POST-APOC TRAVELLING BORDELLO AND THEATRE TROOP
The post-apocalypse economy should be pretty bleak and dull. Most folks are going to be farmers, some soldiers, some craftsmen and very few part of the leadership. After a time cities should build up again and merchants and tradesmen will proliferate but first all the mass die-offs, the restructuring of agriculture and the fighting for the remaining resources must take place. So for quite a time there should be a niche open for traveling merchants and entertainers. When your area is too poor to support a city since there will be too few agriculture surpluses, a group of wanderers will fill that role. Since they go area to area they are less of a cost to each customer than a fixed merchant would be. Plus smaller populated areas should always need those services. A few farmers getting together twice a year can afford entertainment, their rural area could not support it year round.
*
A loyal minion came up with this idea. I hadn’t really considered it. Sure, traveling salesmen. That one was obvious. But I hadn’t thought of traveling entertainers before. I should have, it seems pretty reasonable to assume there would be a call for such. Actually, the idea was the traveling bordello. I added the theatre, for better or worse. My reasoning is that however much grubby little rag encrusted urchins may pine after Kevin Costner and mule to visit and perform Shakespeare, it is entertainment for adults that pries the coin out of the purse. So while the bordello fits that bill, there must be a cover of respectability. I can’t imagine that after 400 years of Puritan indoctrination Americans are suddenly going to embrace prostitution with open arms. Hey, you got my vote. Not only did I enjoy the cheap and professional services in Korea ( one and a half percent of monthly take home pay for a short visit ) I do live in Nevada and think ladies of the night are great for the bottom line and the last bastion against modern encroachment against personal freedom. But most people are too brainwashed to support the oldest profession. Not that they don’t utilize the service, just that they can’t be caught supporting it. So, the theatre alone would not be economically viable and a bordello by itself would be met with torches and pitchforks by a mob of overweight hags that won’t allow their husbands to enjoy themselves. Hey, look at it from their point of view. The competition would endanger their financial security.
*
Look at the idiocy of the military policy against homosexuals. Well, the one before Clinton anyway. Since military personnel work in sensitive areas regarding national security ( we were still at Cold War with the Soviets ) they were in danger of being blackmailed for information. I kept hoping a female Soviet agent would lure me into an affair and force secrets out of me, but alas no such luck. Anyway, if they allowed homos in the military then national security was compromised. Which made no sense at all. If butt pirates were not persecuted then there would be no way to blackmail them. And I knew plenty of lesbos there so the policy was a failure anyway. So, if wives allowed the occasional discreet visit to a house of ill repute with the understanding that they were old and hideous looking and the guy was going to poke almost anything else short of the penned farm animals anyway, then they wouldn’t have to worry about their secure relationship. I mean, if you know the guy wants a little strange, what’s the best thing to do? Give him a release valve or deny him until its too late? But this is not how things are viewed and so we must play along with the game.
*
Oh, joy, the triumphant traveling theatre troop is coming to town this fall! Let’s use some of our surplus crops to barter our way into the tent for a nights entertainment. We love our darling wives and our pugnacious children. Let’s treat them to a night out, with fun and joy for all! Yeh, that’s right. Fun and joy for papa while he squeezes a nice round handful that’s has yet to sag to the ground in sad defeat. And ladies, I will pause here to add that not all of us are lecherous horn dogs that wish to cheat on a loving accommodating spouse- but there are enough unhappy husbands out there that this kind of business will be successful. You get what you pay for, so to speak. Anyway, with the concession bar and the sanitary facilities strategically placed, clandestine visits to the working girls during the show should be easy enough. The mayor, chief of police or if really rural the sheriff or constable will of course need to be bribed. Hopefully digital cameras will still be operational so an “insurance policy” might be gotten during their payoff. The actresses you employ might turn out to be the really good looking ones, kind of a bait and switch. The young lustful ones are on stage so Farmer Fred gets a bit excited ( wow, is this what the guys were talking about when they told me the “special” theatre was arriving? ) and stops on the way to snacks for a quick five minute servicing ( dagnabit those lines were long honey ). Too bad those more accommodating ladies out back were a little more used and abused. And of course the show will go on after the curtain falls. Plenty will go home and slip back under darkness.
*
I think we can safely assume specialized jobs will be out of the question, post-petroleum. So everyone will need to have more than one task. The gunsmith also drives and functions well as a sniper ( getting town to town will be hazardous ). The bouncers will also be ticket sellers and muscle getting the props put up. The manager and accountant will scout out towns, bribe officials, post bail, etc. The actors and actresses would also cook, make costumes, etc. Pregnant or diseased girls would man carnival booths ( if any ), act as extras, etc. The actual talent might not do much more, being exhausted after working all night ( just ask any of my wives- pretending its good is a lot of work ). Profit sharing might be in order. The longest in the get better scale. It might work better if everyone stands to benefit from the success. The owner might be tempted to suck up all the profit, but remember your workers are delivering a service. Treat them wrong and they will sabotage you into bankruptcy.
*
Wouldn’t this be the coolest job? Ladies, it offers an escape from the drudgery of farming. For the guys, surely you could do worse such as providing security for a caravan full of smelling animals. Or being a guard around a rendering plant. And for all the struggle, it should provide a softer life than most.
END
www.bisonpress.com for books and gear
Monday, March 31, 2008
Saturday, March 29, 2008
end of free oil
END OF FREE OIL
I don’t know how many of you are familiar with this guys work, but you owe it to yourself to pop on over to http://www.thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/ . Posts are once a week, I think on Wednesdays. I had been directed there for some time, usually through the Peak Oil Clearinghouse. And of course I always forget to bookmark his site. But it is definitely top drawer. I might even go so far as to say he is smarter than I think I am, and you all know how highly I think of myself. Gives a big picture view related to Peak Oil and resource depletion. His latest article really got my mental wheels turning, complete with grinding noises, burning lubricants, sparks and a slight ozone smell. Druid dude points to the force of globalization and how without nearly free oil it would not have been possible and how that is ending.
*
Nothing happens in a vacuum and there is never just a single cause for things happening. Whether the 1970’s economic troubles were the gold/currency disconnect, our hitting our domestic Peak Oil, Arab oil embargos, our defeat in Imperialism, our declining industrial infrastructure, or the civil unrest nationwide ( or whatever combination thereof ) is not terrible important. What is important is that our nation then tied the dollar to oil and paid the bills through deficits instead of taxation. Starting about 1980 and lasting until 2005, our country enjoyed the last of the free oil. Free, because although oil might have been selling for ten to twenty dollars a barrel, we didn’t pay for it with tangible goods and even if we had a two bit gallon of gas is so low in relation to any measure it might as well be considered zero cost. This allowed transportation to be considered essentially zero cost and the race to China was on. Labor became the primary consideration. After a generation of this misallocation economically, the chickens are coming home to roost and unfortunately they are infected with Asian Bird Flu.
*
Our military was not going to cease to exist. It was a necessary cost to remain one of the economic and military superpowers of the globe. It might be claimed that we then became the only superpower but as we shall see it was a hollow title, the result of buying the nomination with a credit card. The Soviet Union might have giving up the race with us but they never gave up their military defense and today has positioned themselves as an energy superpower. If we started another Cold War with them I doubt we would win economically. Their economy is grounded on oil and ours is on top of a smoldering fire of financial derivatives. Derivatives that gave a little more life to our finance sector but are now threatening to end it for good. It doesn’t do any good to have a military if you don’t have the economics to back it up. Anyway, since we weren’t going to give up the military it made sense to put it on a profitable basis. Just like the Post Office, put some competitive capitalistic pressure on it. The Post Office hid its inefficiencies with price increases and doubling the work load of its people. The military became much more effective than the old World War II blundering colossus by substituting information for brute force ( perhaps not at a cost savings but, more importantly, at a resource savings ). The military became our national protection arm. Arms for oil. Or, more precisely, mercenaries for oil.
*
This shouldn’t be much of a surprise to people. The same was observed ninety years ago by a Marine general, the militaries dancing to a corporate tune. What is surprising is how well it worked out. The Saudi Arabian royal family became our bitch. It didn’t bother them that we were buying the oil at fire sale prices. We printed up worthless money, the Saudis took it and used it to buy whatever they wanted. They ended up with tangible wealth and the rest of the suckers took the fiat currency. We got oil for free. All we had to do was use the military we already had to provide protection guarantees. And the rest of the world knew better than to push us too far. Saber rattling was okay. But no one could have ever seriously thought of taking our oil from us. For all the talk about weak presidents and indecisiveness, the rest of the world knew we were some crazy crackers and would nuke their ass. We did it before, we would do it again. Even if the current leader might appear weak and not willing to attack with nukes, everyone else knew if push came to shove someone or someone(s) would remove that voice if necessary and then do it themselves. The Russians couldn’t possible think otherwise with their Premiers merely puppets to the KGB and other power factions ( that make my brand of paranoia look like sweet trusting love ).
*
So, with oil free, our economic manipulations were of secondary concern. We could weather financial downturns such as Black Monday or the Tech Wreck. It was all just a big fun game where the Big Boys made money hand over fist, not producing anything but digital noise. As long as the energy equation was there you could get your money for nothing and your chicks for free. Then, energy actually started to cost something. Again, most of the details aren’t terribly important. Inflation, Peak Oil, foreign competition for supply, dollar dethroning. With oil now costing actual money to buy ( and most folks no where near as willing to buy our debt as before ) and showing no signs of getting back down to “reasonable” levels our entire economy geared around free oil and imported everything started to unravel. The derivatives market could have been largely responsible for all commodities being held down artificially after 2005 ( this is the year global Peak Oil hit-we have seen the top, the level and the slight decline ) or they could just be the last hurrah of obscene profit taking. Whatever, it is another huge nail in the coffin. But, essentially, the end of free oil spelled the end for the US.
*
What a wonderful time it was. From the start of my High School education to the start of my middle age I was able to live in a society where almost everything was available with almost no effort whatsoever. You could almost forgive the bakers/politicians/corporate titans the obscene levels of money they skimmed off in the process and the huge harm they did to future generations. Almost. You have to admit it was a great time to be alive. A great gift of sloth and greed. It is all over of course and there is no going back. Not a damn change in Hell. We are going to have to shuck off decades of conditioning and adapt to a more realistic life of hardship and shortages complete with much more work and a lot less reward. No wonder no one wants to admit the party is over.
END
Rangerman ( http://www.shtfblog.com/ ), I hope your last article was at least partially a result of my ranting and raving about conspiracies. I would hate to think all my work is in vain. I loved it, an article on tin foil hats. Any suitably paranoid ( read-awake and alert because if they really are out to get you you’re not a conspiracy nut ) should be worried about the Mother Ship monitoring your brain activity and/or controlling your thoughts.
If you need more than aluminum foil, such as books and prep gear, go to http://www.bisonpress.com/
I don’t know how many of you are familiar with this guys work, but you owe it to yourself to pop on over to http://www.thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/ . Posts are once a week, I think on Wednesdays. I had been directed there for some time, usually through the Peak Oil Clearinghouse. And of course I always forget to bookmark his site. But it is definitely top drawer. I might even go so far as to say he is smarter than I think I am, and you all know how highly I think of myself. Gives a big picture view related to Peak Oil and resource depletion. His latest article really got my mental wheels turning, complete with grinding noises, burning lubricants, sparks and a slight ozone smell. Druid dude points to the force of globalization and how without nearly free oil it would not have been possible and how that is ending.
*
Nothing happens in a vacuum and there is never just a single cause for things happening. Whether the 1970’s economic troubles were the gold/currency disconnect, our hitting our domestic Peak Oil, Arab oil embargos, our defeat in Imperialism, our declining industrial infrastructure, or the civil unrest nationwide ( or whatever combination thereof ) is not terrible important. What is important is that our nation then tied the dollar to oil and paid the bills through deficits instead of taxation. Starting about 1980 and lasting until 2005, our country enjoyed the last of the free oil. Free, because although oil might have been selling for ten to twenty dollars a barrel, we didn’t pay for it with tangible goods and even if we had a two bit gallon of gas is so low in relation to any measure it might as well be considered zero cost. This allowed transportation to be considered essentially zero cost and the race to China was on. Labor became the primary consideration. After a generation of this misallocation economically, the chickens are coming home to roost and unfortunately they are infected with Asian Bird Flu.
*
Our military was not going to cease to exist. It was a necessary cost to remain one of the economic and military superpowers of the globe. It might be claimed that we then became the only superpower but as we shall see it was a hollow title, the result of buying the nomination with a credit card. The Soviet Union might have giving up the race with us but they never gave up their military defense and today has positioned themselves as an energy superpower. If we started another Cold War with them I doubt we would win economically. Their economy is grounded on oil and ours is on top of a smoldering fire of financial derivatives. Derivatives that gave a little more life to our finance sector but are now threatening to end it for good. It doesn’t do any good to have a military if you don’t have the economics to back it up. Anyway, since we weren’t going to give up the military it made sense to put it on a profitable basis. Just like the Post Office, put some competitive capitalistic pressure on it. The Post Office hid its inefficiencies with price increases and doubling the work load of its people. The military became much more effective than the old World War II blundering colossus by substituting information for brute force ( perhaps not at a cost savings but, more importantly, at a resource savings ). The military became our national protection arm. Arms for oil. Or, more precisely, mercenaries for oil.
*
This shouldn’t be much of a surprise to people. The same was observed ninety years ago by a Marine general, the militaries dancing to a corporate tune. What is surprising is how well it worked out. The Saudi Arabian royal family became our bitch. It didn’t bother them that we were buying the oil at fire sale prices. We printed up worthless money, the Saudis took it and used it to buy whatever they wanted. They ended up with tangible wealth and the rest of the suckers took the fiat currency. We got oil for free. All we had to do was use the military we already had to provide protection guarantees. And the rest of the world knew better than to push us too far. Saber rattling was okay. But no one could have ever seriously thought of taking our oil from us. For all the talk about weak presidents and indecisiveness, the rest of the world knew we were some crazy crackers and would nuke their ass. We did it before, we would do it again. Even if the current leader might appear weak and not willing to attack with nukes, everyone else knew if push came to shove someone or someone(s) would remove that voice if necessary and then do it themselves. The Russians couldn’t possible think otherwise with their Premiers merely puppets to the KGB and other power factions ( that make my brand of paranoia look like sweet trusting love ).
*
So, with oil free, our economic manipulations were of secondary concern. We could weather financial downturns such as Black Monday or the Tech Wreck. It was all just a big fun game where the Big Boys made money hand over fist, not producing anything but digital noise. As long as the energy equation was there you could get your money for nothing and your chicks for free. Then, energy actually started to cost something. Again, most of the details aren’t terribly important. Inflation, Peak Oil, foreign competition for supply, dollar dethroning. With oil now costing actual money to buy ( and most folks no where near as willing to buy our debt as before ) and showing no signs of getting back down to “reasonable” levels our entire economy geared around free oil and imported everything started to unravel. The derivatives market could have been largely responsible for all commodities being held down artificially after 2005 ( this is the year global Peak Oil hit-we have seen the top, the level and the slight decline ) or they could just be the last hurrah of obscene profit taking. Whatever, it is another huge nail in the coffin. But, essentially, the end of free oil spelled the end for the US.
*
What a wonderful time it was. From the start of my High School education to the start of my middle age I was able to live in a society where almost everything was available with almost no effort whatsoever. You could almost forgive the bakers/politicians/corporate titans the obscene levels of money they skimmed off in the process and the huge harm they did to future generations. Almost. You have to admit it was a great time to be alive. A great gift of sloth and greed. It is all over of course and there is no going back. Not a damn change in Hell. We are going to have to shuck off decades of conditioning and adapt to a more realistic life of hardship and shortages complete with much more work and a lot less reward. No wonder no one wants to admit the party is over.
END
Rangerman ( http://www.shtfblog.com/ ), I hope your last article was at least partially a result of my ranting and raving about conspiracies. I would hate to think all my work is in vain. I loved it, an article on tin foil hats. Any suitably paranoid ( read-awake and alert because if they really are out to get you you’re not a conspiracy nut ) should be worried about the Mother Ship monitoring your brain activity and/or controlling your thoughts.
If you need more than aluminum foil, such as books and prep gear, go to http://www.bisonpress.com/
Friday, March 28, 2008
king muckeemuck
KING MUCKEEMUCK
Ah, more article ideas from the blog comments section. Keep it up guys, I need all the inspiration I can get. Today’s rant is on the “affordable” land in Idaho ( or anywhere else ). Readers took exception to my comments that Idaho real estate prices were “California insane”. Why, this one parcel is ONLY $250,000.00 and that one is JUST $400,000.00. You would have thought I was insulting them by calling their wife expensive. Why, her boob job ONLY cost ten grand and the wedding ring set was JUST five thousand dollars. Okay, you work hard and its your money and only you can determine what is important in your life. If you want a pair of silicone jugs running around on a five acre parcel of pine trees that cost more than Bush makes in a year ( and that’s after his advance for the book deal “Why carpet bombing Iran with nukes brought democracy to that country and had nothing to do with oil and Cheney didn’t tell me I had to do it” ). I just have a hard time believing that many people in normal income brackets of the middle class range think this kind of money is justified for what they are getting. Sure, millionaires can buy a quarter million dollar boat and half million dollar lots on a mountain, but normal people?
*
Now imagine the Nuremburg Trials with the California versus Idaho argument. “Well, your honor, while it is true that my client Herr Colonel Boyzfriggin did indeed kill off a few hundred thousand Jews I maintain that while inexcusable it is no where near the numbers of our good friend Stalin that personally ordered millions to be killed. While Stalin is insane and killed millions, our German is only a fraction as insane and killed a few hundred thousand”. Five acres in California is a million, so $400k in Idaho surely isn’t insane, or at least is slightly less insane. You don’t have rectal cancer so when you ONLY have hemorrhoids you shouldn’t complain about the pain. We live in one of the largest countries there is ( especially if you exclude tundra ). You can’t tell me that the insane price levels we have seen are normal. There will always be your ritzy, rich bitch areas. Granted. But normal, working man land is only overpriced through government or banker manipulation. And then you still can’t call some prices normal, even if others nearby are identical.
*
I can see where most women are confused. They see that they are sanctioned by society to impersonate royalty and waste no opportunity to do so. I’m a flippin princess, I’m so damn special. I have the appropriate reproductive organs. So what if there are so many others just like me, its only 52% of the population. And just because I age much quicker than males and outlast them ( thus increasing my percentage of the population ) should give me no cause to worry. I’m special anyway. But guys are no better. Oh, look at me. I’m King Muckeemuck. I have money and I’m just like a peacock splashing my colors in front of the females, dazzling them with my brilliance. If I spend A Friggin Half A Million Bucks on land I must be better than all the rest of them. God, it makes me want to projectile vomit blood. How could paranoid preppers even fall for such an outrageous waste of their resources as to buy one of these parcels. I can see the Yuppie crowd going for this kind of idiocy, but I thought I was writing to those people that actually had a thought before they whipped out the credit card and signed up for thirty years of financial servitude.
*
No one should consider signing away their lives for this false sense of security. You can’t buy an invincible shield. You can only build a wall higher and hope no one can breach it. There is no guarantee. So why put yourself in financial danger? I understand a few Yuppie High Lords can sell overvalued property and buy with cash. They can pick the best place possible. The rest of us can only get into debt to have a retreat. So why assume a thirty year debt, one that will last longer than our economy, the remaining oil supply, our government and our way of life? You can take out a three year loan ( assuming you have no cash ) and buy land that mimics the more expensive types. You get 25-50% of what you want for 1% of the price. You want a low population area, at least an acre and close to water? Right now Elko, Nevada lots are $3k. Five miles to town, one mile to the river and just off a county road. Five acres in West Texas. Seven miles to Pecos, seven miles to the river. Under $2k. I understand they are no where near as good as a few acres in Idaho with a bubbling brook. But they are one friggin percent of the price. For another 1% you can stockpile five to ten years worth of grain and beans and haul in multiple truckloads of fertilizer for the soil to garden. Will it be tougher to farm after you can’t haul water by automobile? Of course. Will you have a hard time keeping your job to pay for the land in Idaho the way the economy is going? Of course.
*
We don’t have the resources of the military, so we shouldn’t try to copy their tactics. We don’t have the resources of Yuppies so we shouldn’t try to prepare above our bank account. Insane prices are to be avoided. A little bit insane prices are to be avoided also.
END
www.bisonpress.com for books and gear
Ah, more article ideas from the blog comments section. Keep it up guys, I need all the inspiration I can get. Today’s rant is on the “affordable” land in Idaho ( or anywhere else ). Readers took exception to my comments that Idaho real estate prices were “California insane”. Why, this one parcel is ONLY $250,000.00 and that one is JUST $400,000.00. You would have thought I was insulting them by calling their wife expensive. Why, her boob job ONLY cost ten grand and the wedding ring set was JUST five thousand dollars. Okay, you work hard and its your money and only you can determine what is important in your life. If you want a pair of silicone jugs running around on a five acre parcel of pine trees that cost more than Bush makes in a year ( and that’s after his advance for the book deal “Why carpet bombing Iran with nukes brought democracy to that country and had nothing to do with oil and Cheney didn’t tell me I had to do it” ). I just have a hard time believing that many people in normal income brackets of the middle class range think this kind of money is justified for what they are getting. Sure, millionaires can buy a quarter million dollar boat and half million dollar lots on a mountain, but normal people?
*
Now imagine the Nuremburg Trials with the California versus Idaho argument. “Well, your honor, while it is true that my client Herr Colonel Boyzfriggin did indeed kill off a few hundred thousand Jews I maintain that while inexcusable it is no where near the numbers of our good friend Stalin that personally ordered millions to be killed. While Stalin is insane and killed millions, our German is only a fraction as insane and killed a few hundred thousand”. Five acres in California is a million, so $400k in Idaho surely isn’t insane, or at least is slightly less insane. You don’t have rectal cancer so when you ONLY have hemorrhoids you shouldn’t complain about the pain. We live in one of the largest countries there is ( especially if you exclude tundra ). You can’t tell me that the insane price levels we have seen are normal. There will always be your ritzy, rich bitch areas. Granted. But normal, working man land is only overpriced through government or banker manipulation. And then you still can’t call some prices normal, even if others nearby are identical.
*
I can see where most women are confused. They see that they are sanctioned by society to impersonate royalty and waste no opportunity to do so. I’m a flippin princess, I’m so damn special. I have the appropriate reproductive organs. So what if there are so many others just like me, its only 52% of the population. And just because I age much quicker than males and outlast them ( thus increasing my percentage of the population ) should give me no cause to worry. I’m special anyway. But guys are no better. Oh, look at me. I’m King Muckeemuck. I have money and I’m just like a peacock splashing my colors in front of the females, dazzling them with my brilliance. If I spend A Friggin Half A Million Bucks on land I must be better than all the rest of them. God, it makes me want to projectile vomit blood. How could paranoid preppers even fall for such an outrageous waste of their resources as to buy one of these parcels. I can see the Yuppie crowd going for this kind of idiocy, but I thought I was writing to those people that actually had a thought before they whipped out the credit card and signed up for thirty years of financial servitude.
*
No one should consider signing away their lives for this false sense of security. You can’t buy an invincible shield. You can only build a wall higher and hope no one can breach it. There is no guarantee. So why put yourself in financial danger? I understand a few Yuppie High Lords can sell overvalued property and buy with cash. They can pick the best place possible. The rest of us can only get into debt to have a retreat. So why assume a thirty year debt, one that will last longer than our economy, the remaining oil supply, our government and our way of life? You can take out a three year loan ( assuming you have no cash ) and buy land that mimics the more expensive types. You get 25-50% of what you want for 1% of the price. You want a low population area, at least an acre and close to water? Right now Elko, Nevada lots are $3k. Five miles to town, one mile to the river and just off a county road. Five acres in West Texas. Seven miles to Pecos, seven miles to the river. Under $2k. I understand they are no where near as good as a few acres in Idaho with a bubbling brook. But they are one friggin percent of the price. For another 1% you can stockpile five to ten years worth of grain and beans and haul in multiple truckloads of fertilizer for the soil to garden. Will it be tougher to farm after you can’t haul water by automobile? Of course. Will you have a hard time keeping your job to pay for the land in Idaho the way the economy is going? Of course.
*
We don’t have the resources of the military, so we shouldn’t try to copy their tactics. We don’t have the resources of Yuppies so we shouldn’t try to prepare above our bank account. Insane prices are to be avoided. A little bit insane prices are to be avoided also.
END
www.bisonpress.com for books and gear
Thursday, March 27, 2008
damn liars
DAMN LIARS
At yesterdays article comment section the topic veered away from the rightful worship of me and into the coming tax refund. It seems when there is a promise to give back a little bit of your own money that has already been stolen from you things can get a bit emotional. The Rangerman ( www.shtfblog.com ), ever the rational thinker and it would seem for now ( until we can chip away at his sanity ) a gentleman, rightfully pointed out that contrary to urban legend and all my promulgations it seems to in fact be an additional refund and not an advance on your coming yearly refund. What he did was carefully read statements and researched claims. On the face of it this makes sense and should end the argument right there. But since I am incapable of leaving a festering wound intact to heal on its own but instead must pick at it with dirty fingernails and then cover the wound with my spittle or better yet that of a canine and then get all baffled when I get an infection and a high fever and come within inches of dying a horrible death, I won’t just leave it at that. I must talk this to death and unfortunately for your mental stability you must listen.
*
People are damn liars. Institutions are damn liars. The best damn liars of all the damn liars become lawyers or politicians. No matter what they are saying now, it behooves us to assume they are lying. And not only is it smart to assume they are lying, it is smart to assume that for this special occasion and with you in particular as the target they have brewed up the Mother Of All Lies. On the face of it, they may indeed be telling you not to worry. “This is in fact extra money for you, oh favored citizen. Be merry and go forth and multiply and consume, for verily, we have nothing but the deepest love and respect for you and this noble act you embark upon will save our banks from terrible fates and in return you shall receive manna from Heaven and shall enjoy a trinket or two and all will be right in the world and the American Way Of Life is now assured, amen!” Wow! I’m really glad they are patting me on the head in a soothing manner and everything is A-Okay now. Now I can go back to sleep in my typical cranium/anal insertion posture. Only there is just one slight problem. Those lying bastards just might be lying to us.
*
The original article I had written on the tax refund did make a big deal about the lies and misdirection. I also mumbled some weasel words to the effect that in case I wasn’t wrong, just beware of the possibility that you wouldn’t get the full amount back next year, in case you were depending on the refund to pay some of your bills. It was basically just a warning. Hey, I would love to be wrong. I would love to get an additional 30% back. It would be even better if I got the child credit and got back almost an additional 50%. But I sure as heck am not going to count on it. Why? Because they are all a bunch of damn liars, that’s why. Look, because Rangerman was so cool about this and tried so hard to be the Lone Voice Of Reason as the rest of us were running around bumping into each other and pointing up to the heavens and grabbing the skinniest guy and holding him over our heads as a human shield to deflect the pieces of falling sky, I’ll try to do him a solid and minimize my Conspiracy Ranting here. Instead of thinking that The Powers That Be get together like the Evil Republican Party gatherings in The Simpson’s where the Texan oil guy and Burns and I think even a vampire get together to plot mischief, I’m just going to assume this time and this time only that every little greedy bastard out there is acting in their own self interest and work on their own and try to screw us without anyone else’s help. And that the cumulative effect is that every person and every institution and organization screws us over. Now, I can hear the lot of you spewing java at your computer screen in wild disbelief at such an outrageous statement and immediately leap to the attack. So I shall explain further.
*
I generally subscribe to the 90% rule which says that in any gathering of humans only about ten percent are dishonest or crooked or immoral. The 90% generally, without supervision, does what is necessary to function flawlessly in society. Most folks will do the right thing even if nobody is looking. However. And this is important. However, since most people either buy into a lie or lie to themselves they are screwing you over even as they think they are doing the right, moral, just thing. As an agent of the State, 90% of the workers think they are doing no harm ( the other 10% are the actual jackbooted kitten stomping goons ). That they are preserving order and helping society. They actually believe this. They don’t think they are tools of oppression because they actually think the government is necessary. So, no, I don’t think less of most law enforcement officers ( to name a primary example ). They do serve a noble role under our current system. It would be unfair to think they should quit and give up the investment of their lives because there were laws they didn’t believe in that they had to uphold. But neither can you ignore the threat this makes them to you personally.
*
So, people are lied to and so do harm. People lie to themselves and do harm to you. People even lie to themselves and thus pose a danger to the most important person of all ( themselves ). Let’s just take an even bakers dozen off the top of my head for examples. You could most likely fill a few hefty volumes here but I know I am dealing with limited attention spans here ( especially my own ). Here is an example we can all relate to. Freeway or road construction. The usual suspects are the construction companies and the politicians. Halliburton gets their boy Cheney to start a war…oh, wait. Domestic construction. Halliburton gets their boys in State capitals to push for more road construction. Progress is good, cars are the American way, congestion, blah, blah. They might even believe it. New gas taxes are pushed through. The drivers see a daily increase in traffic even as gas goes over $3.25 a gallon. It is usually an easy sell. The politician gets credit, the company gets cash, the drivers get more roads and it seems painless enough. Then, after costing twice what it should and passing a few billion dollar bonds that your grandkids get to pay off ( or hopefully just get included in the national bankruptcy ) and taking ten years to build, the traffic is worse off than before with less lanes. Lies, waste and a futile endeavor from start to finish. If any quality had gone into them they might have been as bizarre as the Easter Island giant stone heads to future explorers.
*
Selling ourselves into an unsustainable “information” economy one factory to China at a time. There is nothing wrong with information as an economic driver to an economy. The picture sold to us by A. Toffler and party looked solid enough. Unfortunately it turns out that most of that economy was not software development or Hollywood entertainment or research and development ( yes, there was enough of that- but it was not the bulk ) but merely financial market manipulation. And that would have been bad enough but it was based on eating our past seed corn, bribing foreign resource holders with protection from our military industrial complex that was unsustainable long term and becoming hooked on foreign loans for capital. The main driver of our main economic activity was all lights and mirrors and a very healthy amount of smoke blown up our caboose. There were plenty of lies delivered by greedy bastards, but also a heck of a lot of lies told to ourselves. Thinking it was all a “new economy” and other such rot. We even had a sound warning with the Tech Wreck and totally ignored it.
*
Inflation and debt. A mountain of lies. That inflation could be substituted for direct taxes. That credit was a good thing. That we would be at a disadvantage economically if we didn’t devalue the dollar. Which is tied in with the Social Security lie. It started as a lie since the average person would never live long enough to collect. It was a damn lie when it was promised that the low, low introductory rate would not change. It was a lie when the program was not discontinued ( news stories filled the airways of Seniors eating pet food ). It is a lie we tell ourselves, that we paid into it and so deserve it ( giving very little thought to the effects it will have on our grandchildren ). We are all guilty as sin on this one. Assuming debt to “better” our lives, passing our debt on to future generations. Heck, I’m just as guilty, I’m not pointing fingers. If by a miracle of divine intervention the system stays around for twenty years I’m signing on the bottom line. Why should I be the only one getting screwed with nothing to show for it? The self justification of me and several generations.
*
The Manchurian Candidate might be fiction. Or it might be art imitating life. My bet is that brain washing is alive and well. Advertising is a benign form. The media barrage is another. But I don’t believe there can’t be some officially sanctioned forms out there. But even if it is only the “harmless” types, they are bad enough. We are no better than Nazi Germany, molding the citizenry to become one giant law enforcement apparatus. Seventy years ago Junior ratted on his parents for unpatriotic thoughts or actions. Twenty years ago we were getting our own apprentice Brown Shirts to turn in drug users in the home. Tomorrow, we will come full cycle and American kids will call 1-800-HmLndSc to turn in their parents for unpatriotic thoughts. It used to be the parents would be threatened with “I’ll call the cops and say you spanked me”. Then it was “ I’ll call the cops and tell them were the stash is unless you cancel my curfew”. Next it will be “I’ll call a Cheney Patrol and say you are harboring Arabs unless you buy me a car”.
*
Don’t think the government is having all the fun. Corporations are busy bending us over ( you got a pretty mouth, boy ) and lying to us about it. Margarine is much healthier for you than butter. Waste products molecularly altered are much better for you than a natural product. Genetically modified crops are the next Green Revolution. Never mentioned is the patents preventing saving seed. The die off of bee colonies. The end of crop diversity making us more exposed to crop loss. And how about those soy products. Pasty faced vegetarians skinnier than famine wasted Ethiopians are convinced it is a miracle food ( lying to self to save Bessie ), but I’ll join the cautious crowd wondering about non fermented beans mimicking estrogen. Mmmmm. Man Boobs. Now lets move from poison foods to poison chemicals and other products. You get a triple lie there. The lies from corporation about the product. The lie by the government that uses it and the lie to the veterans that they would be taken care of medically after a war. Hello? Does Agent Orange and Depleted Uranium ring any bells? Military troops are like LEO’s. The cause might be twisted by evil but their motives are pure. It pains me to see this nation with a standing army but the individuals serving are doing a noble thing. They really think they are protecting and serving. I can’t fault them there, so, yes, supporting our troops is required even if the war being fought shouldn’t be. It is painful to see that kind of loyalty and courage used and abused normally. It is even worse seeing that service being paid back with neglect and lies and even condemning many to death to support the lies.
*
Peak Oil is nothing but an issue oozing lies. The government only admits to the rosiest projections of supplies. The corporations want no warning so that people start opting out of the petroleum system ( even to the small degree that they could ). And almost everyone is lying to themselves since they don’t want to see an end to a magic fairy tale of a life. And how about global warming. We make it simple to lie to ourselves since the data is so convoluted and inflammatory and we have career politicians pimping the memory of dead family members to make a buck at the new environmentalism religion. Our oceans rise, artic ice melts, tundra belches methane, reefs die off and we keep telling ourselves lies to ward off the evil juju. And remember, the cause of warming is just to serve as camouflage. Being irrelevant is not as important as being a false whipping boy.
*
A fun one I’ll just touch on briefly is the newly uncovered false nuclear attack on Russia during the Paris peace talks during the Viet Nam war. Wired magazine had an interesting article explaining that Kissinger used game theory to speculate that convincing the Commies Nixon was crazy would force them to lean on their allies to push the talks our way. Bombers armed with nukes were sent to the USSR border for days of fun and frolicking with Armageddon. Push the possibility of war to the limit and once you stand down nothing changed politically. Nice. And we already thought Nixon was bastard enough.
*
How about the lies over oil. First we think we are invading Iraq to steal oil. Then it looks like we went in to take oil off the market to enrich the petroleum boys. Then it looks like we release the oil and the global crude price keeps going up anyway, taking us back to the Peak Oil lie. And derivatives. There is a whole pot of lies we keep stirring. How much of the derivative market is banks enriching themselves? How much of it is banks manipulating the price of gold and silver and oil and wheat and corn, and…? How much have we gambled on the economy by playing those money games and how many times are they going to mumble soothing lies to us before the next company collapse happens?
*
A foundation of lies. A world of lies. Multiple threats surrounding you from lies. Your whole existence, lies. A rebate check lie is small potatoes so I guess there is little reason to get worked up over it, eh?
END
Wow! Don’t expect me to write this much every day. You just got lucky I pressed one of my own buttons today. On an unrelated note, junk land. Almost nothing available super cheap, but lots of new stuff under $2k. Check out the new listings on my Sorta Cheap Dirt, link at my web site.
Buy My Crap NOW www.bisonpress.com
At yesterdays article comment section the topic veered away from the rightful worship of me and into the coming tax refund. It seems when there is a promise to give back a little bit of your own money that has already been stolen from you things can get a bit emotional. The Rangerman ( www.shtfblog.com ), ever the rational thinker and it would seem for now ( until we can chip away at his sanity ) a gentleman, rightfully pointed out that contrary to urban legend and all my promulgations it seems to in fact be an additional refund and not an advance on your coming yearly refund. What he did was carefully read statements and researched claims. On the face of it this makes sense and should end the argument right there. But since I am incapable of leaving a festering wound intact to heal on its own but instead must pick at it with dirty fingernails and then cover the wound with my spittle or better yet that of a canine and then get all baffled when I get an infection and a high fever and come within inches of dying a horrible death, I won’t just leave it at that. I must talk this to death and unfortunately for your mental stability you must listen.
*
People are damn liars. Institutions are damn liars. The best damn liars of all the damn liars become lawyers or politicians. No matter what they are saying now, it behooves us to assume they are lying. And not only is it smart to assume they are lying, it is smart to assume that for this special occasion and with you in particular as the target they have brewed up the Mother Of All Lies. On the face of it, they may indeed be telling you not to worry. “This is in fact extra money for you, oh favored citizen. Be merry and go forth and multiply and consume, for verily, we have nothing but the deepest love and respect for you and this noble act you embark upon will save our banks from terrible fates and in return you shall receive manna from Heaven and shall enjoy a trinket or two and all will be right in the world and the American Way Of Life is now assured, amen!” Wow! I’m really glad they are patting me on the head in a soothing manner and everything is A-Okay now. Now I can go back to sleep in my typical cranium/anal insertion posture. Only there is just one slight problem. Those lying bastards just might be lying to us.
*
The original article I had written on the tax refund did make a big deal about the lies and misdirection. I also mumbled some weasel words to the effect that in case I wasn’t wrong, just beware of the possibility that you wouldn’t get the full amount back next year, in case you were depending on the refund to pay some of your bills. It was basically just a warning. Hey, I would love to be wrong. I would love to get an additional 30% back. It would be even better if I got the child credit and got back almost an additional 50%. But I sure as heck am not going to count on it. Why? Because they are all a bunch of damn liars, that’s why. Look, because Rangerman was so cool about this and tried so hard to be the Lone Voice Of Reason as the rest of us were running around bumping into each other and pointing up to the heavens and grabbing the skinniest guy and holding him over our heads as a human shield to deflect the pieces of falling sky, I’ll try to do him a solid and minimize my Conspiracy Ranting here. Instead of thinking that The Powers That Be get together like the Evil Republican Party gatherings in The Simpson’s where the Texan oil guy and Burns and I think even a vampire get together to plot mischief, I’m just going to assume this time and this time only that every little greedy bastard out there is acting in their own self interest and work on their own and try to screw us without anyone else’s help. And that the cumulative effect is that every person and every institution and organization screws us over. Now, I can hear the lot of you spewing java at your computer screen in wild disbelief at such an outrageous statement and immediately leap to the attack. So I shall explain further.
*
I generally subscribe to the 90% rule which says that in any gathering of humans only about ten percent are dishonest or crooked or immoral. The 90% generally, without supervision, does what is necessary to function flawlessly in society. Most folks will do the right thing even if nobody is looking. However. And this is important. However, since most people either buy into a lie or lie to themselves they are screwing you over even as they think they are doing the right, moral, just thing. As an agent of the State, 90% of the workers think they are doing no harm ( the other 10% are the actual jackbooted kitten stomping goons ). That they are preserving order and helping society. They actually believe this. They don’t think they are tools of oppression because they actually think the government is necessary. So, no, I don’t think less of most law enforcement officers ( to name a primary example ). They do serve a noble role under our current system. It would be unfair to think they should quit and give up the investment of their lives because there were laws they didn’t believe in that they had to uphold. But neither can you ignore the threat this makes them to you personally.
*
So, people are lied to and so do harm. People lie to themselves and do harm to you. People even lie to themselves and thus pose a danger to the most important person of all ( themselves ). Let’s just take an even bakers dozen off the top of my head for examples. You could most likely fill a few hefty volumes here but I know I am dealing with limited attention spans here ( especially my own ). Here is an example we can all relate to. Freeway or road construction. The usual suspects are the construction companies and the politicians. Halliburton gets their boy Cheney to start a war…oh, wait. Domestic construction. Halliburton gets their boys in State capitals to push for more road construction. Progress is good, cars are the American way, congestion, blah, blah. They might even believe it. New gas taxes are pushed through. The drivers see a daily increase in traffic even as gas goes over $3.25 a gallon. It is usually an easy sell. The politician gets credit, the company gets cash, the drivers get more roads and it seems painless enough. Then, after costing twice what it should and passing a few billion dollar bonds that your grandkids get to pay off ( or hopefully just get included in the national bankruptcy ) and taking ten years to build, the traffic is worse off than before with less lanes. Lies, waste and a futile endeavor from start to finish. If any quality had gone into them they might have been as bizarre as the Easter Island giant stone heads to future explorers.
*
Selling ourselves into an unsustainable “information” economy one factory to China at a time. There is nothing wrong with information as an economic driver to an economy. The picture sold to us by A. Toffler and party looked solid enough. Unfortunately it turns out that most of that economy was not software development or Hollywood entertainment or research and development ( yes, there was enough of that- but it was not the bulk ) but merely financial market manipulation. And that would have been bad enough but it was based on eating our past seed corn, bribing foreign resource holders with protection from our military industrial complex that was unsustainable long term and becoming hooked on foreign loans for capital. The main driver of our main economic activity was all lights and mirrors and a very healthy amount of smoke blown up our caboose. There were plenty of lies delivered by greedy bastards, but also a heck of a lot of lies told to ourselves. Thinking it was all a “new economy” and other such rot. We even had a sound warning with the Tech Wreck and totally ignored it.
*
Inflation and debt. A mountain of lies. That inflation could be substituted for direct taxes. That credit was a good thing. That we would be at a disadvantage economically if we didn’t devalue the dollar. Which is tied in with the Social Security lie. It started as a lie since the average person would never live long enough to collect. It was a damn lie when it was promised that the low, low introductory rate would not change. It was a lie when the program was not discontinued ( news stories filled the airways of Seniors eating pet food ). It is a lie we tell ourselves, that we paid into it and so deserve it ( giving very little thought to the effects it will have on our grandchildren ). We are all guilty as sin on this one. Assuming debt to “better” our lives, passing our debt on to future generations. Heck, I’m just as guilty, I’m not pointing fingers. If by a miracle of divine intervention the system stays around for twenty years I’m signing on the bottom line. Why should I be the only one getting screwed with nothing to show for it? The self justification of me and several generations.
*
The Manchurian Candidate might be fiction. Or it might be art imitating life. My bet is that brain washing is alive and well. Advertising is a benign form. The media barrage is another. But I don’t believe there can’t be some officially sanctioned forms out there. But even if it is only the “harmless” types, they are bad enough. We are no better than Nazi Germany, molding the citizenry to become one giant law enforcement apparatus. Seventy years ago Junior ratted on his parents for unpatriotic thoughts or actions. Twenty years ago we were getting our own apprentice Brown Shirts to turn in drug users in the home. Tomorrow, we will come full cycle and American kids will call 1-800-HmLndSc to turn in their parents for unpatriotic thoughts. It used to be the parents would be threatened with “I’ll call the cops and say you spanked me”. Then it was “ I’ll call the cops and tell them were the stash is unless you cancel my curfew”. Next it will be “I’ll call a Cheney Patrol and say you are harboring Arabs unless you buy me a car”.
*
Don’t think the government is having all the fun. Corporations are busy bending us over ( you got a pretty mouth, boy ) and lying to us about it. Margarine is much healthier for you than butter. Waste products molecularly altered are much better for you than a natural product. Genetically modified crops are the next Green Revolution. Never mentioned is the patents preventing saving seed. The die off of bee colonies. The end of crop diversity making us more exposed to crop loss. And how about those soy products. Pasty faced vegetarians skinnier than famine wasted Ethiopians are convinced it is a miracle food ( lying to self to save Bessie ), but I’ll join the cautious crowd wondering about non fermented beans mimicking estrogen. Mmmmm. Man Boobs. Now lets move from poison foods to poison chemicals and other products. You get a triple lie there. The lies from corporation about the product. The lie by the government that uses it and the lie to the veterans that they would be taken care of medically after a war. Hello? Does Agent Orange and Depleted Uranium ring any bells? Military troops are like LEO’s. The cause might be twisted by evil but their motives are pure. It pains me to see this nation with a standing army but the individuals serving are doing a noble thing. They really think they are protecting and serving. I can’t fault them there, so, yes, supporting our troops is required even if the war being fought shouldn’t be. It is painful to see that kind of loyalty and courage used and abused normally. It is even worse seeing that service being paid back with neglect and lies and even condemning many to death to support the lies.
*
Peak Oil is nothing but an issue oozing lies. The government only admits to the rosiest projections of supplies. The corporations want no warning so that people start opting out of the petroleum system ( even to the small degree that they could ). And almost everyone is lying to themselves since they don’t want to see an end to a magic fairy tale of a life. And how about global warming. We make it simple to lie to ourselves since the data is so convoluted and inflammatory and we have career politicians pimping the memory of dead family members to make a buck at the new environmentalism religion. Our oceans rise, artic ice melts, tundra belches methane, reefs die off and we keep telling ourselves lies to ward off the evil juju. And remember, the cause of warming is just to serve as camouflage. Being irrelevant is not as important as being a false whipping boy.
*
A fun one I’ll just touch on briefly is the newly uncovered false nuclear attack on Russia during the Paris peace talks during the Viet Nam war. Wired magazine had an interesting article explaining that Kissinger used game theory to speculate that convincing the Commies Nixon was crazy would force them to lean on their allies to push the talks our way. Bombers armed with nukes were sent to the USSR border for days of fun and frolicking with Armageddon. Push the possibility of war to the limit and once you stand down nothing changed politically. Nice. And we already thought Nixon was bastard enough.
*
How about the lies over oil. First we think we are invading Iraq to steal oil. Then it looks like we went in to take oil off the market to enrich the petroleum boys. Then it looks like we release the oil and the global crude price keeps going up anyway, taking us back to the Peak Oil lie. And derivatives. There is a whole pot of lies we keep stirring. How much of the derivative market is banks enriching themselves? How much of it is banks manipulating the price of gold and silver and oil and wheat and corn, and…? How much have we gambled on the economy by playing those money games and how many times are they going to mumble soothing lies to us before the next company collapse happens?
*
A foundation of lies. A world of lies. Multiple threats surrounding you from lies. Your whole existence, lies. A rebate check lie is small potatoes so I guess there is little reason to get worked up over it, eh?
END
Wow! Don’t expect me to write this much every day. You just got lucky I pressed one of my own buttons today. On an unrelated note, junk land. Almost nothing available super cheap, but lots of new stuff under $2k. Check out the new listings on my Sorta Cheap Dirt, link at my web site.
Buy My Crap NOW www.bisonpress.com
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
where to hunker down
WHERE TO HUNKER DOWN
Nothing new here, move along. A letter on the Rawles ( www.survivalblog.com ) site having to do with the desirability of living in a certain area. I think it was one of the Carolinas. Jim basically said, family/local acceptance is just as important as location ( if not more so ) so other than high population and up wind nuke areas it isn’t too bad of a location. I have covered this before but since I have already screamed at a shrill and rude volume about the economy melting down and you just kind of look at me with a dull and uncomprehending stare, glazed and diluted pupils mirroring a total lack of brain activity, I feel I had better move on to another topic I have covered one too many times already. The ideal place to be when our current reality is destroyed, relocating, retreats and other assorted ideas I can throw in here to fool you into believing I myself am undergoing some kind of brain activity.
*
First off, chances are we will not face a rapid collapse. We will experience a worsening situation that takes some time. Only historians will choose the event that seemed to be the beginning of the end. We will just see a continued jumble of bad news. Decline will become normal ( if it isn’t already ). So retreating in place more likely than not will be what most of us are facing. A retreat might be viable for a few. If that is their thing, fine. Most of us are too poor to go this route. 99% of those prepping must be content with using what we have on hand. That is going to be our home. At this point, allow me to urge you to get the e-novel Deep Winter, by T.C. Sherry. http://stores.lulu.com/tcsherry . This is without peer for a bunker in place story ( I’m not counting the hideously expensive bomb shelter stories for obvious reasons ). It is also the best I have seen about multiple, believable, calamities striking one after another. It is a story most of us can relate to since it parallels the normal suburban middle class family existence. And even though it takes place over only about two weeks and mostly in one home it was a very engrossing story. Hard to stop reading after you started. Highly recommended.
*
Where you are now or in the very near future is more than likely where you will be on the other side of a disaster/calamity. If there is another side and not just a continual series of disruptions. As I said, if viable a retreat is not a bad idea. And junk land is not bad either. If you never live on it, fine. Taxes are five or ten bucks a year, your investment is equivalent to one or two ounces of gold ( but with a much better return since it pays for itself every month with lack of rent ). If you need it if it becomes the only place you can stay legally without a job, it is one of the best investments ( besides guns and food ) you can make. So perhaps you do plan on being elsewhere if things get worse. Perhaps you want to make a regular move to be in a better location. Not a classic retreat or emergency location but an improvement over where you live now. So how do you decide if where you are now ( or will be very soon ) is a good location?
*
Everyone has his or her idea of the ideal survival location. Some could care less where they are as long as they are on fertile ground and can grow their own food. For some the only criteria will be warm weather. Others, the local gun control laws. Some still equate a good job with healthy survival prospects. Some fear nuclear war. Others pandemics. There is no perfect place. Not one. Every place you move to will have its own problems. The best you can do is to minimize the problems that concern you. That is really the long and short of it. You pick your worse fears and then be in a place to minimize them. And then you can’t even pick that great a spot because the negatives are always in place to dampen the positive. Damn universal balance. You live in California. It has problems ( boy, does it have problems ). But it is almost perfect weather and you probably have a good job. You live in Oregon. It has a Socialist Nanny State and terrible zoning but it has a good many farming areas and the coast is away from fallout projections. You live in West Texas near New Mexico. Your county, as big as some Eastern states, has maybe three thousand people in it. You can drive for hours without encountering anything but wildlife. There is also very little water, no jobs, illegals and, well, it’s Texas. You want to move to Idaho. It has isolation, good farm areas, lots of timber and game. It also has no rural jobs, California level real estate prices and all that pine burns real nice during forest fires.
*
I have pretty much settled on Nevada for my residency during the Apocalypse. I have a good degree of freedom moving around. I live in a trailer, I can work near minimum wage. I don’t have a house I can’t sell tying me down. It’s true I don’t live in the part of Nevada I want to due to family being close, but I would never have moved here in the first place if I hadn’t chosen it for its potential. And let me tell you, it is far from perfect. Too many carpetbaggers from California, insane cost of living because of real estate. Poor selection of jobs. Guaranteed future water problems due to over development. The only affordable land too close to an Interstate highway. Winter cold with very few sources of wood. Not good for much more than ranching or mining. Unless you plant bodies for fertilizer the ground will only sprout saw grass or scrub brush. So why stay? Outside of the cities an extreme lack of population. My greatest fear survival wise is too many people. Legions of zombies. Hoards of worthless mouth breathers. A sprawling teeming mass of humanity all searching for me personally, wanting to suck the very marrow from my bones after they have consumed all my worldly goods ( kind of like they do now through taxation ). To avoid the worst of this I choose to live in the God forsaken desert at high altitude.
*
Wherever you choose to live, you are minimizing one problem and putting up with the rest. So there is no one great place for survival living. Choose where you are comfortable and just make the best of it. With planning and skills you can make a go of it almost anywhere. I would be leery of some places such as huge mega-cities, but even then, who knows. It could be that all good little survivalists scattered for the wilds and the guy that ends up best off is the one staying in the city and keeping his secure job as the New Depression sees unemployment go to 50%. Or, that line of reasoning sees you in the midst of spreading disease and troop occupation. Just make your best guess and act on it. Don’t pine after the perfect place to go to get safe, there will only be one getting you a little less closer to danger. Wherever you are, good luck.
END
Spend all excess income at www.bisonpress.com
Nothing new here, move along. A letter on the Rawles ( www.survivalblog.com ) site having to do with the desirability of living in a certain area. I think it was one of the Carolinas. Jim basically said, family/local acceptance is just as important as location ( if not more so ) so other than high population and up wind nuke areas it isn’t too bad of a location. I have covered this before but since I have already screamed at a shrill and rude volume about the economy melting down and you just kind of look at me with a dull and uncomprehending stare, glazed and diluted pupils mirroring a total lack of brain activity, I feel I had better move on to another topic I have covered one too many times already. The ideal place to be when our current reality is destroyed, relocating, retreats and other assorted ideas I can throw in here to fool you into believing I myself am undergoing some kind of brain activity.
*
First off, chances are we will not face a rapid collapse. We will experience a worsening situation that takes some time. Only historians will choose the event that seemed to be the beginning of the end. We will just see a continued jumble of bad news. Decline will become normal ( if it isn’t already ). So retreating in place more likely than not will be what most of us are facing. A retreat might be viable for a few. If that is their thing, fine. Most of us are too poor to go this route. 99% of those prepping must be content with using what we have on hand. That is going to be our home. At this point, allow me to urge you to get the e-novel Deep Winter, by T.C. Sherry. http://stores.lulu.com/tcsherry . This is without peer for a bunker in place story ( I’m not counting the hideously expensive bomb shelter stories for obvious reasons ). It is also the best I have seen about multiple, believable, calamities striking one after another. It is a story most of us can relate to since it parallels the normal suburban middle class family existence. And even though it takes place over only about two weeks and mostly in one home it was a very engrossing story. Hard to stop reading after you started. Highly recommended.
*
Where you are now or in the very near future is more than likely where you will be on the other side of a disaster/calamity. If there is another side and not just a continual series of disruptions. As I said, if viable a retreat is not a bad idea. And junk land is not bad either. If you never live on it, fine. Taxes are five or ten bucks a year, your investment is equivalent to one or two ounces of gold ( but with a much better return since it pays for itself every month with lack of rent ). If you need it if it becomes the only place you can stay legally without a job, it is one of the best investments ( besides guns and food ) you can make. So perhaps you do plan on being elsewhere if things get worse. Perhaps you want to make a regular move to be in a better location. Not a classic retreat or emergency location but an improvement over where you live now. So how do you decide if where you are now ( or will be very soon ) is a good location?
*
Everyone has his or her idea of the ideal survival location. Some could care less where they are as long as they are on fertile ground and can grow their own food. For some the only criteria will be warm weather. Others, the local gun control laws. Some still equate a good job with healthy survival prospects. Some fear nuclear war. Others pandemics. There is no perfect place. Not one. Every place you move to will have its own problems. The best you can do is to minimize the problems that concern you. That is really the long and short of it. You pick your worse fears and then be in a place to minimize them. And then you can’t even pick that great a spot because the negatives are always in place to dampen the positive. Damn universal balance. You live in California. It has problems ( boy, does it have problems ). But it is almost perfect weather and you probably have a good job. You live in Oregon. It has a Socialist Nanny State and terrible zoning but it has a good many farming areas and the coast is away from fallout projections. You live in West Texas near New Mexico. Your county, as big as some Eastern states, has maybe three thousand people in it. You can drive for hours without encountering anything but wildlife. There is also very little water, no jobs, illegals and, well, it’s Texas. You want to move to Idaho. It has isolation, good farm areas, lots of timber and game. It also has no rural jobs, California level real estate prices and all that pine burns real nice during forest fires.
*
I have pretty much settled on Nevada for my residency during the Apocalypse. I have a good degree of freedom moving around. I live in a trailer, I can work near minimum wage. I don’t have a house I can’t sell tying me down. It’s true I don’t live in the part of Nevada I want to due to family being close, but I would never have moved here in the first place if I hadn’t chosen it for its potential. And let me tell you, it is far from perfect. Too many carpetbaggers from California, insane cost of living because of real estate. Poor selection of jobs. Guaranteed future water problems due to over development. The only affordable land too close to an Interstate highway. Winter cold with very few sources of wood. Not good for much more than ranching or mining. Unless you plant bodies for fertilizer the ground will only sprout saw grass or scrub brush. So why stay? Outside of the cities an extreme lack of population. My greatest fear survival wise is too many people. Legions of zombies. Hoards of worthless mouth breathers. A sprawling teeming mass of humanity all searching for me personally, wanting to suck the very marrow from my bones after they have consumed all my worldly goods ( kind of like they do now through taxation ). To avoid the worst of this I choose to live in the God forsaken desert at high altitude.
*
Wherever you choose to live, you are minimizing one problem and putting up with the rest. So there is no one great place for survival living. Choose where you are comfortable and just make the best of it. With planning and skills you can make a go of it almost anywhere. I would be leery of some places such as huge mega-cities, but even then, who knows. It could be that all good little survivalists scattered for the wilds and the guy that ends up best off is the one staying in the city and keeping his secure job as the New Depression sees unemployment go to 50%. Or, that line of reasoning sees you in the midst of spreading disease and troop occupation. Just make your best guess and act on it. Don’t pine after the perfect place to go to get safe, there will only be one getting you a little less closer to danger. Wherever you are, good luck.
END
Spend all excess income at www.bisonpress.com
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
food and gun control
FOOD AND GUN CONTROL
I can’t for the life of me understand the fuss that is being made about the Supreme Court ruling on the DC pistol ban. At the beginning glimmers of hope were seen and eagerly grasped at. This was obviously wishful thinking set at Super Blinding Bright. Even if the Idiots In Charge did rule in favor of individuals they would use lawyer weasel words to dance around it anyway. The Powers That Be do as they wish and the only thing protest accomplishes is for them to either taser you, get the media to portray you as crazy or wait a short time and do what they had originally planned anyway. The Voice Of The People is the last consideration they are going to have. The only thing they care about is whitewashing everything for the upcoming circus so your bread goes down without indigestion.
*
The Court dancing on the subject is all circus activity anyway. Off hand I can’t say why they started the whole thing since in the past they just ignored any legal challenge to their ban on the Bill Of Rights. Not that it really matters. They’ve already decided anyway. My guess is it is going to simply be the status quo. They might make minor cosmetic changes such as allowing guns but allowing the District to put such roadblocks in front of licensing that it becomes a de facto ban anyway. The fat cats occupying smoke filled rooms are not total idiots. They can see that an actually ban ( in general, not the DC one per se ) is unhealthy for them. Revolution is too messy and easily avoided. Instead of banning guns they just make them affordable only to the well off segment of the population, the one that follows the law to the letter because they are afraid of losing it all if their masters disapprove of their objections ( I was simply amazed at the hoops jumped through by California residents trying to own a battle rifle ). I imagine that shortly America will demonstrate how to have a Police State amongst an armed civilian populace. Of course in the end a revolution will start, once enough people start going hungry. That will be the only thing getting folks off their butts.
*
Look at our gun control laws. Nothing is banned, it is merely moved beyond the finances of 95% of the population. Look at our ammunition taxes. Nothing is directly taxed at high rates such as the nineties when 1000% was threatened, but by using Federal Monopoly money to buy up the civilian supply and ship it over to Mesopotamia a sort of tax has been imposed. In effect, civilians will now own a lot less ammunition. You might own a fifty cal sniper rifle but the UN regional director won’t have to worry much about you turning his limo into Swiss cheese from a mile away. You’re out of ammo three weeks after The Troubles start. Clinton thought it was pretty slick of himself to ban Chinese firearm imports ( or was that Hillary’s idea? ) and deny the financially destitute militia the means of an assault rifle. He might not have seen the East European import possibility. And, really, the new guns are generally better and cost less than double of what they did fifteen years ago. Not bad at all considering the price inflation on everything else. Of course, that little loophole can easily be plugged just by banning the ammunition. No one is going to buy enough brass cased 7.62x39 to be an effective fighting force. Without steel cased ammo the SKS and AK will quickly cease to be much of a threat.
*
See, you don’t ban the guns. You take away the magazines or ammunition. And, you don’t even “take them away”. You just make them so expensive almost no one will buy them. And those that do will be on someone’s radar and the 3 a.m. ninja raiding team will take care of them over a two month old delinquent tax bill or a snitch report about drugs or a file being mysteriously hacked and that person showing up on a sex offenders list. Then it becomes not about guns but about a scumbag getting his just desserts. The Sheeple go back to sleep and we “retain” our 2nd Amendment rights. The majority that violently protest ( as the media inquires why there is a fuss since, sure, the evil assault rifle has been banned from import but you can still own a hunting rifle, but no ones rights were violated ) will work singularly and with only modestly effective weapons. The type that is poor enough to fight back with nothing to lose is poor enough to win a battle and then lose the war. The best sniper around will not last long against air power. If he does, the civilian populace in general will rat him out eventually.
*
Eventually our economic situation will get bad enough that the revolution will hit the streets. The only thing that will motivate the average Joe will be hitting him where it hurts. You could predict that gasoline carrot and stick would be enough to control him ( the publics lack of concern over the cost of soldiers and treasure in our next forever war might be explained by their fear of having to de-ass the SUV and walk anywhere ). But eventually the economy gets bad enough and the meals start getting skipped. Yes, 90% of Americans could miss quite a few meals. No, most of those will not miss all that many before they start supporting a revolt. They don’t care about the Constitution or the Bill Of Rights or Common Law or Freedom. They care about where their next Big Mac is coming from. They will either support revolution or government control on par with Stalin, whichever gets them their creature comforts. So don’t expect many people to join you for the right reasons.
*
If the government can control and distribute the food ( regardless of how they do it ) during a crisis ( and you got to wonder if the new wheat rust outbreak is all natural ) the citizens will be against anyone revolting ( we have been assuming a revolt if guns are banned ). They will not feed you. If the government is still giving the fiction that we still have a Constitution then they will use food as a weapon against you and you will starve while heavily armed. I can’t come up with a good propaganda line to tie surrendering guns in with food distribution rights but I’m sure the government can. How about this. You are allowed guns, but not in an urban area. For security reasons. But to receive food aid you must be a resident in an urban area ( besides which that is where the jobs are now that petroleum is rationed ). The government has already started towards making small farmers go broke ( first it is livestock, next all food. None may be sold without tracking devices that cost a lot, you have no other job, can’t pay property tax without cash, can’t profitably sell food, no more farm ) and eventually only mega-agri-regions will remain. Then the government ( not to mention the corporations ) will control all the food and then you. But you still retain the option of opting out of the system. No rights are being violated ( everything is allowed, but controlled and taxed and regulated beyond viability-so no rights are violated ).
*
Do you see where I am going here? The whole thing is smoke blown up your ass. The boys large and in charge will do any work around to get the desired results. You need to be a little bit more aware than just token laws blessed by the high court.
END
Many thanks to JLS in NC for the snail mail donation! PayPal donations get a personal thank you, but this is how I save a stamp when being physically paid. And, guys, I can’t tell you how much all these donations mean to me. I take it personal ( in a good way ). However, as much as I love you, make sure not to send more than you are comfortable with. Some of these donations are overly generous. If you can afford it, great. But I would still be thrilled with a buck or five if that’s all the budget allows. Sorry, not trying to get all girly here. Until tomorrow, and thanks again.
You slacken ho’s that are waiting for your ‘08 refund advance check to send me money, don’t make me wait until after the presses are bombed in a false flag attack half way through the process and then make excuses. But really, if you like what you read, you know the deal. If too poor to pay for preps and support me at the same time, go Google shopping for your gear. Or shop through my Amazon links. If you want something back from a donation, buy some of my e-books. All at www.bisonpress.com
I can’t for the life of me understand the fuss that is being made about the Supreme Court ruling on the DC pistol ban. At the beginning glimmers of hope were seen and eagerly grasped at. This was obviously wishful thinking set at Super Blinding Bright. Even if the Idiots In Charge did rule in favor of individuals they would use lawyer weasel words to dance around it anyway. The Powers That Be do as they wish and the only thing protest accomplishes is for them to either taser you, get the media to portray you as crazy or wait a short time and do what they had originally planned anyway. The Voice Of The People is the last consideration they are going to have. The only thing they care about is whitewashing everything for the upcoming circus so your bread goes down without indigestion.
*
The Court dancing on the subject is all circus activity anyway. Off hand I can’t say why they started the whole thing since in the past they just ignored any legal challenge to their ban on the Bill Of Rights. Not that it really matters. They’ve already decided anyway. My guess is it is going to simply be the status quo. They might make minor cosmetic changes such as allowing guns but allowing the District to put such roadblocks in front of licensing that it becomes a de facto ban anyway. The fat cats occupying smoke filled rooms are not total idiots. They can see that an actually ban ( in general, not the DC one per se ) is unhealthy for them. Revolution is too messy and easily avoided. Instead of banning guns they just make them affordable only to the well off segment of the population, the one that follows the law to the letter because they are afraid of losing it all if their masters disapprove of their objections ( I was simply amazed at the hoops jumped through by California residents trying to own a battle rifle ). I imagine that shortly America will demonstrate how to have a Police State amongst an armed civilian populace. Of course in the end a revolution will start, once enough people start going hungry. That will be the only thing getting folks off their butts.
*
Look at our gun control laws. Nothing is banned, it is merely moved beyond the finances of 95% of the population. Look at our ammunition taxes. Nothing is directly taxed at high rates such as the nineties when 1000% was threatened, but by using Federal Monopoly money to buy up the civilian supply and ship it over to Mesopotamia a sort of tax has been imposed. In effect, civilians will now own a lot less ammunition. You might own a fifty cal sniper rifle but the UN regional director won’t have to worry much about you turning his limo into Swiss cheese from a mile away. You’re out of ammo three weeks after The Troubles start. Clinton thought it was pretty slick of himself to ban Chinese firearm imports ( or was that Hillary’s idea? ) and deny the financially destitute militia the means of an assault rifle. He might not have seen the East European import possibility. And, really, the new guns are generally better and cost less than double of what they did fifteen years ago. Not bad at all considering the price inflation on everything else. Of course, that little loophole can easily be plugged just by banning the ammunition. No one is going to buy enough brass cased 7.62x39 to be an effective fighting force. Without steel cased ammo the SKS and AK will quickly cease to be much of a threat.
*
See, you don’t ban the guns. You take away the magazines or ammunition. And, you don’t even “take them away”. You just make them so expensive almost no one will buy them. And those that do will be on someone’s radar and the 3 a.m. ninja raiding team will take care of them over a two month old delinquent tax bill or a snitch report about drugs or a file being mysteriously hacked and that person showing up on a sex offenders list. Then it becomes not about guns but about a scumbag getting his just desserts. The Sheeple go back to sleep and we “retain” our 2nd Amendment rights. The majority that violently protest ( as the media inquires why there is a fuss since, sure, the evil assault rifle has been banned from import but you can still own a hunting rifle, but no ones rights were violated ) will work singularly and with only modestly effective weapons. The type that is poor enough to fight back with nothing to lose is poor enough to win a battle and then lose the war. The best sniper around will not last long against air power. If he does, the civilian populace in general will rat him out eventually.
*
Eventually our economic situation will get bad enough that the revolution will hit the streets. The only thing that will motivate the average Joe will be hitting him where it hurts. You could predict that gasoline carrot and stick would be enough to control him ( the publics lack of concern over the cost of soldiers and treasure in our next forever war might be explained by their fear of having to de-ass the SUV and walk anywhere ). But eventually the economy gets bad enough and the meals start getting skipped. Yes, 90% of Americans could miss quite a few meals. No, most of those will not miss all that many before they start supporting a revolt. They don’t care about the Constitution or the Bill Of Rights or Common Law or Freedom. They care about where their next Big Mac is coming from. They will either support revolution or government control on par with Stalin, whichever gets them their creature comforts. So don’t expect many people to join you for the right reasons.
*
If the government can control and distribute the food ( regardless of how they do it ) during a crisis ( and you got to wonder if the new wheat rust outbreak is all natural ) the citizens will be against anyone revolting ( we have been assuming a revolt if guns are banned ). They will not feed you. If the government is still giving the fiction that we still have a Constitution then they will use food as a weapon against you and you will starve while heavily armed. I can’t come up with a good propaganda line to tie surrendering guns in with food distribution rights but I’m sure the government can. How about this. You are allowed guns, but not in an urban area. For security reasons. But to receive food aid you must be a resident in an urban area ( besides which that is where the jobs are now that petroleum is rationed ). The government has already started towards making small farmers go broke ( first it is livestock, next all food. None may be sold without tracking devices that cost a lot, you have no other job, can’t pay property tax without cash, can’t profitably sell food, no more farm ) and eventually only mega-agri-regions will remain. Then the government ( not to mention the corporations ) will control all the food and then you. But you still retain the option of opting out of the system. No rights are being violated ( everything is allowed, but controlled and taxed and regulated beyond viability-so no rights are violated ).
*
Do you see where I am going here? The whole thing is smoke blown up your ass. The boys large and in charge will do any work around to get the desired results. You need to be a little bit more aware than just token laws blessed by the high court.
END
Many thanks to JLS in NC for the snail mail donation! PayPal donations get a personal thank you, but this is how I save a stamp when being physically paid. And, guys, I can’t tell you how much all these donations mean to me. I take it personal ( in a good way ). However, as much as I love you, make sure not to send more than you are comfortable with. Some of these donations are overly generous. If you can afford it, great. But I would still be thrilled with a buck or five if that’s all the budget allows. Sorry, not trying to get all girly here. Until tomorrow, and thanks again.
You slacken ho’s that are waiting for your ‘08 refund advance check to send me money, don’t make me wait until after the presses are bombed in a false flag attack half way through the process and then make excuses. But really, if you like what you read, you know the deal. If too poor to pay for preps and support me at the same time, go Google shopping for your gear. Or shop through my Amazon links. If you want something back from a donation, buy some of my e-books. All at www.bisonpress.com
Monday, March 24, 2008
nomad v hermit
NOMAD VERSUS HERMIT
Well, as usual, the young whippersnappers out there are putting the old guy to shame. Making me look bad. For weeks now I’ve had this on my “possible article” list but never got excited enough to write about it. So Ranger man ( www.shtfblog.com ) goes ahead and does an article on van living and the guys over at www.tslrf.blogspot.com analyze it further and while they both do a great job ( and an even better job of plugging my site and giving me more exposure and highlighting what a demigod I am ) I think the basic point of sustainability is not being focused on enough. You all think I was just wandering around, strolling down life’s road without a care in the world, randomly picking up any old idea that suited me because it was shiny and pretty and sparkled in the sun. There is actually a method to my madness. I only go with the ideas I think are realistic and have a chance of working, not because I like the idea. I would love to live on a farm, own semi-auto battle rifles, plan financially for retirement, live in a conventional house, etc. But none of that is realistic or sustainable. I’m going with needs instead of wants. Don’t think any of that is very much fun.
*
So, while it is cool to plan on loading up the Super Survivalist Van and moving place to place, and frolicking by Walden’s pond and seeing the sites and living a minimalist lifestyle, it is clearly outdated thinking. We are no longer living in the 60’s. We are not Hippies loading up the VW van and heading off to Woodstock. We are no longer the worlds premiere oil producer. We might still be something like number three in production ( or somewhere close after Russia and Saudi Arabia ) but our total dependence on every single facet of daily living tied to oil use makes our domestic oil supply irreverent. It is the 75% we import that makes us so vulnerable. It is hard to point out how much of today’s oil price is the result of inflation ( prices doubled or more under the reign of Monkey Man Bush ) and how much is due to Peak Oil ( global production flat to slightly declining since 2005/6 ). To some degree that is academic. But the important thing to keep in mind is that total oil dependence in the US is coming to an end.
*
I’m not forecasting total civilization meltdown due to shortages anytime soon. Unless we have the worse case scenario unfold such as nuke war with Iran, shutting down Hormuz, etc. Which could very well happen. We are in terminal economic meltdown here and the only way the Powers That Be can haul their chestnuts out of the fire is to put us on a total war footing. The Iraqi/Afghanistan wars are satisfying economically speaking, but only up to a point. We need a serious, nationwide war effort to keep us out of a Depression. It won’t work of course, our resource base depleted and our manufacturing base in the last stages of its decline. But if you are part of the very elite crowd seeing fabulous wealth from running this country into the ground you are not going to stop extracting your wealth. By this time you believe it is your due. So they are going to try. Expect to see hyperinflation, the draft, newly nationalized former illegals put into Latino units with a Spanish speaking officer to beef up the military, every available resource to include our food sold overseas to get the trade goods our military is dependant on, etc. Either way, short term slow decline or rapid decline with nuclear war, our oil consumption as consumers is going to fall drastically.
*
The Dollar dominance in oil trading is coming to an end. Our empire is in serious trouble. Where do you think the largest target for oil conservation is going to come from? The consumer. There is nothing saying that the American driver has a God given right to tool around in an SUV so they can rack up the credit card buying a Starbucks latte on the way to shop at Pier One. We might think we have that right, but it is delusional thinking. When oil either becomes too expensive or too hard to import ( or both ) the first hit will be needless consumption. Rationing will become a given. Military, government and farm use will get priority. Worse case, we might fall down to the level of our own production domestically. We don’t need to see a major disaster, or a major war even, to see this. If things simply stay the same- more inflation, global falling supply, more financial floundering- we will see the death of the motoring suburbanite. This should be a given. I am not the first to warn of this. Yet folks seem to think petroleum dependence is good and right and the American Way Of Life. Yuppie survivalists think they can stockpile their way to indefinite oil addiction. And modern hippies think its going to be fine to live out of a moving house.
*
One day your house will stop rolling. And then where are you? Chances are good you are stuck in an inhospitable environment. The locals don’t want you, can’t use you and have no place for you to park for free. If you instead put the resources from your van into a piece of junk land, you will have no such problem. The locals might not accept you. Certainly they will not want you there. But they will have to tolerate you. Now, to be fair our fellow blog boys did give you a fair and balanced look at both sides of this issue. My only beef is that the means of feeding your van in your nomadic life were not emphasized enough. I know I sound like a Y2K fanatic here, but how can you argue with Peak Oil? Even if the fossil fuel theory is BS and Abiotic Oil is correct ( oil being a mineral source from internal processes and much more abundant than old plant life collections ) you still need to factor in how quickly we are extracting our oil. If it is too quick then we must “rest” fields before we can use them again and eventually our daily use must fall drastically. And you can’t argue with the math of global production and specific field depletion. Production is leveling at the top of its peak. Soon it starts to go down quick.
*
A nomadic life with a motor vehicle will become impossible. So sorry you must live in a hovel in the desert instead of parking next to an pristine babbling brook, fishes leaping on to your hook, water nymphs beckoning seductively to you, your karmic energies in alignment. Reality is a cruel and unsavory bitch. And while you are living in said hovel, remember your transportation is now a bicycle, your defense is with a cheap bolt gun, your food is wheat, corn and beans ( you can grow a few potatoes but you need to haul the water ). Your Yuppie job and Yuppie car and high style life will end without oil imports. You can plan around that or just be a sheeple and live high until the end unexpectedly crushes you. And I only covered oil here, not even touching the pure economics. Such as being unemployed and needing to come up with money for gas and insurance and mechanical repairs. None of which you need to worry about if stationary.
*
Don’t make me get all testy and righteous here again. Our oil way of life is ending. Period. Do not plan your life around it. Our little stripper friend in a van is going to be without a permanent home one day and will be forced to go from part time eye candy for old nasty fat guys to being one of their girlfriends for shelter and food. Hope she enjoys being a vagabond now.
END
If you want to be a nomad anyway, a great resource is Dwelling Portably. P.O. Box 190-L. Philomath OR 97370-0190. Send at least a buck for a sample. Covers both vehicle and non-vehicle wandering/light living skills. They go back about 25 years. Very good resource, perhaps even for in-place survivalists.
www.bisonpress.com for my goodies
Well, as usual, the young whippersnappers out there are putting the old guy to shame. Making me look bad. For weeks now I’ve had this on my “possible article” list but never got excited enough to write about it. So Ranger man ( www.shtfblog.com ) goes ahead and does an article on van living and the guys over at www.tslrf.blogspot.com analyze it further and while they both do a great job ( and an even better job of plugging my site and giving me more exposure and highlighting what a demigod I am ) I think the basic point of sustainability is not being focused on enough. You all think I was just wandering around, strolling down life’s road without a care in the world, randomly picking up any old idea that suited me because it was shiny and pretty and sparkled in the sun. There is actually a method to my madness. I only go with the ideas I think are realistic and have a chance of working, not because I like the idea. I would love to live on a farm, own semi-auto battle rifles, plan financially for retirement, live in a conventional house, etc. But none of that is realistic or sustainable. I’m going with needs instead of wants. Don’t think any of that is very much fun.
*
So, while it is cool to plan on loading up the Super Survivalist Van and moving place to place, and frolicking by Walden’s pond and seeing the sites and living a minimalist lifestyle, it is clearly outdated thinking. We are no longer living in the 60’s. We are not Hippies loading up the VW van and heading off to Woodstock. We are no longer the worlds premiere oil producer. We might still be something like number three in production ( or somewhere close after Russia and Saudi Arabia ) but our total dependence on every single facet of daily living tied to oil use makes our domestic oil supply irreverent. It is the 75% we import that makes us so vulnerable. It is hard to point out how much of today’s oil price is the result of inflation ( prices doubled or more under the reign of Monkey Man Bush ) and how much is due to Peak Oil ( global production flat to slightly declining since 2005/6 ). To some degree that is academic. But the important thing to keep in mind is that total oil dependence in the US is coming to an end.
*
I’m not forecasting total civilization meltdown due to shortages anytime soon. Unless we have the worse case scenario unfold such as nuke war with Iran, shutting down Hormuz, etc. Which could very well happen. We are in terminal economic meltdown here and the only way the Powers That Be can haul their chestnuts out of the fire is to put us on a total war footing. The Iraqi/Afghanistan wars are satisfying economically speaking, but only up to a point. We need a serious, nationwide war effort to keep us out of a Depression. It won’t work of course, our resource base depleted and our manufacturing base in the last stages of its decline. But if you are part of the very elite crowd seeing fabulous wealth from running this country into the ground you are not going to stop extracting your wealth. By this time you believe it is your due. So they are going to try. Expect to see hyperinflation, the draft, newly nationalized former illegals put into Latino units with a Spanish speaking officer to beef up the military, every available resource to include our food sold overseas to get the trade goods our military is dependant on, etc. Either way, short term slow decline or rapid decline with nuclear war, our oil consumption as consumers is going to fall drastically.
*
The Dollar dominance in oil trading is coming to an end. Our empire is in serious trouble. Where do you think the largest target for oil conservation is going to come from? The consumer. There is nothing saying that the American driver has a God given right to tool around in an SUV so they can rack up the credit card buying a Starbucks latte on the way to shop at Pier One. We might think we have that right, but it is delusional thinking. When oil either becomes too expensive or too hard to import ( or both ) the first hit will be needless consumption. Rationing will become a given. Military, government and farm use will get priority. Worse case, we might fall down to the level of our own production domestically. We don’t need to see a major disaster, or a major war even, to see this. If things simply stay the same- more inflation, global falling supply, more financial floundering- we will see the death of the motoring suburbanite. This should be a given. I am not the first to warn of this. Yet folks seem to think petroleum dependence is good and right and the American Way Of Life. Yuppie survivalists think they can stockpile their way to indefinite oil addiction. And modern hippies think its going to be fine to live out of a moving house.
*
One day your house will stop rolling. And then where are you? Chances are good you are stuck in an inhospitable environment. The locals don’t want you, can’t use you and have no place for you to park for free. If you instead put the resources from your van into a piece of junk land, you will have no such problem. The locals might not accept you. Certainly they will not want you there. But they will have to tolerate you. Now, to be fair our fellow blog boys did give you a fair and balanced look at both sides of this issue. My only beef is that the means of feeding your van in your nomadic life were not emphasized enough. I know I sound like a Y2K fanatic here, but how can you argue with Peak Oil? Even if the fossil fuel theory is BS and Abiotic Oil is correct ( oil being a mineral source from internal processes and much more abundant than old plant life collections ) you still need to factor in how quickly we are extracting our oil. If it is too quick then we must “rest” fields before we can use them again and eventually our daily use must fall drastically. And you can’t argue with the math of global production and specific field depletion. Production is leveling at the top of its peak. Soon it starts to go down quick.
*
A nomadic life with a motor vehicle will become impossible. So sorry you must live in a hovel in the desert instead of parking next to an pristine babbling brook, fishes leaping on to your hook, water nymphs beckoning seductively to you, your karmic energies in alignment. Reality is a cruel and unsavory bitch. And while you are living in said hovel, remember your transportation is now a bicycle, your defense is with a cheap bolt gun, your food is wheat, corn and beans ( you can grow a few potatoes but you need to haul the water ). Your Yuppie job and Yuppie car and high style life will end without oil imports. You can plan around that or just be a sheeple and live high until the end unexpectedly crushes you. And I only covered oil here, not even touching the pure economics. Such as being unemployed and needing to come up with money for gas and insurance and mechanical repairs. None of which you need to worry about if stationary.
*
Don’t make me get all testy and righteous here again. Our oil way of life is ending. Period. Do not plan your life around it. Our little stripper friend in a van is going to be without a permanent home one day and will be forced to go from part time eye candy for old nasty fat guys to being one of their girlfriends for shelter and food. Hope she enjoys being a vagabond now.
END
If you want to be a nomad anyway, a great resource is Dwelling Portably. P.O. Box 190-L. Philomath OR 97370-0190. Send at least a buck for a sample. Covers both vehicle and non-vehicle wandering/light living skills. They go back about 25 years. Very good resource, perhaps even for in-place survivalists.
www.bisonpress.com for my goodies
Saturday, March 22, 2008
living without credit
LIVING WITHOUT CREDIT
Most of you lurking here are without shame and think you can pick and choose what you read here, cherry picking the better ideas and discarding those you don’t care for. Like when I tell you that the evil bankers that dilute our money supply on a monthly basis do not deserve to be treated fairly and you should feel no shame in mailing them your house keys and declaring bankruptcy on your credit cards. You whine like a little bitch ( picking up bad habits from this site ) and start hemming and hawing and making excuses. But I entered into a contract. But I have to be moral and honest. But I’ve never gone back on my word. People, wake the heck up. The bankers ( with a little help from the government ) have taken the worlds premier economy and a currency backed by gold and turned it into a stinking crap hole floating on junk bonds with a currency backed by the full faith and credit of the politicians bought and paid for by those bankers. You are dealing with thieves, and crooks deserve no such consideration. Honest men get your word, dishonest institutions get as much pain and suffering as you can safely dish out.
*
But, the taxpayers will be stuck with the bill for my mortgage, you cry out in desperation in a wild attempt to clutch your precious word view close to your chest where it will remain warm and fuzzy. You don’t care about taxpayers giving you hundreds of thousands of dollars in retirement, medical and prescription medications but you wouldn’t want them on the hook for a upside down mortgage? It doesn’t matter what you do, the government has already promised more than it can ever raise. They will just print the money to pay for it. And you will pay the inflation tax like everyone else. You want an impossible mortgage and SUV and credit card bill on top of that? Your next card to play is the “two wrongs don’t make a right”. It is okay for the government to execute a killer, but not okay to stiff the bank as they have been stiffing you? And I’m not even talking about interest rates. You knew that up front, it’s not like it came as a surprise. I’m talking about how the bankers have hijacked the economy and personally screwed you out of a lot of money.
*
A currency that has been debased raises prices. A businessman knows over time the currency will buy less services and goods. To the fullest extent possible he is going to get enough extra money up front to compensate for that. In an economy where the bankers are forcing laws through that funnel everyone into an existence of perpetual debt, every price you pay reflects the extra interest paid up and down the line of production. Bankers push for laws limiting entry into every activity, forcing up those prices so loans rather than cash is needed. Zoning laws for a septic system, as one small example, force another three to five thousand dollar expense. This is added on to the mortgage. A small amount of interest, to be sure, but add that to dozens of other forced higher costs per worker and you are sitting on a gold mine. By limiting entry into almost any profession you raise the cost of its education. Then you have a monopoly on that education through regulations that raise the cost even more. You get interest on school loans. Encourage urban sprawl so that each worker is forced to own a car. Zone out cheap housing such as trailers. The only alternative to a mortgage is a high cost apartment ( the supply kept low through zoning ). Zoning isn’t about petty political power trips, its lucrative money for banks ( and secure jobs for the government whores helping them ). The bankers are so good they have you believing the propaganda. It’s for the children, a safe place to live. They even make you think artificial housing values are good ( high taxes mean better schools, high values mean a high home equity loan- you think more debt is good ). Don’t be a zombie! “It’s for the children” really means “It’s for the bankers”. High home values mean a higher cost, more mortgage, more interest and higher taxes. You’re doing the bankers more good than you are for your children, especially since the little tykes will eventually pay more in the inflation tax than you are ( and they aren’t any safer in high income white suburbia as illustrated by Columbia where I smell CIA mind control ).
*
If you are now satisfied that your entire working life has been a total and utter waste due to the 75% total extortion racket paid from each paycheck, maybe now you are ready to tell the bankers to perform masturbation with a cheese grater ( thank you Andrew Dice Clay! ). They can have their money pits! I won’t give advice on the legalities since the laws have changed, but let’s assume you paid off another blood sucking ne’er-do-well and are now debt free. How do you live without credit? Easy. Use cash. Since the weather outside is not as frightful, move your new used travel trailer into a park. If you have family, assure them this will be temporary as you save money to buy junk land and build every person their own hovel to live in. The car was given up under bankruptcy. Start peddling to work. Your fat ass needs to get in shape anyway. And most likely work is close since you “got fired” from the old job so bankruptcy was easier. All this is easy and has been covered before. The hard part is your safety cushion.
*
Credit was always nice since it never entailed saving money. Need a place to live? Good credit gets you an apartment ( yes, you need first and last rent but in effect you only needed one months as you had already been saving the first of the month payment in the last place you had stayed ). Need a car? No money down and six years of payments. Need emergency mechanical service? Most gas cards give you more than a month to pay those off. Sudden sickness in the family? Charge it. Laid off of work? Use the credit cards. Giving up the credit cards ( get rid of all of them! Even one is a seductive whore ) and you have no choice but to save money for emergencies. That sucks. But the benefit is no more debt ( don’t get anymore. Period. Including payday loans ). And you are forced to save for problems that crop up. And when they do crop up you are forced to think of the cheapest way of solving it, not just the way that takes a credit card. It is very stressful planning this way, with cash. Trying to anticipate problems and head them off since you have limited resources. And it is very hard to put money aside each payday. Especially when you know things are falling apart and you can never have enough supplies. But guess what? It is easier than paying off anything on credit. The sense of relief after you get out from under the bankers thumb is amazing. A much better high than the thrill of shopping brings.
*
In the coming economic collapse, you will lose all those nice things you have on credit anyway. Even if you aren’t laid off, the spouse will be and without two checks you lose it all. Better to do it now while it is under your control and you have the means to convert to cash.
END
Note: I got an e-mail undeliverable message. It didn’t give me the address, just a bunch of numbers. So if you just sent me a PayPal donation and you didn’t receive my reply, it was basically an obsequious fawning gushing outpouring of gratitude. This will have to serve as your official thank you. Thanks, dude!
The rest of you, buy my crap at www.bisonpress.com
Most of you lurking here are without shame and think you can pick and choose what you read here, cherry picking the better ideas and discarding those you don’t care for. Like when I tell you that the evil bankers that dilute our money supply on a monthly basis do not deserve to be treated fairly and you should feel no shame in mailing them your house keys and declaring bankruptcy on your credit cards. You whine like a little bitch ( picking up bad habits from this site ) and start hemming and hawing and making excuses. But I entered into a contract. But I have to be moral and honest. But I’ve never gone back on my word. People, wake the heck up. The bankers ( with a little help from the government ) have taken the worlds premier economy and a currency backed by gold and turned it into a stinking crap hole floating on junk bonds with a currency backed by the full faith and credit of the politicians bought and paid for by those bankers. You are dealing with thieves, and crooks deserve no such consideration. Honest men get your word, dishonest institutions get as much pain and suffering as you can safely dish out.
*
But, the taxpayers will be stuck with the bill for my mortgage, you cry out in desperation in a wild attempt to clutch your precious word view close to your chest where it will remain warm and fuzzy. You don’t care about taxpayers giving you hundreds of thousands of dollars in retirement, medical and prescription medications but you wouldn’t want them on the hook for a upside down mortgage? It doesn’t matter what you do, the government has already promised more than it can ever raise. They will just print the money to pay for it. And you will pay the inflation tax like everyone else. You want an impossible mortgage and SUV and credit card bill on top of that? Your next card to play is the “two wrongs don’t make a right”. It is okay for the government to execute a killer, but not okay to stiff the bank as they have been stiffing you? And I’m not even talking about interest rates. You knew that up front, it’s not like it came as a surprise. I’m talking about how the bankers have hijacked the economy and personally screwed you out of a lot of money.
*
A currency that has been debased raises prices. A businessman knows over time the currency will buy less services and goods. To the fullest extent possible he is going to get enough extra money up front to compensate for that. In an economy where the bankers are forcing laws through that funnel everyone into an existence of perpetual debt, every price you pay reflects the extra interest paid up and down the line of production. Bankers push for laws limiting entry into every activity, forcing up those prices so loans rather than cash is needed. Zoning laws for a septic system, as one small example, force another three to five thousand dollar expense. This is added on to the mortgage. A small amount of interest, to be sure, but add that to dozens of other forced higher costs per worker and you are sitting on a gold mine. By limiting entry into almost any profession you raise the cost of its education. Then you have a monopoly on that education through regulations that raise the cost even more. You get interest on school loans. Encourage urban sprawl so that each worker is forced to own a car. Zone out cheap housing such as trailers. The only alternative to a mortgage is a high cost apartment ( the supply kept low through zoning ). Zoning isn’t about petty political power trips, its lucrative money for banks ( and secure jobs for the government whores helping them ). The bankers are so good they have you believing the propaganda. It’s for the children, a safe place to live. They even make you think artificial housing values are good ( high taxes mean better schools, high values mean a high home equity loan- you think more debt is good ). Don’t be a zombie! “It’s for the children” really means “It’s for the bankers”. High home values mean a higher cost, more mortgage, more interest and higher taxes. You’re doing the bankers more good than you are for your children, especially since the little tykes will eventually pay more in the inflation tax than you are ( and they aren’t any safer in high income white suburbia as illustrated by Columbia where I smell CIA mind control ).
*
If you are now satisfied that your entire working life has been a total and utter waste due to the 75% total extortion racket paid from each paycheck, maybe now you are ready to tell the bankers to perform masturbation with a cheese grater ( thank you Andrew Dice Clay! ). They can have their money pits! I won’t give advice on the legalities since the laws have changed, but let’s assume you paid off another blood sucking ne’er-do-well and are now debt free. How do you live without credit? Easy. Use cash. Since the weather outside is not as frightful, move your new used travel trailer into a park. If you have family, assure them this will be temporary as you save money to buy junk land and build every person their own hovel to live in. The car was given up under bankruptcy. Start peddling to work. Your fat ass needs to get in shape anyway. And most likely work is close since you “got fired” from the old job so bankruptcy was easier. All this is easy and has been covered before. The hard part is your safety cushion.
*
Credit was always nice since it never entailed saving money. Need a place to live? Good credit gets you an apartment ( yes, you need first and last rent but in effect you only needed one months as you had already been saving the first of the month payment in the last place you had stayed ). Need a car? No money down and six years of payments. Need emergency mechanical service? Most gas cards give you more than a month to pay those off. Sudden sickness in the family? Charge it. Laid off of work? Use the credit cards. Giving up the credit cards ( get rid of all of them! Even one is a seductive whore ) and you have no choice but to save money for emergencies. That sucks. But the benefit is no more debt ( don’t get anymore. Period. Including payday loans ). And you are forced to save for problems that crop up. And when they do crop up you are forced to think of the cheapest way of solving it, not just the way that takes a credit card. It is very stressful planning this way, with cash. Trying to anticipate problems and head them off since you have limited resources. And it is very hard to put money aside each payday. Especially when you know things are falling apart and you can never have enough supplies. But guess what? It is easier than paying off anything on credit. The sense of relief after you get out from under the bankers thumb is amazing. A much better high than the thrill of shopping brings.
*
In the coming economic collapse, you will lose all those nice things you have on credit anyway. Even if you aren’t laid off, the spouse will be and without two checks you lose it all. Better to do it now while it is under your control and you have the means to convert to cash.
END
Note: I got an e-mail undeliverable message. It didn’t give me the address, just a bunch of numbers. So if you just sent me a PayPal donation and you didn’t receive my reply, it was basically an obsequious fawning gushing outpouring of gratitude. This will have to serve as your official thank you. Thanks, dude!
The rest of you, buy my crap at www.bisonpress.com
Friday, March 21, 2008
continued lower expectations
CONTINUED LOWER EXPECTATIONS
I think most of my loyal minions are already of the correct mindset. You know over time your expectations must be lowered on a regular basis. Of course, word races throughout the land about how wonderful Bison is and new lurkers appear monthly. And some really confused readers stumbled on to this site while trying to study Yuppie survivalism. So some of you are going to be scratching your heads in befuddlement and looking at me in dazed confusion. What in the H E double toothpicks is he talking about, Wilber? Everyone always told me if I worked hard and kept my nose clean and obeyed the law and didn’t pull the legs off live insects I would improve my life and standard of living, and by gum they would never lie to me. Wilber is no help, since he’s busy trying to figure out how to register to vote so he can help get a Democrat into office because we all know that the one cure for an ailing economy is to triple the money supply and the one cure for any social ill is to raise taxes and outlaw guns.
*
This stuff is pretty basic. A few will snidely reject my observation, insisting that only a eight year college education at a politically correct university will enable anyone to write about economics. Beyond the simply logic of Austrian School economics is a much more basic premise. Energy. It all comes down to energy. Those societies that controlled water, land and fertile soil ( hence controlling animal and human energy ) built up their power and stayed in control until they exhausted their resources are had them taken away. A hundred and fifty years ago coal was the primary fuel for growth. Then came oil. You control the oil and you have energy. Energy drives everything else. Hitler might have been a bit loopy in most ways but at least he had this basic understanding. Oil was why we won the war and controlled most of the worlds economics afterwards. Our lack of oil now is why it is all falling apart.
*
We can easily survive after the oil runs out, powered by a solar economy. But it will be surviving by the standards of several centuries ago. You can’t support an information economy through renewables, let alone manufacturing. Our economic ebb and flow is tied in to our energy supply. We are running out, and it would take a miracle bordering on the second coming to use the remaining supplies to construct a renewable energy platform that would supply even a fraction of our current energy use. It is all well and good to say that a ninety mile square patch of desert would generate enough solar energy for all of our electric needs but it is quite another to have the resources and political will to get it built. Remember, those in power will veto common sense to stay in power. Who really thinks it was an accident that Easter Island residents chopped down the last tree and started eating each other? The boys pulling Bush’s strings will force us to rely on dwindling carbon fuels until the last well is blown up by rebel freedom fighters and Grandma freezes to death in a frigid apartment. They care about bonuses, not worrying about future problems.
*
As our oil supply has decreased, so has our standard of living. You can chart the price of oil and our economic condition. There are no more Purdue Bay fields coming on line to save us from the politicians and bankers trying to insulate themselves from the oil supply by desperately manipulating all other mitigating factors to buy themselves time. In the end it will fail. Our standard of living can only have one long term trend and that is down. Accept it. What that means is that all other distractions only have short term effects. It doesn’t matter who is elected President, or how low the interest rate is cut, or whether jobs are sent overseas or not. Yes, it personally effects you to a degree. But big picture, prosperity ends. Low probability, it happens suddenly. High probability, we die a little bit more every year. Every year a bit more inflation. Every year a few more shortages, a few less repairs after natural disasters, a few less public services. A few less opportunities for your children or for your wife to work or for your home to be maintained properly.
*
You can bury your head in the sand and wish upon a falling star that fortune will smile on you and you will be exempt from the downward trend. And it is always possible. You could get a plum taxpayer teet job. You could sell crack and miraculously remain alive after you piss off the competition. But the American Dream is long dead. Without theft ( direct or institutionalized ), you can’t get ahead in our declining empire. You will not prosper by playing the old game. This includes any institutionally controlled activity such as higher education or financial investment. So simply wrap your head around the need to downscale your expectations on a continual basis. This is the only sane and safe assumption. You won’t be able to upgrade. It will all be downgrading.
*
You can forget about getting a more fuel efficient car as oil becomes dear- the SUV will have to do. And forget about a second vacation home or a better home. Or a more fuel efficient one. Being less comfortable while using less energy will have to do. Forget about saving money by renting over buying. As credit contracts homes lose value and rents increase as the supply of rentals shrinks ( and the supply of empty houses swells ). Forget about substituting chicken for beef. As the meat is sent over to China you will have to just use beans ( and they won’t be that much cheaper ). Forget staying even in your pay with inflation. Forget not working harder for less. It is simply going to get worse and worse as time goes on, if it doesn’t just collapse first. Remember, the downward slope of Peak Oil is as steep as the way up. Go as cheap and as self sufficient as you can now and beat the rush into poverty. Junk land, grain and beans for food storage, a shack or travel trailer, a cheap arsenal. Cheap insurance.
END
You know you have been lusting after my books and gear at www.bisonpress.com
I think most of my loyal minions are already of the correct mindset. You know over time your expectations must be lowered on a regular basis. Of course, word races throughout the land about how wonderful Bison is and new lurkers appear monthly. And some really confused readers stumbled on to this site while trying to study Yuppie survivalism. So some of you are going to be scratching your heads in befuddlement and looking at me in dazed confusion. What in the H E double toothpicks is he talking about, Wilber? Everyone always told me if I worked hard and kept my nose clean and obeyed the law and didn’t pull the legs off live insects I would improve my life and standard of living, and by gum they would never lie to me. Wilber is no help, since he’s busy trying to figure out how to register to vote so he can help get a Democrat into office because we all know that the one cure for an ailing economy is to triple the money supply and the one cure for any social ill is to raise taxes and outlaw guns.
*
This stuff is pretty basic. A few will snidely reject my observation, insisting that only a eight year college education at a politically correct university will enable anyone to write about economics. Beyond the simply logic of Austrian School economics is a much more basic premise. Energy. It all comes down to energy. Those societies that controlled water, land and fertile soil ( hence controlling animal and human energy ) built up their power and stayed in control until they exhausted their resources are had them taken away. A hundred and fifty years ago coal was the primary fuel for growth. Then came oil. You control the oil and you have energy. Energy drives everything else. Hitler might have been a bit loopy in most ways but at least he had this basic understanding. Oil was why we won the war and controlled most of the worlds economics afterwards. Our lack of oil now is why it is all falling apart.
*
We can easily survive after the oil runs out, powered by a solar economy. But it will be surviving by the standards of several centuries ago. You can’t support an information economy through renewables, let alone manufacturing. Our economic ebb and flow is tied in to our energy supply. We are running out, and it would take a miracle bordering on the second coming to use the remaining supplies to construct a renewable energy platform that would supply even a fraction of our current energy use. It is all well and good to say that a ninety mile square patch of desert would generate enough solar energy for all of our electric needs but it is quite another to have the resources and political will to get it built. Remember, those in power will veto common sense to stay in power. Who really thinks it was an accident that Easter Island residents chopped down the last tree and started eating each other? The boys pulling Bush’s strings will force us to rely on dwindling carbon fuels until the last well is blown up by rebel freedom fighters and Grandma freezes to death in a frigid apartment. They care about bonuses, not worrying about future problems.
*
As our oil supply has decreased, so has our standard of living. You can chart the price of oil and our economic condition. There are no more Purdue Bay fields coming on line to save us from the politicians and bankers trying to insulate themselves from the oil supply by desperately manipulating all other mitigating factors to buy themselves time. In the end it will fail. Our standard of living can only have one long term trend and that is down. Accept it. What that means is that all other distractions only have short term effects. It doesn’t matter who is elected President, or how low the interest rate is cut, or whether jobs are sent overseas or not. Yes, it personally effects you to a degree. But big picture, prosperity ends. Low probability, it happens suddenly. High probability, we die a little bit more every year. Every year a bit more inflation. Every year a few more shortages, a few less repairs after natural disasters, a few less public services. A few less opportunities for your children or for your wife to work or for your home to be maintained properly.
*
You can bury your head in the sand and wish upon a falling star that fortune will smile on you and you will be exempt from the downward trend. And it is always possible. You could get a plum taxpayer teet job. You could sell crack and miraculously remain alive after you piss off the competition. But the American Dream is long dead. Without theft ( direct or institutionalized ), you can’t get ahead in our declining empire. You will not prosper by playing the old game. This includes any institutionally controlled activity such as higher education or financial investment. So simply wrap your head around the need to downscale your expectations on a continual basis. This is the only sane and safe assumption. You won’t be able to upgrade. It will all be downgrading.
*
You can forget about getting a more fuel efficient car as oil becomes dear- the SUV will have to do. And forget about a second vacation home or a better home. Or a more fuel efficient one. Being less comfortable while using less energy will have to do. Forget about saving money by renting over buying. As credit contracts homes lose value and rents increase as the supply of rentals shrinks ( and the supply of empty houses swells ). Forget about substituting chicken for beef. As the meat is sent over to China you will have to just use beans ( and they won’t be that much cheaper ). Forget staying even in your pay with inflation. Forget not working harder for less. It is simply going to get worse and worse as time goes on, if it doesn’t just collapse first. Remember, the downward slope of Peak Oil is as steep as the way up. Go as cheap and as self sufficient as you can now and beat the rush into poverty. Junk land, grain and beans for food storage, a shack or travel trailer, a cheap arsenal. Cheap insurance.
END
You know you have been lusting after my books and gear at www.bisonpress.com
Thursday, March 20, 2008
cheap moving
CHEAP MOVING
Every other idea for an article is usually just an off the cuff comment by another Blog or by a reader. By themselves they should elicit nothing more than a sentence or two in response, but since you pay good money to read one to two pages of my drivel six days a week I feel I have to drone on incessantly about whatever trivial topic catches my eye. I would have reviewed I Am Legend but everybody else did that months ago since they are all big shot Yuppies and go around throwing away eight dollars for a theater ticket and five bucks for a medium popcorn and another seven bucks for Milk Duds and a diet Coke ( to counterbalance the calories of the popcorn because everyone knows rat poison sweetener is much better for you when you are watching calories ), trying to rub my face in it. I got a first run movie ticket and snacks for twenty dollars, and you can’t have none, cause your mama’s on the welfare, and your daddies an alcoholic. Singing like you’re Eddie Murphy with a mean screwed up look on your face. You really hurt my feelings. But that’s okay because I only spent $1 by waiting for video. And thanks for asking, it was a great movie. It actually exceeded my expectations which is a lot more than I can say for those disease ridden whores over at CBS that took a reasonably acceptable Jericho and twisted and perverted it and made it into an unholy thing not fit to watch ( I would call for a boycott of CBS but they don’t have much worthwhile on anyway ). And speaking of unholy and worthy of viewing, and to see if I can really stretch out this thought, you should check out the WB ( yes, a broadcast station, not a Rich Bitch cable station ) on Thursdays at nine. Reaper. This show is funny as, well, hell.
*
Someone made a comment about the cost of moving. Perhaps when I was pointing to the hills and screaming in a shrill feminine voice to run to them promptly. The last time it cost me a lot of money to move was in the early nineties. Beelzebub’s favorite emissary of doom, my ex-wife, decided that as a happy and loving family we would leave the great state of California and move to Oklahoma. I would put her through school and then she would work as I did the Mr. Mom deal and devoted a lot more time to writing. As it turned out she waited to get through school before she left me, but don’t get me started on that. The point was, to get there we had to pay a premium in leaving the great socialist paradise. Everyone else was bailing and U-Hauls were costing twice leaving rather than arriving. Those foolish enough to move in were charged about $400, those leaving over $800. Did we have anything all that special to move? No. The only thing not bought used from a garage sale was Grandma’s oak bunk bed set for the kids and since it cost a grand we spent $1500 getting it to Oklahoma. It would have been cheaper just to take the car and buy the darn thing new. But, noooooo! Grandma would have nothing to do with that. It now had sentimental value ( never mind it was only a few months old ). Since then I will not rent another moving van. If it doesn’t fit in the car or the travel trailer we are towing it gets left behind.
*
As religious fanatics practicing the end of the world, by necessity we accumulate a lot of junk. Just in wheat berries alone there is at least half a ton of weight to haul. Ammunition added to that is enough to sink the axel into the tarmac. The problem we are facing is that all that weight must be moved. Two years ago, I cried but I forced myself to dump most of my wheat before I moved. To replace it was $15 a hundred pounds ( I kept the buckets since they stacked into each other- that saved me $12 a hundred pounds of grain ). I’ve since gotten that back but I wouldn’t do that today. Today replacement costs would be almost $40 and you would take the chance of not finding the supplies anyway. I would hold on to storage food for dear life now ( not the nasty crap in your cupboard you bought on sale and will never eat or the three year old infested flour-throw away and replace on arrival ). So you are going to have to move every darn thing. Here we are assuming you are wanting to move. You have seriously considered getting out of your current location. You want a safer area, or a less stressful job, or you bought a piece of junk land, or whatever. I am ASSuming you are properly motivated here. Let’s do the math.
*
Let’s say I’m going to Elko. The Hippie Bread Van gets fifteen miles to the gallon fully loaded and going up a lot of hills. It will take two trips to equal one trip with the U-Haul. The moving van gets four miles to the gallon ( crappy maintenance and poor design make it less efficient than a semi ). Let’s call it five in case my experience was atypical. It costs $250 to rent the vehicle ( it actually cost $475 but I’m going for the regular average fee ). Gas is $200. My cost of moving would be $450. Four trips in my own vehicle cost $250. Not quite half off but close. Now let’s assume I’m going a thousand miles. The moving van is a grand. The gas for it is $600. You can usually do fifty mph average so the trip takes two days. Lost wages $200. Total is $1800. In my vehicle making two round trips the gas cost is $800. Your average is 65 mph. Five days driving with lost wages at $500. Total cost is $1300 and the $500 saved will just be spent on replacement furniture.
*
So short trips are very cost effective to move with a car rather than a moving van, but long trips are not. Unless you can move with just what’s in one car trip ( I ignore a second vehicle assuming the cost is the same either way ). Sell all the furniture. Stack all your wheat buckets in back and shove clothes and books in between them. Get rid of junk like sports trophies and twenty year old computers and back issues of Good Housekeeping. One trip one very long day driving. Gas is $200 and lost wages a hundred bucks. Replacement furniture is $500. $800 total is less than half the cost of renting a moving van. Even if you factor in $100 to mail certain bulky items you can’t part with ( the pressure cooker, say. But get rid of the jars, you can replace at garage sales ), or to take an extra day driving, you still save half your cash. Plates and pots and pans and silverware and crock pots and old clothing and mass market paperback books and whatnot all get left behind. They can be replaced at the thrift store. You can pile a lot on top of the roof. Even bogged down few cars will get less than fifteen miles to the gallon highway miles.
*
This math might not work for you. For instance, you earn your living doing wood or metal working and have needed equipment. The point here is that if you are living frugally to begin with ( selling the furniture at a lose or giving it away means no pain if it was cheap to start ) this is a simple and cheap way to move. Don’t spend more caring for possessions than they are worth, to include moving them. If you do the math and jettison emotion to rationally judge the value of all your stuff perhaps you can get away with getting rid of most of it and replace it on arrival. It is going to be hard enough selling real, valuable items so you can move in the first place, try to minimize that need.
END
books and gear www.bisonpress.com
Every other idea for an article is usually just an off the cuff comment by another Blog or by a reader. By themselves they should elicit nothing more than a sentence or two in response, but since you pay good money to read one to two pages of my drivel six days a week I feel I have to drone on incessantly about whatever trivial topic catches my eye. I would have reviewed I Am Legend but everybody else did that months ago since they are all big shot Yuppies and go around throwing away eight dollars for a theater ticket and five bucks for a medium popcorn and another seven bucks for Milk Duds and a diet Coke ( to counterbalance the calories of the popcorn because everyone knows rat poison sweetener is much better for you when you are watching calories ), trying to rub my face in it. I got a first run movie ticket and snacks for twenty dollars, and you can’t have none, cause your mama’s on the welfare, and your daddies an alcoholic. Singing like you’re Eddie Murphy with a mean screwed up look on your face. You really hurt my feelings. But that’s okay because I only spent $1 by waiting for video. And thanks for asking, it was a great movie. It actually exceeded my expectations which is a lot more than I can say for those disease ridden whores over at CBS that took a reasonably acceptable Jericho and twisted and perverted it and made it into an unholy thing not fit to watch ( I would call for a boycott of CBS but they don’t have much worthwhile on anyway ). And speaking of unholy and worthy of viewing, and to see if I can really stretch out this thought, you should check out the WB ( yes, a broadcast station, not a Rich Bitch cable station ) on Thursdays at nine. Reaper. This show is funny as, well, hell.
*
Someone made a comment about the cost of moving. Perhaps when I was pointing to the hills and screaming in a shrill feminine voice to run to them promptly. The last time it cost me a lot of money to move was in the early nineties. Beelzebub’s favorite emissary of doom, my ex-wife, decided that as a happy and loving family we would leave the great state of California and move to Oklahoma. I would put her through school and then she would work as I did the Mr. Mom deal and devoted a lot more time to writing. As it turned out she waited to get through school before she left me, but don’t get me started on that. The point was, to get there we had to pay a premium in leaving the great socialist paradise. Everyone else was bailing and U-Hauls were costing twice leaving rather than arriving. Those foolish enough to move in were charged about $400, those leaving over $800. Did we have anything all that special to move? No. The only thing not bought used from a garage sale was Grandma’s oak bunk bed set for the kids and since it cost a grand we spent $1500 getting it to Oklahoma. It would have been cheaper just to take the car and buy the darn thing new. But, noooooo! Grandma would have nothing to do with that. It now had sentimental value ( never mind it was only a few months old ). Since then I will not rent another moving van. If it doesn’t fit in the car or the travel trailer we are towing it gets left behind.
*
As religious fanatics practicing the end of the world, by necessity we accumulate a lot of junk. Just in wheat berries alone there is at least half a ton of weight to haul. Ammunition added to that is enough to sink the axel into the tarmac. The problem we are facing is that all that weight must be moved. Two years ago, I cried but I forced myself to dump most of my wheat before I moved. To replace it was $15 a hundred pounds ( I kept the buckets since they stacked into each other- that saved me $12 a hundred pounds of grain ). I’ve since gotten that back but I wouldn’t do that today. Today replacement costs would be almost $40 and you would take the chance of not finding the supplies anyway. I would hold on to storage food for dear life now ( not the nasty crap in your cupboard you bought on sale and will never eat or the three year old infested flour-throw away and replace on arrival ). So you are going to have to move every darn thing. Here we are assuming you are wanting to move. You have seriously considered getting out of your current location. You want a safer area, or a less stressful job, or you bought a piece of junk land, or whatever. I am ASSuming you are properly motivated here. Let’s do the math.
*
Let’s say I’m going to Elko. The Hippie Bread Van gets fifteen miles to the gallon fully loaded and going up a lot of hills. It will take two trips to equal one trip with the U-Haul. The moving van gets four miles to the gallon ( crappy maintenance and poor design make it less efficient than a semi ). Let’s call it five in case my experience was atypical. It costs $250 to rent the vehicle ( it actually cost $475 but I’m going for the regular average fee ). Gas is $200. My cost of moving would be $450. Four trips in my own vehicle cost $250. Not quite half off but close. Now let’s assume I’m going a thousand miles. The moving van is a grand. The gas for it is $600. You can usually do fifty mph average so the trip takes two days. Lost wages $200. Total is $1800. In my vehicle making two round trips the gas cost is $800. Your average is 65 mph. Five days driving with lost wages at $500. Total cost is $1300 and the $500 saved will just be spent on replacement furniture.
*
So short trips are very cost effective to move with a car rather than a moving van, but long trips are not. Unless you can move with just what’s in one car trip ( I ignore a second vehicle assuming the cost is the same either way ). Sell all the furniture. Stack all your wheat buckets in back and shove clothes and books in between them. Get rid of junk like sports trophies and twenty year old computers and back issues of Good Housekeeping. One trip one very long day driving. Gas is $200 and lost wages a hundred bucks. Replacement furniture is $500. $800 total is less than half the cost of renting a moving van. Even if you factor in $100 to mail certain bulky items you can’t part with ( the pressure cooker, say. But get rid of the jars, you can replace at garage sales ), or to take an extra day driving, you still save half your cash. Plates and pots and pans and silverware and crock pots and old clothing and mass market paperback books and whatnot all get left behind. They can be replaced at the thrift store. You can pile a lot on top of the roof. Even bogged down few cars will get less than fifteen miles to the gallon highway miles.
*
This math might not work for you. For instance, you earn your living doing wood or metal working and have needed equipment. The point here is that if you are living frugally to begin with ( selling the furniture at a lose or giving it away means no pain if it was cheap to start ) this is a simple and cheap way to move. Don’t spend more caring for possessions than they are worth, to include moving them. If you do the math and jettison emotion to rationally judge the value of all your stuff perhaps you can get away with getting rid of most of it and replace it on arrival. It is going to be hard enough selling real, valuable items so you can move in the first place, try to minimize that need.
END
books and gear www.bisonpress.com
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
bison's best bang for the buck
BISON’S BEST BANG FOR THE BUCK
There are those of you out there that set your alarm clock, getting up every morning by six o’clock Pacific Time so that you don’t have to wait one extra second to inhale the scented perfume of my wisdom. Then there are most of you that know I am excreting something but doubt very much it is wisdom. I am not a very good Deep Original Thinker. Instead, I vacuum up ideas at random, mix them together in a seemingly chaotic manor ( which is actually my patent pending proverbial process of pontification ) and spew them back at you. In other words, I take everyone else’s ideas and put my own spin on things. So it should come as no surprise to you that I have waited for most others to have presented their ideas on the perfect list of survival firearms before I did likewise. Okay, I actually have been bending your ear for years about my thoughts on the best firearms, but still think it is a nifty idea to follow everyone else and give you my take on the matter.
*
The Rangerman started the whole mess ( www.shtfblog.com ) so you can blame him. He knows we are all a bunch of little kids still playing with our GI Joe’s so he figured, why not survival soft porn? We all love to talk about guns. His one flaw in the plan ( I won’t touch his pick of an AR-15 ) was that he didn’t factor in budget. It is almost as if he was taunting me. Jiiiiim, come out and plaaaaay. This was definitely a Warriors movie moment and I totally ignored it. I’m sure I had other things on my mind, like what was for dinner. Okay, I really have no excuse. Well, Creekmore ( www.thesurvivalistblog.blogspot.com ) took up that challenge and gave us his Super Survival Budget Arsenal which was a darn good article and I can’t really top it, although it did give me an idea for one article which is all I ever ask ( that others think for me and let me take the credit ). Then our boys over at the www.tslrf.blogspot.com gave us a top ten list and I really started to feel left out of the party. I just knew if I was allowed to speak a surprised hush would fall over the room, a collective intake of breath would result from the realization that The One True Way had been revealed and as one the masses would fall to their knees and worship me as their false idol.
*
Let’s say you are walking alone out in the woods, minding your own business. You hear a thunderous roar behind you and look back perplexed. You quickly run through a laundry list of childhood fairy tales and discount several possibilities such as a wolf or a wicked stepmother. You start to think that it could be Berneke delivering the next shipment of freshly printed cash to each rural household personally but realize the pitch is different than the supersonic aircraft he favors. And then you see it, the Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse. You swear one looks like Hillary but figure it is best not to stick around for a better look. As you start to flee, what is the best firearm you can have to survive their arrival? Why, the Lee-Enfield SMLE, the best bolt action military arm ever produced. If the specter of poverty has hounded your every waking moment from birth, if all you ever got from the Tooth Fairy was a wooden nickel, if your ex-wife and Uncle Sam have voting control over your paycheck, if you could only afford a thirty caliber battle rifle by selling your body to science, then this is the best you can ask for. The Lee-Enfield is not the perfect weapon. Not by a long shot. But it is the perfect budget gun. It is not the cheapest to buy or shoot, that distinction belongs to the Russian surplus rifle, the Mosin-Nagant. It is not the most accurate budget gun. Mausers are far better in this regard. But they are the hardiest, the fastest and the highest capacity of war surplus bolt guns. Accuracy is kind of important, especially when you need to kill the bad guy first and you don’t have the ammunition to waste. But in my book, it is far more important to have a gun stand up to field conditions than it is for it to be a tack driver. The AR-15 might be easily capable of getting head shots at 300 yards while the AK47 is lucky to get a torso hit at 200, but the AK will survive in the field virtually forever while the AR will look around, see a speck of dust and go into an epileptic fit. A recent dust test performed saw the M-16 and variants average a failure rate after sixty rounds. I’ve been complaining about them as long as I have been writing for ten years due to the dismal performance I experienced in the military long ago. A Mauser is a very accurate gun and also very sensitive to dirt. The Enfield will win few marksmanship contests but will hold up to any field conditions.
*
Another problem with the Enfield, due to its manufactured tolerances, is its abuse of ammunition. It is pretty rough of the cases. This is an important consideration when what you own is all you will ever see. You need to nurse and reuse every case many times. To a large degree you can address the shortcomings by Lee-loading the case which only sizes the neck instead of the whole case. And by heat annealing on a regular basis. By reloading only for a specific rifle you need to manipulate the case less, stretching out its life. Annealing restores elasticity to the metal. The Mauser doesn’t have a problem abusing its ammo or failing to hit its target but it carries only five rounds ( to the Enfield’s ten ) and will jam in combat if conditions are dirty. The bolt will require so much force to work with dirt present that you might be placing your life at risk. Even while clean, the bolt requires twice the force needed to cycle an Enfield bolt ( so I have read, never having owned the Kaisers rifles- I prefer the Queens own infantry rifle thank you very much ). Each type reflected the tactics of its users. The Germans were scarce on resources and conserved ammunition so taught controlled accurate fire. It wasn’t important that the bolt took awhile to work or that the magazine only had half the rounds. The British weren’t so concerned with marksmanship as volume of fire. Yes, they wanted a trooper to hit his target. They might have been a global economic superpower but never wasted resources on the army. You were expected to make the rounds count. But they weren’t fielding snipers, either. Expect moderate accuracy at decent range.
*
Next up I would advise a pistol. Since we don’t expect open anarchy before a long slide you must prepare for high crime. Few jurisdictions will allow open carry of long rifles. That said, even though the likelihood of using a pistol is higher than a rifle, I would still recommend a rifle first and foremost. Here is my reasoning. If you are poor, and can only afford arms slowly, you need to consider what happens if your ability to continue shopping for firearms is hindered. If Hillary is elected, or if the economy sputters and you remain unemployed. Now you must live with your previous choice. With a rifle you can hole up and defend your home. If you only have a pistol you are limited to fighting criminals after they are already in your house or close enough to be a bit uncomfortable. Of course it all depends on what you are preparing for, but my plans are usually for worse case scenario- hence the rifle first.
*
When you do get a pistol, go with a revolver. Yes, an auto is much more reliable long term. They are less delicate. A revolver will shoot itself out of alignment eventually. And an underpowered slug could conceivably lodge itself between the wheel and barrel and render the gun unusable. You can pound an enemies brains into slush with a nice heavy 45 auto which is less easy with a revolver. But autos are very particular with ammunition. Post-collapse they will have less than perfectly loaded rounds to work with and that will spell trouble for your auto. Not to mention the cost of magazines. Carry it, use it only when needed so that it is used sparingly, and use it as the tool you need to get to your real weapon which is your long gun. Cops use a pistol, or at least have them when needed as a primary weapon. They practice a lot with them. They need the best there is. You are not a cop. You can carry less than the best for your back-up weapon. Plus, as a bonus revolvers tend to be cheaper than autos in general. Not even factoring in the magazine costs.
*
Next, get yourself a rimfire rifle. This is your “long after the collapse at least I still have a modern firearm instead of a muzzleloader or crossbow” weapon. It is also your primary hunting weapon for small game ( which will be more available than larger animals ). Even with ammunition going up to $13 from $9 you are still buying very affordable ammo. $25 a thousand is still super cheap. You can stock up on four thousand rounds for a hundred bucks. Not enough, but still a respectable stockpile ( I would call ten thousand a minimum ). Being absolutely paranoid I would advise a single shot .22 as there will be nothing that can break on it if you don’t split the stock or bend the barrel. With semi-autos at an affordable price you have a lot of little parts ( some are friggin plastic! Of all things ) that can break. Plus the magazine. A total robust, last forever rifle would be single shot. Of course, you can buy the semi and use it until something breaks and turn it into a single. Although I wouldn’t think this is your best bet. A bonus on the single is that it is short and very light, making it possible to carry in addition to your full power rifle if necessary. And eventually you will get low on ammo. Using a single shot will put that day off a lot longer.
*
I won’t add any more. I think this can do you nicely. I understand a lot of folks are clamoring for a shotgun, a lever action or even an SKS to have a semi-auto. For the Eastern folks these will actually work out better for you. You have dense woods and need close in weapons ( under 100 yards most likely ). I am focused on longer range ( mid range, say under 300 yards as few will have the skill to go longer even if the round is good to five or seven hundred yards ). Two thirds of the US is open spaces, so even with less population a larger area will need the weapons I describe. Plus, if you think the sea levels will rise a lot of folks might be forced into this kind of area. Thus, by planning for the worse case you pick the longer range weapons. Not that the rimfire is long range but that is not your primary defensive weapon anyway. Primarily it is your small game hunting with total collapse weapon being secondary. Of course in dense woods that might be all you ever need in some scenarios ( of course, have a 357 revolver as a back-up for predators ).
*
An Enfield is actually about the most expensive surplus bolt gun. About $150 retail. And the ammo is widely available although not cheap. A revolver with luck is $200 and a rimfire is around $100. Not much more than $500 before ammo costs. Not the cheapest, but it is not meant to be. It is better quality at a slightly higher price ( but not too expensive, so anyone can afford it quickly ). A cheap arsenal that should cover most problems coming down the road.
END
Buy! Spend! Consume! www.bisonpress.com for books and gear and links, oh my.
There are those of you out there that set your alarm clock, getting up every morning by six o’clock Pacific Time so that you don’t have to wait one extra second to inhale the scented perfume of my wisdom. Then there are most of you that know I am excreting something but doubt very much it is wisdom. I am not a very good Deep Original Thinker. Instead, I vacuum up ideas at random, mix them together in a seemingly chaotic manor ( which is actually my patent pending proverbial process of pontification ) and spew them back at you. In other words, I take everyone else’s ideas and put my own spin on things. So it should come as no surprise to you that I have waited for most others to have presented their ideas on the perfect list of survival firearms before I did likewise. Okay, I actually have been bending your ear for years about my thoughts on the best firearms, but still think it is a nifty idea to follow everyone else and give you my take on the matter.
*
The Rangerman started the whole mess ( www.shtfblog.com ) so you can blame him. He knows we are all a bunch of little kids still playing with our GI Joe’s so he figured, why not survival soft porn? We all love to talk about guns. His one flaw in the plan ( I won’t touch his pick of an AR-15 ) was that he didn’t factor in budget. It is almost as if he was taunting me. Jiiiiim, come out and plaaaaay. This was definitely a Warriors movie moment and I totally ignored it. I’m sure I had other things on my mind, like what was for dinner. Okay, I really have no excuse. Well, Creekmore ( www.thesurvivalistblog.blogspot.com ) took up that challenge and gave us his Super Survival Budget Arsenal which was a darn good article and I can’t really top it, although it did give me an idea for one article which is all I ever ask ( that others think for me and let me take the credit ). Then our boys over at the www.tslrf.blogspot.com gave us a top ten list and I really started to feel left out of the party. I just knew if I was allowed to speak a surprised hush would fall over the room, a collective intake of breath would result from the realization that The One True Way had been revealed and as one the masses would fall to their knees and worship me as their false idol.
*
Let’s say you are walking alone out in the woods, minding your own business. You hear a thunderous roar behind you and look back perplexed. You quickly run through a laundry list of childhood fairy tales and discount several possibilities such as a wolf or a wicked stepmother. You start to think that it could be Berneke delivering the next shipment of freshly printed cash to each rural household personally but realize the pitch is different than the supersonic aircraft he favors. And then you see it, the Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse. You swear one looks like Hillary but figure it is best not to stick around for a better look. As you start to flee, what is the best firearm you can have to survive their arrival? Why, the Lee-Enfield SMLE, the best bolt action military arm ever produced. If the specter of poverty has hounded your every waking moment from birth, if all you ever got from the Tooth Fairy was a wooden nickel, if your ex-wife and Uncle Sam have voting control over your paycheck, if you could only afford a thirty caliber battle rifle by selling your body to science, then this is the best you can ask for. The Lee-Enfield is not the perfect weapon. Not by a long shot. But it is the perfect budget gun. It is not the cheapest to buy or shoot, that distinction belongs to the Russian surplus rifle, the Mosin-Nagant. It is not the most accurate budget gun. Mausers are far better in this regard. But they are the hardiest, the fastest and the highest capacity of war surplus bolt guns. Accuracy is kind of important, especially when you need to kill the bad guy first and you don’t have the ammunition to waste. But in my book, it is far more important to have a gun stand up to field conditions than it is for it to be a tack driver. The AR-15 might be easily capable of getting head shots at 300 yards while the AK47 is lucky to get a torso hit at 200, but the AK will survive in the field virtually forever while the AR will look around, see a speck of dust and go into an epileptic fit. A recent dust test performed saw the M-16 and variants average a failure rate after sixty rounds. I’ve been complaining about them as long as I have been writing for ten years due to the dismal performance I experienced in the military long ago. A Mauser is a very accurate gun and also very sensitive to dirt. The Enfield will win few marksmanship contests but will hold up to any field conditions.
*
Another problem with the Enfield, due to its manufactured tolerances, is its abuse of ammunition. It is pretty rough of the cases. This is an important consideration when what you own is all you will ever see. You need to nurse and reuse every case many times. To a large degree you can address the shortcomings by Lee-loading the case which only sizes the neck instead of the whole case. And by heat annealing on a regular basis. By reloading only for a specific rifle you need to manipulate the case less, stretching out its life. Annealing restores elasticity to the metal. The Mauser doesn’t have a problem abusing its ammo or failing to hit its target but it carries only five rounds ( to the Enfield’s ten ) and will jam in combat if conditions are dirty. The bolt will require so much force to work with dirt present that you might be placing your life at risk. Even while clean, the bolt requires twice the force needed to cycle an Enfield bolt ( so I have read, never having owned the Kaisers rifles- I prefer the Queens own infantry rifle thank you very much ). Each type reflected the tactics of its users. The Germans were scarce on resources and conserved ammunition so taught controlled accurate fire. It wasn’t important that the bolt took awhile to work or that the magazine only had half the rounds. The British weren’t so concerned with marksmanship as volume of fire. Yes, they wanted a trooper to hit his target. They might have been a global economic superpower but never wasted resources on the army. You were expected to make the rounds count. But they weren’t fielding snipers, either. Expect moderate accuracy at decent range.
*
Next up I would advise a pistol. Since we don’t expect open anarchy before a long slide you must prepare for high crime. Few jurisdictions will allow open carry of long rifles. That said, even though the likelihood of using a pistol is higher than a rifle, I would still recommend a rifle first and foremost. Here is my reasoning. If you are poor, and can only afford arms slowly, you need to consider what happens if your ability to continue shopping for firearms is hindered. If Hillary is elected, or if the economy sputters and you remain unemployed. Now you must live with your previous choice. With a rifle you can hole up and defend your home. If you only have a pistol you are limited to fighting criminals after they are already in your house or close enough to be a bit uncomfortable. Of course it all depends on what you are preparing for, but my plans are usually for worse case scenario- hence the rifle first.
*
When you do get a pistol, go with a revolver. Yes, an auto is much more reliable long term. They are less delicate. A revolver will shoot itself out of alignment eventually. And an underpowered slug could conceivably lodge itself between the wheel and barrel and render the gun unusable. You can pound an enemies brains into slush with a nice heavy 45 auto which is less easy with a revolver. But autos are very particular with ammunition. Post-collapse they will have less than perfectly loaded rounds to work with and that will spell trouble for your auto. Not to mention the cost of magazines. Carry it, use it only when needed so that it is used sparingly, and use it as the tool you need to get to your real weapon which is your long gun. Cops use a pistol, or at least have them when needed as a primary weapon. They practice a lot with them. They need the best there is. You are not a cop. You can carry less than the best for your back-up weapon. Plus, as a bonus revolvers tend to be cheaper than autos in general. Not even factoring in the magazine costs.
*
Next, get yourself a rimfire rifle. This is your “long after the collapse at least I still have a modern firearm instead of a muzzleloader or crossbow” weapon. It is also your primary hunting weapon for small game ( which will be more available than larger animals ). Even with ammunition going up to $13 from $9 you are still buying very affordable ammo. $25 a thousand is still super cheap. You can stock up on four thousand rounds for a hundred bucks. Not enough, but still a respectable stockpile ( I would call ten thousand a minimum ). Being absolutely paranoid I would advise a single shot .22 as there will be nothing that can break on it if you don’t split the stock or bend the barrel. With semi-autos at an affordable price you have a lot of little parts ( some are friggin plastic! Of all things ) that can break. Plus the magazine. A total robust, last forever rifle would be single shot. Of course, you can buy the semi and use it until something breaks and turn it into a single. Although I wouldn’t think this is your best bet. A bonus on the single is that it is short and very light, making it possible to carry in addition to your full power rifle if necessary. And eventually you will get low on ammo. Using a single shot will put that day off a lot longer.
*
I won’t add any more. I think this can do you nicely. I understand a lot of folks are clamoring for a shotgun, a lever action or even an SKS to have a semi-auto. For the Eastern folks these will actually work out better for you. You have dense woods and need close in weapons ( under 100 yards most likely ). I am focused on longer range ( mid range, say under 300 yards as few will have the skill to go longer even if the round is good to five or seven hundred yards ). Two thirds of the US is open spaces, so even with less population a larger area will need the weapons I describe. Plus, if you think the sea levels will rise a lot of folks might be forced into this kind of area. Thus, by planning for the worse case you pick the longer range weapons. Not that the rimfire is long range but that is not your primary defensive weapon anyway. Primarily it is your small game hunting with total collapse weapon being secondary. Of course in dense woods that might be all you ever need in some scenarios ( of course, have a 357 revolver as a back-up for predators ).
*
An Enfield is actually about the most expensive surplus bolt gun. About $150 retail. And the ammo is widely available although not cheap. A revolver with luck is $200 and a rimfire is around $100. Not much more than $500 before ammo costs. Not the cheapest, but it is not meant to be. It is better quality at a slightly higher price ( but not too expensive, so anyone can afford it quickly ). A cheap arsenal that should cover most problems coming down the road.
END
Buy! Spend! Consume! www.bisonpress.com for books and gear and links, oh my.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
apocalypse stockpiling
APOCALYPSE STOCKPILING
God, it’s beautiful! Burn baby! Burn! The smell of smoldering investment banks in the morning! This was exciting enough news this morning I almost thought Saint Pat himself was hoisting a glass of green beer in my direction, giving me a mischievous grin at the absurdity of it all. Every flea bitten cur has his day indeed. The next best thing would be for Berneke to crash his paper dispensing helicopter into the White House on top of Bush and Cheney ( although, as evil as that boy is, you have to admire anyone that would shoot a lawyer ) killing all of them in a fiery blaze. With this news that woke me up better than the pot of coffee I was sucking down like the life giving elixir that it is after one of the damn cats woke me up at a quarter to five, I started to give fresh thought about getting rid of the last of my institutionally held cash. I’ve already gotten rid of three quarters of my tax return, paying ahead on a few bills such as the Hippie Bread Van storage, some cash for when Bank Holidays are declared. But I still have a few hundred I would rather convert to goods instead of see disappear down the rabbit hole of the financial meltdown ( or see eroded by inflation ).
*
Normally I don’t care for a conventional blog type of post. Instead of the “I ate corn flakes and wiped my ass with Charmen today, Dear Diary” type of entry I prefer a newsletter style. It might only be my uneducated ranting but hopefully you can always learn something. I realize no matter how highly I think of myself, a few of you might not care one wit about my personal problems however inconceivable that might be. So I’m risking all I hold dear, to include the American way of life. I’m just going to include my personal shopping list here. The rational being that perhaps you’ve forgotten something similar.
*
I realize that sometimes I don’t differentiate between total collapse and hard times with temporary problems. This is not necessary because I am lazy ( although it could mean that ) but because I always aim to plan for the worse, assuming a lesser emergency will easily be handled. For instance, by assuming a total grid down situation you can easily get through several weeks of storm caused power lines being damaged. If I stockpile a few years of food, I can weather a truckers strike, Iran closing down the Straights Of Hormuz and a grain failure all in a short period of time. I bring this up so as not to confuse you here. I am not saying our financial meltdown will be the end of it all, just that this is the assumption I labor under for planning purposes. Not that I will ever achieve total preparedness, mainly due to finances ( self imposed, to be sure, but nevertheless a real constraint ). But I would rather over prepare than under plan. By supplying myself for power without carbon fuels doesn’t mean under the present scenario they will be unavailable, just that to be safe I shall assume this.
*
I think the first thing I need to worry about is big bags of salt. Being no where near a natural source of salt makes this a much better item than buying the occasional cardboard tube of table salt at the grocery store. At least that supply has done little in price hikes ( up from a quarter to 33 cents over about ten years- not bad considering fuel costs ). You can buy bags from feed and grain stores, or that being sold as water softener. Figure around ten cents a pound or so in bulk. Spending little more than ten bucks will go a long way in alleviating this worry ( make sure to stock some iodine salt as you will need that in your diet ). If you are planning to make blocks of ice or your own bleach plan on stocking far more than a hundred pounds ( and remember barter needs )
*
A PV panel is no where near a necessity. I have the small solar units to charge the AA and D batteries I need for lighting. But it would be nice and provide a bit of flexibility. I can produce my own bleach with power and salt, as well as blocks of ice. And I can power up my trailer overhead lights. Of course, this does go to the bottom of the list since I can limp along without it. Next up is another ceramic water filter. I only have one which is just stupid. No sense putting this purchase off as the dollar going down in value against the Pound will only increase the cost of this import.
*
I need a new battery for the Hippie Bread Van. Here I have my emergency escape vehicle and no way to start it other than to jump it. I just kept letting it go over the winter. Not too bright. The next item I have been putting off for awhile. A printer for the computer. It has gotten to the point I need to print stuff out for research. Wal-Mart has one for $40 that uses $15 cartridges. Not too bad for casual printing needs. Time to start up my hard copy book for instructions such as converting Berden to Boxer primed, etc.
*
I’ve already covered the cartridge adaptor. I can use an insert to turn one of my Lee-Enfields from 303 to 762x39. Flexibility and economics. The only reason I keep putting this one off is he needs a money order to purchase. I’ve become way too spoiled with the Internet and debit cards. On the subject of guns, I need a new recoil pad. The old one was cheap and split down the side. It is useable but would need to be taped or glued to stay in place. I’d rather buy a new one. I have two scopes already. One mount for the Enfield but none for the rimfire. Silly not to have that thing scoped since it is the only way to hit much of anything. And I might as well pick up another scope while I’m at it. Can’t have enough of them. Another worthless weapon I have is a Wrist Rocket. I pulled it out of the trash and have yet to get any rubber for it. More a toy than a weapon, but best to spend the few bucks to get it functional. You never know when you might need it.
*
I still need to get a pick and shovel. A Chinese made entrenching tool is not going to cover it. Dirt can substitute for a lot of expensive items if needed. I think I made that plan last year and then forgot all about it. Another tool I need is a bow saw with a lot of extra blades. The only firewood you find for hundreds of miles ( well, east of the Sierras anyway ) is scrub brush. Machetes barely nick the darn things and I only have a cheap camp saw. I can make a mud and stone and scrap steel stove if need be but I need to gather the wood first. Plenty of dead brush around waiting for the proper tool. Last up is light bulbs. I bought a bunch of florescent tubes ( at $6 each-ouch ) but still need the auto bulbs for the other light fixtures. Even if I never get the PV panel I can use them day-to-day and I’ll have bought them before prices went up. Prices are going up due to oil, that’s a given. But what happens if the Chinese de-link from our currency? I think the era of cheap imports is coming to an end.
*
Well, there you go. One mans immodest procrastination. And with a collapse just down the road. But I guess you’re never really ready. There is always something else. We’ll still be making wish lists on our death bed.
END
Buy my books and prep gear at www.bisonpress.com
God, it’s beautiful! Burn baby! Burn! The smell of smoldering investment banks in the morning! This was exciting enough news this morning I almost thought Saint Pat himself was hoisting a glass of green beer in my direction, giving me a mischievous grin at the absurdity of it all. Every flea bitten cur has his day indeed. The next best thing would be for Berneke to crash his paper dispensing helicopter into the White House on top of Bush and Cheney ( although, as evil as that boy is, you have to admire anyone that would shoot a lawyer ) killing all of them in a fiery blaze. With this news that woke me up better than the pot of coffee I was sucking down like the life giving elixir that it is after one of the damn cats woke me up at a quarter to five, I started to give fresh thought about getting rid of the last of my institutionally held cash. I’ve already gotten rid of three quarters of my tax return, paying ahead on a few bills such as the Hippie Bread Van storage, some cash for when Bank Holidays are declared. But I still have a few hundred I would rather convert to goods instead of see disappear down the rabbit hole of the financial meltdown ( or see eroded by inflation ).
*
Normally I don’t care for a conventional blog type of post. Instead of the “I ate corn flakes and wiped my ass with Charmen today, Dear Diary” type of entry I prefer a newsletter style. It might only be my uneducated ranting but hopefully you can always learn something. I realize no matter how highly I think of myself, a few of you might not care one wit about my personal problems however inconceivable that might be. So I’m risking all I hold dear, to include the American way of life. I’m just going to include my personal shopping list here. The rational being that perhaps you’ve forgotten something similar.
*
I realize that sometimes I don’t differentiate between total collapse and hard times with temporary problems. This is not necessary because I am lazy ( although it could mean that ) but because I always aim to plan for the worse, assuming a lesser emergency will easily be handled. For instance, by assuming a total grid down situation you can easily get through several weeks of storm caused power lines being damaged. If I stockpile a few years of food, I can weather a truckers strike, Iran closing down the Straights Of Hormuz and a grain failure all in a short period of time. I bring this up so as not to confuse you here. I am not saying our financial meltdown will be the end of it all, just that this is the assumption I labor under for planning purposes. Not that I will ever achieve total preparedness, mainly due to finances ( self imposed, to be sure, but nevertheless a real constraint ). But I would rather over prepare than under plan. By supplying myself for power without carbon fuels doesn’t mean under the present scenario they will be unavailable, just that to be safe I shall assume this.
*
I think the first thing I need to worry about is big bags of salt. Being no where near a natural source of salt makes this a much better item than buying the occasional cardboard tube of table salt at the grocery store. At least that supply has done little in price hikes ( up from a quarter to 33 cents over about ten years- not bad considering fuel costs ). You can buy bags from feed and grain stores, or that being sold as water softener. Figure around ten cents a pound or so in bulk. Spending little more than ten bucks will go a long way in alleviating this worry ( make sure to stock some iodine salt as you will need that in your diet ). If you are planning to make blocks of ice or your own bleach plan on stocking far more than a hundred pounds ( and remember barter needs )
*
A PV panel is no where near a necessity. I have the small solar units to charge the AA and D batteries I need for lighting. But it would be nice and provide a bit of flexibility. I can produce my own bleach with power and salt, as well as blocks of ice. And I can power up my trailer overhead lights. Of course, this does go to the bottom of the list since I can limp along without it. Next up is another ceramic water filter. I only have one which is just stupid. No sense putting this purchase off as the dollar going down in value against the Pound will only increase the cost of this import.
*
I need a new battery for the Hippie Bread Van. Here I have my emergency escape vehicle and no way to start it other than to jump it. I just kept letting it go over the winter. Not too bright. The next item I have been putting off for awhile. A printer for the computer. It has gotten to the point I need to print stuff out for research. Wal-Mart has one for $40 that uses $15 cartridges. Not too bad for casual printing needs. Time to start up my hard copy book for instructions such as converting Berden to Boxer primed, etc.
*
I’ve already covered the cartridge adaptor. I can use an insert to turn one of my Lee-Enfields from 303 to 762x39. Flexibility and economics. The only reason I keep putting this one off is he needs a money order to purchase. I’ve become way too spoiled with the Internet and debit cards. On the subject of guns, I need a new recoil pad. The old one was cheap and split down the side. It is useable but would need to be taped or glued to stay in place. I’d rather buy a new one. I have two scopes already. One mount for the Enfield but none for the rimfire. Silly not to have that thing scoped since it is the only way to hit much of anything. And I might as well pick up another scope while I’m at it. Can’t have enough of them. Another worthless weapon I have is a Wrist Rocket. I pulled it out of the trash and have yet to get any rubber for it. More a toy than a weapon, but best to spend the few bucks to get it functional. You never know when you might need it.
*
I still need to get a pick and shovel. A Chinese made entrenching tool is not going to cover it. Dirt can substitute for a lot of expensive items if needed. I think I made that plan last year and then forgot all about it. Another tool I need is a bow saw with a lot of extra blades. The only firewood you find for hundreds of miles ( well, east of the Sierras anyway ) is scrub brush. Machetes barely nick the darn things and I only have a cheap camp saw. I can make a mud and stone and scrap steel stove if need be but I need to gather the wood first. Plenty of dead brush around waiting for the proper tool. Last up is light bulbs. I bought a bunch of florescent tubes ( at $6 each-ouch ) but still need the auto bulbs for the other light fixtures. Even if I never get the PV panel I can use them day-to-day and I’ll have bought them before prices went up. Prices are going up due to oil, that’s a given. But what happens if the Chinese de-link from our currency? I think the era of cheap imports is coming to an end.
*
Well, there you go. One mans immodest procrastination. And with a collapse just down the road. But I guess you’re never really ready. There is always something else. We’ll still be making wish lists on our death bed.
END
Buy my books and prep gear at www.bisonpress.com
Monday, March 17, 2008
don't head for the hills yet?
DON’T HEAD FOR THE HILLS YET?
Saturday over at the www.survivalblog.com site was a productive time for me. Lots of good ideas I could glean, steal and/or abscond with. First we had the advice on semi-auto’s to a California resident. That one was just ripe for the picking. But we also had his statement on the economy with the advice not to head for the hills yet. Yes, things are starting to unravel. Heading for the hills might be advice only given by panicky paranoid lunatics. Rawles is always careful to avoid that label but I have no such problems. I don’t care what you think, as long as you love me. Hey, look at Emperor Norton of San Francisco ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_A._Norton ), one of the original nut jobs of the state and people positively adored him. I could do worse than be remembered as being slightly left of normal. I of course see myself as a benign enlightened wise man but I know you savages view things differently.
*
Do not panic, yet. That might be another way of saying the same thing. On the surface, this is good advice. If you wish to appear sane and stable, by all means hold your panic in check. It would be unseemly for the Jones’ across the street to see you running back and forth to the family sedan, throwing unorganized piles of cold weather clothing into the back seat as you are yelling at the wife to get her fat ass in gear and grab the kids and for God’s sake hurry because Bear Sterns just went bankrupt and we need to get out of town before any more financial weapons of mass destruction are detonated. Sure, I put it that way and maybe it does seem silly to think about heading for the hills in panic. After all, this is just the latest in a long series of big and important news items describing the economic meltdown ( Rawles has been calling out to you for some time about the dangerous derivatives meltdown- I’m just a Johnny Come Lately that was more concerned with Peak Oil. And please keep in mind that the media focus on sub prime mortgages is misdirection. Sub prime was the trigger-the big weapon is the derivatives market ).
*
I understand the term “heading for the hills” was not literal. You were being advised against doing something stupid like mailing the bank your house keys, taking the kids out of school, telling the wife to quit her sex talk phone job, committing your Aunt Selma to the mental asylum so you could take over her farm and digging a continual tank ditch around the acreage to foil a UN force assault. Or going to South America to raise wild yams and hope your portion of tropical forest lasts long enough that the oil depletion globally will keep the tractors from turning your new hut location into pasture for Burger King beef ranging ( I really need to remember to add Mosquito Coast to the video sales section- that was a good flick ). But isn’t it a better idea to panic now and avoid the rush? Seriously.
*
You already looked like an idiot for panicking about Y2K. After 9/11 you bought out Lowe’s, stripping all supplies of duct tape and plastic sheeting. The car dealer knows you are trying to put together a EMP proof vehicle. Everyone already thinks you are unstable. You would be wise to disregard your community standing and do whatever you think needs to be done ( and, yes, I’m being facetious. I know you don’t tell everyone your plans. I’m referring to spouse and family, primarily ). If you are already convinced an economic Depression is coming our way, what are you waiting for? Do whatever it takes, now, to get ready. Sell out your retirement account. Cash in your 401k. Strip the checking account. Sell your unneeded items. Yes, you could be wrong. You could see this collapse stabilize and business as usual start up again. I’m in my early forties. I ask myself, do I expect to be able to receive Social Security in twenty years? I panicked twenty years ago and so far it is business as usual. But I don’t count on it being there for me ( I rag on SS recipients but I sure wouldn’t turn it down myself- none of us turn down “free” money ). Things could turn out just fine, but don’t count on that.
*
As long as you don’t do anything illegal ( not arguing the morality of it [such as robbing the robber barons at the bank] but the practicality- you don’t want to be locked up come collapse time ) what can you possibly do that would be too drastic? Ruin your credit rating? Who friggin cares? You’d be doing yourself a favor by not being able to charge any purchases. You could do worse than save money for your land instead of borrowing for it ( perhaps not thirty years ago but certainly now ). It wouldn’t kill you to buy a moped outright rather than use the same amount for a down payment on seven years of car payment. Deplete your retirement account? Who can argue that hard goods will outperform paper currencies ( just went to Wal-Mart- flour up fifteen percent, butter 15%, beans up 15% all in two weeks, which is oddly the same amount oil went up ). You’d be doing yourself a favor taking your money away from the Wall Street Wizards. Divorce the consumerist wife? It’s worth the bribe money to depart, it will be cheaper than living with her. Quitting your great paying job? All that money sure will look good as you live in a war zone as the ghettos get a lot scarier. Increasing your security, decreasing your stress, improving your quality of life cost you nothing but lost wages. Remember the story of the businessman and the fishing guide. The one pays good money to go out fishing and relaxing once a year. The other gets to live that way all year, his only “cost” the lack of big money.
*
I can’t see how panicking will hurt at all ( other than by going into debt to prepare which other than very small scale [ under the amount of one paycheck ] is a really bad idea ). Panic now and get motivated enough to do what you have been putting off. It’s only your life you need to concern yourself with.
END
As food and oil increase at two or three percent a month ( that just being the start ) it is nice to know that a few trinkets are falling in price. There are so few they need to be celebrated. In the camping section of Wal-Mart they now have a generic LED mini-lantern that is only $5. The old Coleman brand is $10. The new generic is much brighter. The old uses three AA batteries, the new uses four. My highly scientific method of eyeballing the light put out gives this about twice the light output as the old style, at half the price while only using one more battery. One word of caution. The new one seems to be less well made with much cheaper plastic being used.
Books and gear www.bisonpress.com
Saturday over at the www.survivalblog.com site was a productive time for me. Lots of good ideas I could glean, steal and/or abscond with. First we had the advice on semi-auto’s to a California resident. That one was just ripe for the picking. But we also had his statement on the economy with the advice not to head for the hills yet. Yes, things are starting to unravel. Heading for the hills might be advice only given by panicky paranoid lunatics. Rawles is always careful to avoid that label but I have no such problems. I don’t care what you think, as long as you love me. Hey, look at Emperor Norton of San Francisco ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_A._Norton ), one of the original nut jobs of the state and people positively adored him. I could do worse than be remembered as being slightly left of normal. I of course see myself as a benign enlightened wise man but I know you savages view things differently.
*
Do not panic, yet. That might be another way of saying the same thing. On the surface, this is good advice. If you wish to appear sane and stable, by all means hold your panic in check. It would be unseemly for the Jones’ across the street to see you running back and forth to the family sedan, throwing unorganized piles of cold weather clothing into the back seat as you are yelling at the wife to get her fat ass in gear and grab the kids and for God’s sake hurry because Bear Sterns just went bankrupt and we need to get out of town before any more financial weapons of mass destruction are detonated. Sure, I put it that way and maybe it does seem silly to think about heading for the hills in panic. After all, this is just the latest in a long series of big and important news items describing the economic meltdown ( Rawles has been calling out to you for some time about the dangerous derivatives meltdown- I’m just a Johnny Come Lately that was more concerned with Peak Oil. And please keep in mind that the media focus on sub prime mortgages is misdirection. Sub prime was the trigger-the big weapon is the derivatives market ).
*
I understand the term “heading for the hills” was not literal. You were being advised against doing something stupid like mailing the bank your house keys, taking the kids out of school, telling the wife to quit her sex talk phone job, committing your Aunt Selma to the mental asylum so you could take over her farm and digging a continual tank ditch around the acreage to foil a UN force assault. Or going to South America to raise wild yams and hope your portion of tropical forest lasts long enough that the oil depletion globally will keep the tractors from turning your new hut location into pasture for Burger King beef ranging ( I really need to remember to add Mosquito Coast to the video sales section- that was a good flick ). But isn’t it a better idea to panic now and avoid the rush? Seriously.
*
You already looked like an idiot for panicking about Y2K. After 9/11 you bought out Lowe’s, stripping all supplies of duct tape and plastic sheeting. The car dealer knows you are trying to put together a EMP proof vehicle. Everyone already thinks you are unstable. You would be wise to disregard your community standing and do whatever you think needs to be done ( and, yes, I’m being facetious. I know you don’t tell everyone your plans. I’m referring to spouse and family, primarily ). If you are already convinced an economic Depression is coming our way, what are you waiting for? Do whatever it takes, now, to get ready. Sell out your retirement account. Cash in your 401k. Strip the checking account. Sell your unneeded items. Yes, you could be wrong. You could see this collapse stabilize and business as usual start up again. I’m in my early forties. I ask myself, do I expect to be able to receive Social Security in twenty years? I panicked twenty years ago and so far it is business as usual. But I don’t count on it being there for me ( I rag on SS recipients but I sure wouldn’t turn it down myself- none of us turn down “free” money ). Things could turn out just fine, but don’t count on that.
*
As long as you don’t do anything illegal ( not arguing the morality of it [such as robbing the robber barons at the bank] but the practicality- you don’t want to be locked up come collapse time ) what can you possibly do that would be too drastic? Ruin your credit rating? Who friggin cares? You’d be doing yourself a favor by not being able to charge any purchases. You could do worse than save money for your land instead of borrowing for it ( perhaps not thirty years ago but certainly now ). It wouldn’t kill you to buy a moped outright rather than use the same amount for a down payment on seven years of car payment. Deplete your retirement account? Who can argue that hard goods will outperform paper currencies ( just went to Wal-Mart- flour up fifteen percent, butter 15%, beans up 15% all in two weeks, which is oddly the same amount oil went up ). You’d be doing yourself a favor taking your money away from the Wall Street Wizards. Divorce the consumerist wife? It’s worth the bribe money to depart, it will be cheaper than living with her. Quitting your great paying job? All that money sure will look good as you live in a war zone as the ghettos get a lot scarier. Increasing your security, decreasing your stress, improving your quality of life cost you nothing but lost wages. Remember the story of the businessman and the fishing guide. The one pays good money to go out fishing and relaxing once a year. The other gets to live that way all year, his only “cost” the lack of big money.
*
I can’t see how panicking will hurt at all ( other than by going into debt to prepare which other than very small scale [ under the amount of one paycheck ] is a really bad idea ). Panic now and get motivated enough to do what you have been putting off. It’s only your life you need to concern yourself with.
END
As food and oil increase at two or three percent a month ( that just being the start ) it is nice to know that a few trinkets are falling in price. There are so few they need to be celebrated. In the camping section of Wal-Mart they now have a generic LED mini-lantern that is only $5. The old Coleman brand is $10. The new generic is much brighter. The old uses three AA batteries, the new uses four. My highly scientific method of eyeballing the light put out gives this about twice the light output as the old style, at half the price while only using one more battery. One word of caution. The new one seems to be less well made with much cheaper plastic being used.
Books and gear www.bisonpress.com
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