpress.com for e-books, Amazon books and gear
Monday, July 23, 2007
crossbows and others
CROSSBOWS AND OTHER PRIMITIVE WEAPONS
Yesterday I was fiddle farting around on my affiliates pages, trying to think of what else to add. I put up a few new books by Kurt Saxon. Granddad’s Chemistry and books one and two of Survivor. www.bisonpress.com/affiliatebooks.html . I was having a problem thinking what to add to the gear page when a stray neuron fired and I came up with crossbows. I wasn’t too thrilled with the crappy little pistol crossbows for $20, and the standard $300 for a compound crossbow is an insanely expensive item. With a bit of luck you could buy an SKS and five hundred rounds for that amount. I did find a $70-80 crossbow with $1.50 bolts. The replacement string is a bit much at $8, especially since it would be retarded to buy less than a half dozen of them. But all in all not a bad price for a weapon system. www.bisonpress.com/amazonproducts.html .
*
I have been on a kick lately, beating my brain trying to come up with long term post-TEOTWAWKI weapons. The primers in brass cases are my number one concern. Mercury fulminate is less than ideal because of the mercury. Other solutions can be improvised with other basic chemicals. Still working on that. Then there is the case problem. If I heat treat the case neck, and neck size only while reloading, even with a 303 I should get a few extra reloads for it. My pessimistic streak is hoping for at least a half dozen reloads per case. As most of my ammunition is Berden primed I am forced to reload a small number of cases. About two hundred rounds are modern, non-corrosive, reloadable. If I get lucky, have no misfires from my surplus ammo, and get enough case life to use my two thousand primers, I have at most five thousand rounds. Three thousand at worse case scenario. Far from enough, but everything is a compromise. If I get lucky enough to outlive my ammo supply then I am forced to revert to black powder and some kind of improvised primer material. If it is even possible.
*
So I am thinking I need a backup to modern firearms. I would prefer a rifle capable of a good reach. But with black powder cased ammunition you have all the drawbacks of a improvised ammo modern firearm and none of the advantages. A black powder rifle using percussion caps still has a primer problem. A flintlock is a good forever gun but is subject to misfires in wet weather. When a mutated city dwelling Yuppie cannibal is running at you with a fire ax you don’t want to discover your flintlock is refusing to work. Let’s face it. Even modern firearms have a lot of limiting factors. Expense, frail magazines, limited durability on some types ( hint, hint, the obscenely crappy M16 ), inaccuracy if dirt resistant, easy to foul if close tolerance for accuracy, slow fire on all but semi-auto, etc. Once you have to move down the line to less desirable weapons the shortcomings really start adding up.
*
A rimfire is great for longevity. You can still get five thousand rounds for a hundred bucks. Using a single shot rifle and a revolver you can make that amount of ammo last a long time. But before you can use it all a bear or mountain lion or former linebacker is going to kill you even after soaking up several .22 rounds. A flintlock rifle, as mentioned, has the wet weather vulnerability. Plus one shot is all you get at close quarters. If things get as bad as I think they might, we are going to see a massive die off and a return to the Stone Age. At best, we can work ourselves back up to a pre-coal/petroleum level of technology. Think medieval. Localized economies, very little trade, pestilence wiping out populations, constant war. The first years after a collapse we will see certain locations hold on to present technology and dominate their neighbors. That shouldn’t last long as extreme weather changes force a choice between growing food with available energy or fighting wars for the remaining energy. Most areas will see trade collapse even if local energy is available and so a primitive level will come about quickly to most. Disease and starvation will be widespread.
*
Your first job is to survive the die-off. This is where your modern arsenal comes in. If you hide in a semi-remote area and live off stored food, you might make it. Homesteaders on farms will most likely be killed or enslaved. After the die-off, your modern arsenal is out of ammunition or close to it. Rimfires are good for desperate self-defense or hunting. You need a better weapon for big game and self-defense. Now the guessing game begins. In time, will trade and commerce make a comeback? If so, what level of technology will they attain on a solar-energy economy ( even with existing oil and coal deposits, the violence and lack of maintenance make them non-useable ). Will primers be available? Smokeless powder? Will a brass ammunition case industry be started up? Will my modern shooter be able to get any kind of reloads? Are flintlocks going to be the new state of the art, or can we get to primed black powder? Case or caseless? Chances are you will be lacking the new weapon system. You will need trade/barter to get rearmed after things settle down ( assuming you live that long- perhaps for your grandkids ).
*
Now you have to ask yourself, what backup weapon do I get? I think crossbows are a pretty good bet. You can use a store bought one, and then easily start to make your own. And it is pretty cheap if you follow the Bison philosophy- cheap is better than nothing if it is all you can afford. A quality crossbow is nice to dream about. It may not fail to function at a critical time. But you will never know, since you can’t afford it. As far as making your own, there are plenty of books, Web articles and U-Tube videos out there. Think car leaf springs and steel cables from the same car. The only part needing real skill is the trigger mechanism.
*
If you are going to get a flintlock, you need to start using it now. Practice firing it, practice making the powder for it, practice getting the flints for it ( the same could be said for making the crossbow now yourself ). You are handicapping yourself by dipping down to this level of technology this soon. But you then have no learning curve and no time lost switching weapon systems. Plus, you may never need to make your own- your factory rifle could last forever. I can’t imagine we will ever go below flintlocks in weapon technology. Unless farms can never produce because of fighting and lack of a central authority to keep the peace, we should be able to produce black powder wherever there is deposits of manure ( although you can use human waste also ). What do we have in this country alone, a hundred million cars? More? Plus buildings. After a population drop we would have a hard time running out of steel unless we left it abandoned for to long and it rusted past a certain point ( and the bulk of the steel will be in the humid East to compound that problem ).
*
Slingshots are good long term weapons ( or at least hunting arms ). Have plenty of tubing for them. I would imagine surgical tubing is just fine, no need to buy the factory made tube replacement which is expensive at half the cost of the slingshot itself. You can make a homemade blowgun. From a post at Timebomb2000- use one half inch wall conduit for the tube. Use regular nails, sharpened to a fine point. Visqueen plastic cut in triangles and rolled into a cone and glued to the nail. Instant salvage blowgun, no jungle vegetation required. And then there are all the arms made from kitchen knives, already covered.
*
The point is, think beyond your present firearm. Think about a relatively inexpensive replacement. One not too hard to master ( why crossbows are mentioned and bows are not ). Chances are you won’t live to use them. But you need to plan on it anyway.
END
Yesterday I was fiddle farting around on my affiliates pages, trying to think of what else to add. I put up a few new books by Kurt Saxon. Granddad’s Chemistry and books one and two of Survivor. www.bisonpress.com/affiliatebooks.html . I was having a problem thinking what to add to the gear page when a stray neuron fired and I came up with crossbows. I wasn’t too thrilled with the crappy little pistol crossbows for $20, and the standard $300 for a compound crossbow is an insanely expensive item. With a bit of luck you could buy an SKS and five hundred rounds for that amount. I did find a $70-80 crossbow with $1.50 bolts. The replacement string is a bit much at $8, especially since it would be retarded to buy less than a half dozen of them. But all in all not a bad price for a weapon system. www.bisonpress.com/amazonproducts.html .
*
I have been on a kick lately, beating my brain trying to come up with long term post-TEOTWAWKI weapons. The primers in brass cases are my number one concern. Mercury fulminate is less than ideal because of the mercury. Other solutions can be improvised with other basic chemicals. Still working on that. Then there is the case problem. If I heat treat the case neck, and neck size only while reloading, even with a 303 I should get a few extra reloads for it. My pessimistic streak is hoping for at least a half dozen reloads per case. As most of my ammunition is Berden primed I am forced to reload a small number of cases. About two hundred rounds are modern, non-corrosive, reloadable. If I get lucky, have no misfires from my surplus ammo, and get enough case life to use my two thousand primers, I have at most five thousand rounds. Three thousand at worse case scenario. Far from enough, but everything is a compromise. If I get lucky enough to outlive my ammo supply then I am forced to revert to black powder and some kind of improvised primer material. If it is even possible.
*
So I am thinking I need a backup to modern firearms. I would prefer a rifle capable of a good reach. But with black powder cased ammunition you have all the drawbacks of a improvised ammo modern firearm and none of the advantages. A black powder rifle using percussion caps still has a primer problem. A flintlock is a good forever gun but is subject to misfires in wet weather. When a mutated city dwelling Yuppie cannibal is running at you with a fire ax you don’t want to discover your flintlock is refusing to work. Let’s face it. Even modern firearms have a lot of limiting factors. Expense, frail magazines, limited durability on some types ( hint, hint, the obscenely crappy M16 ), inaccuracy if dirt resistant, easy to foul if close tolerance for accuracy, slow fire on all but semi-auto, etc. Once you have to move down the line to less desirable weapons the shortcomings really start adding up.
*
A rimfire is great for longevity. You can still get five thousand rounds for a hundred bucks. Using a single shot rifle and a revolver you can make that amount of ammo last a long time. But before you can use it all a bear or mountain lion or former linebacker is going to kill you even after soaking up several .22 rounds. A flintlock rifle, as mentioned, has the wet weather vulnerability. Plus one shot is all you get at close quarters. If things get as bad as I think they might, we are going to see a massive die off and a return to the Stone Age. At best, we can work ourselves back up to a pre-coal/petroleum level of technology. Think medieval. Localized economies, very little trade, pestilence wiping out populations, constant war. The first years after a collapse we will see certain locations hold on to present technology and dominate their neighbors. That shouldn’t last long as extreme weather changes force a choice between growing food with available energy or fighting wars for the remaining energy. Most areas will see trade collapse even if local energy is available and so a primitive level will come about quickly to most. Disease and starvation will be widespread.
*
Your first job is to survive the die-off. This is where your modern arsenal comes in. If you hide in a semi-remote area and live off stored food, you might make it. Homesteaders on farms will most likely be killed or enslaved. After the die-off, your modern arsenal is out of ammunition or close to it. Rimfires are good for desperate self-defense or hunting. You need a better weapon for big game and self-defense. Now the guessing game begins. In time, will trade and commerce make a comeback? If so, what level of technology will they attain on a solar-energy economy ( even with existing oil and coal deposits, the violence and lack of maintenance make them non-useable ). Will primers be available? Smokeless powder? Will a brass ammunition case industry be started up? Will my modern shooter be able to get any kind of reloads? Are flintlocks going to be the new state of the art, or can we get to primed black powder? Case or caseless? Chances are you will be lacking the new weapon system. You will need trade/barter to get rearmed after things settle down ( assuming you live that long- perhaps for your grandkids ).
*
Now you have to ask yourself, what backup weapon do I get? I think crossbows are a pretty good bet. You can use a store bought one, and then easily start to make your own. And it is pretty cheap if you follow the Bison philosophy- cheap is better than nothing if it is all you can afford. A quality crossbow is nice to dream about. It may not fail to function at a critical time. But you will never know, since you can’t afford it. As far as making your own, there are plenty of books, Web articles and U-Tube videos out there. Think car leaf springs and steel cables from the same car. The only part needing real skill is the trigger mechanism.
*
If you are going to get a flintlock, you need to start using it now. Practice firing it, practice making the powder for it, practice getting the flints for it ( the same could be said for making the crossbow now yourself ). You are handicapping yourself by dipping down to this level of technology this soon. But you then have no learning curve and no time lost switching weapon systems. Plus, you may never need to make your own- your factory rifle could last forever. I can’t imagine we will ever go below flintlocks in weapon technology. Unless farms can never produce because of fighting and lack of a central authority to keep the peace, we should be able to produce black powder wherever there is deposits of manure ( although you can use human waste also ). What do we have in this country alone, a hundred million cars? More? Plus buildings. After a population drop we would have a hard time running out of steel unless we left it abandoned for to long and it rusted past a certain point ( and the bulk of the steel will be in the humid East to compound that problem ).
*
Slingshots are good long term weapons ( or at least hunting arms ). Have plenty of tubing for them. I would imagine surgical tubing is just fine, no need to buy the factory made tube replacement which is expensive at half the cost of the slingshot itself. You can make a homemade blowgun. From a post at Timebomb2000- use one half inch wall conduit for the tube. Use regular nails, sharpened to a fine point. Visqueen plastic cut in triangles and rolled into a cone and glued to the nail. Instant salvage blowgun, no jungle vegetation required. And then there are all the arms made from kitchen knives, already covered.
*
The point is, think beyond your present firearm. Think about a relatively inexpensive replacement. One not too hard to master ( why crossbows are mentioned and bows are not ). Chances are you won’t live to use them. But you need to plan on it anyway.
END
Saturday, July 21, 2007
cheap grain grinder
CHEAP GRAIN MILL
I know, I know. Several months ago I did the article on the Corona grain mill. But this morning before work I had extra time on the computer since the Survival Blog site hadn’t posted a new entry ( I hope nothing bad happened- but something good happening like a lottery win would mean he stops publishing and then it would be mine, all mine [insert evil laugh] ) and my other daily reading was short entries. I had time to look up some items on Amazon, something I usually only do on Saturday morning. With my schedule I am always needing more time. The darn old lady sure is selfish to demand an hour or two of it every night! Anyway, I hadn’t drank enough coffee yet so I made a mistake and entered the correct search phrase into the search feature.
*
The search engine at Amazon is a bit flaky. And the search engine at the Amazon Affiliate site is even worse. The last time I had looked for a grain grinder, I entered just that. Grain grinder. The cheapest one that it came up with was I one I posted for $50. So they either changed the search parameters, or by entering “corn grinder” I came up with different ones. They have cheaper ones now, a thirty dollar unit and a $21 one. I was so friggin excited I was almost skipping to work, which is hard to do on a bicycle. The days of the $26 grain grinder ( cost after shipping ) are back. Both Harbor Freight and Surplus N Survival had both stopped carrying them. And that meant I was starting to feel like an idiot since both the e-book and the print book of Frugal Survivalist list the grinder at $25. It is bad enough when wheat went up 50%, but to have the grinder going up 100% and the ammunition cost going up also, it was really playing havoc with the whole $500 prep budget concept.
*
So, when I get excited about an idea in the morning it is hard to get it out of my head and think of anything else to write about. I don’t have a shopping list of subjects I want to write about. I have to strain and work hard to birth an idea every day. Which is why some days you get semi-repeats like this. I have covered cheap grinders before. Buy a Corona, it lasts a lifetime. And it is the cheapest grinder out there. Well, the second cheapest. The Corona generic versions are the $25 ones, the actual Corona brand name grinder goes for $50 ( the best price on those seem to be at Wise Men Trading ). It might be the hardest grinder to use, but there ain’t no free lunch. Anytime you think so, Robert Heinlein wants to rise out of the grave and bitch slap you across the back of your head. I don’t think he actual would, he seemed quite the gentleman, but I’m sure he would really, really want to.
*
The Corona was meant as a lifetime investment by poor Latino households. Save up, buy it, and forever be able to grind your own meal. Don’t forget, before the Industrial Revolution grain mills were centralized, monopoly controlled, highly taxed machines. If you wanted more than gruel you had to pay the price. A family owning a corn mill could grow their own corn on a lot, process the grain and be able to feed itself. If our society were to collapse you could see a rise again of expensive mills. Would you want to pay a quarter of your flour for the privilege of grinding your grain? Of course, to be fair, there were also harsh penalties for grinding it yourself. It wasn’t just lack of equipment. It was monopoly controlled through violence. But by owning your own grinder ( or two, or several ) you move one step closer to independence. All fine and dandy to just stockpile rice and beans, but what about the future?
*
When the stored food runs out and you must grow your own grain, corn is going to be the easiest. Potatoes, beans and corn will be your main calorie plants. You will need a grain grinder. And think about grinders as a barter item. They will fetch many times their cost, as most folks won’t own the things. Even survivalists might be all freeze dried or canned foods. Or have just beans and rice. Or have twenty guns and no storage food. Spending $25 a month is not going to hurt anyone’s budget, so get a half dozen or more. Yes, I know. Buying through the Amazon link gets me a 4% commission. I benefit if you buy. But it is still good advice. At least have one or two extra for your own use.
*
Another good reason to own a grinder is for coffee beans. When the store bought runs out and trade is re-opened with Central and South America, you will need to grind your beans. Sorry, I know it is a weakness, but I love my coffee. It is one of my few vices left. I even had to cut back on my candy since I was getting a little crazy with it. So what is left? Coffee is about it, and I do that as cheaply as possible. No Starbucks for me ( even if it does taste heavenly ). And last, a grinder is perfect for beans. Even with solar cooking, thermos cookery and a pressure cooker, you are going to need to cut back on cooking times on occasion. Not to mention something tasting different. You can grind up the uncooked beans and add them to flour for a complete protein pancake or fry bread or whatever. Plus, beans that are stored too long will not cook up properly. The only way to eat them is to grind them up. I would suggest that you own a metal mesh pasta strainer. It can double as a strainer to keep the bean hulls out of the bean flour. The Corona is a rough tool, not a precision one. You grind on course, then run through again on a finer setting, then a third time as fine as possible. You might still need to separate the unground bits after that.
*
No serious survivalist worth his salt should be without several cheap grinders ( if possible, have duplicates of everything- even though I know that is hard advice to follow ). Even one roughly finished built in China grinder handled carefully should last forever. They are plated cast iron, after all. Who can’t afford $25? Even if you only have a hundred pounds of wheat, you can’t boil it all for eating. You need a grinder. It is once again cheap enough for everyone. The link is at my affiliates page, at the top of the page. www.bisonpress.com/amazonproducts.html
END
Update to this article- I went back online five hours after writing this. I looked a bit closer at the grinders for sale. The $22 unit has only one available. I don’t know if they will get others. Another for sale is $30. I hope the cheap one doesn’t end, but we will have to see. Hey, you think your hopes were dashed! I am bummed about this. And about the fact that Rawles didn’t win the lottery ( damn!! ). Let’s see what happens.
I know, I know. Several months ago I did the article on the Corona grain mill. But this morning before work I had extra time on the computer since the Survival Blog site hadn’t posted a new entry ( I hope nothing bad happened- but something good happening like a lottery win would mean he stops publishing and then it would be mine, all mine [insert evil laugh] ) and my other daily reading was short entries. I had time to look up some items on Amazon, something I usually only do on Saturday morning. With my schedule I am always needing more time. The darn old lady sure is selfish to demand an hour or two of it every night! Anyway, I hadn’t drank enough coffee yet so I made a mistake and entered the correct search phrase into the search feature.
*
The search engine at Amazon is a bit flaky. And the search engine at the Amazon Affiliate site is even worse. The last time I had looked for a grain grinder, I entered just that. Grain grinder. The cheapest one that it came up with was I one I posted for $50. So they either changed the search parameters, or by entering “corn grinder” I came up with different ones. They have cheaper ones now, a thirty dollar unit and a $21 one. I was so friggin excited I was almost skipping to work, which is hard to do on a bicycle. The days of the $26 grain grinder ( cost after shipping ) are back. Both Harbor Freight and Surplus N Survival had both stopped carrying them. And that meant I was starting to feel like an idiot since both the e-book and the print book of Frugal Survivalist list the grinder at $25. It is bad enough when wheat went up 50%, but to have the grinder going up 100% and the ammunition cost going up also, it was really playing havoc with the whole $500 prep budget concept.
*
So, when I get excited about an idea in the morning it is hard to get it out of my head and think of anything else to write about. I don’t have a shopping list of subjects I want to write about. I have to strain and work hard to birth an idea every day. Which is why some days you get semi-repeats like this. I have covered cheap grinders before. Buy a Corona, it lasts a lifetime. And it is the cheapest grinder out there. Well, the second cheapest. The Corona generic versions are the $25 ones, the actual Corona brand name grinder goes for $50 ( the best price on those seem to be at Wise Men Trading ). It might be the hardest grinder to use, but there ain’t no free lunch. Anytime you think so, Robert Heinlein wants to rise out of the grave and bitch slap you across the back of your head. I don’t think he actual would, he seemed quite the gentleman, but I’m sure he would really, really want to.
*
The Corona was meant as a lifetime investment by poor Latino households. Save up, buy it, and forever be able to grind your own meal. Don’t forget, before the Industrial Revolution grain mills were centralized, monopoly controlled, highly taxed machines. If you wanted more than gruel you had to pay the price. A family owning a corn mill could grow their own corn on a lot, process the grain and be able to feed itself. If our society were to collapse you could see a rise again of expensive mills. Would you want to pay a quarter of your flour for the privilege of grinding your grain? Of course, to be fair, there were also harsh penalties for grinding it yourself. It wasn’t just lack of equipment. It was monopoly controlled through violence. But by owning your own grinder ( or two, or several ) you move one step closer to independence. All fine and dandy to just stockpile rice and beans, but what about the future?
*
When the stored food runs out and you must grow your own grain, corn is going to be the easiest. Potatoes, beans and corn will be your main calorie plants. You will need a grain grinder. And think about grinders as a barter item. They will fetch many times their cost, as most folks won’t own the things. Even survivalists might be all freeze dried or canned foods. Or have just beans and rice. Or have twenty guns and no storage food. Spending $25 a month is not going to hurt anyone’s budget, so get a half dozen or more. Yes, I know. Buying through the Amazon link gets me a 4% commission. I benefit if you buy. But it is still good advice. At least have one or two extra for your own use.
*
Another good reason to own a grinder is for coffee beans. When the store bought runs out and trade is re-opened with Central and South America, you will need to grind your beans. Sorry, I know it is a weakness, but I love my coffee. It is one of my few vices left. I even had to cut back on my candy since I was getting a little crazy with it. So what is left? Coffee is about it, and I do that as cheaply as possible. No Starbucks for me ( even if it does taste heavenly ). And last, a grinder is perfect for beans. Even with solar cooking, thermos cookery and a pressure cooker, you are going to need to cut back on cooking times on occasion. Not to mention something tasting different. You can grind up the uncooked beans and add them to flour for a complete protein pancake or fry bread or whatever. Plus, beans that are stored too long will not cook up properly. The only way to eat them is to grind them up. I would suggest that you own a metal mesh pasta strainer. It can double as a strainer to keep the bean hulls out of the bean flour. The Corona is a rough tool, not a precision one. You grind on course, then run through again on a finer setting, then a third time as fine as possible. You might still need to separate the unground bits after that.
*
No serious survivalist worth his salt should be without several cheap grinders ( if possible, have duplicates of everything- even though I know that is hard advice to follow ). Even one roughly finished built in China grinder handled carefully should last forever. They are plated cast iron, after all. Who can’t afford $25? Even if you only have a hundred pounds of wheat, you can’t boil it all for eating. You need a grinder. It is once again cheap enough for everyone. The link is at my affiliates page, at the top of the page. www.bisonpress.com/amazonproducts.html
END
Update to this article- I went back online five hours after writing this. I looked a bit closer at the grinders for sale. The $22 unit has only one available. I don’t know if they will get others. Another for sale is $30. I hope the cheap one doesn’t end, but we will have to see. Hey, you think your hopes were dashed! I am bummed about this. And about the fact that Rawles didn’t win the lottery ( damn!! ). Let’s see what happens.
Friday, July 20, 2007
propane refer rescue
PROPANE REFER RESCUE
Just the other day I am scrolling through my Amazon books page, admiring how pretty and nifty and colorful the whole thing is. Ooooh! Look at the freaky pictures, man! I almost had an acid flashback ( not that I could ever get one with the rat poison laced crap I was forced to buy back in my reality avoidance days ). And then an ugly vision marred my otherwise serene journey. “Travel Trailer Homesteading Under $5k” by Brian Kelling was selling for a hundred and eighty dollars. I love the book, it’s an invaluable tool for an off-grider. I don’t love it $180 worth however. Loompanics never figured out how to co-exist with Amazon, or the guy retired to go fishing, for whatever reason they went out of business. So a lot of good selling books are going out of print. I did find it for sale from www.edenpress.com for only $12. I suspect that it is a first rather than a second edition. Just be patient, I’m sure the third edition will be offered soon at a reasonable price. In the mean time I offer advice from the book, rescuing a propane refrigerator. Sometimes you can bring one back from the dead. Let this be a lesson to you. When I tell you to buy something, don’t delay. You waited too long to order this book after I previously recommended it. After I told you to buy wheat at $7 a sack, you waited and now it is $11. Wait too long to buy a Berky water filter replacement unit and the Pound/Dollar exchange rate will knock up the price. I don’t claim to be God. I respect lightning bolts too much. But I am always right. You should feel privileged to do my bidding.
*
I still think you would be better off with an old fashion ice box, but if you are awaiting funds before you get one and already have a used trailer with a dead refer, this method just might work for you. Just don’t rely on it too long. One day the propane will run out. A propane refer works by gravity, operating a liquid to gas, gas to liquid cycle. If the unit was not used, the refrigerant might have settled and so the unit won’t work properly. The other possibility is that the coolant leaked but that seems to be much rarer. Take the unit from the trailer. Blow all gas lines out as well as the filter. Remove any soot in the flue. Now clean out the orifices in the gas burner with a small pin. Make sure not to enlarge the hole.
*
Now tape over all gas lines and orifices. Set the unit upside down for several days. When you turn it over and it gurglers then you have coolant in it. Leaving it upside down for several days is usually enough to stir things up and working again. This is “burping” the unit. Brian writes that he placed his in the back of his truck and drove around. That would really mix everything up. This is usually all that is required to get a propane refer working again. Make sure to level the thing and keep it that way. Set up the unit, checking for leaks. Light it up and wait twenty four hours to get cool. If it still won’t work, burp it again. If it is still stubborn as a mule ( or a politician when confronted with logic ), check the burner.
*
You might need to check the two stage pilot light. Check the flame as you adjust the knob from defrost to operation. The flame should rise slightly as you turn. He doesn’t say what to do then so one assumes you change that part. But it seems that burping is almost always pretty much a foolproof way to rescue “broken” propane refers. You might have bought a $500 trailer because the refer was broken. The seller was unaware of this procedure. You just saved $1200 on a new refer, plus got a nearly free trailer. You could debate on the karma involved here. Is it wrong to take advantage of the seller? Is he just glad to get rid of what to him is junk? When I sell something I always under price it and list all the faults. I don’t believe in participating in buyer beware. When I buy, sure, I’m careful. But sellers shouldn’t be assholes. Whether you shouldn’t take advantage… I don’t know. I guess you can look at it as you are the only one buying it since you are the only one with the know how to fix it. If the seller knew how he would fix it and charge a lot more.
*
A note on wind. If it is strong enough to blow out the fridge flame the unit will start to defrost. You can close one side of the vent on top ( the one where the wind blows into ) and partially close the air intake on the side, that should take care of the problem. That’s it, all the advice in the refrigerator section. This chapter alone is worth the price of the book ( the $12 version anyway ). If you don’t want to spend any money on refrigeration, this is the way to do it. Offer to haul a non-functioning fridge away for someone. Or buy one for scrape price. If all else fails, just take the unit you can’t get to work and sell it yourself for scrap and be out no more than the price of gasoline and your time. If you can find enough old units you could even have a part time business, making several hundred bucks a pop ( just make sure you can work on other problems to fix minor stuff so the customer doesn’t sue you ).
*
If you want to move to the boonies now and have a cheap trailer, this and propane heat might be the way to go at first. Then replace the propane fridge with an ice box and the heater with a wood stove as time and money permit. Since you bought cheap land through E-Bay ( perhaps using my Dirt Cheap Dirt blog ) you now have no rent and can easily how buy prep/off-grid items to work towards self-sufficiency.
END
www.bisonpress.com e-books
www.bisonpress.com/affiliatebooks.html Amazon books
www.bisonpress.com/amazonproducts.html prep gear
Just the other day I am scrolling through my Amazon books page, admiring how pretty and nifty and colorful the whole thing is. Ooooh! Look at the freaky pictures, man! I almost had an acid flashback ( not that I could ever get one with the rat poison laced crap I was forced to buy back in my reality avoidance days ). And then an ugly vision marred my otherwise serene journey. “Travel Trailer Homesteading Under $5k” by Brian Kelling was selling for a hundred and eighty dollars. I love the book, it’s an invaluable tool for an off-grider. I don’t love it $180 worth however. Loompanics never figured out how to co-exist with Amazon, or the guy retired to go fishing, for whatever reason they went out of business. So a lot of good selling books are going out of print. I did find it for sale from www.edenpress.com for only $12. I suspect that it is a first rather than a second edition. Just be patient, I’m sure the third edition will be offered soon at a reasonable price. In the mean time I offer advice from the book, rescuing a propane refrigerator. Sometimes you can bring one back from the dead. Let this be a lesson to you. When I tell you to buy something, don’t delay. You waited too long to order this book after I previously recommended it. After I told you to buy wheat at $7 a sack, you waited and now it is $11. Wait too long to buy a Berky water filter replacement unit and the Pound/Dollar exchange rate will knock up the price. I don’t claim to be God. I respect lightning bolts too much. But I am always right. You should feel privileged to do my bidding.
*
I still think you would be better off with an old fashion ice box, but if you are awaiting funds before you get one and already have a used trailer with a dead refer, this method just might work for you. Just don’t rely on it too long. One day the propane will run out. A propane refer works by gravity, operating a liquid to gas, gas to liquid cycle. If the unit was not used, the refrigerant might have settled and so the unit won’t work properly. The other possibility is that the coolant leaked but that seems to be much rarer. Take the unit from the trailer. Blow all gas lines out as well as the filter. Remove any soot in the flue. Now clean out the orifices in the gas burner with a small pin. Make sure not to enlarge the hole.
*
Now tape over all gas lines and orifices. Set the unit upside down for several days. When you turn it over and it gurglers then you have coolant in it. Leaving it upside down for several days is usually enough to stir things up and working again. This is “burping” the unit. Brian writes that he placed his in the back of his truck and drove around. That would really mix everything up. This is usually all that is required to get a propane refer working again. Make sure to level the thing and keep it that way. Set up the unit, checking for leaks. Light it up and wait twenty four hours to get cool. If it still won’t work, burp it again. If it is still stubborn as a mule ( or a politician when confronted with logic ), check the burner.
*
You might need to check the two stage pilot light. Check the flame as you adjust the knob from defrost to operation. The flame should rise slightly as you turn. He doesn’t say what to do then so one assumes you change that part. But it seems that burping is almost always pretty much a foolproof way to rescue “broken” propane refers. You might have bought a $500 trailer because the refer was broken. The seller was unaware of this procedure. You just saved $1200 on a new refer, plus got a nearly free trailer. You could debate on the karma involved here. Is it wrong to take advantage of the seller? Is he just glad to get rid of what to him is junk? When I sell something I always under price it and list all the faults. I don’t believe in participating in buyer beware. When I buy, sure, I’m careful. But sellers shouldn’t be assholes. Whether you shouldn’t take advantage… I don’t know. I guess you can look at it as you are the only one buying it since you are the only one with the know how to fix it. If the seller knew how he would fix it and charge a lot more.
*
A note on wind. If it is strong enough to blow out the fridge flame the unit will start to defrost. You can close one side of the vent on top ( the one where the wind blows into ) and partially close the air intake on the side, that should take care of the problem. That’s it, all the advice in the refrigerator section. This chapter alone is worth the price of the book ( the $12 version anyway ). If you don’t want to spend any money on refrigeration, this is the way to do it. Offer to haul a non-functioning fridge away for someone. Or buy one for scrape price. If all else fails, just take the unit you can’t get to work and sell it yourself for scrap and be out no more than the price of gasoline and your time. If you can find enough old units you could even have a part time business, making several hundred bucks a pop ( just make sure you can work on other problems to fix minor stuff so the customer doesn’t sue you ).
*
If you want to move to the boonies now and have a cheap trailer, this and propane heat might be the way to go at first. Then replace the propane fridge with an ice box and the heater with a wood stove as time and money permit. Since you bought cheap land through E-Bay ( perhaps using my Dirt Cheap Dirt blog ) you now have no rent and can easily how buy prep/off-grid items to work towards self-sufficiency.
END
www.bisonpress.com e-books
www.bisonpress.com/affiliatebooks.html Amazon books
www.bisonpress.com/amazonproducts.html prep gear
Thursday, July 19, 2007
insane inventory
INSANE INVENTORY
We all gather round in a circle, intone chants toward the full moon, nod to each other at our infinite wisdom and continue to magnanimously allow God’s lesser creatures to bask in the glow of our greatness. Are we, 1) survivalists or, 2) business guru’s? Answer, 3) both. Both groups think they are pretty darn smart. One thinks it is a sin to not have vast stockpiles of crap. The other thinks any extra item laying around not immediately being pursued by consumers is wasteful and unnecessary. Only time will tell which is right, although me and you have already cast our vote. Let’s see what problems just in time inventory have created, besides the obvious loss of food storage in the grocery stores. We have already covered the supermarkets going from a weeks supply of food to one or three days worth.
*
It used to be grain inventories could feed most of the population of this country. That is no longer the case. Not only are grain inventories at their lowest in decades, when adjusted for population increases the picture gets a lot worse. Before, the Soviet Union could attack us and we could feed ourselves through fuel shortages. Then one day awhile ago a corporate suit from ADM bribed a Congressman with a suitcase full of money and an all expense paid romantic getaway for the weekend with the farm animal of his choice. The grain surplus was slowly sold off. A one time extra stream of income boosted a CEO’s bonus, and valuable real estate could be freed up from the wasteful, non-profitable storage. Any shortcomings were made up with imported grain. Well, those chickens are coming home to roost. When almost everyone growing grain experiences a drought at the same time, inventories don’t seem to stretch as far.
*
Natural gas is also under a just in time delivery system. Before oil supplies got so tight there was plenty of natural gas to go around. Then everyone thought it would be a great idea to use gas to generate electricity. Before, winter time was when gas got used and in the summer an inventory built up to handle any price/supply shocks. Then as it was used to generate electricity for summer air conditioning electrical use, the surplus disappeared. Now any jump in price or dip in supply has shortages and price hikes. As an example of the problems this causes, when natural gas doubled to $10 a unit, a great many plastics factories closed up shop and moved overseas closer to the sources of gas. Two hundred thousand jobs were lost in the blink of an eye. And as you might have guessed, they didn’t re-open the factories once the price came back down.
*
Ammunition is another example. No inventory means no ability to adjust to extra demand, such as from the military who themselves didn’t have enough stockpiled for much of a war. And with metal costs increasing as China builds new cities, the incentive is there to cut inventories even more. The problem is that there is no way to fight this trend. When the only way to cut cost to stay competitive is to decrease both your work force and your inventory, your own survival dictates you do one or both of those things. Inventory is not just a stack of extra product, nor is it a one time cost. You need to higher extra labor, have extra real estate, heat and cool that real estate. It makes sense to not stockpile. At least on the business level.
*
I feel that if the government wants to justify its existence as more than a protection racket it should step into the breech here. They claim, as one of their propaganda methods, that they need to do things private enterprise won’t do. Such as highway construction, moon landings, etc. Complete bull but if they want to be our friend, buddy and pal they could actually live up to his claim and take the responsibility to stockpile food just as they do oil. It is a national security issue after all. However, see the above Congressman bribe. Some things are not critical if prices spike due to scarcity. Oil and gas can be cut back temporarily. Any consumer item if not critical like toilet paper. If cars were to stop rolling out of Detroit we could all use the old ones a bit longer. We could use less electricity. Keep our old clothes. But it sure is difficult to do without food. Heck, even if the government wanted to cry poor, they could give tax break incentives for private household stockpiles.
*
Just in time inventories are great for saving businesses money. They need all they can get since their sales growth is flat and they need to increase business to keep paying the bankers so they buy rivals to get that market share. But then they must pay off the new loan, so they cut back on inventory. That means good jobs gone and it means in any supply disruption we see instant shortages and extreme pricing. Wonder why the oil price is up $8 and the retail pump price is down twenty five cents? Inventory problems from our refineries getting resolved. Isn’t it fun, paying the price for business incompetence and political graft?
END
www.bisonpress.com for books and gear
We all gather round in a circle, intone chants toward the full moon, nod to each other at our infinite wisdom and continue to magnanimously allow God’s lesser creatures to bask in the glow of our greatness. Are we, 1) survivalists or, 2) business guru’s? Answer, 3) both. Both groups think they are pretty darn smart. One thinks it is a sin to not have vast stockpiles of crap. The other thinks any extra item laying around not immediately being pursued by consumers is wasteful and unnecessary. Only time will tell which is right, although me and you have already cast our vote. Let’s see what problems just in time inventory have created, besides the obvious loss of food storage in the grocery stores. We have already covered the supermarkets going from a weeks supply of food to one or three days worth.
*
It used to be grain inventories could feed most of the population of this country. That is no longer the case. Not only are grain inventories at their lowest in decades, when adjusted for population increases the picture gets a lot worse. Before, the Soviet Union could attack us and we could feed ourselves through fuel shortages. Then one day awhile ago a corporate suit from ADM bribed a Congressman with a suitcase full of money and an all expense paid romantic getaway for the weekend with the farm animal of his choice. The grain surplus was slowly sold off. A one time extra stream of income boosted a CEO’s bonus, and valuable real estate could be freed up from the wasteful, non-profitable storage. Any shortcomings were made up with imported grain. Well, those chickens are coming home to roost. When almost everyone growing grain experiences a drought at the same time, inventories don’t seem to stretch as far.
*
Natural gas is also under a just in time delivery system. Before oil supplies got so tight there was plenty of natural gas to go around. Then everyone thought it would be a great idea to use gas to generate electricity. Before, winter time was when gas got used and in the summer an inventory built up to handle any price/supply shocks. Then as it was used to generate electricity for summer air conditioning electrical use, the surplus disappeared. Now any jump in price or dip in supply has shortages and price hikes. As an example of the problems this causes, when natural gas doubled to $10 a unit, a great many plastics factories closed up shop and moved overseas closer to the sources of gas. Two hundred thousand jobs were lost in the blink of an eye. And as you might have guessed, they didn’t re-open the factories once the price came back down.
*
Ammunition is another example. No inventory means no ability to adjust to extra demand, such as from the military who themselves didn’t have enough stockpiled for much of a war. And with metal costs increasing as China builds new cities, the incentive is there to cut inventories even more. The problem is that there is no way to fight this trend. When the only way to cut cost to stay competitive is to decrease both your work force and your inventory, your own survival dictates you do one or both of those things. Inventory is not just a stack of extra product, nor is it a one time cost. You need to higher extra labor, have extra real estate, heat and cool that real estate. It makes sense to not stockpile. At least on the business level.
*
I feel that if the government wants to justify its existence as more than a protection racket it should step into the breech here. They claim, as one of their propaganda methods, that they need to do things private enterprise won’t do. Such as highway construction, moon landings, etc. Complete bull but if they want to be our friend, buddy and pal they could actually live up to his claim and take the responsibility to stockpile food just as they do oil. It is a national security issue after all. However, see the above Congressman bribe. Some things are not critical if prices spike due to scarcity. Oil and gas can be cut back temporarily. Any consumer item if not critical like toilet paper. If cars were to stop rolling out of Detroit we could all use the old ones a bit longer. We could use less electricity. Keep our old clothes. But it sure is difficult to do without food. Heck, even if the government wanted to cry poor, they could give tax break incentives for private household stockpiles.
*
Just in time inventories are great for saving businesses money. They need all they can get since their sales growth is flat and they need to increase business to keep paying the bankers so they buy rivals to get that market share. But then they must pay off the new loan, so they cut back on inventory. That means good jobs gone and it means in any supply disruption we see instant shortages and extreme pricing. Wonder why the oil price is up $8 and the retail pump price is down twenty five cents? Inventory problems from our refineries getting resolved. Isn’t it fun, paying the price for business incompetence and political graft?
END
www.bisonpress.com for books and gear
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
kitchen weaponry
KITCHEN WEAPONRY
A recurrent theme in science fiction is the varying degrees of weapon technology. Planet Buttcrack is advanced with fusion drive battle tanks and laser guns. Planet Fumundacheese hasn’t gotten past primitive chemical rockets and they are still in the gunpowder stage. The Super Intergalactic United Planets Council has decided that you can’t introduce more advanced weapons from one to another. Not that this makes any sense, since gunrunners would be more than happy to sneak in the most advanced weapons in exchange for whatever abundant resource that planet has. But it makes for a great story, where against all odds a group of lice bitten grubby Hippies defeats a superior armed foe. Vietnam era morality lessons.
*
We can all root for the underdog, except when he is shooting at us. Then, you want the stupid bastards to be under armed. You want to come to a knife fight with a gun. Not the other guy. All things must be equal when a foe has inferior weapons. If they have ten percent of the men, no air force and one hundred year old bolt action rifles they can still defeat you if your supply train is too long and your leadership sucks. But when they have five hundred year old weapons, you can subdue and police them with a very small force. Such as with British colonialism. After a total collapse, of course you don’t want to arm your enemies. Unless it is with inferior arms.
*
Why the discussion of arming your enemy ever got stared in survival circles, I don’t know. It is only common sense not to sell a potential foe your surplus firearms. I wouldn’t even sell them ammunition in case one bright boy among them decided to build a pipe zip gun. Although, inevitably, some fool is going to sell his weapons. Most likely the legions of Yuppie survivalists that stock one hundred thousand rounds of ammunition and thirty five semi-automatic weapons and only one months worth of MRE’s. Then the rest of us that stockpiled literally tons of food are going to have to fight them off. If you are a bleeding heart and don’t want to see families eaten by wolves or mountain lions or enslaved by despotic rulers but don’t want them armed well enough to double back and kill you and take all your food, you can arm them with kitchen weaponry.
*
They still sell butcher knifes at the dollar store. You can knock out the two pins holding the blade to the handle and mount it to a nice chunk of wood for a spear. A nice description of this was given in Dies The Fire at the books beginning ( and you know you want to order that through my Amazon affiliates page, linked from www.bisonpress.com ). The thrift store might have them cheaper. They are only good for slashing, so a spear head might not last too long, but what do you care? You have a Mosin-Nagant with a few thousand rounds of ammunition. Even if you are a terrible shot you can still kill the advancing hoards of spear wielders from two hundred yards away.
*
You can still buy steak knives, several in a package for a buck at the dollar store. Again, flimsy but better than no knife at all. Imagine your amusement as you sell a thirty three cent knife wrapped in a toilet paper tube with some duct tape for the sum of several dollars ( barter equivalent of course ). Even better would be to buy en masse thrift store butter knives, three or four for a dollar if not even cheaper. A quick sharpening on a grinder to make useful and in a few weekends of effort you will have hundreds of knives ready for a post-Apocalyptic business. The butter knives will sell like hotcakes, being superior to the butcher or steak knives in longevity. There will be a market for all three. The butcher knife will assure those needing protection since it is big and looks dangerous and they saw them in horror movies being used to mow down whole herds of collage campers. The steak knives ( the straight blades, not the serrated ones ) are sharp and small enough to conceal. And the butter knives are more solid, lending themselves to sale for those needing quality.
*
So you can set up a nice business of arming everyone without worrying about those weapons being used against you ( obviously, don’t let them get too close ). A smidge over half the households in America don’t have a firearm. These idiots are sheeple, waiting for break-ins, dictators goose-stepping brown-shirted shock troopers or post-apocalypse businessmen to take advantage of them. The typical household that does have a firearm has a heck of lot more than one. I have nine guns and I feel naked and vulnerable as it is. If everyone that owns an arsenal refuses to part with them we can feel safe from half the population. Let them pay for their stupidity by only giving them a knife.
END
Amazon books, Bison books, prep gear www.bisonpress.com
A recurrent theme in science fiction is the varying degrees of weapon technology. Planet Buttcrack is advanced with fusion drive battle tanks and laser guns. Planet Fumundacheese hasn’t gotten past primitive chemical rockets and they are still in the gunpowder stage. The Super Intergalactic United Planets Council has decided that you can’t introduce more advanced weapons from one to another. Not that this makes any sense, since gunrunners would be more than happy to sneak in the most advanced weapons in exchange for whatever abundant resource that planet has. But it makes for a great story, where against all odds a group of lice bitten grubby Hippies defeats a superior armed foe. Vietnam era morality lessons.
*
We can all root for the underdog, except when he is shooting at us. Then, you want the stupid bastards to be under armed. You want to come to a knife fight with a gun. Not the other guy. All things must be equal when a foe has inferior weapons. If they have ten percent of the men, no air force and one hundred year old bolt action rifles they can still defeat you if your supply train is too long and your leadership sucks. But when they have five hundred year old weapons, you can subdue and police them with a very small force. Such as with British colonialism. After a total collapse, of course you don’t want to arm your enemies. Unless it is with inferior arms.
*
Why the discussion of arming your enemy ever got stared in survival circles, I don’t know. It is only common sense not to sell a potential foe your surplus firearms. I wouldn’t even sell them ammunition in case one bright boy among them decided to build a pipe zip gun. Although, inevitably, some fool is going to sell his weapons. Most likely the legions of Yuppie survivalists that stock one hundred thousand rounds of ammunition and thirty five semi-automatic weapons and only one months worth of MRE’s. Then the rest of us that stockpiled literally tons of food are going to have to fight them off. If you are a bleeding heart and don’t want to see families eaten by wolves or mountain lions or enslaved by despotic rulers but don’t want them armed well enough to double back and kill you and take all your food, you can arm them with kitchen weaponry.
*
They still sell butcher knifes at the dollar store. You can knock out the two pins holding the blade to the handle and mount it to a nice chunk of wood for a spear. A nice description of this was given in Dies The Fire at the books beginning ( and you know you want to order that through my Amazon affiliates page, linked from www.bisonpress.com ). The thrift store might have them cheaper. They are only good for slashing, so a spear head might not last too long, but what do you care? You have a Mosin-Nagant with a few thousand rounds of ammunition. Even if you are a terrible shot you can still kill the advancing hoards of spear wielders from two hundred yards away.
*
You can still buy steak knives, several in a package for a buck at the dollar store. Again, flimsy but better than no knife at all. Imagine your amusement as you sell a thirty three cent knife wrapped in a toilet paper tube with some duct tape for the sum of several dollars ( barter equivalent of course ). Even better would be to buy en masse thrift store butter knives, three or four for a dollar if not even cheaper. A quick sharpening on a grinder to make useful and in a few weekends of effort you will have hundreds of knives ready for a post-Apocalyptic business. The butter knives will sell like hotcakes, being superior to the butcher or steak knives in longevity. There will be a market for all three. The butcher knife will assure those needing protection since it is big and looks dangerous and they saw them in horror movies being used to mow down whole herds of collage campers. The steak knives ( the straight blades, not the serrated ones ) are sharp and small enough to conceal. And the butter knives are more solid, lending themselves to sale for those needing quality.
*
So you can set up a nice business of arming everyone without worrying about those weapons being used against you ( obviously, don’t let them get too close ). A smidge over half the households in America don’t have a firearm. These idiots are sheeple, waiting for break-ins, dictators goose-stepping brown-shirted shock troopers or post-apocalypse businessmen to take advantage of them. The typical household that does have a firearm has a heck of lot more than one. I have nine guns and I feel naked and vulnerable as it is. If everyone that owns an arsenal refuses to part with them we can feel safe from half the population. Let them pay for their stupidity by only giving them a knife.
END
Amazon books, Bison books, prep gear www.bisonpress.com
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
mercury fulminate primers
MERCURY FULMINATE PRIMERS
Before we get started, I am not a chemist. I am not very knowledgeable in science at all. I do want to know basic recipes of improvised explosives, in case of nation-wide gun control, or in case of civilization collapse and the cessation of modern industry. I don’t want to go back to using flintlock rifles if possible. Flintlocks are as low tech as you can get without going with a matchlock. I would prefer to have primers so that in foul weather I am not unarmed. So a compromise is needed- lower tech, just not too low. Mercury fulminate primers should fit the bill. I am giving you here the basic outlines on how to make the primer filler. Do not attempt unless you know what you are doing. If you don’t know what you are doing, wait until after civilization collapses since by then it wouldn’t matter if you take crazy risks. In other words, only attempt if the alternative is going undefended from lack of primers.
*
In a collapse situation after all ammunition is depleted, after all modern reloading equipment has been used, then you can use black powder in your cases and mercury fulminate to re-prime your primers. The next step down is somehow fashioning replacement cases. I don’t, off-hand, know any way except swagging. And that is not going to work for most of us. I am talking about manufacturing from scratch under primitive methods ( if anyone has a clue please let me know ). But perhaps this step will hold you until a new arms industry comes along. The problem I have had with all of my improvised recipes, as told from the military manuals to Duncan Long, is that they assume you have mercury. “First, get mercury…” Hello!!! They don’t offer much in the way of mercury anymore. Too toxic, it has been phased out. It is just like the strike anywhere matches they tell you to get. The few you can find are low powered anymore. Not like the good stuff you used to be able to get.
*
Mercury fulminate itself is easy. Take mercury, dissolve in nitric acid, add ethanol to the solution. We just covered making saltpeter. To make nitric acid you take saltpeter, heat it until you get a gas, condense the gas to get liquid nitric acid. This is where that solar ice maker comes in handy, both to condense the chemicals and the ethanol. To manufacture saltpeter, to get more than just scrapping the chicken run, do the following. Layer dirt, limestone and manure in piles four feet deep. Let stand three to five years, then take top twenty centimeters. Add water and wood ashes, filter thru sand, boil to remove water and cool overnight. The large crystals are saltpeter ( potassium nitrate ).
*
However, to get the mercury you are going to need to go through a lot of trouble. First, you need to find a region that has the ore red mercury sulfide, also known as cinnabar. Usually formed underground in warm mineral solutions from volcanic action. Found at shallow depths, from three to three thousand feet. The cinnabar ore is crushed and then heated to release vapor. The vapor is cooled, condensed and collected. To heat, the ore is ground fine by sending it through a series of mills. Fed into the furnace to heat. The heated cinnabar reacts with oxygen to produce sulfur dioxide. The furnace exhaust passes through a water cooled condenser and liquid mercury is collected. Impurities are on the surface as scum, treated with lime to separate. Stored in wrought iron or steel flasks. And very toxic. Inhalation is very dangerous, absorption through the skin almost as bad. And can be cumulative.
*
As you can see, you are in for a level of sophistication most of us don’t have. If you can kidnap, bribe, or force a chemist or chemistry teacher in to your group you will be in much better shape than most. Then you can get all kinds of great weapons produced, as well as artificial fertilizers and other nifty items. If you do manage to get a mercury extraction process going, you will be faced with not only the military need to secure the ore site but the need to provide labor for the mine and processing facility. Even with safeguards the toxicity will take a toll. A perfect activity for former lawyers, politicians, CEO’s and bankers. After they are all gone you should get enough POW’s in. Or political prisoners.
*
This might not be the greatest primer system there is. Of course, any advance over living through another Stone Age is going to be great. We are so spoiled and surrounded by an abundant Energy Age we can’t imagine life without it. Most post-Apocalypse fiction can’t even imagine it. You had better start imagining it.
END
www.bisonpress.com to buy my stuff
Before we get started, I am not a chemist. I am not very knowledgeable in science at all. I do want to know basic recipes of improvised explosives, in case of nation-wide gun control, or in case of civilization collapse and the cessation of modern industry. I don’t want to go back to using flintlock rifles if possible. Flintlocks are as low tech as you can get without going with a matchlock. I would prefer to have primers so that in foul weather I am not unarmed. So a compromise is needed- lower tech, just not too low. Mercury fulminate primers should fit the bill. I am giving you here the basic outlines on how to make the primer filler. Do not attempt unless you know what you are doing. If you don’t know what you are doing, wait until after civilization collapses since by then it wouldn’t matter if you take crazy risks. In other words, only attempt if the alternative is going undefended from lack of primers.
*
In a collapse situation after all ammunition is depleted, after all modern reloading equipment has been used, then you can use black powder in your cases and mercury fulminate to re-prime your primers. The next step down is somehow fashioning replacement cases. I don’t, off-hand, know any way except swagging. And that is not going to work for most of us. I am talking about manufacturing from scratch under primitive methods ( if anyone has a clue please let me know ). But perhaps this step will hold you until a new arms industry comes along. The problem I have had with all of my improvised recipes, as told from the military manuals to Duncan Long, is that they assume you have mercury. “First, get mercury…” Hello!!! They don’t offer much in the way of mercury anymore. Too toxic, it has been phased out. It is just like the strike anywhere matches they tell you to get. The few you can find are low powered anymore. Not like the good stuff you used to be able to get.
*
Mercury fulminate itself is easy. Take mercury, dissolve in nitric acid, add ethanol to the solution. We just covered making saltpeter. To make nitric acid you take saltpeter, heat it until you get a gas, condense the gas to get liquid nitric acid. This is where that solar ice maker comes in handy, both to condense the chemicals and the ethanol. To manufacture saltpeter, to get more than just scrapping the chicken run, do the following. Layer dirt, limestone and manure in piles four feet deep. Let stand three to five years, then take top twenty centimeters. Add water and wood ashes, filter thru sand, boil to remove water and cool overnight. The large crystals are saltpeter ( potassium nitrate ).
*
However, to get the mercury you are going to need to go through a lot of trouble. First, you need to find a region that has the ore red mercury sulfide, also known as cinnabar. Usually formed underground in warm mineral solutions from volcanic action. Found at shallow depths, from three to three thousand feet. The cinnabar ore is crushed and then heated to release vapor. The vapor is cooled, condensed and collected. To heat, the ore is ground fine by sending it through a series of mills. Fed into the furnace to heat. The heated cinnabar reacts with oxygen to produce sulfur dioxide. The furnace exhaust passes through a water cooled condenser and liquid mercury is collected. Impurities are on the surface as scum, treated with lime to separate. Stored in wrought iron or steel flasks. And very toxic. Inhalation is very dangerous, absorption through the skin almost as bad. And can be cumulative.
*
As you can see, you are in for a level of sophistication most of us don’t have. If you can kidnap, bribe, or force a chemist or chemistry teacher in to your group you will be in much better shape than most. Then you can get all kinds of great weapons produced, as well as artificial fertilizers and other nifty items. If you do manage to get a mercury extraction process going, you will be faced with not only the military need to secure the ore site but the need to provide labor for the mine and processing facility. Even with safeguards the toxicity will take a toll. A perfect activity for former lawyers, politicians, CEO’s and bankers. After they are all gone you should get enough POW’s in. Or political prisoners.
*
This might not be the greatest primer system there is. Of course, any advance over living through another Stone Age is going to be great. We are so spoiled and surrounded by an abundant Energy Age we can’t imagine life without it. Most post-Apocalypse fiction can’t even imagine it. You had better start imagining it.
END
www.bisonpress.com to buy my stuff
Monday, July 16, 2007
rechambering bolt guns
RECHAMBERING YOUR BOLT ACTION
The other day I got an e-mail from a reader. I was quite impressed with his preps. Not only was he buying wheat every payday, he was trading labor for gunsmithing work. His only monetary expense was the equipment itself. Now he is wondering about turning his Lee-Enfield from 303 to 7.62x54R. The advantages are obvious. You can buy rounds a heck of a lot cheaper. Now, I know most of you at this point are moaning and rigidly grasping your head between your hands, feeling like a complete turd that instead of a real rifle with real rounds you own some little carbine that looks cool and sprays out a lot of lead and will run dry on the second day of Armageddon. So while hoards of zombie bikers rape your livestock you can only look on with horror, your cool carbine with high capacity magazines bone dry and your pathetic fold out bayonet so thin it flaps in the breeze. Granted, I did also tell you that the best survival gun is the one you are already proficient and comfortable with. But right now you should still feel like a turd for not owning a real rifle. Even though I am focusing on the Enfield, this might apply to other rifles such as Mausers. So read it anyway and like it.
*
It is no secret I love my Enfields. Like most owners of firearms I have a mania about my pick of personal mayhem machinery. But just because I am emotionally attached to a firearm doesn’t mean I am wrong about it being one of the better ones you can own to survive the Coming Crash/Chaos and Confusion. An Enfield is like a 1911A1. They are old, with better designs already out. But they are solid and proven and despite some shortcomings they are the best available for the job at hand with the fewest flaws. I won’t dwell too much on this, I have covered this all before. So while I love my Enfields, I don’t have the same irrational attachment to the 303 round ( its just slightly lower in emotional investment- there is a reason my email address is jimd303 ). I wouldn’t have any trouble personally switching to 308 or 762x54r. If the economics make sense.
*
When you switch over to another round you allow yourself the option of stockpiling much more ammunition. I would much rather own an Enfield that was rechambered than own the original gun that shoots the round. The Mosin-Nagant is a very affordable rifle, but it has no gas bleed safety which right now is no big deal but in the future with improvised rounds it might very well be. If you want to shoot 308, despite the fact that those rounds are expensive and in short supply due to military procurement, the Indian Enfield is chambered for it. Expect to spend at least fifty percent more for it than the No.4 Enfield in 303b. Then you would need to pay for a peep site ( they come with leaf and post ). All in all very expensive, about the equivalent of just buying another five hundred rounds of surplus 303. The same with rechambering. If you are only going to stockpile one to two thousand rounds it makes little sense. If you plan on buying more ammo then it does.
*
If you can get a good deal from a local gunsmith, a video on the process is $30. Write to R.O.C. p.o. box 1164, Pecos, NM 87552. If you want to send the rifle in for the work it is $160 from Sante Fe Gunsmithing Inc., 509 Airport Road, Sante Fe NM 87505. Write first, obviously, or call (505) 438-4174. Now you can buy ten cent surplus ammo. The 303, when you can find it is about thirty cents a round surplus. One word of caution on this ammo however, both are corrosive ( sometimes even the modern Russian rounds-swab with diluted ammonia at the range to stop corrosion ). But an additional flaw is in using lacquered steel case ammunition. If the rifle gets hot enough, you might get “lacquer flow”. The coating will melt and cover the rifle parts and might cause the round to jam. OOPS! There goes the advantage of having a rifle that shoots cheap ammo. On the other hand, the conversion process does seem to tighten up the groups considerably. You actual go from “pie-plate accuracy” to normal MOA accuracy. Not bad at all considering the notorious sloppy Enfield action.
*
Also, if you own more than one rifle, the economics get harder to swallow. I own five Enfields, but I realize I am a bit of a freak. Two guns should be a minimum, three is better. Go ahead, trip on a root and fall down a small hill. Your three hundred dollar scope is now crap and your only semi-auto battle rifle now has a bent barrel. You need more than one rifle, period. Another reason to own lots of cheap surplus rifles. At three rifles the conversion process is almost five hundred bucks. Better to buy three M-N rifles for as low as $275. Half the cost. One rifle converted pays for itself after five hundred rounds.
One Enfield, 2k rounds 303 $450
One Enfield, converted, 2k 762x54r rounds $500
Two Enfield, 4k rounds 303 $900
One Enfield, converted, one M-N rifle, 4k rounds $875
Two M-N with 4k rounds $725
The only reason to convert is if 303b ammunition dries up. The Russian round is still in production and military use. We will be able to buy it cheap unless the laws on imports change. The 303 will soon have no surplus available, just commercial rounds at fifty cents each. Or, if you want better accuracy with your Enfield. At this point, with 303 available in surplus, it makes no financial sense. It should be decades before commercial 303 wanes, if at all, and by that time we are all toast anyway.
*
So, financially, only convert if you want more ammo than the surplus market will deliver. Or, convert if you want better accuracy ( not guaranteed, just typical with test rifles ). If you want more than one rifle, stay with either the original configuration or just go with the Mosin-Nagants in the first place. Just do the math, before any decisions are made. One way to hedge your bets might be to get a chamber insert that converts your thirty caliber rifle to a 7.62x39. You can later remove the insert. Granted, the round is twice as expensive now that we are supplying Iraqi security forces with enough ammunition so they can fire off a clip from their AK47 and then scurry back behind a tank or building. But in the near future it might be the only affordable ammo if the surplus market dries up. The insert is around $35 for an Enfield ( other calibers available ) at www.mcace.com
And you can’t fill up your magazine, it is one round at a time. Still, something to consider.
*
Hope this helps shed some light on the economics of conversion.
END
I have added new books and new gear to my Amazon pages, find the links at www.bisonpress.com
The other day I got an e-mail from a reader. I was quite impressed with his preps. Not only was he buying wheat every payday, he was trading labor for gunsmithing work. His only monetary expense was the equipment itself. Now he is wondering about turning his Lee-Enfield from 303 to 7.62x54R. The advantages are obvious. You can buy rounds a heck of a lot cheaper. Now, I know most of you at this point are moaning and rigidly grasping your head between your hands, feeling like a complete turd that instead of a real rifle with real rounds you own some little carbine that looks cool and sprays out a lot of lead and will run dry on the second day of Armageddon. So while hoards of zombie bikers rape your livestock you can only look on with horror, your cool carbine with high capacity magazines bone dry and your pathetic fold out bayonet so thin it flaps in the breeze. Granted, I did also tell you that the best survival gun is the one you are already proficient and comfortable with. But right now you should still feel like a turd for not owning a real rifle. Even though I am focusing on the Enfield, this might apply to other rifles such as Mausers. So read it anyway and like it.
*
It is no secret I love my Enfields. Like most owners of firearms I have a mania about my pick of personal mayhem machinery. But just because I am emotionally attached to a firearm doesn’t mean I am wrong about it being one of the better ones you can own to survive the Coming Crash/Chaos and Confusion. An Enfield is like a 1911A1. They are old, with better designs already out. But they are solid and proven and despite some shortcomings they are the best available for the job at hand with the fewest flaws. I won’t dwell too much on this, I have covered this all before. So while I love my Enfields, I don’t have the same irrational attachment to the 303 round ( its just slightly lower in emotional investment- there is a reason my email address is jimd303 ). I wouldn’t have any trouble personally switching to 308 or 762x54r. If the economics make sense.
*
When you switch over to another round you allow yourself the option of stockpiling much more ammunition. I would much rather own an Enfield that was rechambered than own the original gun that shoots the round. The Mosin-Nagant is a very affordable rifle, but it has no gas bleed safety which right now is no big deal but in the future with improvised rounds it might very well be. If you want to shoot 308, despite the fact that those rounds are expensive and in short supply due to military procurement, the Indian Enfield is chambered for it. Expect to spend at least fifty percent more for it than the No.4 Enfield in 303b. Then you would need to pay for a peep site ( they come with leaf and post ). All in all very expensive, about the equivalent of just buying another five hundred rounds of surplus 303. The same with rechambering. If you are only going to stockpile one to two thousand rounds it makes little sense. If you plan on buying more ammo then it does.
*
If you can get a good deal from a local gunsmith, a video on the process is $30. Write to R.O.C. p.o. box 1164, Pecos, NM 87552. If you want to send the rifle in for the work it is $160 from Sante Fe Gunsmithing Inc., 509 Airport Road, Sante Fe NM 87505. Write first, obviously, or call (505) 438-4174. Now you can buy ten cent surplus ammo. The 303, when you can find it is about thirty cents a round surplus. One word of caution on this ammo however, both are corrosive ( sometimes even the modern Russian rounds-swab with diluted ammonia at the range to stop corrosion ). But an additional flaw is in using lacquered steel case ammunition. If the rifle gets hot enough, you might get “lacquer flow”. The coating will melt and cover the rifle parts and might cause the round to jam. OOPS! There goes the advantage of having a rifle that shoots cheap ammo. On the other hand, the conversion process does seem to tighten up the groups considerably. You actual go from “pie-plate accuracy” to normal MOA accuracy. Not bad at all considering the notorious sloppy Enfield action.
*
Also, if you own more than one rifle, the economics get harder to swallow. I own five Enfields, but I realize I am a bit of a freak. Two guns should be a minimum, three is better. Go ahead, trip on a root and fall down a small hill. Your three hundred dollar scope is now crap and your only semi-auto battle rifle now has a bent barrel. You need more than one rifle, period. Another reason to own lots of cheap surplus rifles. At three rifles the conversion process is almost five hundred bucks. Better to buy three M-N rifles for as low as $275. Half the cost. One rifle converted pays for itself after five hundred rounds.
One Enfield, 2k rounds 303 $450
One Enfield, converted, 2k 762x54r rounds $500
Two Enfield, 4k rounds 303 $900
One Enfield, converted, one M-N rifle, 4k rounds $875
Two M-N with 4k rounds $725
The only reason to convert is if 303b ammunition dries up. The Russian round is still in production and military use. We will be able to buy it cheap unless the laws on imports change. The 303 will soon have no surplus available, just commercial rounds at fifty cents each. Or, if you want better accuracy with your Enfield. At this point, with 303 available in surplus, it makes no financial sense. It should be decades before commercial 303 wanes, if at all, and by that time we are all toast anyway.
*
So, financially, only convert if you want more ammo than the surplus market will deliver. Or, convert if you want better accuracy ( not guaranteed, just typical with test rifles ). If you want more than one rifle, stay with either the original configuration or just go with the Mosin-Nagants in the first place. Just do the math, before any decisions are made. One way to hedge your bets might be to get a chamber insert that converts your thirty caliber rifle to a 7.62x39. You can later remove the insert. Granted, the round is twice as expensive now that we are supplying Iraqi security forces with enough ammunition so they can fire off a clip from their AK47 and then scurry back behind a tank or building. But in the near future it might be the only affordable ammo if the surplus market dries up. The insert is around $35 for an Enfield ( other calibers available ) at www.mcace.com
And you can’t fill up your magazine, it is one round at a time. Still, something to consider.
*
Hope this helps shed some light on the economics of conversion.
END
I have added new books and new gear to my Amazon pages, find the links at www.bisonpress.com
Saturday, July 14, 2007
weather forecast
WEATHER FORECAST
Today’s weather forecast-mushroom clouds. I am going on record right here, this forecast is correct or your money back on your subscription to bison blog. Soon, we are going to see either a nation-state attack using nukes ( as in nuke for nuke such as between China and Pakistan ), a strike on Iran by either us or Israel, or a terrorist attack on one of our cities. Well, a western city anyway. I’m not saying in one hundred years, I’m saying very soon. This doesn’t take a crystal ball or contacts in the highest levels of government, just common sense.
*
Oil will not last forever. Even if Peak Oil alarmists ( such as myself ) are wrong, oil will eventually run out. Without oil we die. The leaders of nations don’t care about you or me dying, but they are concerned about themselves. They need us only insofar as they need soldiers and workers. But they sure don’t need over six million of us. They can easily let go of some of us. Oil is energy, energy is life. Solar is energy, but no ones life style as they are accustomed to can be maintained by solar energy. Oil scarcity will cause wide scale massive war. Resource wars. The little bit of trouble we have had so far is nothing. That is just a failing empire and massive inflation. Wait until we really start to run out of the oil.
*
It seems silly to think nuclear armed powers will exchange nuclear weapons, especially considering that the US and Soviets never did. But they also were never threatened by lack of energy supplies. Without oil, a state will not survive. The State enslaves the masses and protects the powers that be. Those same powers that be, bankers or corporate types or politicians or a combination thereof, will gladly fry twelve million citizens in New York City to ensure their continued comfort and wealth. You can take that to the bank ( or better yet buy gold with it ). Almost all major fields are declining at eight to fifteen percent annual production. Russia, Mexico, North Sea, even Saudi Arabia. It won’t be much longer that armed and angry nations are threatened with their oil supplies being cut off ( the US, China, whoever ).
*
Iran can’t keep their own people passive as they enact gasoline rationing ( the poor bastards are used to unlimited state subsidized gas just like the rest of us ). But that is because of an aging refinery problem ( gee, does that sound familiar? ). They still have enough oil and natural gas to go to war over. So, my question is, can we afford it economically? Can we go to war with Iran? We can get Israel to do the dirty work for us. Those crazy bastards are paranoid enough to gladly do it. Or will we do it to stall a retaliatory attack on them? I know we can’t invade and occupy, we don’t have the means. It would have to be a nuke, then occupy the oil fields. Or, stage an incident to get them to shut down the Straights, then attack. That goes over better with the rest of the countries of the region. Until our small forces are bogged down or defeated, then we nuke anyway. Then things would really get interesting. Perhaps we’ll shift our forces over from Iraq and later nuke both their asses. This is how our politicians think, in bumper sticker slogans. It remains to be seen how their handlers will react. Hopefully with a bit more logic.
*
If it is deemed too expensive to invade Iran, there will be a terrorist attack domestically. I think along the lines of OKC or NYC myself. We all know Clinton had something to do with Oklahoma City being bombed. His other trail of bodies from Arkansas almost guarantee it. If a building could only be felled with internal charges, and by coincidence all ATF agents were out of the office that day, and if a fertilizer bomb is too weak to do the damage it did ( unless the building was built way under specs ), the government was involved. Just like other incidences such as the jetliner going down in the northeast, the one with the long line of burning fuel that started outside the plane and burned up to it. Just like 9/11, where anyone not blinded by waving a flag will admit something very fishy happened. Amateur pilots only practicing in small Cessna planes can take a huge jet liner and perfectly crash both wings into the building by flying in sideways? I believe in the “remote controlled by AWAC plane” theory before I believe the official version. FDR, the Satanic child molester that pushed Japan into attacking us so we could recover from a Depression that the Fed bank caused to consolidate power over all banks and eliminate the gold standard, has more credibility than the official 9/11 story.
*
So we can safely say that if they want to, the powers that be will be more than happy and capable of nuking one of our own cities ( or, even another western nation city might work ). Either to have a smoking gun as an excuse to start an all out war, or a good substitute if we can’t swing that. If it is too unrealistic or too expensive to attack/invade another country ( remember, war is a good substitute for economic activity ), we can nuke a city, blame terrorists, then publicly set the Constitution on fire and start a genuine police state with hyperinflation. Right now we are headed towards that, but this would be the last excuse needed to really get serious. No more civil rights, no more Constitutional protections- in other words even the façade we are living under now would be abolished. This would really be convenient as far as importing illegals, jailing all dissenters of the executive branch, abolishing small business that don’t give campaign contributions, institute gas rationing or mandatory car pooling, all kinds of nifty ways to make the system last a lot longer under a dwindling energy scenario.
*
One way or another we are going to try to be the last nation to run out of oil. Nothing wrong with that. Politics are just another way of stealing what you need in order to survive. It would have been much easier to stay with an energy conservation program, with alternate energies, starting in the seventies. But that would have been a death sentence for the wealthy. More money is made in SUV’s and McMansions and lifetime debt than installing a solar panel and growing our own vegetables and keeping the rail system running. As I said, we can all glow in the dark as far as they are concerned, those in charge will stay wealthy and living in luxury no matter the cost. Just beware the potential personal cost to yourself when nukes are used to steal the last of the oil.
END
e-books, Amazon books, prep gear www.bisonpress.com
Today’s weather forecast-mushroom clouds. I am going on record right here, this forecast is correct or your money back on your subscription to bison blog. Soon, we are going to see either a nation-state attack using nukes ( as in nuke for nuke such as between China and Pakistan ), a strike on Iran by either us or Israel, or a terrorist attack on one of our cities. Well, a western city anyway. I’m not saying in one hundred years, I’m saying very soon. This doesn’t take a crystal ball or contacts in the highest levels of government, just common sense.
*
Oil will not last forever. Even if Peak Oil alarmists ( such as myself ) are wrong, oil will eventually run out. Without oil we die. The leaders of nations don’t care about you or me dying, but they are concerned about themselves. They need us only insofar as they need soldiers and workers. But they sure don’t need over six million of us. They can easily let go of some of us. Oil is energy, energy is life. Solar is energy, but no ones life style as they are accustomed to can be maintained by solar energy. Oil scarcity will cause wide scale massive war. Resource wars. The little bit of trouble we have had so far is nothing. That is just a failing empire and massive inflation. Wait until we really start to run out of the oil.
*
It seems silly to think nuclear armed powers will exchange nuclear weapons, especially considering that the US and Soviets never did. But they also were never threatened by lack of energy supplies. Without oil, a state will not survive. The State enslaves the masses and protects the powers that be. Those same powers that be, bankers or corporate types or politicians or a combination thereof, will gladly fry twelve million citizens in New York City to ensure their continued comfort and wealth. You can take that to the bank ( or better yet buy gold with it ). Almost all major fields are declining at eight to fifteen percent annual production. Russia, Mexico, North Sea, even Saudi Arabia. It won’t be much longer that armed and angry nations are threatened with their oil supplies being cut off ( the US, China, whoever ).
*
Iran can’t keep their own people passive as they enact gasoline rationing ( the poor bastards are used to unlimited state subsidized gas just like the rest of us ). But that is because of an aging refinery problem ( gee, does that sound familiar? ). They still have enough oil and natural gas to go to war over. So, my question is, can we afford it economically? Can we go to war with Iran? We can get Israel to do the dirty work for us. Those crazy bastards are paranoid enough to gladly do it. Or will we do it to stall a retaliatory attack on them? I know we can’t invade and occupy, we don’t have the means. It would have to be a nuke, then occupy the oil fields. Or, stage an incident to get them to shut down the Straights, then attack. That goes over better with the rest of the countries of the region. Until our small forces are bogged down or defeated, then we nuke anyway. Then things would really get interesting. Perhaps we’ll shift our forces over from Iraq and later nuke both their asses. This is how our politicians think, in bumper sticker slogans. It remains to be seen how their handlers will react. Hopefully with a bit more logic.
*
If it is deemed too expensive to invade Iran, there will be a terrorist attack domestically. I think along the lines of OKC or NYC myself. We all know Clinton had something to do with Oklahoma City being bombed. His other trail of bodies from Arkansas almost guarantee it. If a building could only be felled with internal charges, and by coincidence all ATF agents were out of the office that day, and if a fertilizer bomb is too weak to do the damage it did ( unless the building was built way under specs ), the government was involved. Just like other incidences such as the jetliner going down in the northeast, the one with the long line of burning fuel that started outside the plane and burned up to it. Just like 9/11, where anyone not blinded by waving a flag will admit something very fishy happened. Amateur pilots only practicing in small Cessna planes can take a huge jet liner and perfectly crash both wings into the building by flying in sideways? I believe in the “remote controlled by AWAC plane” theory before I believe the official version. FDR, the Satanic child molester that pushed Japan into attacking us so we could recover from a Depression that the Fed bank caused to consolidate power over all banks and eliminate the gold standard, has more credibility than the official 9/11 story.
*
So we can safely say that if they want to, the powers that be will be more than happy and capable of nuking one of our own cities ( or, even another western nation city might work ). Either to have a smoking gun as an excuse to start an all out war, or a good substitute if we can’t swing that. If it is too unrealistic or too expensive to attack/invade another country ( remember, war is a good substitute for economic activity ), we can nuke a city, blame terrorists, then publicly set the Constitution on fire and start a genuine police state with hyperinflation. Right now we are headed towards that, but this would be the last excuse needed to really get serious. No more civil rights, no more Constitutional protections- in other words even the façade we are living under now would be abolished. This would really be convenient as far as importing illegals, jailing all dissenters of the executive branch, abolishing small business that don’t give campaign contributions, institute gas rationing or mandatory car pooling, all kinds of nifty ways to make the system last a lot longer under a dwindling energy scenario.
*
One way or another we are going to try to be the last nation to run out of oil. Nothing wrong with that. Politics are just another way of stealing what you need in order to survive. It would have been much easier to stay with an energy conservation program, with alternate energies, starting in the seventies. But that would have been a death sentence for the wealthy. More money is made in SUV’s and McMansions and lifetime debt than installing a solar panel and growing our own vegetables and keeping the rail system running. As I said, we can all glow in the dark as far as they are concerned, those in charge will stay wealthy and living in luxury no matter the cost. Just beware the potential personal cost to yourself when nukes are used to steal the last of the oil.
END
e-books, Amazon books, prep gear www.bisonpress.com
Friday, July 13, 2007
pressure cookers
PRESSURE COOKER
Excuse me if this is old hat, familiar or redundant. I figure that most of you are city boys like myself and wouldn’t know a hens butt from a beak. The last time I was around an operating pressure canner was when I was a lad. So imagine my surprise when progress has caught up and overtaken me. Besides the old pressure canner, used to home can your own slop, now you can use a pressure cooker. With the old weight valve on pressure canners there was a real possibility of having food clog the valve. With new cookers, a spring valve is used which are self cleaning and don’t have the same safety concern. As well as having other safety features. So now it is quite safe to cook foods in a pressure cooker without them being in cans.
*
Right now most of us use microwave ovens. The time savings might not be great, but the energy savings are wonderful. In the future, we might see regular power outages. Whether due to Peak Oil or a Depression or civil strife, dependable power at your beck and call might be a thing of the past. So microwaves might be unusable. As well as freezers. At that point you will want to have the means of canning your own meat, as well as being able to cook all of your food a lot quicker with a lot less energy consumed. When propane is no longer available and wood is the only fuel ( that or cow patties ) you need to do more with less. Solar ovens and water heaters and dehydrators are of course essential, but the sun will not always cooperate. As the wood stove is to your passive home solar heater, the pressure canner/cooker is to your solar cooking.
*
You could get a combination cooker/canner. Expect to pay a little under $100. The problem is that they are small, about eight quart capacity. When you need to can a large chunk of meat this could be limiting. You can buy a twenty odd quart canner for about the same $80. With a good cooker you will spend another $50. If you can find both on sale you might spend as little as $100 for both units. You need a cooker to cook foods fast with very little fuel. The cheapest is $30 at Wal-Mart for an aluminum unit. The cheapest canner I have seen on Amazon is about $80-90 for a 18-22 quart. The cheaper combos are aluminum. It doesn’t matter if you use aluminum in a canner, no food touches it. If you use an aluminum cooker, you need to worry about metal poisoning. Granted, it is long term. I am not super-paranoid about aluminum cookware, but I am trying to phase it out and not buy any more. If you only plan on buying as cheap as possible and only using it after a calamity, by all means get aluminum. But if you plan on using the cooker on a regular basis now, it is a good idea to stick with stainless steel for health reasons. Small stainless cookers go for about $50.
*
If you are just buying another prep item, you can get away with a cheap $30 unit. If you plan on canning also, you can’t get away with less than $100 unless you buy a used one. The gasket and gauge are not insanely priced for a replacement, if that is a concern. Do not use a pressure cooker for canning unless it is a combo unit. The cookers are not designed to keep the pressure high enough for safe canning. A cooker uses less water due to the new valve not wasting any steam. So you retain more flavor and nutrition. A general rule of thumb is that your cooker will cook at least three times as fast as conventional methods.
*
An obvious use for a cooker is beans. As little as 15 minutes and you are done. I imagine this is after a pre-soak. A great source for recipes and how-to’s is http://missvickie.com . Cooking times are given. Some are: six minutes for ground beef. Four minutes for potato cubes. Six minutes for small whole potatoes. Four minutes for white rice. Five minutes for pasta. This is awesome! In the microwave I cook cubed potatoes and it takes thirty to forty minutes. Fifteen for pasta. Twenty to thirty for hamburger. Rice is twenty to thirty. Obviously a cooker is a great investment. We all value our precious time right now, and in the future we might value our cooking fuel even more. This is the best answer.
*
I have tried non-electric slow cookers, either in a steel thermos bottle or in an insulated pot and they work marginally at best. This would be a better way to go. Yes, it costs a bit much. At least $100 if using aluminum in the cooker. Well, assume you need a new cooker, buy a $20 canner and replace the gasket and gauge. That is about $80. If you buy both new it would be about $130. This is stainless cooker and aluminum canner. Cheaper than a freezer. Uses less propane if you are off the grid. You can build a solar ice maker and have an ice box, but you still have no freezer. You will need to can your meat, at least. I would also be canning butter. A canner is almost a necessity off the grid. And seeing as how most of us will involuntarily be off the grid soon, a canner and cooker is a good investment. It may not be as important as a rifle, but it is the only answer to grid collapse and fuel scarcity. Don’t neglect that possibility in your preps.
END
Buy oodles of good stuff at www.bisonpress.com . E-books, Amazon books and prep gear.
Excuse me if this is old hat, familiar or redundant. I figure that most of you are city boys like myself and wouldn’t know a hens butt from a beak. The last time I was around an operating pressure canner was when I was a lad. So imagine my surprise when progress has caught up and overtaken me. Besides the old pressure canner, used to home can your own slop, now you can use a pressure cooker. With the old weight valve on pressure canners there was a real possibility of having food clog the valve. With new cookers, a spring valve is used which are self cleaning and don’t have the same safety concern. As well as having other safety features. So now it is quite safe to cook foods in a pressure cooker without them being in cans.
*
Right now most of us use microwave ovens. The time savings might not be great, but the energy savings are wonderful. In the future, we might see regular power outages. Whether due to Peak Oil or a Depression or civil strife, dependable power at your beck and call might be a thing of the past. So microwaves might be unusable. As well as freezers. At that point you will want to have the means of canning your own meat, as well as being able to cook all of your food a lot quicker with a lot less energy consumed. When propane is no longer available and wood is the only fuel ( that or cow patties ) you need to do more with less. Solar ovens and water heaters and dehydrators are of course essential, but the sun will not always cooperate. As the wood stove is to your passive home solar heater, the pressure canner/cooker is to your solar cooking.
*
You could get a combination cooker/canner. Expect to pay a little under $100. The problem is that they are small, about eight quart capacity. When you need to can a large chunk of meat this could be limiting. You can buy a twenty odd quart canner for about the same $80. With a good cooker you will spend another $50. If you can find both on sale you might spend as little as $100 for both units. You need a cooker to cook foods fast with very little fuel. The cheapest is $30 at Wal-Mart for an aluminum unit. The cheapest canner I have seen on Amazon is about $80-90 for a 18-22 quart. The cheaper combos are aluminum. It doesn’t matter if you use aluminum in a canner, no food touches it. If you use an aluminum cooker, you need to worry about metal poisoning. Granted, it is long term. I am not super-paranoid about aluminum cookware, but I am trying to phase it out and not buy any more. If you only plan on buying as cheap as possible and only using it after a calamity, by all means get aluminum. But if you plan on using the cooker on a regular basis now, it is a good idea to stick with stainless steel for health reasons. Small stainless cookers go for about $50.
*
If you are just buying another prep item, you can get away with a cheap $30 unit. If you plan on canning also, you can’t get away with less than $100 unless you buy a used one. The gasket and gauge are not insanely priced for a replacement, if that is a concern. Do not use a pressure cooker for canning unless it is a combo unit. The cookers are not designed to keep the pressure high enough for safe canning. A cooker uses less water due to the new valve not wasting any steam. So you retain more flavor and nutrition. A general rule of thumb is that your cooker will cook at least three times as fast as conventional methods.
*
An obvious use for a cooker is beans. As little as 15 minutes and you are done. I imagine this is after a pre-soak. A great source for recipes and how-to’s is http://missvickie.com . Cooking times are given. Some are: six minutes for ground beef. Four minutes for potato cubes. Six minutes for small whole potatoes. Four minutes for white rice. Five minutes for pasta. This is awesome! In the microwave I cook cubed potatoes and it takes thirty to forty minutes. Fifteen for pasta. Twenty to thirty for hamburger. Rice is twenty to thirty. Obviously a cooker is a great investment. We all value our precious time right now, and in the future we might value our cooking fuel even more. This is the best answer.
*
I have tried non-electric slow cookers, either in a steel thermos bottle or in an insulated pot and they work marginally at best. This would be a better way to go. Yes, it costs a bit much. At least $100 if using aluminum in the cooker. Well, assume you need a new cooker, buy a $20 canner and replace the gasket and gauge. That is about $80. If you buy both new it would be about $130. This is stainless cooker and aluminum canner. Cheaper than a freezer. Uses less propane if you are off the grid. You can build a solar ice maker and have an ice box, but you still have no freezer. You will need to can your meat, at least. I would also be canning butter. A canner is almost a necessity off the grid. And seeing as how most of us will involuntarily be off the grid soon, a canner and cooker is a good investment. It may not be as important as a rifle, but it is the only answer to grid collapse and fuel scarcity. Don’t neglect that possibility in your preps.
END
Buy oodles of good stuff at www.bisonpress.com . E-books, Amazon books and prep gear.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
bullseye
BULLSEYE
Do you feel like a bullseye is painted on your forehead, along with a sign on your back saying Kick Me and one on the seat of your britches saying Insert Here Without Lubrication? You should. The average man has always had the potential for being screwed, but there always used to be a safety valve. Since the founding of our country you could always move West to escape all the parasites. And without much taxation or regulation you could always make yourself rich if you were hard working. After the West ran out and after the turn of the century when a banking crisis was the excuse used to establish the Federal Reserve Bank, the only outlet was to Unionize. But since our oil started running out we have been unable to do anything but stand still and see what would be the next hammer blow chipping away at the middle class standard of living.
*
Everyone, myself included, is running around in circles screaming like a gored cat, the housing bubble is popping, the housing bubble is popping!! All our food is poisoned! All our jobs are going overseas! What is our point? We will continue to see this sort of thing until the end. In fact, it is one of the things making the end somewhat attractive in a twisted and perverse way. Colonialism was started to steal resources after slavery was outlawed. Colonialism ended after the ruling country passed from being a economic powerhouse. But the US was right behind the failed empires with economic colonialism, wielding the new global currency and backed by the oil wealth of Texas. Most of the Third World plants cash crops instead of food, sells low to US corporations and has to face the Marines if they object. Or, if money is tight we get the CIA to back another government. Capitalism, democracy, the Constitution and any other buzz word forced down our throats during public school brainwashing is just a damn lie. We have been living in a putrid mix of Fascism, Socialism and a sprinkle of Communism for over a century. Ask any Black not on welfare, any American Indian or heck, even most Hawaiians how fair and just our government ever was.
*
It is a fact of life that there will always be exploiters and rulers. Under the guise of government our oppression is institutionalized and given a clock of legitimacy. I love the idea of America, a Constitutional Republic. The reality is far different. I wouldn’t mind sacrificing a limited degree of freedom for the ideal we should be living under. What we actually have is little better than most other countries. Besides the right to free speech ( getting less free all the time ) and the right to bear arms ( as long as it is only some kinds of arms, only in some places and only under license ) we are pretty much living in any number of Peoples Socialists Paradises. You can well up a tear during the national anthem, you can support our troops, you can wave the flag, but when it comes to your money you need to be a little more clear headed and emotionally grounded.
*
There will always be someone trying to screw you. Even, or better yet especially, after our current system flounders. My point here is to try to convince you that the institutions amongst us today not only don’t care about you, not only are they a danger to you, they actively pursue your wealth at your expense. The government will steal everything they can from you, the corporations will sell you the worst possible merchandise they can get away with, your banker will devalue your saved money as quickly as possible. The health care system is only interested in your bank account and your eligibility for Medicare, not your health. Lawyers need to send their offspring to college and don’t care if you lose everything and are reduced to living in a trailer on a quarter acre in the middle of a swamp or desert.
*
No one cares you will be eating dog food as a retiree since inflation is ten percent and the rate of COLA is 3%. No one cares your medical condition is misdiagnosed after twenty-three tests and the medicine you take will kill you from cancer. No one cares your son is slowly dying of Agent Orange ( then ) or radiation poisoning ( now ). Unless they can make a buck at it, then they care. You are being defrauded with promises that will never be kept. Retirement, the safety of your bank account, your Constitutional rights. Your job safety, safety on the job. The policeman protecting you. The safety of food, or of food even being available to you at the market. You are all alone. It is all on you.
*
Only you can ensure your safety and freedom. You alone are responsible. You make it happen. Don’t trust any bastard or promise. This includes the purchasing power of the dollars you hold, ensuring your retirement, your food supply. You think you know this, as a survivalist, yet… Do you hold a mortgage? Expect the oil to continue flowing? Need a two income family to survive? Etcetera. We all need to step away from basic assumptions and get a lot more paranoid.
END
www.bisonpress.com for my stuff
Do you feel like a bullseye is painted on your forehead, along with a sign on your back saying Kick Me and one on the seat of your britches saying Insert Here Without Lubrication? You should. The average man has always had the potential for being screwed, but there always used to be a safety valve. Since the founding of our country you could always move West to escape all the parasites. And without much taxation or regulation you could always make yourself rich if you were hard working. After the West ran out and after the turn of the century when a banking crisis was the excuse used to establish the Federal Reserve Bank, the only outlet was to Unionize. But since our oil started running out we have been unable to do anything but stand still and see what would be the next hammer blow chipping away at the middle class standard of living.
*
Everyone, myself included, is running around in circles screaming like a gored cat, the housing bubble is popping, the housing bubble is popping!! All our food is poisoned! All our jobs are going overseas! What is our point? We will continue to see this sort of thing until the end. In fact, it is one of the things making the end somewhat attractive in a twisted and perverse way. Colonialism was started to steal resources after slavery was outlawed. Colonialism ended after the ruling country passed from being a economic powerhouse. But the US was right behind the failed empires with economic colonialism, wielding the new global currency and backed by the oil wealth of Texas. Most of the Third World plants cash crops instead of food, sells low to US corporations and has to face the Marines if they object. Or, if money is tight we get the CIA to back another government. Capitalism, democracy, the Constitution and any other buzz word forced down our throats during public school brainwashing is just a damn lie. We have been living in a putrid mix of Fascism, Socialism and a sprinkle of Communism for over a century. Ask any Black not on welfare, any American Indian or heck, even most Hawaiians how fair and just our government ever was.
*
It is a fact of life that there will always be exploiters and rulers. Under the guise of government our oppression is institutionalized and given a clock of legitimacy. I love the idea of America, a Constitutional Republic. The reality is far different. I wouldn’t mind sacrificing a limited degree of freedom for the ideal we should be living under. What we actually have is little better than most other countries. Besides the right to free speech ( getting less free all the time ) and the right to bear arms ( as long as it is only some kinds of arms, only in some places and only under license ) we are pretty much living in any number of Peoples Socialists Paradises. You can well up a tear during the national anthem, you can support our troops, you can wave the flag, but when it comes to your money you need to be a little more clear headed and emotionally grounded.
*
There will always be someone trying to screw you. Even, or better yet especially, after our current system flounders. My point here is to try to convince you that the institutions amongst us today not only don’t care about you, not only are they a danger to you, they actively pursue your wealth at your expense. The government will steal everything they can from you, the corporations will sell you the worst possible merchandise they can get away with, your banker will devalue your saved money as quickly as possible. The health care system is only interested in your bank account and your eligibility for Medicare, not your health. Lawyers need to send their offspring to college and don’t care if you lose everything and are reduced to living in a trailer on a quarter acre in the middle of a swamp or desert.
*
No one cares you will be eating dog food as a retiree since inflation is ten percent and the rate of COLA is 3%. No one cares your medical condition is misdiagnosed after twenty-three tests and the medicine you take will kill you from cancer. No one cares your son is slowly dying of Agent Orange ( then ) or radiation poisoning ( now ). Unless they can make a buck at it, then they care. You are being defrauded with promises that will never be kept. Retirement, the safety of your bank account, your Constitutional rights. Your job safety, safety on the job. The policeman protecting you. The safety of food, or of food even being available to you at the market. You are all alone. It is all on you.
*
Only you can ensure your safety and freedom. You alone are responsible. You make it happen. Don’t trust any bastard or promise. This includes the purchasing power of the dollars you hold, ensuring your retirement, your food supply. You think you know this, as a survivalist, yet… Do you hold a mortgage? Expect the oil to continue flowing? Need a two income family to survive? Etcetera. We all need to step away from basic assumptions and get a lot more paranoid.
END
www.bisonpress.com for my stuff
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