Work Acess Survival Blog

2008-12-04T21:27:00.001-08:00

ave time to read? Read it ..worth it

Paul Joseph Watson

The man who predicted the 1987 stock market crash and the fall of the Soviet Union is now forecasting revolution in America, food riots and tax rebellions - all within four years, while cautioning that putting food on
the table will be a more pressing concern than buying Christmas gifts by 2012.

Gerald Celente (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Celente), the CEO of Trends Research Institute, is renowned for his accuracy in predicting future world and economic events, which will send a chill down your spine considering what he told Fox News this week.

Celente says that by 2012 America will become an undeveloped nation, that there will be a revolution marked by food riots, squatter rebellions, tax revolts and job marches, and that holidays will be more about obtaining
food, not gifts.

"We're going to see the end of the retail Christmas....we're going to see a fundamental shift take place....putting food on the table is going to be more important that putting gifts under the Christmas tree," said Celente, adding that the situation would be "worse than the great depression".

"America's going to go through a transition the likes of which no one is prepared for," said Celente, noting that people's refusal to acknowledge that America was even in a recession highlights how big a problem denial is
in being ready for the true scale of the crisis.

Celente, who successfully predicted the 1997 Asian Currency Crisis, the subprime mortgage collapse and the massive devaluation of the U.S. dollar, told UPI in November last year that the following year would be known as "The Panic of 2008," adding that "giants (would) tumble to their deaths," which is exactly what we have witnessed with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and others. He also said that the dollar would
eventually be devalued by as much as 90 percent.

The consequence of what we have seen unfold this year would lead to a lowering in living standards, Celente predicted a year ago, which is also being borne out by plummeting retail sales figures.

The prospect of revolution was a concept echoed by a British Ministry of Defence report last year, which predicted that within 30 years, the growing gap between the super rich and the middle class, along with an urban underclass threatening social order would mean, "The world's middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest," and that, "The middle classes could become a revolutionary class."

In a separate recent interview, Celente went further on the subject of revolution in America.
"There will be a revolution in this country," he said. "It's not going to come yet, but it's going to come down the line and we're going to see a third party and this was the catalyst for it: the takeover of Washington, D.
C., in broad daylight by Wall Street in this bloodless coup. And it will happen as conditions continue to worsen."

"The first thing to do is organize with tax revolts. That's going to be the big one because people can't afford to pay more school tax, property tax, any kind of tax. You're going to start seeing those kinds of protests start
to develop."

"It's going to be very bleak. Very sad. And there is going to be a lot of homeless, the likes of which we have never seen before. Tent cities are already sprouting up around the country and we're going to see many more."

"We're going to start seeing huge areas of vacant real estate and squatters living in them as well. It's going to be a picture the likes of which Americans are not going to be used to. It's going to come as a shock and
with it, there's going to be a lot of crime. And the crime is going to be a lot worse than it was before because in the last 1929 Depression, people's minds weren't wrecked on all these modern drugs - over-the-counter drugs, or crystal meth or whatever it might be. So, you have a huge underclass of very desperate people with their minds chemically blown beyond anybody's comprehension."

The George Washington blog has compiled a list of quotes attesting to Celente's accuracy as a trend forecaster.

2008-09-29T06:29:00.000-07:00

Monday September 29 2008

Notes from JWR:

Today we present another entry for Round 18 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The contest prizes include:

First Prize: The writer of the best contributed article in the next 60 days will be awarded two transferable Front Sight "Gray" Four Day Training Course Certificates. This is an up to $4,000 value!
Second Prize: A three day course certificate from OnPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner's choice of three-day civilian courses.
Third Prize: A copy of my "Rawles Gets You Ready" preparedness course, from Arbogast Publishing

Round 18 ends on September 30th, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entries--either for this round or for the next. Remember that articles that relate practical "how to" skills for survival will have an advantage in the judging.

What Will You Do When Your Stored Food Runs Out?, by Woodsman

Among the multitude of preparations conducted by would-be survivalists, gardening is often minimized in value compared to the physical purchases of beans, bullets, and band-aids. However, in any long-term TEOTWAWKI event, gardening would probably become nearly the sole means of subsistence for your family and as such, it is critical that you make the efforts now to learn the ins and outs of how to produce a year's worth of fruit and vegetables from your own land.
Prior to moving to our retreat, my family lived in a moderate-sized city and neither of my parents grew up with any genuine country-life experience, be it with gardening or anything else to do with growing your own food. Due to God's providence, we fell into company with a master gardener, himself concerned about world events, and over the first winter after we moved to our retreat we jointly plotted how the first garden would be planted. Since then, we have learned how to consistently produce enough vegetables to carry us through a year, and many lessons were learned the hard way. The following article sums up many of those lessons as well as other important principles. It is my hope that you would carefully consider them in regards to your own garden.

First, A Word on the Importance Of Gardening
Gardening ought to become a priority for everyone. No matter how many buckets of grain you have stored away, no matter how many cans of freeze-dried food are in your closet, you can count on running out eventually, and the food supply grid may not yet be restored. A large garden, plus orchards of fruits like raspberries, strawberries, and apples, and hopefully a few chickens, pigs, goats, and cows, will supply you with a large portion of the food necessary to survive.
Those of you who are, like us, preparing on a shoestring budget, can go a long way in stocking up by growing your own vegetables and canning, dehydrating, or otherwise storing them for future use. It will be much cheaper and in many cases, healthier as well (and WTSHTF, you'll need all the health you can get!). This year we put a lot of effort into the garden, and by the end of this season we will have two years of canned vegetables and fruits stored away. Not only will this leave us with our current goal of a complete, well rounded, one extra year's food supply, but it will also safeguard us in case next year's garden does not produce as well. Two years ago, we canned two year's worth of carrots, and last year, we hardly harvested any. That extra year of canned carrots saw us through that lean year until now, when we once again have a large quantity of carrots that we will be soon canning in massive quantities.
Even if a major TEOTWAWKI event never occurs in our lifetimes, we can all clearly see the faltering economy and the skyrocketing prices of food. We can begin combating inflation right now by taking control over what we eat and growing it ourselves. My family of six lives on a food budget of less than $200/month, and we eat heartily with no lack of good tasting, nutritional food.

Garden Location
Your garden should be located where it will obtain full sunshine. It should not be in a low area with poor water drainage, or on a relatively steep slope, and should be convenient for frequent access.

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Summer Fallowing
After the initial confusion and frustration over when to plant seeds, how many to plant, and how far apart to place them, the main lesson we learned the first year was the value of consistently summer fallowing a new piece of ground. Throughout our first garden season, we battled quack grass and numerous other weeds that filled our entire plot. Looking back, I remember that we did a very poor job of weeding and the amount of vegetables obtained suffered greatly because of being choked out by weeds. During that season, however, we used a garden tractor pulling a small disc to regularly run over a larger garden plot that we planned to use the next season. Every time the weeds began to show above the surface, we took the disc over them. Of course, it wasn't until the next year that we truly realized the benefits of this technique. When the next season rolled around and several weeks had passed since the first seeds were planted, my family was delighted to discover that there was almost no quack grass in the entire garden, and the only weeds to deal with were less noxious ones like pigweed, lamb's quarters, and shepherd's purse. Those were easy to chop off with a hoe several times per week.
A year ago, we took a shortcut and planted quite a few fruit trees into an area that we had not kept well fallowed, and within a month or two we were once again reminded of the value of keeping the weeds tilled down for a season previous to planting. Grass and thistles sprang up everywhere and even now we are forced to work hard to keep on top of everything. Please, if you're going to garden in a new plot, fallow it regularly for a year before planting there. If you have to, do like we did and plant in one (albeit weedy) spot while you prepare another section for next season.

Extend the Season
Unless you live far enough south that you can garden practically the entire year round, it is important to take certain steps to extend your season, allowing a head start on planting to ensure a virtual guarantee of a harvest—prior to the frost! There are many varied ways of doing this, but most methods involve some form of greenhouse and starting seeds early indoors. If your house has plenty of windows on the southern side, and plenty of ledges for trays of seeds to sit on, it is a great way to extend the season all the way back to February for the longer-season transplantable plants like tomatoes, peppers, herbs, and the like. An attached greenhouse is convenient and will have much more space.

When the ground is beginning to thaw but the weather is still cold, a hoop house works well. Ours consists of a framed 12'x8' wall and rebar extending out behind that in multiple half circles, connected by horizontal pieces of rebar. Six mil plastic is placed over the rebar and nailed down with slats to 2x8s running the length of the structure. A barrel wood stove is used to keep it warm on the cold nights. Once the temperature is warm enough, we remove the plastic. In the fall, we often decide to reinstall the plastic as a temporary shelter for tools and implements that we're using, and to allow more time for any vegetables that are not fully ripe.

Stagger Production
A key to not becoming overwhelmed by all the produce is to stagger production. Corn can be planted in one-week intervals; beans can be staggered by at least a couple weeks, and peas can be planted very early so as to ensure their harvest prior to the larger crops. Root crops, such as onions, carrots, and potatoes can wait until the very end of the garden season to be harvested.

Mulching
Mulch is important in a garden for several reasons. Number one, it retains moisture in the ground so any rain you do receive is used for maximum benefit, and it is not necessary to personally water as frequently. Second, mulch will help keep soil compaction down to a minimum. Third, it will add organic matter to your soil to help replace the nutrients that are drawn out over the years of leaving the soil bare to the elements and harvesting plants from it. To a certain extent, mulching also keeps weed levels reduced but you need to make sure you use a thick enough layer or else you will regret it later. When hay or straw mulch is put on too thinly, the weeds will come up as numerous as ever and it is much more difficult to hoe and nearly impossible to roto-till without clogging the tines on the tiller.

Watering Your Garden
As I mentioned above, your garden will hopefully be located near a water source. This can be your well, but in our case we have been told that our well water is not good for the soil as it will leach nutrients out from it. Thankfully we have a good-sized body of water a couple hundred yards from the garden. It's not ideal to have the garden located that far away, but it frosts much earlier down in the valley so we are safer to do it on top of the hill. However, we do plan on plowing up a smaller plot next to the water and planting the shorter-season vegetables and root crops down there. If electricity failed and we couldn't operate our pump system, at least we wouldn't have to carry buckets as far. (By the way, stock up on as many 5 gallon pails as you can afford, it seems there is a use for them all the time and you will never have too many.)

Currently, we have a two horsepower electric pump at the water, and a two inch black poly pipe running from there up the hill. Various smaller pipes extend from that central pipe into different areas of the garden, with fittings that allow one-inch hoses to be inserted for further reach. Of course, our system isn't exactly a self sufficient setup unless it was run by solar or wind power. That is certainly possible, but with electricity currently remaining cheap and in abundant supply you will still be able to beat the effects of inflation by a long shot.

Lots of Water!
Everything should be kept well watered. Don't allow anything to become really dry, especially the peppers and tomatoes. If they begin to wither, it's too late for them or at least your harvest will be significantly delayed. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about from experience! Just stick your finger in the dirt and if it doesn't feel moist. You know what to do. When you do water, it's not necessary to do it every day unless it is extremely hot and the soil dries out rapidly. You need to water the plants heavily, so that it soaks down for at least three or four inches. That means probably an inch of water or more at a time. Don't worry about it puddling. You'll figure it out after you do it a few times and keep checking the moisture level with your finger. Water is the life-giver, and without it, your garden will be slowed, yield will decrease, and your plants may even die. Don't hesitate to use a lot! Like our master-gardening friend said, you'll be sick of watering long before you put enough water on to drown the plant. Of course, you must be careful with smaller plants but the larger ones tend to be plenty hardy.

Storing Food
You will need between 150 and 200 canning jars per person to store a year's worth of vegetables and other food items. In addition, you should stock up on as many canning lids as possible because it is much more difficult to preserve large quantities of vegetables without them. It is possible to reuse them but they tend to not seal consistently, so it is best to use new ones. Make sure you have a wood stove handy to be able to can on if the power is out.
Of course, the other methods of sustainable food storage include using a root cellar and dehydration. The short bibliography at the end of this article gives references to detailed books on these subjects, which are beyond the scope of this paper.

Seed Saving
The only sustainable way to garden is to save your own seeds every year. Although seed saving is relatively basic, it does involve some forethought and planning on your part. First, you must plant only open-pollinated seeds. The hybrids that most stores carry will not stay true to their kind. There are many sources of open pollinated “heirloom” seeds, but our favorite is currently Baker Creek, found on the web at Rareseeds.com. While you're at it, get an extra two or three years worth of seed in case your garden doesn't do well, or for bartering purposes.
It is easiest to plant only one variety of each vegetable to prevent cross-pollination, but you will probably want to hedge your bets by planting more than that. It is much more labor-intensive to do so, but possible. I highly recommend Suzanne Ashworth's book, “Seed to Seed,” for detailed information on preventing cross-pollination, harvesting, and seed storage. Depending on what plant it is, you will use hand pollination, time distancing (such as planting an early variety of corn, and then a week or two later longer season variety), and physical distancing although most plants require such far separation that it is impractical for the homesteader.
Seeds, once dried, are best stored in air-tight glass containers in a cool, dark area. As long as the electricity still functions, this means a freezer or refrigerator. Prior to planting, you can test the germination rate of your seeds by placing a small amount in a moist paper towel that is placed inside a plastic bag and set in a warm portion of your house—in our case that means near the wood stove Wait a few days and check it to see how many seeds successfully germinated. If only half of them did, and you are not able to purchase new seeds, you will have to plant twice as many.

Diligence
It may seem obvious, but plain-old diligence is the key to raising your food supply. Observe the “windows of opportunity” and take advantage of them accordingly. You need to research ahead about how to do it, order your seeds in plenty of time, plant the seeds as soon as it is the right “window of opportunity” for planting, and then weed your garden daily. No, daily weeding isn't a chore when you keep up with it, but it definitely becomes a pain when you leave it for very much longer. Just run through with a hoe for a half hour or so a day and you will go a long ways in keeping a well-maintained, eye-pleasing vegetable garden.
Don't put anything off until later, because with most garden-related duties they must be done as soon as you discover it is necessary. There is a certain period of time within which you must plant. There is a certain time wherein you need to harvest the corn. Beans will be too big if you leave them too long. Potato bugs will kill your plants if you don't pick them off right away and keep them off. Carrots won't grow very large if you don't thin them while they're small. For everything, there is a time and a season and life runs a lot smoother when you stick within the parameter of those windows.

My family uses a simple technique to stay oriented and getting everything accomplished on time, and it's something that I recommend to everybody I talk to. Keep a running list of everything that needs to be done. One column on the page could list longer-term projects like “build chicken coop,” or “dig root cellar,” and the other side will be filled with smaller items such as “pick beans,” “weed strawberries,” “give goats water,” or “put away the pitchfork.” Even the smallest item is placed on the list and then crossed off as someone completes the task. In the mornings, I'll often look at the list and place a little star beside the items that are most critical to get done that day, and we will focus our energy on those. The younger boys will be assigned a few of the easier projects, and the rest of us will tackle the difficult or otherwise labor intensive ones. It's rewarding to come in at night and review the list and see all the rows crossed off. The next day, we might take a new sheet of paper and write down a few new things we just thought of and also include the projects we did not complete the day before. List keeping is simple, takes a small amount of time, and does wonders in keeping everyone productive all day long.

How Do You Get It All Done?
It may seem overwhelming trying to keep up with a garden large enough to supply your family with a year's worth of food, but as long as you tend to it each day, it isn't as difficult as one might think. If you have children who are old enough to understand instructions, you can put them to work doing some of the more mundane tasks while you take on the more advanced projects that require precision. I'm 17 years old, and my 14 year old brother and I actually do most of the garden maintenance (although Dad helps a lot with watering frequently in the mornings while we do chores). The two younger boys help with various projects that need more help, such as picking and snapping beans or cutting up apples in preparation for making applesauce. Mom mostly handles the indoor work; primarily cooking the meals to keep us going, canning the thousand or more jars we do each year, and processing other foods in preparation for freezing.
Of course, if you are serious about survival, it is important to actually live the self-sufficient life. This means severely reducing trips to town, for both shopping and various extraneous events. Get rid of the television, and minimize time spent on non-productive entertainment. We are a homeschooling family, and that gives us a flexible schedule with plenty of time to focus on what is important to us.
If you live in town and can't do everything you would like to, you can still eliminate wasteful uses of time, plant every spare space you have, and read many good how-to books. You can visit the country to practice outdoor skills, and help out a farmer to get some good exercise.

Conclusion
In conclusion, I want to encourage everyone to begin gardening on their own, regardless of location or how much land they own. Even if you are in an apartment, you can grow plants on a balcony and begin to learn the techniques of growing food.
Food is necessary for our survival, and nothing makes more sense than controlling your own food—because when you control your own food, you are free from the chaos that most of the country may soon face. You will not only be able to continue to live relatively comfortably long after your stored food runs out; you will become part of the solution to the crisis. You will be there to show other people how to provide for their own families.
Now is the time to learn how to garden, not after TEOTWAWKI. Go out in your backyard, till out a plot, and get busy!
Reference Books
-Square Foot Gardening, by Mel Bartholomew/ (for smaller gardens)
-Seed to Seed, by Suzanne Ashworth and Kent Wheely
-Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning, by the Gardeners and Farmers of Centre Terre Vivante
-Encyclopedia of Country Living, by Carla Emery/ (The best general reference we've found, on gardening but also on everything else related to homesteading)
-Root Cellaring, by Mike and Nancy Bubel

Letter Re: Investing in Foreign Currency CDs

James,
Today the dollar posted its largest one-day decline against the euro since that currency was created.

I am rebalancing my investment portfolio to account for the market’s recent gyrations – and the fact that our government is attempting to make the dollar even more worthless than it currently is. Several years ago I was in a similar mood and found EverBank, a bank that issues a number of CD products tied to foreign currencies (effectively getting your saving out of dollars into something that’s not dollar-denominated).

I am not preparing for a complete meltdown or the end of civilization: I am preparing for a prolonged economic depression. My main goal is to preserve the value of my capital while earning at least some return on my investments. My investment portfolio is modest, but large enough that I can’t practically or safely (from a diversification standpoint) convert it into tangible assets. I have as much gold and equities as I’m comfortable holding, so I am looking for safe places to spread my remaining cash. At least to some extent, I’m going to use world currencies to do this. They could very well get dragged down in a global depression but in any event would probably fare better and recover faster than the dollar.

EverBank’s site for the CD products offers both single-currency and multi-currency CDs. Any readers with investment portfolios large enough to truly diversify should take a close look at one or more of these products.

One more thing… When choosing to deal with an unknown bank, make sure they are FDIC insured by using the FDIC’s bank finder: Whether the FDIC will even exist in coming years is debatable, but at least if an institution is FDIC insured, you know it’s not a bunch of Nigerian “419” scammers with a fake bank-like web site. The FDIC does insure CDs denominated in other currencies, but does not protect against a rise in the value of the dollar against your chosen currencies. That is, much like SIPC [Securities Investor Protection Corporation] insurance, the FDIC protects you against malfeasance on the part of the bank but not against investment risk. Best, - Matt R.

JWR Replies: Although I advocate in investing tangible barterable first, I do recommend diversifying out of US dollar-denominated investments. Everbank has a good reputation but keep in mind that there is risk when investing with any fiat currency. (In our generation the national currencies are all unredeemable for precious metals and they all suffer, from one degree to another to the gradual gnawings of inflation.) The best time to transition from dollars to another currency is naturally when the dollar has a short term spurt of strength. Watch the US Dollar Index (USDI) closely, and dump your dollars during a good week. (The recent dollar bounce, for example, was a good opportunity. There will likely be others, but in my estimation the USDI is headed south of 72 soon, and the dollar might remain relatively weak for many years.

Letter Re: Advice for an Unprepared Greenhorn

Jim,
I'd like to add one piece of advice to the "Greenhorn" reader who hasn't gotten started, but knows he must. After getting the basics you listed, he should start on a food preparedness action plan to feed his family in a crisis. The blueprint for all that is in the great preparedness course you created. I know it's not cheap, but the mistakes it helps you avoid will more than offset the cost, even for someone on a tight budget. And for that reader who wrote in to share his story, it's free. Just send me his address, Jim, and we'll immediately send him a complete Rawles Gets You Ready" preparedness course with our compliments. Best, - Jake Stafford, Arbogast Publishing

Odds 'n Sods:

"BeePrepared" wrote us to recommend the Hippo Roller as a method to transport large amounts of water without a vehicle.

o o o

Cheryl (our Economic Editor) sent us this raft of news and commentary. The first item should not come as a surprise to you, since I've been warning about the derivatives threat for years: Bailout Secret: To Prevent $68 Trillion Derivatives Collapse -- Financial TEOTWAWKI: LIBOR TED Spread Flashes Trouble. ("I don't want to name names, ... but there is a silent bank run going on. There are no lines in the street, but it is a run nevertheless. It is large investment funds and corporations quietly pulling their money from some of the best banks in the country.") -- Credit Markets Hit By Cat 5 Financial Hurricane -- Greenspan Calls For Action On Financial Crisis -- The Real Reason Behind The Rush (The Fed is close to illiquidity) -- This "Greater Depression" Could Last A Decade -- Markets Face Major Crash If Bailout Fails -- Economists Against The Paulson Plan -- Wachovia Explores Sale With Wells Fargo, Banco Santender & Citi

o o o

Eric sent this from The Telegraph: Bailout failure 'will cause US crash'

o o o

Jack B. sent us this news story from Nanny State Britannia: Residents could be hit with £5,000 rubbish collection fine for leaving bin out. It is high time to take the hint and Take The Gap!

Jim's Quote of the Day:

"Bureaucracy is the epoxy that greases the wheels of progress." - James H. Boren, political science professor at Northeastern State University

Sunday September 28 2008

Letter Re: Advice on Fuel Drums and Fuel Transfer Pumps?

Jim:
Do you have any idea where I can get a 50 gallon fuel drum with a manual pump like the one that your previous writer discussed? - SF in Hawaii

JWR Replies: You should first consult your local fire code, for capacity limits. This is generally not a problem outside of city limits, but laws vary widely. Needless to say, you should store any fuel cans or drums in a detached storage shed that is away from your house, not in an attached garage!

In North America, the fuel drums that the reader mentioned are usually made in 55 gallon capacity. Your local fuel distributor should have new ones, or you can scrounge used clean ones locally if you post a query on Craig's List. The fuel-rated pumps are often D-handle design, like these. Again, used ones are less expensive.

Or, of course you could also use a 12 VDC electric fuel transfer pump, like the ones that I make. (OBTW, every family should keep one of these pumps handy.)

Unless you are certain that you will be using the fuel within a few weeks, be sure to se stabilizer, such as Pri-G.

It is best to buy winter-formulated gas, and rotate it annually. (Also in winter.) This is because winter gas has extra butane added, o aid cold weather starting. This formulation extends the storage life of gasoline.

Drums that are 20 gallons or smaller can be moved with a standard dolly and lifted off a pickup tailgate by two men. But moving anything larger requires special handling equipment, and is a back ache waiting to happen. Filling (or re-filling) a large drum that is kept at home can best be accomplished discreetly by using your vehicle's fuel tank and a 12 VDC fuel transfer pump. Just make several trips over the period of a week, and it won't be noticeable.

Buy the materials for camouflaging your fuel drum(s) in advance. I generally recommend scrounging an appliance box (such as a small refrigerator box) so that the drum won't be noticed by visiting workmen or meter readers. Or you could build a false wall at the end of a long shed. One other alternative is to use a "hide in plain sight" (HIPS) approach. This might be to re-paint the drum white, with herbicide markings. This won't look too out of place for drum up to 30 gallon capacity stored in the corner of a gardening shed. You can also leave a full two-gallon lawnmower gas can in the same shed, as "bait" for burglars, to distract their attention. Re-painting a fuel drum is a fun and creative family stencil cutting and painting project.

Letter Re: Impressions of Medical Corps Training

Dear Mr. Rawles:
Thanks for a wonderful book and blog site. They are very, very helpful. I also wanted to thank you for a posting I saw last spring on your web site about the Medical Corps class led by Chuck Fenwick, called Field Medicine in a Hostile Environment. Because of that posting, I took Chuck's course in Ohio in May and found it to be invaluable. I couldn't believe all the techniques and information imparted in such a short period of time. Although not on the curriculum, when I asked if he'd show us how to give injections, he added that to the curriculum. Chuck is extremely knowledgeable and you know he's experienced it all. His workshop was life-changing for me and the 40 + attendees. I feel like I'm ready to be of assistance to anyone who may experience injuries of almost any sort. I can imagine nothing worse than seeing a loved one hurt and not know what to do to help them. Now I've got peace of mind in that area thanks to you and Chuck.

The reason I'm writing today is because I've noticed he's bringing his class to Texas, just outside the Austin area, in December. This may be the last time this course may be offered if TSHTF soon, and I think that if many Texans knew about the class, they'd be forever grateful. There are a lot of us down here in this great state who feel that readiness for the schumer is very important. I recommend this class to anyone and everyone. No one can afford not to have these skills.

Thanks again, Mr. Rawles, for letting your readers know about this life-changing and life-enhancing workshop. Blessings, - Mary C

Letter Re: Saving Your Life and Saving Your Relationships--Don't Drive Your Loved Ones Away

Memsahib,
You are "spot on" with your comments regarding "Saving Your Life and Saving Your Relationships--Don't Drive Your Loved Ones Away."

We are in our early sixties, married for 20+ years, and retired for several years. I'm the "captain," and handle our finances (with the Admiral's advice and consent...).

That said, the fact is we see the World differently. I am for the most part externally oriented. The Admiral is mostly internally oriented with regard to our home and events, but she indulges me to a certain degree as I wander around studying the situations and circumstances. Often these situations and events seem pretty remote from our lives, from her perspective. Figuratively speaking, her version of a threat is someone one banging on the front door. My version of a threat is someone casing the neighborhood.

A few years ago I earnestly began my study of American economics and culture, and came to some pretty unpleasant assessments. In fact, it was pretty grim. When I began sharing this information with the Admiral I was disappointed with her less-than-enthusiastic responses. I learned (pretty quickly) that she just didn't want to hear this stuff and it dumbfounded me how she could "ignore" such vital information! We chose to discuss our difference in perspectives and agreed to honor one another's position(s). I was certainly able to continue my observation and assessment efforts, as long as I didn't go overboard and begin cutting gun ports in the walls. (My little joke.) She indicated that she is interested in what I learn, but she just wasn't emotionally equipped to handle the rather constant barrage of data that I was laying on her.

Recognizing these differences we've come to a comfortable understanding. She knows a lot more about what I think and why, and she's helped keep me from going too far around the bend. I feel we're pulling our wagon together; and sharing Life's load and challenges. Married Life is not about doing it all your way, and compromises are often necessary. (I know something about that too - but that's another story.)

To wrap this up, what I learned is to identify what information you want to convey, distill it, and find an appropriate time to transmit the information (probably not at bedtime or during cocktails with friends!). What the Admiral was recoiling to was the constant bombardment of stuff she basically didn't want to hear to begin with.

One more comparison. During many years in the military I was often tasked to brief flag officers. These folks don't usually time or inclination for all the detailed information and data behind an analysis (that's why it's called is a briefing ). Generals (...and my Admiral) expect their personnel to have reviewed all the information available and arrive at an assessment in often competing situations. And it requires a lot of work to determine what needs to be said if you only have three or thirty minutes before the General.

There are times and situations where a bombardment of information is appropriate; but there are more occasions when a carefully chosen information shot will work better.
Thanks for a well done and very informational web site. Best, - Captain

Odds 'n Sods:

Some Treehuggers concede that we may be right, after all, even if we do use Excessive and Gratuitous Acronym Diversions (EGADs).

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From our Economic Editor, starting with the most disturbing news: Bloomberg Analyst Marc Faber: $700 Billion Bailout Could Balloon To $5 Trillion -- WaMu Is Gone, But Trouble Spots Remain (The banks to watch: Wachovia, Comerica, Marshall & Ilsley) -- Wachovia, Citi In Merger Talks -- Stocks Rebound On Renewed Bailout Hopes -- The US Banking Collapse Was A Controlled Demolition Let's Play Wall Street Bailout (Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio rants well) -- They Want Mama To Make It All Better

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Even the oh-so conservative Wall Street Journal is starting to take on an alarmist tone: Few Good Scenarios in View as Crisis Spreads. Buckle up!

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Kevin A. recommended some commetary by Jim Willie, over at The Silver Bear Cafe: Corruption, Whispers & Receivership

Jim's Quote of the Day:

"I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them." - Ecclesiastes 9:11-12 (KJV)

Saturday September 27 2008

Two Letters Re: Advice for City Folks on a Budget?

Dear Mr. Rawles,
I am writing to ask for your advice and for your charity, and also because I think this subject may be of interest to many of your readers. I discovered your web site a week ago and have found it to be both very informative and also very alarming! It was major wake-up call for me.

In my opinion, I am not at all prepared for the upheavals that are already underway and that lie ahead of us.

I would very much like to change that situation, but it all (considered as a whole) seems so overwhelming. I don't know what to do, where to start and how to go about it. Also, I don't feel that I have the same resources and freedom as some of your other readers.

I also have the feeling that many, perhaps most, of your readers may be in exactly the same situation as me:

I am a 50 year old average guy with a wife and two young children to support. I work in a medium sized metropolitan area and live in an average house in the suburbs, about 10 miles out of town, on a 1/5th acre lot. My kids go to public school, my wife works part-time and I work full-time. We depend on the income from my job to support the family. It is not the kind of job that allows me to just uproot myself and live out in the sticks. My wife and I make just enough to pay the bills and set aside a little bit for my 401(k) [retirement savings account]and my kids' college education. We do not own any real estate aside from our home. We have about $50,000 in savings, $90,000 in home equity and about $190,000 in my 401(k) .

In my opinion, we are not prepared at all for any sort of natural, economic, social or political upheaval or disaster:
- We don't own a ranch or farm or remote property of any kind.
- We don't own gold or silver.
- We don't own any weapons and don't know how to use them.
- We don't have any food or emergency supplies stored up.
- Our house is not "hardened" or "secure".
- We don't have a generator, etc.
- We are not EMTs and don't know how to grow crops or butcher a hog.
- We don't have a G.O.O.D. plan or vehicle or provisions.

In short, we are probably just like most of the other average families in the USA (and perhaps like most of your readers) except for our awareness of the problems that may be coming and our desire to be prepared.

My wife and I both believe in being "prepared" but my idea and hers are different. My wife things that the problems we are facing are temporary, so she would like to be prepared too, but she doesn't want to rock the boat or uproot our family to do it. I am alarmed and would like to be very well prepared, but I don't want to wreck my marriage and family in the process.

Mr. Rawles, please tell us what we can do given the situation I've described. What specific steps should we take and in what order? What would you do if you were me in my shoes?

I know you get a lot of letters, but I sure hope you answer this one on your web site. For my sake, for my family's sake and for the sake of what may be hundreds or thousands of people just like me that read your web site and want to do something but don't know what to do, how to do it, where to start and what's most important to do first, second, third etc.

Thank you in advance for your kind consideration. - Mike H.

Hello Jim,
I've been reading your blog off and on for several months, but I've yet to see anything substantial for us poorer citizens. When it comes to TEOTWAWKI, then it's all well and good if you were wealthy enough to be able to afford a nice out-of-the-way location to save yourself, but what of us who are stuck in an apartment in the city, like Denver? Or worse, people in metropolises like Chicago and New York? Where could millions of people all possibly go to get away from it all? All we can do is to arm ourselves to the teeth and wait it out? We'd like to get out of the city too, but we aren't able to buy property, which is why we're stuck in apartments, rather than homes. I'm afraid that if such a disaster should come our way, then we will be on our own. Even if we have a network of people, they are often driving distances that are impractical in a time of extreme crisis. Do you have any suggestions for those of us with extremely limited incomes? I've searched your site, but if you did have something, I may have missed it.
Thanks, - Ken R.

JWR Replies: I realize that buying a rural retreat is not within the means of most SurvivalBlog readers. There have been quite a few articles on both urban survival and budget conscious survival, and they are available in the archives, all of course free of charge. OBTW, a brief description of how to search the archives can be found here. Here are a few SurvivalBlog letters and articles that I found in just a few minutes of searches, using "urban" and "budget" in my search phrases. (There are many more available.):

Budget Preparedness--Survival Isn't About Stuff, It is About Skills

Letter Re: Hunkering Down in an Urban Apartment in a Worst Case Societal Collapse

Letter Re: An Urban/Suburban "Stay Put" Survival Strategy

Ten Things That Will Get You Killed While Bugging In, by Paul C.

Letter Re: Advice on a Budget Water Filter

Selecting a Rifle for a Budget-Constrained Prepper

Letter Re: Preparedness on a Very Tight Budget (Also see: Follow-up letter from J.F., and Follow-up letter from R.L.)

Letter Re: Advice for a Canadian with a "Just One Gun" Budget

Letter Re: Will Peasant Farmers Fare Better than the Rich in TEOTWAWKI?

SurvivalBlog is intended for people from all walks of life. One point of clarification: My own income is quite modest. In fact, if I still lived in a high cost region, then I wouldn't be able to afford a mortgage payment on a three bedroom house. It is only because I've been preparing very gradually and systematically for 30 years that I now have a squared-away retreat here in The Unnamed Western State. And it is only by God's grace that I have a wife that is agreeable to living in the boonies, and that I'm able to work from home.

Regardless of your income level, start with a list of lists. Tailor your procurement plan based on your personal circumstances and to match what you see as the most likely chain of events. Just be systematic, and set your priorities carefully. The smaller your budget, then the more important this is.

In answer to the question on 401(k) accounts: Many 401(k) accounts can be rolled over into IRAs. If that is the case, then I recommend doing a rollover into a Gold IRA, available through Swiss America Trading Company. I have had a gold coin IRA since 1998. Once established, these accounts are measured in an "ounce" value with a "Beginning Cost Basis" noted for when your dollars were first converted into U.S. Gold Eagles. In my case, most of the one ounce Gold Eagle bullion coins they put in storage for me cost $315 each (IIRC, this was when spot gold was $298 per ounce). Gold has nearly tripled since then. The coins are physically stored by Goldstar Trust, a bonded vault company in Texas. The annual storage and administration fee is now $90 per year, but in my opinion that is a small price to pay for knowing that when I eventually cash out my IRA it will be in tangible form, rather than an investment vehicle denominated in dollars. I have no way of knowing how much the US Dollar will depreciate in the next 15 years, but it is pretty safe to say that gold will still have the same--or nearly the same--buying power that it does today. I strongly recommend that if you have an IRA or 401(k) account that you conduct a fund rollover into a Gold IRA.

Letter Re: Questions on Short Term Survival in and Urban Office Building

Dear Mr. Rawles,
First off, I just want to say that I really appreciate what you're doing with your blog site. I've learned so many useful things and feel that I am beginning to have a basic understanding of how to prepare for and live in and a survival situation.

Second, I'd like to give you a quick bit of background about myself so you can hopefully help me with my dilemma/question...

I am a young adult working on the 9th floor of a large building in Manhattan [on Long Island, New York City, New York]. I do not own a car and so I use public transportation, typically the subway. My apartment is about a 30 minute walk from work. In my apt I have started building up my survival gear, food, Bug Out Bag, etc...But I realize that I spend most of my days not in my apt but in my office, working. So I've decided to start planning my office survival gear because if Manhattan was ever attacked with some form of nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, and I'm still alive, I don't believe there would be time for me to get back to my apt before being affected (as subways, buses, and foot traffic will be clogged and slow). I figure my best bet for survival would be to hunker down for the first 48-to-72 hours in my building probably the library.

What are your thoughts/advice on staying in the building??
Also what kind of survival gear can I bring to work that would be discreet but really help me in my first 48 hours of survival?

This is what I have so far, which my employer has provided in a fanny pack for everyone:

[Mylar] bags of water. (We also have water coolers)
flashlight and batteries
goggles
emergency blanket
small first aid kit
mask
whistle

Any advice would be appreciated and thank you for your time. Regards, - Flora in New York City

JWR Replies: Hunkering down in an urban environment can be difficult. We've addressed that before in SurvivalBlog.

Your office or cubicle probably has a locking desk, file cabinet, and/or a credenza. Typically, with the high turn-over rate in most corporations, keys for furniture gets lost. Ask your facilities department to either re-key your locks, or have them cut new keys for them, based of their manufacturer's code numbers. (Typically stamped in small digits next to the lock key way.) With this semi-secure storage space available, there is no reason why you cannot gradually build up a substantial supply of food, and have a place store items such as a flashlight, sleeping bag, foam mattress pad, and so forth. Even the interior of modular cubicle walls have a remarkable amount of space for items up to two inches thick. (One advantage of being an over-worked technical writer for many years was that it gave me a lot of late night hours to explore such possibilities. You would not believe what I stored inside my cubicle walls!)

Keep in mind that in a blackout, your building will be quite cold, at least for half of each year So be sure to store an insulated pad, down jacket, a pile cap, and gloves in your office.

Buy a USGI protective mask (preferably an M40 or a recent USAF MCU series) and at least four spare filter canisters, from a reliable vendor such as JRH Enterprises. Since these only filter the available air, they are not nearly as capable as a compressed air system like firefighters typically use. The latter will operate even in oxygen-deprived environments, but a mask will at least increase your chance of getting out of a high-rise building alive, in the event of a fire. One trick, BTW, is attaching two filters simultaneously (on both sides of the mask), to increase the available air flow during heavy exertion.

Find out where any extra bottled water for your building is stored. There, or near there, is the logical place to find your "hunker down" room.

Scout out your building thoroughly. It might be worthwhile getting to know someone on your building Facilities Department staff. Buy him lunch, and have a chat. Find out where the roof accesses are, and if they are kept locked. See if there are any back rooms, machinery rooms, or passageways that are not well known. These rooms are often kept locked. One little-known method if gaining access to such spaces is to climb up through a suspended (or "drop") acoustic panel ceiling, go over a partition, and climb back down into the locked room. You might even keep a small folding ladder such as a QuikStep ladder handy for just this purpose. (Tres Batman.) For some ideas on discovering unused spaces in buildings, see the Web Urbanist site, and related "urban exploration" web sites and their forums. (Of course, all the usual legal disclaimers apply.)

Weapons that are legal to possess in New York City have been discussed previously in SurvivalBlog. If nothing else, you should keep a cane or stout full-size umbrella in your office at all times. BTW, it is also wise to carry either of these whenever you are on city sidewalks or on the subway. They will look quite innocuous, but with the right training will give you a great advantage in a brute force fighting situation. For training, start with the Gordon Oster DVD, and the book "Raising Cane" by Octavio Ramos. Then take a FMA cane fighting class. Those would all be money well spent!

Odds 'n Sods:

Cheryl, our Economic Editor, sent us these: Congress Restarts Troubled Bailout Talks -- Stocks Mostly Decline As Investors Remain Tense Over Bailout -- WaMu Becomes Biggest Bank To Fail In US History -- Wachovia In Huge Mortgage Mess -- UK Banks May Get $180bn From US Bailout -- Wachovia Shares Begin Dive After WaMu Death -- JPMorgan Buys WaMu For A Mere $1.9 Billion ("To put the size of WaMu in context, its assets are equal to about two-thirds of the combined book value assets of all 747 failed thrifts that were sold off by the Resolution Trust Corp. - the former government body that handled the S&L crisis from 1989 through 1995.") -- Wall Street Should Be Looking For Bail, Not A Bailout -- Risk Of Paulson Failing Has Markets Frozen In Fear -- Money Market Conditions Deteriorate Further -- Central Banks Take Action. -- Withdrawals by customers ultimately sank WaMu . And here is one more from Jonathan Prynn, of England's Evening Standard, courtesy of Dan S.: Stand by for Black Monday

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Et tu, WaMu? WaMu Failed, Seized By FDIC, Bought By JPMorgan."The Army Aviator" notes: "That was a good call that Jim Sinclair made as to how it's amazing that the largest bank failure (WaMu) [occurred on a Thursday] just when they are trying to get that bailout Schumer passed--instead of announcing it at the usual Friday after the market closings. Gosh, the crooks aren't even good crooks. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy."

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Budget crunch: Palm Bay, Florida Police May Stop Responding To Some Crimes. (A hat tip to Eric for the link.)

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More about the gasoline shortage in the southeast: Tempers flare at pumps and Gas Shortage In the South Creates Panic, Long Lines

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Katya was the first of several readers that sent us this: Gold coin sales halted after retail rush

Jim's Quote of the Day:

"Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else." - Frederic Bastiat, Essays on Political Economy, 1872

Friday September 26 2008

Note from JWR:

Based on the tone of many recent e-mails, I can see that the anxiety level of SurvivalBlog readers has definitely gone up a notch. With headlines like these, it is no wonder.

Again, the present circumstances do not dictate doing anything drastic. Wait, watch, and above all be ready. This would be a good time to top off your storage food and fuel reserves. Don't quit your day job!

From The Memsahib: Saving Your Life and Saving Your Relationships--Don't Drive Your Loved Ones Away

We received the following sad letter from an anonymous SurvivalBlog reader that illustrates how women can be driven away by men that are insensitive to the emotional differences between men and women.

Hello Jim,
I especially enjoyed The Memsahib's article directed towards single people needing to get out there and volunteer / network, and the article regarding balancing prepping with continuing to enjoy life. I think it's a good idea to pay especially close attention to the articles she writes as I find that I've not had balance over the last few years as I've become more aware of the need to become self sufficient and the challenges that goal presents for a city slicker. I've managed to get caught up in scurrying around to prepare and cutting corners on all types of expenses (vacations, toys, fancy dinners, and even cable television) and I've managed to row myself right up "single creek" and lose a good fiance by forgetting to enjoy life in the here and now. Looking back, with a little balance, and teamwork things might have been different, but in my rush to prepare I lost track of everything else. That may sound extreme, but it's easy to do with the current state of affairs. To many of us reading SurvivalBlog preparing is a means to a self-evident end and it inherently makes sense given the hard facts, but a touch of balance is also equally as important.

With the torrent of bad economic news being shouted from the headlines, many SurvivalBlog readers have consciously or subconsciously increased their state of readiness. I'm writing this as a reminder. Husbands, please be aware that your wives might be having difficulty dealing with your ratcheting-up of readiness. When you mention a news item, you will likely hear your wife saying "I don't want to hear about this!", or "I can't handle hearing about that right now", especially if she has other pressing concerns such as pregnancy, aged parents to care for, health issues, or stress at her work. If she is able to communicate this to you, then you need to respect her boundaries. Hopefully you are a united team and you can explain to her that you will continue to prepare but spare her all the incessant doom and gloom talk . Husbands who have blown the budget with survival gear in the past are going have a much more difficult time in this situation. Your wife might have difficulty trusting you. We know a husband who spent thousands of dollars (all their savings) on preps pre-Y2K without saying anything to his wife. If his wife had not been a Christian who believed divorce is never an option, the marriage would have been over.

For many years, Jim and I have had the "No Gloom and Doom Talk After 8 p.m." rule. We all need a good night's sleep, and having conversations about TEOTWAWKI close to bedtime can be troubling. This rule helps me sleep better because there is then plenty of time before bed to focus on our blessings.

If you want to better understand this psychology, then refer to these archived SurvivalBlog articles:

Letter Re: Help With a Non-Preparedness Minded Spouse

Ten Letters Re: Help With a Non-Preparedness Minded Spouse (follow-up e-mails)

Letter Re: My Wife Ignores My Preparedness Goals

Letter Re: Advice for an Unprepared Greenhorn

Hello Mr. Rawles!
I love your blog, and visit at least weekly, more often daily.
The current economic situation is sickening. I mean, actually making my stomach hurt, as I am not prepared. I just recently was hit on the head with the motivation to get prepared. The only problem with that is that I don't even know where to start. Food? Weapons and Ammunition? Medical supplies? I am the patriarch of a family of 4. My wife and I, and our two children, both 10 and under. What I could use your advice on is just what I mentioned before, where does someone like me start. We have very little money, we live in the city, and we have no supplies except a Remington 870 Express [12 gauge shotgun] with a couple boxes of ammunition and food from the grocery store for a couple weeks and our camping supplies which amount to a couple days in the woods. I'm extremely worried that I simply won't be able to help my family survive the coming collapse. I want to be prepared, and I'm motivated.
Thank you for any time you could donate with your advice! - MWS

JWR Replies: Start out by getting a good quality water filter such as the Katadyn VARIO currently on sale at Ready Made Resources and stocking up on canned foods.
If you don't yet already have one, buy a spare riot "Police" length 20" barrel with rifle-type iron sights for your Model 870, with "IC" (improved cylinder) choke, or better yet the "Rem Choke" removable choke tubes. These barrels are available with a durable finish to match your "Express" variant.

Buy at least 200 rounds of #4 buckshot, 25 rounds (five boxes of 5) of rifled slugs, and when you can budget for it, a case of #6 birdshot shells for bird hunting and small game hunting

Since your resources are limited, your greatest opportunity to increase your chances of survival will be teaming up with like-minded folks in your area. For some suggestions, see my static page on Finding Like-Minded People in Your Area.

Be sure to take advantage of low cost training through the American Red Cross, the Appleseed Program, and the WRSA.

Pray hard, study hard, and train hard.

Letter Re: Making Alternatives to Commercial Chemical Light Sticks

Hi Jim,
I just read your novel "Patriots" and studied the Rawles Gets You Ready" preparedness course, and both are excellent. [In them,] you talk about chem lights (otherwise known as glow sticks) for in your car for changing tires, handy around campsites, and what not. The shelf life on these, as you mentioned, is very short (couple of months in a car [in a hot climate]) and they are not cheap (or maybe just I am cheap). I found this video on making an LED version of them that is reusable.

Seems to me like a good idea for recycling the older ones that are now dead. You can buy LED glow sticks as well which may be cheaper and easier from places like this. I have no affiliation with them and have never bought from them, but just wanted to show an example.
Thanks, - Rutger (Temporarily in Costa Rica)

JWR Replies: Perhaps the easiest method for creating a glowing wand was suggested by The Gun Plumber over at The FALFiles: "After the light stick is expended, cut the end off, dump the liquid and glass ampoule [and discard safely], then tape the plastic tube to your Mini MagLite flashlight to make an IR wand--the plastic tube is the IR filter! As previously mentioned in SurvivalBlog, there are some huge tactical advantages to using infrared light sticks if you own any Starlight-type (light amplification) night vision gear.

Letter Re: A Girl Scout Troop Leader Wants to Get Her Girls Prepared

James:
The Boy Scouts of America have an Emergency Preparedness merit badge that hits a lot of good points. There is a lot of redundancy on the web concerning this merit badge, but it does broach some basic concepts aimed at a youth’s perspective. Sincerely, - Bill in Austin, Texas

Odds 'n Sods:

Several readers sent us this article, suggesting a correlation with my recent Pre-Crash Checklist: China banks told to halt lending to US banks

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Cheryl found this for us: Shipping Container Homes

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Rod McG. sent us this: In Israel, Kibbutz Life Makes a Surprising Comeback

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Dan and Becky flagged this: confirmation that the growth of the Mother of All Bailouts is not slowing: House clears $25 billion for car makers

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Some news and commentary gleanings from our Economic Editor: WaMu's Hopes For Capital Drying Up -- Deal Near On Bailout Plan -- Buffet Says Act or Face "Financial Pearl Harbor" -- Buffet Favors Bailout: Here's Why -- US Faces "One H*ll of a Deep Downturn" -- Ron Paul's Federal Reserve Abolition Act -- One of Biggest Car Dealerships Closing -- Congress Reaches "Agreement in Principal" on $700 Billion Bailout -- Asia Needs Deal To Prevent Panic Selling Of US Debt -- FDIC May Need $150 Billion By End Of 2009 -- Barrick Sees Large-Scale Gold Buying On Bailout -- US Federal Reserve Funnels $30 Billion Into Overseas Money Markets -- Credit Stress Intermarket Money Market Freeze Evident in TAF, TED Spread Everywhere

Jim's Quote of the Day:

"During the hyperinflation in post WWI Germany, what used to be a comfortable nest egg was suddenly the value of a postage stamp. If one held just a portion of their savings in precious metals, the crisis was greatly softened. Gold will never be worth nothing, even if the exact price fluctuates. There is a famous photograph, however, of a German woman during this time period burning piles of tightly bound banknotes to keep warm." - Congressman Ron Paul

Thursday September 25 2008

Letter Re: What Are the Economic Collapse Indicators to Watch For?

Jim,
Some of us may be stuck within the city limits until 'the last possible moment' before an event such as WTSHTF. Can you suggest a day-to-day procedure or strategy to now follow for monitoring specific and reliable news outlets or information sources in determining when our G.O.O.D. action plan should be initiated? . Obviously, many people such as myself, have all the 'other' recommended Rawles preparations in place but are still at a disadvantage from those that were able to set up their retreat ahead of time and to have evacuated from a city. It's the best that I can do, at this point.

Additionally, the economic news events these days are so wild and crazy that it's hard to discern what main event, 'red flag' or 'markers' should precipitate an exit out of the city without further doubt or hesitation. Brushing up on 'common sense and logic' doesn't hurt here, but it's the expectation that some specific chain-of-events will take place that categorically shout now that I'm speaking of. Can you give us your personal view on what these catalyst events could be? Thank you, - Ken R. (A 10 Cent Challenge subscriber)

JWR Replies: There are far too many variables in the current situation for me to be able point to just one key "trigger" or "gating" indicator.

Be ready, but don't panic. I must caution SurvivalBlog readers: "Don't give up your day job." Unless you are retired, or have a stable and substantial secondary cash flow from investments or a home-based business, it would be highly imprudent to quit your job (or start burning vacation hours) and move to your retreat. My advice: Watch the news carefully and be ready to leave on short notice. As I've previously mentioned, it is very important to pre-position the vast majority of your key logistics at your retreat, under the watchful eye of a caretaker or a trusted neighbor. When the time comes, you may only have the opportunity to make one trip to your retreat before highways become impassable.

Here are some important indicators to watch for, in my humble estimation. (Witnessing just one of these won't be surely indicative, but if we see several of these...) :

A sharp spike in the Federal Funds Rate
News of a failed Treasury auction, or news that Treasury rates have spiked
Overt talk of a US default by Asian or European bankers
Multiple (8+) simultaneous US bank failures on one Friday
Any large Northern Rock style bank runs in the US (with customers lined up on the streets)
A stock market drop of more than 1,200 points in one day
A large and sudden spike in inflation
Any suspension of US stock trading
Draconian new stock trading limits (for example any new "circuit breaker" rules, followed by news that the trading was halted because of the limits)
New restrictions on either precious metals purchasing reporting requirements
New limits on moving funds outside the US
Any large derivatives trading collapses.(Because of disappearing counterparties or illiquidity.)
News that hundreds of hedge funds are suspending redemptions
News that many Money Market funds are dropping below $1.00 Net Asset Value (NAV)
The US Dollar Index (USDI) dropping below 68 for more than one full week of trading.
Any sudden large interest rate moves by the FOMC. (Up or down.)
Rioting in several metropolitan centers simultaneously. Gold spiking past $1,500 per ounce
News that any major western power is no longer accepting US Dollars in payment for key commodities
News that any major trading partners are no longer rolling over the majority of their US Treasury paper
A closed session of the full congress that lasts a full day or longer.
The Treasury starts to extensively monetize debt. The resignation of either the Treasury Secretary or the Federal Reserve Chairman.
Mel Gibson moves to Fiji ;-)

Letter Re: Yoder's Canned Bacon and Canned Meats?

Mr. Rawles;

Thanks for the time and effort you put into SurvivalBlog.com. It is a truly valuable and unique resource.

Working on my lists of supplies and equipment, I’m wondering about Yoder’s canned bacon and other canned meats, beef, chicken, turkey, pork, sausage, etc. They advertise [an up to] 10 year shelf life (depending on storage conditions of course) and the price isn’t unreasonable. Too heavy for much mobility but for home base they appear to me to be an attractive way to store some meat products without refrigeration. Any info or thoughts on this? Thanks, - Gatekeeper

JWR Replies: The Yoder's canned cooked bacon product is a new offering, but it is actually an old concept. Given the time and energy required to cook and can it, the price per can is fairly reasonable. OBTW, canned bacon, butter, and cheese are also sold by a number of Internet vendors, including several of our advertisers: Safecastle, Best Prices Storable Foods, and Ready Made Resources. These canned foods make good supplements to round out a diet and break up the monotony of eating bland storage foods such as wheat, rice, and beans.

Letter Re: Gauging Bank and Thrift Safety

James,
I wrote you a month or two ago regarding a post of yours that was concerned about failing banks. I commented that I thought the worries were overblown - there was no reason to think that FDIC wouldn't pay off the claims, just as FSLIC paid off the claims in the 1980s. I still think that's true, but I have had a personal cautionary experience that has moved me much closer to your way of thinking.

I had a brokered Certificate of Deposit (CD) issued by IndyMac. (In case you post this, for readers unfamiliar with the term, "brokered" mean I bought it through a broker, like a bond or stock. Banks that want to raise a lot of money aggressively issue brokered CDs to attract "hot" money, money that flows in quickly and can flow out just as quickly; FDIC doesn't much like such CDs, for obvious reasons.) It had a few months to go when IndyMac failed. FDIC announced that they would honor the terms and rates for non-brokered CDs, but would simply terminate brokered CDs and return principal and interest up to the day the bank failed to the owners.

So that's problem #1: FDIC just made up the rules as it went along. Why was my CD different from others? Because they said so, pure and simple. They would claim it's for the overall good, because it discourages brokered CDs, which can make banks more prone to runs, but that doesn't help me, does it? And it's not like they had announced this ahead of time. So I lose money, and there's no way I could have known to avoid it. (IndyMac wasn't on their trouble list when I bought the CD.)

Problem #2: not only didn't the money show up in my brokerage account right away, I couldn't even find out when it would show up. It was more than two weeks before it appeared, and I got no interest for that time.

Neither problem was significant in this instance; it wasn't a big CD and it didn't have much longer to maturity, and the delay wasn't very long. But it was a powerful experience in terms of opening my eyes to what might happen under greater financial stress. If FDIC can delay returning the money for two weeks with no interest, they can do it for two months, or however long they need to. Clearly, beyond the basic insurance act of eventually returning money earned up to the date of bank failure, everything else is up to the FDIC's whim. That doesn't give me a good feeling.

The best way to avoid this is to choose strong banks. One resource I've found useful in the past is thestreet.com ratings. This used to be called Weiss Research, and they are clearly an independent source of analysis of bank strength and safety. Their home page says: "We don't accept compensation from the companies we rate for issuing the rating. Nor do we give the companies an opportunity to preview the ratings or suppress their publication if they're unfavorable. We are totally independent and unbiased because our loyalty is to you -- the customer."

If you go to The Street.com's Rating Page and select Banks and Thrifts, you can then type in the name of a bank you want to check, and click Go. They will list the matches, with letter grades from A+ on down. You can then click on a bank name and download a more detailed report, but for my purposes the letter grade has been enough to tell me whether I'm about to make a mistake. Keep up the good work! - Michael A. in Seattle

Jim's Quote of the Day:

“How fabulous,” writes Brian Reade in the British tabloid The Mirror. “Thanks to the way it props up the USA’s two biggest mortgage firms, more than half of American homes are now effectively owned by the state... Who’d have imagined that when the most right-wing of neo-cons leaves office 50% of the Land of the Free will effectively be [public housing]”? - Bill Bonner

Wednesday September 24 2008

Letter Re: My Preparedness Measures Pay Off During Fuel Shortage

Mr Rawles
You mentioned the current gasoline shortage in the southeast. The local news media reported that 70% of the gas stations are empty and have been for three days. To me it seems closer to 95%. Here is example: In south Nashville, there is a major road called Nolensville Road. In a five mile mile stretch from Thompson Lane to Old Hickory Boulevard there are 26 gas stations. Not one of them has had gas for several days. Within a two mile radius of that stretch of road there are 55,000 residents. That is a lot of people without gas. There have been fistfights at some of the gas stations that have gas, but that is not being reported on the local news.

As an enthusiastic SurvivalBlog reader for the past two years, I am not worried because I am very prepared. For example, I keep 100 gallons as my bug out supply to reach my retreat. In fact, I only need 10 gallons to get both of my cars to the retreat. I think my wife finally seen the light about being prepared. She had always looked a little strange at me when I would rotate my gas supply every six months. There have been times that she thought I was a little nuts. But there was a big smile on her face when I drug out those 5 gallon cans to filled her tank up yesterday. I was also able to give 10 gallons to my neighbor--who is a single mother and a school teacher--so she could go to work. Thank You, - Mike M. in Tennessee

Letter Re: Home Canning and Stocking Up

Dear Sir,
I would like to thank you for your time and effort in providing a “one stop shop” for such a large volume of information.

Principally due to your site, my family and I have begun to increase the size of our pantry with both purchased food/supplies and other materials as well as increase the amount of food we are home canning. One observation I have made in all our preparations is the amount of food (from local gardens, backyard fruit trees, farmyard orchards) that goes to waste in our area. It is amazing the amount of produce on local backyard fruit trees and in gardens that either because of a lack of time or lack of knowledge, people allow to spoil. We have “put the word out” that we are interested in any fresh fruit/vegetables that people have and due to that, we now have more fruit and vegetables than we have canning jars and freezer space.

We have begun to shop around at local farm auctions and garage sales for canning jars and have enlisted several other family members in our endeavor. My father-in-law is preparing his garden ~ 2 acres, for the addition of our own fruit trees, berry bushes, asparagus and other vegetables. We have also begun to make contacts with others who are interested in bartering for materials. This has greatly increased the number of relationships with other folks in our area and has resulted in a much closer feeling of community between us and our neighbors. We live on the edge of a fairly small agricultural town in southeast Nebraska .

The biggest potential downfall is we do not have a retreat in the boonies. We do have a fairly close neighborhood that “could” be isolated (bridges over a creek and river) from some traffic. In the mean time, we continue to stock food and other materials you have suggested and prepare our property in the event of a meltdown.

Again, thank you for your time. - Brad E.

Letter Re: My Hurricane Ike Experience

Dear Mr. Rawles,
First of all, my heart goes out to all those who truly suffered with loss of life or property as a result of Hurricane Ike. I only had the minor inconvenience of being without electricity in Houston for five days. (There are still over one million in Houston and the surrounding area without power.) So I had a taste of what it is like to be off-grid and learned a few things to share with your readers. It seems a lot of people here had generators which burn lots of precious gasoline. But after a few days the gasoline runs out. We toughed it out. I did have small camping-type battery powered fans and several flashlights but can't imagine what we'd do in a situation without power for the long term. You can have only so many batteries and then what? We had water drawn in bath tub to use for flushing toilet, as water plants use electricity to pump water. Also had many frozen plastic milk jugs in freezer and big igloo to keep some things cold for a couple of days. Ice was very hard to come by. Grocery stores were closed for a couple of days and there were lines just to get into the stores when they did open. They let in a few people at a time for crowd control. I was lucky to have my nonperishable food stockpile. Remember to have extras for relatives. Gas stations were slow to reopen and had hours to wait when they did open. (Many buying gas for their generators). We had full tanks in advance of the storm. One important item we used was the car charger for the cell phone. Be sure to have one that fits your current phone model. Also, many don't realize that cordless land line phones use electricity so you need to have a standard corded phone (which I had) if you want to even find out if your land-line works. To heat water for coffee we used sterno called Canned Heat and it worked very well. I know this is merely a temporary solution to heating. I told my husband recently that I wanted to buy a camp stove and now he may agree with me. And of course no television or computer which is really tough. I used my television band radio a lot to get information.

I am now more afraid than ever of what it is going to be like if the power goes off frequently or stays off in a worse-case scenario. Luckily I didn't see civil unrest, but what if power stayed off longer? If there was any way, I would move out of the city. Since I can't leave, I will continue to prepare the best I can. Please continue to remember the trapped-in-the-city dwellers when you post ideas for survival. I think we need the most help. Thanks for all you do, - Nancy B.

A Girl Scout Troop Leader Wants to Get Her Girls Prepared

We recently got an e-mail from a Girl Scout troop leader, describing how she wants to start a project making 72-hour "bug out" bags for the troop members. Her goal is to get her troop members better prepared, yet not tip-off their parents to her own level of preparedness. She wants to avoid making herself look like some sort of "preparedness nut" or "whacko".

The important thing to keep in mind is that terminology and phrasing are crucial to how people form opinions. Do not use terms such as "Bug Out Bag" or "Get Out of Dodge Kit" or "Survival Kit." It is much better to use the term Disaster Preparedness Kit, or even better yet to phrase the title to match the locally expected disaster. (Such as "Earthquake preparedness kit" or "Hurricane preparedness kit". You get the idea....Our scouting friends in California made earthquake kits for their cars which they keep in a large Tupperware bin in the trunk. They contain bottled water, canned tuna, a can opener, granola bars, space blankets, knit hats, matches, and so forth. Suggested packing lists are available in PDF from the FEMA web site.

Letter Re: A Suggested Reading List

James:

Thank you for all of the work that you put into your web site. I have been reading your site and preparing for the last couple of years. I thought you might be interested in the Bibliography to my [retreat] group’s operations guide.

Fiction

Adams, John Joseph. Wastelands. San Francisco : Night Shade Books, 2008.
Alten, Steve. The Shell Game. Springville , Utah : Sweetwater Books, 2007.
Brin, David. The Postman. New York : Bantam Books, 1985.
Budrys, Algis. Some Will Not Die. New York : Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1961.
Card, Orson Scott. The Folk of the Fringe. New York : Tom Doherty Associates, Inc., 1989.
Carlson, Jeff. Plague War. New York : The Penguin Group, 2008.
Frank, Pat. Alas, Babylon . New York : Harper Perennial, 1959.
Heinlein, Robert A. Farmer in the Sky. New York : Ballantine Books, 1950.
________. Time Enough For Love. New York : The Berkley Publishing Group, 1973.
________. Tunnel In The Sky. New York : Ballantine Books, 1955.
Ing, Dean. Pulling Through. New York : Charter Communications, Inc., 1983.
Kunstler, James Howard. World Made By Hand. New York : Atlantic Monthly Press, 2008.
McDevitt, Jack. Eternity Road. New York : Harper Collins Publishers, 1997.
Niven, Larry and Jerry Pournelle. Lucifer’s Hammer. New York : The Random House Publishing Group, 1977.
Party, Boston T. Molon Labé! Ignacio , Colorado : Javelin Press, 2004.
Rawles, James Wesley. Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse. The Clearwater Press, 2006.
Sheffield, Charles. Aftermath. New York : Bantam Books, 1998.
Stewart, George R. Earth Abides. New York : Del Rey Books, 1949.
Stirling , S.M. Dies The Fire. New York : New American Library, 2004.
________. The Protector’s War. New York : New American Library, 2005.
________. A Meeting at Corvallis . New York : New American Library, 2006.

Nonfiction
Food Storage
Layton, Peggy. Emergency Food Storage & Survival Handbook. New York : Three Rivers Press, 2002.
Stafford , Jake and Jim Rawles. Rawles Gets You Ready: The Ultimate Emergency Preparedness Course. Genoa , NV : Arbogast
Publishing, LLC, 2006.
General
Boy Scouts of America , Fieldbook, 4th Edition. Irving , TX : Boy Scouts of America , 2004.
Clayton, Bruce D. Life After Terrorism. Boulder , CO : Paladin Press, 2002.
Deyo, Holly Drennan. Dare to Prepare, 2nd Edition. Pueblo West, Colorado : Deyo Enterprises LLC, 2004
Diamond, Jared. Collapse, How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. New York : Penguin Books, 2005.
________. Guns, Germs, and Steel. New York : W.W. Norton & Company, 1997.
Emery, Carla. The Encyclopedia of Country Living, 9th Edition. Seattle : Sasquatch Books, 2003.
Kelly, Kate. Living Safe in an Unsafe World. New York : New American Library, 2000.
Kunstler, James Howard. The Geography of Nowhere. New York : Simon & Schuster, 1994.
________. The Long Emergency. New York : Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005.
McGlashan, Charles F. History of the Donner Party. Barnes & Noble Publishing, Inc., 2004.
Party, Boston T. Boston on Surviving Y2K and Other Lovely Disasters. Ignacio , CO : Javelin Press, 1998.
Rawles, James Wesley. Rawles on Retreats and Relocations. The Clearwater Press, 2007.
________. SurvivalBlog: The Best of the Blog Volume 1. Clearwater Press, 2007.
Ruff, Howard J. How To Prosper During The Coming Bad Years In The 21st Century. New York : The Penguin Group, 2008.
Starke, Linda. State of the World 2004. New York : W.W. Norton & Company, 2004.
United States Air Force. Search and Rescue Survival Training. New York : Barnes & Noble Publishing, Inc., 2003.
United States Army , US Army Survival Manual. New York : Dorset Press, 2001.
United States Marine Corps. Guidebook For Marines, 14th Revised Edition. Quantico , VA : The Marine Corps Association, 1982.

Global Warming
Gore, Al. An Inconvenient Truth. New York : Rodale, 2006.
Knauer, Kelly. Global Warming. New York : Time Books, 2007.
Lynas, Mark. Six Degrees, Our Future on a Hotter Planet. London : Harper Perennial, 2007.
JWR Adds: For a contrapuntal viewpoint, see: Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the M

2008-09-02T13:52:00.000-07:00

dds 'n Sods:

KAF recommended this: Documentary shows tough reality of doctors in war. (Warning: Not for children or for the squeamish!)

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Cheryl N. sent us yet another raft of economic news and commentary: Stagflation Becoming Economic Reality, FDIC Admits Short-Term Loans Might Be Needed, The Building Storm: Gold, the Dollar and Inflation, WAMU The Killer Bank, US Thrifts Lost $5.4bn in 2Q, Second Largest Ever, Bankruptcy Filings Near 1M in Past 12 Months; Up Almost 30%, Economic Depression: Who Will Suffer Least?,
Credit Crunch: It's Just The Beginning Of The End, Private Foreign Investors Dump US Debt, and Bankruptcies Soar for Senior Citizens. OBTW, in recognition of her many hours of tireless research, I think that it is time that we elevate Cheryl to "Economics Editor", and send her some more free books.

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An friend that is an American ex-pat wrote to ask about the EcoloBlue water generator. Do any SurvivalBlog readers have first-hand experience with one of these? I'm curious about how much current they draw, and their maintenance requirements. If they are indeed practical and low maintenance, then they might make sense for someone that lives in an area with plentiful sunshine (and excess photovoltaic power capacity) and a shortage of drinking water. Buying one of these is beyond my budget, but perhaps not for some SurvivalBlog readers.

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Hurricane Gustav was downgraded to a Category 2 tropical storm, but it still packed a wallop: Hundreds of thousands lose power as Gustav pounds coast

Jim's Quote of the Day:

"Depression, especially in a highly leveraged world that is accustomed to prosperity, would likely result in serious civil strife. Politically, it must be avoided no matter what the economic or financial costs. Despite 'spin-talk' to the effect that the Fed is pursuing a dual mandate to both fight inflation and promote growth, in reality they are simply trying to promote growth pure and simple. This is the reality that few market analysts or journalists dare to mention." - John Browne

Monday September 1 2008

Notes from JWR:

It appears that tropical storm Gustav may be gaining force to hurricane strength, and is aimed at the coast of Louisiana. I trust that SurvivalBlog readers are well prepared and will be able to help out any friends or relatives, and even strangers that are displaced. As a Christian, I believe that charity is not just an arbitrary option depending on our moods. It is our duty.

The folks over at The Oil Drum, have posted some speculation: Hurricane Gustav, Energy Infrastructure, and Updated Damage Models. If there is indeed damage to the oil industry, we can expect a spike in oil and gasoline prices. Plan accordingly.

I'm pleased to report that I've signed a contract with Ulysses Press of Berkeley, California, to publish a new edition of my novel "Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse". It should be available in late 2008 or early 2009. Because of the publisher's quantity discount pricing, the new edition should be much more appealing to retail book dealers. The new edition will be slightly updated, and feature a new cover design. The current edition from XLibris will be available until just before the new edition from Ulysses Press is orderable. (I'll be announcing that in the blog, hopefully in November. Please do not contact the new publisher until then.)

It is gratifying to see that a novel that has been published for 10 years is still selling with such consistency! I wrote the first draft of the novel in the winter of 1990-1991, and that short draft was circulated on the Internet as shareware. I had no idea then that it would have such popularity and longevity!

Letter Re: The Shenandoah Valley as a Retreat Locale?

James:
"Doug Carlton" makes many salient points for those currently searching for retreat locations. Might I add a couple more that helped me in finding our place in southwest Virginia.

For every region of interest to me, I gathered a century worth of census data, available online. If you want to get a good picture of a community, this is an excellent place to start.

Second, I read Mark Monmonier's "Cartographies of Danger." Monmonier is a bit of an odd duck in the professorial geography/mapping community. I have no idea of his world view, but everything he writes is engaging and informative. "Cartographies of Danger" is perhaps unique in the world of scholarship-based publishing in that it a very low political correctness factor. He calls 'em like he sees 'em, including insightful content on social instabilities. Of course, it includes the items you would expect especially the distribution and frequency of natural disaster occurrences that I had not fully appreciated before. All the Best, - Crusher

JWR Replies: Most SurvivalBlog readers are well aware that my view of economics is of the Austrian school. Perhaps less well known is that my view of history is of the geographical determinist school. I've been enthusiastically in that camp for three decades. That viewpoint is part of what has driven my strong emphasis on relocation to lightly-populated regions that are well removed from major population centers and safely away from refugee lines of drift.

Letter Re: Night Operations

James:
Regarding Pete C.'s article on night operations: The great (but now sadly defunct) magazine "Coevolution Quarterly" had a great article about night vision development sometime in the 1980s (I've got a copy of it hanging around here somewhere, if only I was organized enough to lay my hands on it) that gave a brilliant method for training night sight via peripheral vision. The technique involved taking something like a lightweight brazing rod and attaching it [off-center] to the bill of a baseball cap. On the end of the rod, you attached a small white ball or disc, which you focused on as you walked. Finding a clear path on a moonless, lightless night, you put on the cap and focus on the ball/disc and begin walking. I tried this a couple of nights and though it took a while to really get the technique down, when you became adjusted to it, the effect easily rivaled that of artificial night vision devices. Apparently, with a bit of repeated practice, you can do away with the cap and fall right into the "de-focus" that allows or the ready use of peripheral vision for natural, intensified light gathering. Pete C's article reminds me that I need to try this again, and get comfortable enough with it that I can do it at will. Regards, - Hawaiian K.

Letter Re: Amaranth--A Weed You Can Eat

Sir,
I have been organic gardening for 50 years. At one time I had the largest organic produce gardens in northern Ohio. I'm good at it.
Some years ago, some people staying with me asked if they could plant a little Amaranth in one of my gardens. They related how Amaranth may be the most consumed food in human history. It is super productive, and very nutritious. I allowed them to plant some. That was a big mistake.

If you are not really careful to harvest every seed, it will spread like wildfire. Within a year or two, it will be all over your property. If you want weed-free gardens, this is not the plant to encourage. It grows tall and thick, and can and will choke out all your other vegetables. It took me a huge amount of work to get rid of it.

Amaranth is good food, but be careful what you ask for. If you must have it, plant it a long, long way from your other gardens. Harvest every bit. And don't let the birds spread it. - Jim in Ohio

Odds 'n Sods:

Eric sent us this tale of unintended consequences: Wind Energy Bumps Into Power Grid’s Limits

o o o

Some interesting demographics: The study is a bit dated, but a 2001 survey showed Wyoming as the state with the highest rate of gun ownership: The top three states were Wyoming (59.7%), Alaska (57.8%), and Montana (57.7%). Following close behind---all at around 55%--were Idaho, South Dakota, Mississippi and West Virginia. By the way, a neighbor told me that when a gal in Wyoming gets serious about finding a husband, all she has to do is switch her perfume to Hoppes #9, and the bachelors will line up at her door. (For those uninitiated in the shooting fraternity: Hoppes #9 is a rifle bore cleaner with a distinctive smell.)

o o o

Frequent (and copious) content contributor Cheryl N. sent us another big batch of economic news and commentary: New Credit Hurdle Looms for Banks, World Largest Gold Refiner Runs Out, Is Your Bank About to Implode?, FDIC Will Need Half A Trillion Dollars, Surge in US Foreclosures Surge Past Subprimes, Debt Threatens the Entire System, Use of Food Stamps at Farmers' Markets Rise,
and The US is the Next Argentina.

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Safecastle is offering folks a free hardcover copy of James Kunstler's best selling Peak Oil novel, "World Made By Hand" (retail value of $24) with the purchase of a $19 lifetime Safecastle Royal buyers club membership. Or, for those who are already members, the book is free with any purchase of at least $170 (after the club 20% discount). Speaking of Kunstler, SurvivalBlog reader Scott H. pointed us to a an audio interview with him, over at Financial Sense.

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Rand Refinery Ltd., the world's largest gold refinery, ran out of South African Krugerrands after an ``unusually large'' order from a buyer in Switzerland. Hmmmm... Sounds like the smart money is is taking advantage in the recent dip in precious metals prices. Have you? (A hat tip to Kevin A for the the link.)

Jim's Quote of the Day:

"It's fairly clear to see that the [UK] government's figure for the rate of inflation has nothing at all to do with the real increase in our cost of living. The figure is deliberately manufactured in order to crush benefit payments, pensions and workers' pay rises." John Andrews in The Price of Eggs .

Jim's Quote of the Day:

Sunday August 31 2008

Two Letters Re: Amaranth--A Weed You Can Eat

James,
I just wanted to let you know that this plant ([considered] a weed) is usually killed off as a pest, yet is more nutritious then wheat. It grows all over the place and if it was planted on purpose it might help a lot for people looking to survive.

Deane’s site is packed full of plants worth looking in to for food! (A good source of info while the power is up! YouTube really does have everything!)’ - Fitzy in Pennsylvania

James Wesley;

In response to the person setting up a Michigan retreat, I saw mention of Amaranth as one of his grains set aside. Amaranth will grow quite handily as a "weed" in North America, has one of the highest protein contents of any grain (not gluten either, for those that are gluten sensitive) and extremely high content of lysine. It grows rapidly and can have grain heads over 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) with over half a million seeds therein.

I can think of few choices better suited to unsupervised growing [at an unattended retreat] than Amaranth. - Dave R.

Letter Re: Reusing Restaurant Food Ingredient Containers

Mr Rawles,
I've been thinking a lot about storing food like grains in the olive containers that get thrown out at the restaurant where I'm currently working. There made of what I assume to be food grade plastic (olive storage) and looks like they store about 7-to-8 liters. The lid is made of two pieces and has a rubber seal. If I were to wash these off a bit do you think they would serve as long term food containers?
Thanks, - Paul from Canada

JWR Replies: Those containers should be fine, since they are doubtless made of food grade plastic. Just be sure to inspect the seals to make sure that they are pliable and intact. Most of these olive buckets, barrels and tubs are made of HDPE. Since there is a slight chance of the odors from original contents permeating your grain, I recommend that you thoroughly clean the containers. (Via repeated soaking with hot, soapy water) Also, be sure to use use a mylar liner bag in each container . These liners are available in various sizes from Nitro-Pak. BTW, the same company also has a good reputation as a supplier for freshly-made oxygen absorbing packets that are properly sealed well for shipment.

Two Letters Re: Poor Customer Service From Buckshot's Camp

Mr. Rawles,
I hate to bother you, but thought you might have heard if someone was ill or passed away at Buckshot's camp?
I placed an order which was billed out, and never got it. I have called several times and got the recording, and e-mailed also, but have never heard back from them. This has been since May. I was just wondering if you had heard anything about them, and thought maybe you know someone that may know them. The game trap article in today's blog, brought this up, and I'm just grasping at straws to see if someone knows them. Thanks, - Rod

Dear Mr. Rawles,
I recently ordered a snare kit and DVD on how to use it from Buckshot's Camp online at the beginning of July [2008]. I have yet to receive shipment and have had no response to e-mails or phone calls.

I checked the BBB finally and found that he has an unsatisfactory rating with them. So I wanted to let you and your readers know this since in the past you have suggested him as a supplier of traps and snares. Stay prepared, - Michael in Oklahoma

JWR Replies: Buckshot's Camp hasn't advertised with us since early 2006. I dropped them as an advertiser because of their poor customer service. (BTW, they were one of just two advertisers that I've been forced to remove in the three years that SurvivalBlog has been up and running. All of our other 80+ advertisers have sterling reputations.) I removed my links to Buckshot's Camp in my Links page at the same time.

I'm sorry to hear that you had the order fulfillment problem Bruce Hemming's ex-wife. (She owns the mail order business, as part of their divorce settlement.)

Please pray for Bruce and his ex-wife. They need to reconcile themselves to each other and to their slighted customers. And of course we all need to reconcile ourselves to God.

Odds 'n Sods:

Reader A.M. in Cocoa, Florida sent a link to a very interesting video clip about a solar/hydrogen powered house. Coveting is a sin, but I must admit that I sorely wish that I had his sort of budget.

o o o

Kevin A. recommended a piece of commentary by Darryl Schoon: Don't Cry For Me Argentina... Save Your Tears For Yourself

o o o

Some escalation in the war of words in the nascent Cold War II: Russia Issues warning : Military help for Georgia is a 'declaration of war', and Russia bans poultry imports from 19 U.S. suppliers, and
Russia may cut off oil flow to the West . Thanks to readers KAF, Susan Z., and Mr. X, for the links.

o o o

Derek C. notes that anyone interested in some light game theory reading, might consider a piece from the Cato Institute, on how fiat money emerges from a barter economy. Derek describes it": "The author's (quite intuitive) point is that fiat money comes from convertible paper money, which in turn comes from actual commodity money, which in turn comes from barter. this transference arises because barter is an inherently unattractive form of exchange, because of high transaction and search costs. The article has implications for the re-monetization of precious metal commodities, following an economic collapse."

o o o

Anther Friday, another bank failure: Integrity Bank, in Alpharetta, Georgia. There will be many more bank runs in the next few years, so be ready.

Jim's Quote of the Day:

“And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.” - I Corinthians 13:13

Saturday August 30 2008

Note from JWR:

Today's blog posts include two letters from "Doug Carlton" Those of you that have read my novel "Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse" will recognize this real-life individual as the basis for one of the novel's characters. "Doug" and I attended college and went through ROTC together, back in the early 1980s. He later went on to be a US Army aviator. He now lives in Virginia and works in the transportation industry.

Two Letters Re: The Shenandoah Valley as a Retreat Locale?

Dear SurvivalBlog Readers:

I currently live in Virginia and what Jim said about retreat locale selection is generally accurate. That's not to say "all is lost!". Hardly, there are some advantages you have in our area that I've only found in a couple other places in the US, and you can successfully find a retreat location. You just have to work harder at it. The simple fact that most people live where they do is because it's easier. The more remote locations, and the more secure, tend to be more work to live in. It's all balance and trade off.

Due to the improvements to US17 and the construction of I-66, the area you're in now will be expanding out to the west very soon. Mike knows better than anyone the amount of growth the state has experienced, and Manassas used to be in the sticks just a few years ago. Culpepper/Warrenton/et cetera. were down-right the boondocks, and they will be the next housing area for the Capitol in a decade or so. All of us see the expansion before our eyes.

The biggest problem with the Shenandoah is it's a natural corridor. I-81 and the AT just make it a massive avenue of approach. But within the mountains you can find a place that is indeed suitable. It's just going to take more work. I can't think of too many places as beautiful as that area, and even the I66 corridor is pretty, and simply put you just have to really look hard to find the right place. The farther West you go, and even into West Virginia, the terrain is more favorable, but in the end you just have to make an intelligent decision on the place that's right for you. You can name any area in the country, and with few exceptions you can probably find a decent place for a retreat, and a lot of places to avoid. That goes for West of the Mississippi as much as the East. It's just you have to look harder in the East.

Narrow down your areas to less than just a general region. Do an "IPB". That's "Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield". Figure out the most likely risks and make a list in priority. It's your priority because it's your list. Take counsel, but it's still your survival, and you're the one who really has the responsibility for deciding what's important and what isn't. Then take a map and make overlays, or just mark the map of areas that are "no-go", like the obvious ones that you can block off as not where you're going. Things like Quantico, DC, etc. aren't probably going to be high on the list of areas for a retreat. Plot the avenues of approach on the map (the refugee flow) and you'll start seeing where to look and where not to look quickly. Once you narrow down the areas, look at resources and plot those. Basically, just take the area and graphically make the process of elimination. What's left is where you should start looking.

You can also take a more "think outside of the box" approach to things. Generally speaking it's simpler to have a "one-size-fits-all" retreat. We'd all love to live at our own ranch and somehow pay bills and live off the grid, yada, yada. Sure. For many of us it's simply not going to happen. We choose, rightly or wrongly to live where we are for a variety of reasons. The choice is ours, as the responsibility is ours and ours alone (not the government's or anyone else's). So if you're stuck in a bad place to begin with, make the most of it.

Take the list of most likely threats and see if there's a way to divide them up. For example Tsunamis, hurricanes, floods, etc. can pretty much be obviated by a retreat in a relatively close position to where you live. It doesn't take much but being inland, with high ground, and a stockpile of supplies to deal with it. Having a "risk specific" retreat complicates things in that you don't have the simplicity of a single place, but you may not really need the place for World War "Z". You are much more likely to need the place that can deal with floods, civil riots in the Capitol, hurricanes, etc. You can easily find a place like that where you desire. Do the same IPB, just base it on a narrower list of risk and you should have a wider area to choose from.

Obviously there are big disadvantages in this. More than one retreat location greatly complicates things. It increases expense, It greatly increases risk because you just might be wrong too in your planning. But sometimes your bomb shelter just can't be proof against a direct hit. There's a risk trade-off in everything.

In my years in Virginia, I've run into several situations were we were either on our own, or it had the potential. Most were Hurricanes, some blizzards, a localized riot or two, a terrorist attack, and the everyday crime/fire/etc that is frankly the most likely and just as destructive to your everyday life. (You do have a fire extinguisher in the kitchen, right?). Odds are pretty high these same things are what I'll face in the future, rather than the ultimate collapse of civilization. So there is a lot to be said about starting small and improving things. A closer retreat can deal with a lot of things you're likely to face. It can also allow you a base to rebuild your residence from if you're house burns down, etc. that's easier to operate out of than one far away. Obviously it would only be a valid locale for a limited amount of scenarios, but the most likely ones.

So think about approaching it in stages. Getting a "good enough retreat" now and a "perfect retreat" later might be a viable way to go. It's far more risky than going all out and doing the "perfect retreat" from the get-go, but the actual risk can only be judged by you for your own situation. You're the only one responsible for yourself...as it should be. Regards, - Doug Carlton

James
I enjoyed your repost of the "Illusion of Isolation" article in reply to Mike's query about the Shenandoah Valley being a good retreat location. My own observation is that the Shenandoah is far too crowded and accessible to the fleeing hordes, many of whom are already there as the northern end of the Valley is already a bedroom community for the "Peoples' Republic of Stalingrad", DC. He really needs to get out farther than is a practical commuting distance from the city. As you note, the East is a challenge because getting a full-tank distance from the city is simply not possible for the most part.

I would recommend that Mike look a little further south and west; south of Harrisonburg or quite a ways west of the interstate. Once you get ten miles back from the interstate it is an entirely different world, and if you get 25 miles west of Staunton and cross over Shenandoah Mountain you will be infinitely better off as you find yourself amongst very self-sufficient folks for the most part. There also are some isolated areas near Winchester at the northern end of the valley, but it has long been an area for weekend/ski getaways for city folk. Recently there was a northern Valley realtor whose sales pitch touted the fact that Winchester, Virginia was outside the "blast zone" for DC. All the Best, - Crusher

Letter Re: Holster, Sling, and Web Gear Recommendations

Jim,
Long before the current trend in drop-leg holsters, we used some in Army Aviation to clear the armor on the seats in some specific aircraft. The one I flew had more armor coverage, and frankly even a drop-leg wasn't going to work, so the shoulder holster was the way to go for me. Tanker wear shoulder rigs, as well as desk jockeys for the very same reason. Your pistol needs to be out of the way to do your primary job. That's the Army though. Just because Big Army does it, or uses it, it doesn't mean it's really a good idea for you as an individual. There's a lot of junk the Army uses to great effect that is just useless for the individual or small-group survivalist. Don't ever base what you need on what you see the Army, or even contractors, using. The missions are entirely different. Buy and use what you need.

That being said, drop-leg rigs are great for wearing directly on your belt, or a dedicated gun belt, along with a knife. If you remember Trasel's post a while back about gear he mentioned keeping your knife, etc. on your trouser belt, so you always have it with you, if you ditch, or just don't have your web gear. Sage advice there. A drop-leg, or even a shoulder rig, does this for you. By using the right holster (that's key there), you can have it attached to your person, and clear your web gear. If you have to ditch your web-gear, your gun and knife are still with you.

While most schools frown on shoulder holsters because of safety concerns, and the complexity of sidearm retention, in many cases it's a good choice. Pilots have used them forever, and it's unlikely you'll face a retention situation in your own cockpit. Same with tankers. I remember a picture of a P-38 pilot in the Pacific that had the usual USGI WWII shoulder rig, with the shoulder strap also going through a mag pouch and survival knife. Not a bad set-up for his use, and worth thinking about for a lot of reasons. Not the perfect rig for a night on the town, but it obviously worked for him. Even what's perfect in a schoolhouse training environment might not be perfect for you. The key is to go with what works for you.

Whatever holster you choose, if you have more than one try to keep to one system. If you're using a Safariland 6004, look at a holster with the self-locking system (SLS) for concealment, or go without [secondary] retention. What you don't want is different retention systems to deal with. Using a 6004 with SLS on your leg, then using a thumbsnap for concealment, and using a level three retention holster for belt use isn't a wise move. [For the sake if kinesthetic memory] you want to make the same movements each time to get the gun out.

Sometimes you can modify stuff to work. The Safariland 6004 is often the subject of some surgery which allows it to ride higher and much more comfortable for many. Sometimes you can get holsters that do many things. The USGI M12 [aka Bianchi UM-84 series] holster can be adapted to many different types of carry. I frankly don't think too highly of that holster, but many think USGI means it's the way to go. They're cheap enough I suppose. I currently use an Eagle brand drop leg that the drop leg flap can fold over so you can use it both as a conventional belt service holster as well as a drop leg. It rides high enough to be out of the way in drop-leg mode, and low enough to clear gear. The full flap, with Fastex fastener means it's secure no matter what I do, and the full-flap velcros out of the way to allow an open top configuration with a thumbsnap retention as well. It pretty much does it all for me from admin to tactical and it's all the same holster, so training is simplified and it's cheaper to buy one good holster than several different ones (though I always seem to buy several anyway). It's doesn't do concealed carry well, but most CCW holsters are either non-retention, or thumbsnap, so again there's nothing to re-learn in a fight.

As for slings, I said before the Israeli type has a lot going for it, and that's what I use. You can beat it in specific tasks with other slings, but for all around lugging a rifle around and still be effective with the sling, they're great.

While I agree on having different sets of web-gear for each rifle, I don't agree on caliber/weapon specific. I think they should be universal for what you're equipped with. That way all that needs to change is the magazines, and not the whole set of web gear. Weapon-specific web gear is too specific, in my opinion. Regards, - Doug Carlton

Odds 'n Sods:

With Gustav Approaching New Orleans Residents Stocking Up on AR-15s and ammo

o o o

KAF sent this: Rat meat in demand as inflation bites

o o o

L.A. Police Gear (a likely new SurvivalBlog advertiser) is having a 10% off sale, for Labor Day Weekend. Enter coupon code "LABOR".

o o o

Kevin A. suggested a background article on economics by Louis Even, titled Guernsey's Monetary Experiment. Here is a key quote: "The issues of national currency by the States of Guernsey caused neither inflation nor idleness. They created activity and prosperity. But these issues did not make any slaves, and that is why the bankers intervened."

Jim's Quote of the Day:

"At this point, our bet remains that the Feds will go to default mode which means cranking up the printing presses into the red zone, letting the dollar move ever closer to its intrinsic value: zero. That they'll follow this route is suggested by two inputs. First, a depreciating dollar means a reduction in the trillions of dollars in obligations now owed by the U.S. government. And, secondly, foreign holders don't vote." - David Galland, as quoted by The Silver Bear Cafe

Friday August 29 2008

Note from JWR:

Today we present another entry for Round 18 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The contest prizes include:

Round 18 ends on September 30th, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entries. Remember that articles that relate practical "how to" skills for survival will have an advantage in the judging.

Night Operations--Gain the Tactical and Psychological Edge, Even Without the Aid of Night Vision Devices, by Pete C.

Sometime in the future, in a post-TEOTWAWKI environment, your retreat group may decide to send out small teams to conduct either reconnaissance or security patrols. They may want to collect information on what is happening at the nearest town or confirm/ disprove the accuracy of any information (rumors) previously attained. Whatever the mission, these teams must function as a cohesive unit every time. Their success or failure will depend on everyone’s ability to operate during darkness or periods of reduced and/ or limited visibility (to include rain, fog, snow, etc.) even if they do not have the aid of night vision devices because of expense, loss, and/or damage.

Psychological Effects
The inability to see well in darkness leads to doubt and increases apprehension. Darkness always brings out an individual’s weakness, especially in lethal situations. It has been demonstrated many times in both military and police situations that if a team member is confused, frightened, or operating in a diminished capacity, the entire team will suffer. This could lead to over-caution, which might make an individual a better target due to slowness or additional time spent being backlighted or silhouetted. The team’s ability to function (and fight) at night is directly related to confidence in individual skills, unit teamwork, and confidence in leaders.
At night, objects or shadows can appear “real”, exaggerated to the untrained mind. These illusions can come from the over-active imagination (and viewing too many horror type movies; which, due to darkness, the imagination cannot separate fact from fantasy. Illusions may also come from:
- Confusion due to an error of the senses: hearing, smell, and sight
- A mistaken impression in the mind (a low tree with no leaves on its branches is a man standing with a rifle, etc.).
- A confused mind and personal fears or phobias (a piece of rope is a snake; a clothesline full of cloths is a group of people, etc.).
As stress increases, individuals may also imagine dangers, causing fear or even panic. Fear can cause uncertainty, which could cloud an individual’s decision-making capability. This is true in all untrained or marginally experienced people. Training will diminish this dilemma (however, to some extent it will always be there); confident in their abilities, individuals and teams will be better prepared for what they may encounter

Physical Factors
Just as darkness affects the mind, it also affects the senses. Maximizing the capabilities of the senses will enhance an individuals ability to move and fight at night. Improving the senses of hearing and smelling requires training; vision is maximized by understanding how the eye operates differently at day and night and how to efficiently use its capabilities.

Hearing: At night, hearing becomes more acute. Several factors contribute to this: increased concentration; sound travels farther in cooler, moist air, and less background noise. Practice and training will help overcome an individual's fear in what they hear at night. Training enables individuals to discriminate multiple sounds, faint sounds, and sound source directions. Below are some examples of sounds that you might encounter and the distances the normal human ear can hear at night:
- Normal Footsteps (20 – 30 meters)
- Footsteps over leaves and branches (60 – 80 m)
- Normal conversation (90 – 100 m)
- Conservation in low voice (35 – 45 m)
- Coughing (55 – 65 m)
- Cocking / loading a weapon (400 – 500 m)
- Motor vehicle movement on a dirt road / highway (500 m / 1,000 m)
- Screams (1,500 m)
- Single rifle shot (2,000 – 3,000 m)
- Automatic weapons fire (3,000 – 4,000 m)
Remember sharp sounds carry much farther, and unnatural sounds are much more easily identified. When patrolling, whenever possible, try to use natural or normal sounds to mask your movement. Move quickly as possible when these sounds can be used to your advantage (e.g., a car drives by, a gust of wind through the trees, etc).
Check team members and equipment for objects, which can make noise. Have member’s jump-shuffle before moving out. Some things to be aware of:
- Loose change or keys in pockets
- Hand guards or sling on weapons
- Loose boot laces
- Loosely attached items, such as flashlights
- Items that “flop” forward when you stoop or bend over
- Water sloshing in a half-full canteen

Smell: Of all the senses, smell is used the least and often ignored. In the movie “Uncommon Valor”, Col. Rhodes (Gene Hackman) tells the team “…we will be eating nothing but Vietnamese food from now on. We don’t want to be tromping through the jungle smelling like Americans”. This was because different diets produce different characteristic human odors. With some training, individuals should be able to easily detect and differentiate between different odors. Additional clues like exhaust from fuel-burning engines, cooking odors, campfire, tobacco and aftershave can linger long enough to signal an individual/ team of possible contact. Below are some examples of odors that you might encounter and the distances the normal human nose can detect them at night:
- Cigarette smoke (150 m)
- Heat tab (300 m)
- Diesel fuel (500 m)

Vision: Vision at night is different from vision during the day. At night, eyes cannot differentiate color, and easily blinded when exposed to light. The color receptors are clustered near the center of the retina, creates a central blind spot, which causes larger objects to be missed as distances increase. Below are some examples of light sources that you might encounter and the distances at which these light sources could be seen at night with the naked eye:
- Lighted cigarette (500 – 800 m)
- Lighted match (1,500 m)
- Muzzle flashes from small-arms weapons (1,500 – 2,000 m)
- Flashlight (2,000 m)
- Vehicle headlights (4,000 – 8,000 m)
While at the retreat, members know that during the hours of darkness, everyone must observe strict blackout rules. Windows, entrances, and other openings through which light can shine must be covered with shutters, screens, curtains, and other special opaque materials to prevent light from escaping. The same is true while out on patrol (e.g. if you need to review a map, use a tactical red lens flashlight (with cardboard filter cutout – to create a smaller beam); be on the ground and under a poncho). If members are lucky enough to have night vision devices, be aware that they can throw off a retro-reflective glow commonly know by soldiers as “cat-eyes” reflection. This glow could be seen by others also using night vision devices. Members should always assume that others, not in the group, have just as much or even more technology as they do.

Relation of Vision to Light and Shadows:
- When light, such as the low full moon is faced vision is decreased.
- When light, such as the high full moon, is behind, vision is increased.
- When light is straight overhead, the effect is neutral. To the patrol looking for a target, both are easily seen when moving, and hard to see when in the shadows or stationary.
- Direct lighting will ruin your night vision.
- It is easy to see looking from darkness into light, but nearly impossible when looking from a lighted area into darkness. (e.g. standing near a campfire).
- When holding a light, you become a long-range target, while you can only see your immediate surroundings.
- Silhouetting an object with light from its rear will clearly define it.
- Camouflaged individuals in the shadows are extremely hard to see, even when moving.
- The smaller the object, the further away it will look. The bigger the object, the nearer it will appear making range estimation difficult.
- Bright objects will seem closer, obscured or dark objects will seem farther away, again making range estimation difficult.

Improving Night Abilities
Awareness: Become in tuned with your surroundings – be able to differentiate between what is normal, and what is not (or being able to notice the absence of normal sights, sounds, objects, or activities). It is also being able to subconsciously catalog the various sounds and have a mental alarm when something is not right. Being aware is something that can be developed through training. Remember, you do not always have to be in camouflage, with weapons or on patrol to conduct training. Some examples of exercises that individuals or a team can practice (day and night) are:
- In either an urban environment or at the retreat, sit quietly and carefully, listen to each and every sound, identify and cataloging each individually, rather than incorporating it into the overall drone creating by the mass of sounds. Be aware of what is natural, or normal, and when the sounds should be heard (e.g., birds singing during the day and not at night). Lock the sound into your subconscious so that you will be able to take warning when their absence is inappropriate, as well as when their presence is normal. When doing these exercises, simply relax, breathe deeply and focus your mind.
- Practice on smelling techniques. Face into the wind, nose at a 45-degree angle, relax, breath normally; then take sharp sniffs, concentrate and think about specific odor.
- Practice moving at night or with a blindfold, becoming aware of texture and feel.
- Practice moving through various terrains, during different times of the day and the year; and in various weather conditions.
- Sit around a moderately normal area, such as dry, short grass (not knee-deep dry leaves) with everyone’s eyes tightly closes, head down. While everyone is concentrating on listening, have one team member try to move toward someone else and try to touch them, without being detected; or place someone in a designated area, and try to move the team to the position without being detected. With practice, members will be surprised not only at how well they can now move more quietly; but also, how good they have become at detecting sounds.
Dark Adaptation: Is the process by which the eyes increase their sensitivity to low levels of light. Individuals adapt to the darkness at varying degrees and rates. During the first 30 minutes in a dark environment, the eye sensitivity increases roughly 10,000 times, but not much further after that time. [JWR Adds: A good diet that has plentiful Retinol (the animal form of Vitamin A) is also important. Just keep in mind that because Vitamin A is fat-soluble, you should not over-dose on Vitamin A. Remember the standard KADE rule for dosing vitamins that are not water soluble!]
- Adaptation is affected by exposure to bright lights such as matches, flashlights, flares, and vehicle headlights; taking 30 - 45 minutes for full recovery.
- Night vision devices can impede dark adaptation; however, if an individual adapts to the dark before donning the device, they should regain full dark adaptation in about two minutes after removing them.
- Color perception decreases during darkness where light and dark colors distinguished depending on the intensity of the reflected light.
- Visual sharpness at night is one-seventh of what it is during the day, this is why individuals can only see large, bulky objects.

Protecting Night Vision: While working and performing tasks in daylight, the exposure to this light will directly affect night vision. Exposure to bright sunlight for two to five hours causes a definite decrease in visual sensitivity, which can also persist for equally as long. During this same time, the rate of dark adaptation and the degree of night vision capability will be decreased. These effects are cumulative and may persist for several days. Therefore, neutral density sunglasses or equivalent filter lenses should be used during daylight when night operations are anticipated.

Night Vision Scanning: Dark adaptation is only the first step toward maximizing the ability to see at night. Night vision scanning enables individuals to overcome many of the physiological limitations of their eyes and reduce the visual illusions that so often confuse them. The technique involves scanning from either right to left (or from left to right) using a slow, regular scanning movement. Although both day and night searches use scanning movements, at night individuals must avoid looking directly at a faintly visible object when trying to confirm its presence.

Off-Center Vision: Viewing an object using central vision during daylight poses no limitation, but this technique is ineffective at night. This is because the eye has a night blind spot that exists during low light. To compensate for this limitation, individuals use what is called “off-center vision”. This technique requires looking approximately 10 degrees above, below, or to either side of an object rather than directly at it. This allows the peripheral vision of the eye to remain in contact with an object. It must be noted that even when off-center viewing is practiced, the image of an object viewed longer than two to three seconds tends to bleach out and become one solid tone. As a result, the object is no longer visible and can produce a potentially unsafe operating condition. To overcome this condition, the individual must be aware of this phenomenon and avoid looking at an object longer than two to three seconds. By shifting their eyes from one off-center point to another, individuals can continue to pick up the object in his peripheral field of vision.

Training: While at the retreat, it is important to set up realistic training scenarios, using role players, and in the terrain, your team is most likely to encounter. Since night operations are a broad topic, covering a full spectrum of many necessary skills, the following minimum things should be evaluated:
- Discipline and teamwork.
- Proper use of cover and concealment (including react to flares - ground/ air)
- Selection of proper positions and routes (geographic study of the terrain to include potential obstacles, natural or man-made)
- Noise and light discipline.
- Team’s ability to follow its plan.
- Use of contingency plans.
- Employment of proper tactics.
- Proper undetected movement
- Traveling formations (file versus wedge)
- Good planning sequence.
- Stealth techniques (night walking, stalking)
- Proper use of camouflage.
- React to unplanned contact (immediate action drills – contact front/ rear; right/ left; ambush, etc.)
- Movement on ridges and hilltops (which lead to detection).
- Abort and rally point exercises.
- Crossing danger areas (roads or open areas).
In addition to t

2008-08-26T13:46:00.001-07:00

Tuesday August 26 2008

Note from JWR:

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Letter Re: Holster, Sling, and Web Gear Recommendations

Dear Mr. Rawles,
I just read "Patriots" and "Tappan On Survival". Both were greatly helpful and entertaining as well. Can you recommend any type of web gear to have ammo, handgun and rifle at the ready, both at home and on the farm? I see our military forces with all kinds of web equipment configurations, most notable is the hand gun in a thigh mounted holster. Front Sight taught me to shoot from a belt mounted holster and discourages shoulder holsters. It seems to me that a shoulder holster has a place, especially in a vehicle. Any thoughts on tactical rifle/shotgun slings?

Thanks for all you do, - RP

JWR Replies: Like you, I do not advocate thigh-level pistol holsters. These seem to have proliferated in recent years mostly because they look snazzy in SWAT television shows and movies. They are actually quite impractical for just about all situations except rappelling. (Which, if I really correctly is what they were originally designed for.) At thigh-level, a holstered pistol is quite tiring to wear when hiking. They are also slow to access, which increases the time to draw and fire your pistol. My advice is to instead buy a sturdy belt holster, and leave those thigh-level holsters for the Mall Ninja crowd.

I cannot over-stress the following: You must tailor a full web gear rig for each of your long guns. This should include a USGI LC-2 web belt, Y-harness (or H-harness) type padded suspenders, two ammo pouches, a couple of first aid/compass pouches, and a canteen with cover. Granted, you can only carry one long gun at a time, but odds are that you will be arming equipping a lot of family and friends after the Schumer hits the fan. So you will need a set of web gear for each gun. To simplify things, I bought a pile of new nylon sleeping bag stuff sacks in various earth tone colors, and placed a set of web gear and magazines in each of them. I then attached a label card to each sack's drawstring, associating it with its respective gun, for quick "grab it and go" reference.

It is important to think through: how, where, and and when you will need to carry or access your guns on a day-to-day basis. How will you carry in you car, on your tractor, on your quad, or on your horse? How will you carry a pistol if you need to conceal it? How will you carry in foul weather? What will you carry when gardening or during other chores? How and when will you carry accessories such as cleaning kits, bipods, and spotting scopes? What other items will you need to carry in the field that will also need to be kept handy, such as binoculars, flashlights, night vision gear, and GPS receivers?

For holsters, I recommend Kydex Blade-Tech brand holsters and mag pouches. That is what we use here at the Rawles Ranch. And when carrying just a pistol by itself, we use modestly-priced Uncle Mike's black nylon/velcro belts. (They are "Plain Jane", but sturdy and functional.) We do have a couple of leather "Summer Special" concealment holsters made by Milt Sparks Holsters. Their belts and holsters are highly recommended. I've been doing business with them for more than 20 years. They don't skimp on quality. The Milt Sparks belts and holsters range in style and price from utilitarian (like the rough-side out "Summer Special") to some that are downright stylish. (And priced accordingly.) The Blade-Tech holsters inexpensive enough that I put one holster and pistol magazine pouch on each of my sets of my sets of long gun web gear. This makes them much more readily available and eliminates the need to constantly reconfigure rigs, as situations change. Keep in mind that what is nothing more than a time-consuming inconvenience today, could cost be a huge problem en extremis, tomorrow!

I agree that shoulder holsters are undesirable in most situations. They do make sense, however, when you are a car for more than an hour. The bottom line is that if you find yourself removing your belt holster on long drives, then you are probably better off with a shoulder holster in those situations. If you ever have to "bail out" of a car in a hurry, you need to be armed. That means that the pistol has to be attached to your person. And if that means using a shoulder holster for the sake of comfort--despite their drawbacks--then so be it.

For rifle slings, I recommend a traditional two-loop military sling design. They really help steady a rifle for accurate long-range shooting. Attending a weekend WRSA or Appleseed rifle shooting clinic (both highly recommended, BTW) will show you how to properly adjust a two-loop sling for various shooting positions. (Once you've identified your "summer" sling adjustment notches (when wearing just a shirt) for prone and sitting positions, I recommend that using a black magic marker you circle the holes and mark them with a "P" and "Sit" , for quick reference. Draw another line or preferably a "W"--for Winter--at each adjustment, and again a circle around the notch holes, to indicate the longer adjustment needed when wearing a winter coat, a target shooting jacket, or a field jacket. OBTW, speaking of positions: I don't advocate using standing unsupported positions for either hunting or most defensive shooting situations. It takes just a moment to sit down, and just a bit longer to get prone. Not only will you be much more steady (and hence more accurate), but you will also present a much smaller target to your opponent(s). Yes, there are situations where you need to stand (such as when you are in tall brush, or when you are moving tactically), but the general rule is: If the situation allows it, then sit down, or better yet get prone!

For shotgun slings, in my experience a padded nylon extra-long sling (such as an M60 sling) works well. Unfortunately, most shotguns come from the factory with sling swivel studs that are mounted on the bottom of the gun. These are designed for duck hunters, not tactical use. Properly, they should have the front sling swivel mounted on the side, and the rear sling swivel mounted on the top of the stock. This way, when you carry a riotgun with the sling around the back of your neck (to keep the gun handy to come up to your shoulder quickly ) the gun won't flop upside down when you remove your hands. Retrofit your riotguns, as needed, for this configuration.

Locking quick detachable (QD) sling swivels are a must, because there are many tactical situations in which you won't want a sling at all. You need to be able to quickly attach and detach a sling.

For horse or quad (ATV) scabbards, I like the new brown Cordura nylon scabbards that are now on the market. Leather is more traditional, but it takes a painfully long time to dry out, which can induce rust on a gun in short order. Brown nylon won't win any beauty contests but it works. OBTW, buy a couple of spare tie-down straps for each scabbard, to give them greater mounting versatility.

OBTW, dull (non-glossy) olive drab (O.D.) duct tape is your friend. Buy a couple of big rolls of it. It has umpteen uses out in the field. I wrap each of my Y-harness snaps with duct tape, to keep them from rattling or coming loose. It is also useful for toning down any reflective objects. The best field gear is very quiet, very secure, and very unobtrusive. Applying O.D. duct tape helps with all three of those.

In closing, I 'need to add one important point: You can own the very best guns, and have the very best holsters and accessories, but they will be marginal at best in untrained hands. Once you've invested in your first gun, you should follow through and invest in the best training available. I most strongly recommend taking advantage of Front Sight's current "Guns and Gear " offer. I should mention that The Memsahib and I have both taken the Four Day Defensive Handgun course at Front Sight, and we can vouch that it is absolutely top notch. The trainers exude a quiet professionalism that is amazing. There is no shouting, bullying, or theatrical posturing. These folks are the best, and they know how to pass on their knowledge. We saw some shooters that had literally never fired a handgun before walk away at the end of that course with a level of combat handgun shooting proficiency that was better than most police officers! And I learned more about practical pistol shooting in four days than I had leaned in six years as a US Army officer! I guarantee you that the training at Front Sight will not disappoint you. Go for it! If you are serious about preparedness, then you should get the best training available. The Memsahib Adds: There were several women in our class that had never fired a gun before--including one that was attending Front Sight because her life had recently been threatened, and she was being stalked. The Front Sight instructors are exceptional in their ability to work with novice shooters, and were willing to work with students one-on-one, to encourage them.

Four Letters Re: What Will We Eat as the Oil Runs Out?, by Richard Heinberg

Jim:
What scares me [in Heinberg's article] is the use of words like “policy,” “regulations,” “controls,” “comprehensive plan,” etc.
At the least, this is government control of the economy. At the worst, of our personal lives. (Population control.)
He may have some technical points, but he is a bad sociologist. And a bad economist.

A free economy may not be the most efficient, but it works very well when the social side is considered.
There are all ready farmers of multi thousand acre places on the Great Plains, both US and Canada that are growing a few hundred acres of oil seed stock for their own, on farm, bio diesel operations.
Solar heated pig houses have been around for decades.
It is not uncommon for today’s dairy farms to create more electricity than they need with generators running off methane made on site.
I just read a story where a local ice company converted from electric refrigeration to a solar heated ammonia system. His electric bill was virtually eliminated.
All this so Joe Sixpack can get a bag of ice on his way to the lake.

All this is being done by individuals looking at current events, and thinking about the future. On their own.No “comprehensive plan” needed. No government involvement needed. (Or wanted.)

People are not stupid. They can, and do, make mistakes. But in the end, no control has always won out over control.
Do I think we have problems on the horizon? Sure. And I am making plans.
But I do not think running out of oil will be the cause. There are two factors keeping this from happening. First,
People, and companies, are, on their own, starting to conserve and convert.(Wal-Mart, and others, are putting solar panels on their store roofs.)

Second., There are still huge, untapped reserves around the Earth.
To date they have been bypassed for economic and political reasons, but when the price becomes right, those obstacles seem to go away.
According to Paul Ehrlich we all should have starved to death 30 years ago if we didn’t come up with a “comprehensive plan.”
We didn’t, and I don’t know about you, but I weigh about twice what I did 30 years ago. - Ken S.

Jim,
The article by Richard Heinberg was very informative, but after all is said and done the fact remains that the problem is not food production, peak oil, peak water, phosphorous or anything else. Unless population growth is addressed, no amount of organic farming, technology or other methods of increasing production can be anything but a temporary fix.
Thank you for your fine blog. - E.L. in Washington

James:

I am not so sure about the veracity of the two-part article by Richard Heinberg . Let me give you two examples:

On the point of needing fertilizer he wrote:
"The only solution here will be to recycle nutrients by returning all animal and humans manures to cultivated soil, as Asian farmers did for many centuries, and as many ecological farmers have long advocated."

It has been long known that spreading human waste in the field also spreads stomach ailments and other diseases. I would advise thinking about this a bit more
before doing it.

At the end of his article Richard Heinberg mentioned no-interest loans for farm land purchases. Didn't we just see what low interest rates for home loans did? Something like create a bubble in house prices, bubble pops, people lose their homes, banks around the world start failing. God only knows what else is in store for us because of bad monetary policy. And this guy wants to repeat this who thing by putting the same conditions on farm land, the thing that grows our food. - Ben M.

Dear Jim:
Well Richard Heinberg’s article certainly alarmed me, but not in the way he intended!
Yes, Peak Oil is real - but like any other commodity in a free market, shortages produce higher prices. Higher prices produce conservation, substitution, innovation, and a horde of entrepreneurs seeking to profit from the changed economic circumstances by giving consumers better options. No guarantees that our standard of living won’t go down during the transition to other energy sources, but the free (or currently semi-free) market has produced an incredible rise in living standards for a few centuries now (even before oil came on stream).
Richard Heinberg seems blind to the power of the market, and instead worships the power of the state to solve the Peak Oil problem. My jaw dropped when he spoke approvingly of how Cuba’s command economy adapted to the loss of Soviet oil. Yes, let’s just listen to the “experts” and go back to using oxen like the Cubans! Yikes! Somehow I think the human race has the creativity and ingenuity to do a little better than that!
But the biggest clue to his statist mindset - he calls for government subsidies of the “appropriate” solutions. And exactly which "omniscient" bureaucrat or politician figures out the optimal solution(s) to subsidize? To quote Thomas Sowell roughly: “I can’t think of a worse system than having the the people making the decisions be the same ones who pay no price for being wrong.”

How about entrepreneurs with their own money on the line making those decisions? How about consumers, voting with their own money, deciding which of these entrepreneurs profits? You know, the free market system that has the poorest folks in our society living better than the kings of 300 years ago…
Finally, the US government that Mr. Heinberg thinks can make rational decisions currently subsidizes the insane ethanol boondoggle. Many studies indicate ethanol takes more energy in oil inputs than the energy produced as ethanol. So our government subsidizes this energy sinkhole, sucking up scarce grain supplies, and consequently grain prices are artificially high. This is causing malnutrition of some of the poorest people on the planet. Why not even a peep about the reality of government subsidies distorting the market, and the truly evil results.
The sad part is that all the good that comes from his organization (the Post Carbon Institute) and its’ promotion of creative solutions will be overshadowed by the damage done by giving more intellectual support to government intervention.

So, indeed I am alarmed. If the Congress Critters listen to “experts” like this, who are ignorant of free market economics, we will have more boondoggles like the ethanol subsidies. If Peak Oil is a big a problem as he thinks it is, then we can’t afford government “help” misallocating scarce resources into losing propositions - while over taxation and over-regulation strangles entrepreneurs searching for viable solutions. Yours truly, - OSOM

Odds 'n Sods:

New SurvivalBlog reader Brad H. mentioned the old farmer's standby product: Bag Balm. It is a medicated petroleum jelly that is marketed towards livestock but works wonders for dried skin on humans Brad notes: "Working winters in construction, my hands constantly become cracked. After a few days of using the balm, the crack is healed. I also use it for abrasions and small cuts and shortens the healing time. Most Agway [and other feed] stores carry the product."

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Costa Rica Jones flagged this: Diesel-Powered Mitsubishi Racing Lancer Fulfills Every Post-Apocalypse Fantasy Ever, Has 480 Lb-Ft Of Torque.

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Cheryl N. found this: Imminent Bank Failures- Credit Crisis Worst is Yet to Come. And this: Looming Financial Catastrophe: A Real Inconvenient Truth

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Two readers suggested watching Chris Martenson's video primer on Peak Oil.

Jim's Quote of the Day:

"Self-sufficiency isn't a sexy idea. At best, people who say they're interested in being self-sufficient are stereotyped as dour, old-fashioned rural types. At worst, they're seen as fanatical survivalists planning for an apocalypse. Economists also tell us that self-sufficiency is an anachronism. Instead, it is specialization that produces wealth, and economies - including the world economy - produce the most wealth when everyone, including countries, specializes in what they do best and then trades their products for the other things they need. The more specialization, the more connectivity among specialists, and the more trade along those connections, the better." - Thomas Homer-Dixon and Sarah Wolfe, ia a recent Globe and Mail editorial titled "Everything is Not Peachy"

Monday August 25 2008

Note from JWR:

Today, with permission, we present a guest editorial from Vox Day, the editor of the widely-read Vox Popoli blog.

Stock Market Suckers, by Vox Day

Suckers! Many conservatives are aquiver with excitement that George Delano is daring to brave the third rail of American politics, the much-beloved welfare program set up by his philosophical predecessor, FDR. It is true, of course, that Social Security is nothing but a government-run Ponzi scheme, that there is no trust fund, that as an investment it is a complete rip-off, that it rewards white women at the expense of black men and that it is an outrageous violation of the Constitution of the United States of America.

But this does not mean that the Bush administration's plan to allow a modicum of private investment in the stock market is necessarily a winner or even an expansion of individual freedom in America. A single column is not sufficient to address a subject this complex, so I shall simply focus on one erroneous argument that is often used to support the administration's plan, namely, the notion that stock prices inevitably move up over time.

Superficially, this appears to be a most persuasive argument. If one looks back to 1965, which is when 65-year-olds retiring now were first entering the job market en masse, the Dow was around 900. Last Friday, the Dow closed at 10,800, a 12x gain. There can be little question that no Social Security recipient is getting back $12 for every dollar he put into the system, and yet, we must consider the first of several flaws in this crude analysis, namely, inflation.

Of that $12, almost half was nothing but inflation. One 1965 dollar is worth $5.81 now. That phenomenal gain doesn't looks so great now, given that one could do better than half as well just collecting compound interest, even at the miserable interest rates offered in basic savings accounts. But that's not all – it gets much worse.

One of the many dirty little secrets of Wall Street is that the Dow of 1965 is not the Dow of today. In fact, the Dow of 1995 is not the Dow of today, nor is that of 2003, for that matter. This is due to "rebalancing," which is a reconstitution of the index to get rid of companies that are underperforming or disappearing altogether. It is vital to understand this, because no investments are made in indices and relatively few are made in index-matching funds. Most investments are made in the stocks of individual companies and, due to this "rebalancing," the return on the dogs and the bankrupted dead are not reflected in these historical comparisons. Since 1999, seven corporations representing almost one-quarter of the Dow have been dropped and replaced.

The situation is significantly worse with regard to the NASDAQ-100 (NDX), which flip-flops more often than John Kerry running for office. Last year alone, eight companies were kicked out of the showcase technology index – Cephalon, Compuware, First Health Group, Gentex, Henry Schein, NVIDIA, Patterson-UTI Energy and Ryanair. Some of these corporations had been added only recently, and it is even possible for companies to bounce in and out of the NDX as their stock price alternately soars and sinks. For example, Synopsys and Symantec both rejoined the index in 2001 after being previously dropped.

In the last four years, there have been 44 changes to the 100 companies making up the NDX – 1999 was a banner year for such beauty-enhancing alterations, as the addition of 30 new companies helped drive the index to its all-time high of 4,816.35 on March 24, 2000. Despite the rebound year of 2003, and the aforementioned attempts to pretty up the index, the NDX is still down 68 percent since that 2000 high.

And if you'd been unfortunate enough to invest in some of those 30 corporations added in 1999, you'd have done even worse. You'd likely have nothing at all. Global Crossing (GX) was one of those high-flying newcomers – it was dropped by December of the following year and an attempt to see how it's doing on today an online financial site will reveal the following result: "Symbol(s) do not exist: GX."

Yes, and neither does your retirement fund ...

A legitimate historical analysis of any index must account for all of this rebalancing turnover. Unfortunately, the market masters do not make this easy. The NASDAQ even claims not to keep track of this information – it's much more interested in explaining how it is the stock market for the next 100 years, even if its annual rate of 11 percent turnover means it will have fewer original pieces left to it than Cher in a decade, let alone a century.

The ancient Roman saying caveat emptor is applicable to every proposed transaction, but never more so than with regard to the stock markets, where history is rewritten on an annual basis. The Bush administration's plan features a number of questionable assumptions, but its biggest flaw is that its logic is based on a foundation of historical fiction.

About the Author: Vox Day is a novelist and Christian libertarian. Visit his web log, Vox Popoli, for daily commentary and responses to reader e-mail.

Stabilized Gasoline From Three Years of Abusive Storage Performs Well

Jim -
Last week, I rotated some gasoline that was put into storage ont he 1st of March, 2005. It was in plastic fuel cans with Sta-Bil added, per the directions. They sat in a storage garage subject to midwest summer temps for one year, in an un-cooled basement garage the other years. I poured the fuel into a 1/3 tank of gas in my car. No noticeable difference in starting or running of the engine. Almost 3.5 years - not bad - just wish I could have replaced it for te same cost I originally filled the cans for![It was then around $1.95 per gallon.] I did buy on the recent dip to $3.65 per gallon [when I re-filled the cans.]

On another topic: Last week, the home market in KC dropped an average of 1% in just one week. How much longer before the house of cards collapses? - Beach

Two Letters Re: A Do-It-Yourself Denture Adhesive Formula

Jim:
In answer to the recent query in SurvivalBlog about denture adhesives, Sea-Bond is an all natural wafer with [a very long shelf life--] no expiration. It sells for $5.99 for three boxes of 15 wafers each. It is the only thing I could find that would do. I'd stock up on these for long term use. - TD

Mr. Rawles,
This formula comes from a book that I have in my arsenal of survival books, entitled "Formulas, Methods,Tips and Data for Home and Workshop" by Kenneth M. Swezey (I can't tell you how many times over the years we have used it but I had to buy an extra one just in case.)
He states "Most of the proprietary adhesives consist of just one or two common gums or a combination of them, with the addition of a trace of flavor".

Here is his denture adhesive recipe:
Gum-Tragacanth-Powder 3 ounces (available most craft stores for cake decorating/check the grocer aisle in the cake mixes too)
Powdered Karaya gum 1 ounce (health food/herbal/supplement stores)
Sassafras Oil 35 drops (not available anymore because of health concerns and illicit use. Mrs. Foxtrot suggests peppermint oil, it is what she uses for our Toothpaste recipe)

Shake the two powdered gums in a dry wide mouthed bottle until thoroughly mixed. Add the oil and shake again until the oil has blended with the powders. Sprinkle sparingly on the denture and place in mouth.

Best wishes for Reader Bill T. - Mr. Foxtrot

JWR Replies: I've posted this solely for educational purposes. Consult your dentist! Beware of any formulas from old formulary books that pre-date modern food and drug safety regulations. I do not recommend experimenting with any chemicals that will contact human tissue. I'm only presenting this because the topic was in the context of a worst-case societal collapse. If anyone were ever to use such a formula in an emergency, then they should first test a very small contact area, both to test the adhesive's its strength, and for gum or other tissue irritation. In this instance, it is quite important that if it is a partial denture that you make sure that it would not "over bond" or inadvertently bond to your teeth or other dental work!

Peppermint oil is a great essential oil to keep on hand. It is particularly useful for settling stomach upsets. (Just one drop on your tongue will do.) However, be forewarned that it is highly aromatic, so just few drops would probably suffice for the four-ounce formula that you cited.

As I've mentioned before, old formulary books are worth collecting. One of my favorite formulary reprints is Kurt Saxon's book: "Granddad's Wonderful Book of Chemistry"--primarily a reprint of the classic formulary "Dick's Encyclopedia", circa 1872. Saxon also assembled a dictionary of old fashioned chemical terms and synonyms and included it in the front of his reprint. This is worth its weight in gold. (Having an old formulary is great, but if you don't know that "oil of mirbane" is now called nitro-benzene, then a lot of formulary knowledge verges on useless.) Kurt has some far-out political beliefs which, as a Christian, I find abhorrent. (Kurt Saxon is both an atheist and a eugenicist.) But if you skip past those rantings, all of his books are great references. I've heard that a few of his hard copy books are now out of print, but that they are all still available on CD-ROM.

OBTW, if you search through used book stores, you will occasionally find other old formulary book from the late 1800s. Buy them when you find them. They are treasure troves of useful arcana!

Special notes of caution on home chemistry: Use extreme care whenever working with chemicals--even when doing something as basic as making soap. Always wear full goggles, long sleeves, and gloves. Always work in a well-ventilated area. Wear a respirator mask, when appropriate. Always keep an A-B-C fire extinguisher handy. Keep an emergency eyewash bottle handy. When working with a chemical that could burn your skin, be prepared with a bucket of water (if appropriate) or the appropriate neutralizer. Never use any of your regular kitchen utensils, containers, or measuring instruments when working with chemicals. (Have a dedicated set, and clearly mark them as such!) Never work alone. Study reactivity tables, and always keep them in mind. Whenever working with anything flammable or potentially explosive material, always work with minute quantities for your experiments. Keep in mind that 19th Century safety standards were considerably more relaxed than today's, so old formularies often omit safety warnings. Always remember that exposure to some substances such as lead, mercury, and carbon monoxide are insidious and cumulative. FWIW, I'm not putting forth all these strong warnings simply to cover my assets from a lawsuit. I really sincerely mean them, since I've "been there, done that". As an over-exuberant teenage chemistry hobbiest I caught my hair on fire a time or two.

Odds 'n Sods:

FerFAL (SurvivalBlog's correspondent in Argentina) recently posted some interesting comments on resisting violent crime, in his personal blog

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The WRSA has another "Grid-Down Medical Course" scheduled in Everett, Washington, September 12th to 14th. Their training is inexpensive, and highly recommended.

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Pauly from Canada recommended the National Geographic documentary "Guns, Germs, and Steel" to add some historical perspective to Richard Heinberg's recent article.

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Update: I spoke too soon yesterday when I mentioned that Detroit's Big Three Auto makers are courting Congress for a $25 billion bailout. "Photo Tom" sent this: GM, Ford Seek $50 Billion From U.S., Double Request

Jim's Quote of the Day:

"We are not only headed for a Depression, but a violent Depression that will be far worse than [the one that started in] 1929. Some experts believe the United States will fall into the chaos, bedlam and anarchy that tore apart Yugoslavia. I am not going that far, but I know our morals and ethics are not the same as they were in 1929. Moreover, we are a far more violent society and totally dependent upon a well oiled system for delivery of food and basic services." - Mike Morgan

Sunday August 24 2008

Note from JWR:

Today we present the conclusion of a lengthy and scholarly guest article from Richard Heinberg, the author of eight books, and a Research Fellow of PostCarbon.org. (Part 1 was posted on August 23, 2008.)

What Will We Eat as the Oil Runs Out? (Pt. 2) , by Richard Heinberg

Impact of Biofuels

One factor influencing food prices arises from the increasing incentives for farmers worldwide to grow biofuel crops rather than food crops. Ethanol and biodiesel can be produced from a variety of crops including maize, soy, rapeseed, sunflower, cassava, sugar cane, palm, and jatropha. As the price of oil rises, many farmers are finding that they can produce more income from their efforts by growing these crops and selling them to a biofuels plant, than by growing food crops either for their local community or for export.

Already nearly 20 percent of the US maize crop is devoted to making ethanol, and that proportion is expected to rise to one quarter, based solely on existing projects-in-development and government mandates. Last year US farmers grew 14 million tons of maize for vehicles. This took millions of hectares of land out of food production and nearly doubled the price of corn. Both Congress and the White House favor expanding ethanol production even further - to replace 20 percent of gasoline demand by 2017 - in an effort to promote energy security by reducing reliance on oil imports. Other nations including Britain are mandating increased biofuel production or imports as a way of reducing carbon emissions, though most analyses show that the actual net reduction in CO2 will be minor or nonexistent.¹⁴

The US is responsible for 70 percent of world maize exports, and countries such as Mexico, Japan, and Egypt that depend on American corn farmers use maize both as food for people and feed for animals. The ballooning of the US ethanol industry is therefore impacting food availability in other nations both directly and indirectly, raising the price for tortillas in Mexico and disrupting the livestock and poultry industries in Europe and Africa.

Grain, a Barcelona-based food-resources NGO, reports that the Indian government is committed to planting 14 million hectares with jatropha for biodiesel production. Meanwhile, Brazil plans to grow 120 million hectares of fuel crops, and Africa up to 400 million hectares. While currently unproductive land will be used for much of this new production, many millions of people will be forced off that land in the process.¹⁵

Lester Brown, founder of the Washington-based Earth Policy Institute, has said: "The competition for grain between the world's 800 million motorists, who want to maintain their mobility, and its two billion poorest people, who are simply trying to survive, is emerging as an epic issue."¹⁶ This is an opinion no longer being voiced just by environmentalists. In its twice-yearly report on the world economy, released October 17, the International Monetary Fund noted that, "The use of food as a source of fuel may have serious implications for the demand for food if the expansion of biofuels continues."¹⁷ And earlier this month, Oxfam warned the EU that its policy of substituting ten percent of all auto fuel with biofuels threatened to displace poor farmers. Jean Ziegler, a UN special reporter went so far as to call the biofuel trade "a crime against humanity," and echoed journalist George Monbiot's call for a five-year moratorium on government mandates and incentives for biofuel expansion.¹⁸

The British government has pledged that "only the most sustainable biofuels" will be used in the UK, but, as Monbiot has recently noted, there are no explicit standards to define "sustainable" biofuels, and there are no means to enforce those standards in any case.¹⁹

Impact of Climate Change and Environmental Degradation

Beyond the push for biofuels, the food crisis is also being driven by extreme weather events and environmental degradation.

The phrase "global warming" implies only the fact that the world's average temperature increase by a degree or more over the next few decades. The much greater problem for farmers is destabilization of weather patterns. We face not just a warmer climate, but climate chaos: droughts, floods, and stronger storms in general (hurricanes, cyclones, tornadoes, hail storms) - in short, unpredictable weather of all kinds. Farmers depend on relatively consistent seasonal patterns of rain and sun, cold and heat; a climate shift can spell the end of farmers' ability to grow a crop in a given region, and even a single freak storm can destroy an entire year's national production for some crops. Given the fact that modern agriculture has become highly centralized due to cheap transport and economies of scale, the damage from that freak storm is today potentially continental or even global in scale. We have embarked on a century in which, increasingly, freakish weather is normal.

According to the UN's World Food Program (WFP), 57 countries, including 29 in Africa, 19 in Asia and nine in Latin America, have been hit by catastrophic floods. Harvests have been affected by drought and heatwaves in south Asia, Europe, China, Sudan, Mozambique and Uruguay.²⁰

Last week the Australian government said drought had slashed predictions of winter harvests by nearly 40 percent, or four million tons. "It is likely to be even smaller than the disastrous drought-ravaged 2006-07 harvest and the worst in more than a decade," said the Bureau of Agriculture and Resource.²¹

In addition to climate chaos, we must contend with the depletion or degradation of several resources essential to agriculture.

Phosphorus is set to become much more scarce and expensive, according to a study by Patrick Déry, a Canadian agriculture and environment analyst and consultant. Using data from the US Geological Survey, Déry performed a peaking analysis on phosphate rock, similar to the techniques used by petroleum geologists to forecast declines in production from oilfields. He found that "we have already passed the phosphate peak [of production] for United States (1988) and for the World (1989)." We will not completely run out of rock phosphate any time soon, but we will be relying on lower-grade ores as time goes on, with prices inexorably rising.²²

At the same time, soil erosion undermines food production and water availability, as well as producing 30 percent of climate-changing greenhouse gases. Each year, roughly 100,000 square kilometres of land loses its vegetation and becomes degraded or turns into desert, altering the temperature and energy balance of the planet.²³

Finally, yet another worrisome environmental trend is the increasing scarcity of fresh water. According to United Nations estimates, one third of the world's population lives in areas with water shortages and 1.1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water. That situation is expected to worsen dramatically over the next few decades. Climate change has provoked more frequent and intense droughts in sub-tropical areas of Asia and Africa, exacerbating shortages in some of the world's poorest countries.

While human population tripled in the 20th century, the use of renewable water resources has grown six-fold. According to Bridget Scanlon and colleagues, writing in Water Resources Research this past March 27, in the last 100 years irrigated agriculture expanded globally by 480 percent, and it is projected to increase another 20 percent by 2030 in developing countries. Irrigation is expanding fastest in countries such as China and India. Global irrigated agriculture now accounts for almost 90 percent of global freshwater consumption, despite representing only 18 percent of global cropland. In addition to drawing down aquifers and surface water sources, it also degrades water quality, as salts in soils are mobilized, and as fertilizers and pesticides leach into aquifers and streams.²⁴

These problems all interact and compound one another. For example, soil degradation produces growing shortages of water, since soil and vegetation act as a sponge that holds and gradually releases water. Soil degradation also worsens climate change as increased evaporation triggers more extreme weather.

This month the UN Environment Program concluded that the planet's water, land, air, plants, animals and fish stocks are all in "inexorable decline." Much of this decline is due to agriculture, which constitutes the greatest single source of human impact on the biosphere.²⁵

In the face of all these daunting challenges, the world must produce more food every year to keep up with population growth. Zafar Adeel, director of the International Network on Water, Environment and Health (INWEH), has calculated that more food will have to be produced during the next 50 years than during the last 10,000 years combined.²⁶

What Is the Solution?

International food agency officials spin out various scenarios to describe how our currently precarious global food system might successfully adapt and expand. Perhaps markets will automatically readjust to shortages, higher prices making it more profitable once again to grow crops for people rather than cars. New designer-gene crop varieties could help crops adapt to capricious climactic conditions, to require less water, or to grow in more marginal soils. And if people were to simply eat less meat, more land could be freed up to grow food for humans rather than farm animals. A slowdown or reversal in population growth would naturally ease pressures on the food system, while the cultivation of currently unproductive land could help increase supplies.

However, given the scale of the crisis facing us, merely to assume that these things will happen, or that they will be sufficient to overcome the dilemmas we have been discussing, seems overly optimistic, perhaps even to the point of irresponsibility.

One hopeful sign is that governments and international agencies are beginning to take the situation seriously. This month the World Bank issued a major report, "Agriculture for Development," whose main author, economist Alain de Janvry, appears to reverse his institution's traditional stance. For a half-century, development agencies such as the World Bank have minimized the importance of agriculture, urging nations to industrialize and urbanize as rapidly as possible. Indeed, the Bank has not featured agriculture in an annual report since 1982. De Janvry says that, since half the world's population and three-quarters of the world's poor live in rural areas where food production is the mainstay of the economy, farming must be central to efforts to reduce hunger and poverty.²⁷

Many agencies, including the INWEH, are now calling for an end to the estimated 30 billion dollars in food subsidies in the North that contribute directly to land degradation in Africa and elsewhere, and that force poor farmers to intensify their production in order to compete.²⁸

In addition, there are calls for sweeping changes in how land use decisions are made at all levels of government. Because soil, water, energy, climate, biodiversity, and food production are interconnected, integrated policy-making is essential. Yet policies currently are set by various different governmental departments and agencies that often have little understanding of one another's sectors.

Delegates at a soils forum in Iceland this month took up a proposal for a formal agreement on protecting the world's soils. And the World Water Council is promoting a range of programs to ensure the availability of clean water especially to people in poorer countries.²⁹

All these efforts are laudable; however, they largely fail to address the common sources of the dilemmas we face - human population growth, and society's and agriculture's reliance on fossil fuels.

The solution most often promoted by the biggest companies within the agriculture industry - the bioengineering of crops and farm animals - does little or nothing to address these deeper causes. One can fantasize about modifying maize or rice to fix nitrogen in the way that legumes do, but so far efforts in that direction have failed. Meanwhile, and the bio-engineering industry itself consumes fossil fuels, and assumes the continued availability of oil for tractors, transportation, chemicals production, and so on.³⁰

To get to the heart of the crisis, we need a more fundamental reform of agriculture than anything we have seen in many decades. In essence, we need an agriculture that does not require fossil fuels.

The idea is not new. The aim of substantially or entirely removing fossil fuels from agriculture is implicit in organic farming in all its various forms and permutations - including ecological agriculture, Biodynamics, Permaculture, Biointensive farming, and Natural Farming. All also have in common a prescription for the reduction or elimination of tillage, and the reduction or elimination of reliance on mechanized farm equipment. Nearly all of these systems rely on increased amounts of human labor, and on greater application of place-specific knowledge of soils, microorganisms, weather, water, and interactions between plants, animals, and humans.

Critics of organic or biological agriculture have always contended that chemical-free and less-mechanized forms of food production are incapable of feeding the burgeoning human population. This view is increasingly being challenged.

A recent survey of studies, by Christos Vasilikiotis, Ph.D., U.C. Berkeley, titled "Can Organic Farming Feed the World?", concluded: "From the studies mentioned above and from an increasing body of case studies, it is becoming evident that organic farming does not result in either catastrophic crop losses due to pests nor in dramatically reduced yields..."³¹

The most recent publication on the subject, by Perfecto et al., in Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, found that "Organic farming can yield up to three times as much food on individual farms in developing countries, as [conventional] methods on the same land..."³²

Moreover, is clear that ecological agriculture could help directly to address the dilemmas we have been discussing.

Regarding water, organic production can help by building soil structure, thus reducing the need for irrigation. And with no petrochemical runoff, water quality is not degraded.³³

Soil erosion and land degradation can be halted and even reversed: by careful composting, organic farmers have demonstrated the ability to build humus at many times the natural rate.³⁴

Climate change can be addressed, by keeping carbon molecules in the soil and in forests and grasslands. Indeed, as much as 20 percent of anticipated net fossil fuel emissions between now and 2050 could be stored in this way, according to Maryam Niamir-Fuller of the U.N. Development Program.³⁵

Natural gas depletion will mean higher prices and shortages for ammonia-based nitrogen fertilizers. But ecologically sound organic-biological agricultural practices use plant and manure-based fertilizers rather than fossil fuels. And when farmers concentrate on building healthy topsoil rich in beneficial microbes, plants have reduced needs for nitrogen.³⁶

The impending global shortage of phosphate will be more difficult to address, as there is no substitute for this substance. The only solution here will be to recycle nutrients by returning all animal and humans manures to cultivated soil, as Asian farmers did for many centuries, and as many ecological farmers have long advocated.³⁷

What Will Be Needed

How might we actually accomplish this comprehensive transformation or world agriculture? Some clues are offered by the example of a society that has already experienced and dealt with a fossil-fuel famine.

In the late 1980s, farmers in Cuba were highly reliant on cheap fuels and petrochemicals imported from the Soviet Union, using more agrochemicals per acre than their US counterparts. In 1990, as the Soviet empire collapsed, Cuba lost those imports and faced an agricultural crisis. The average Cuban lost 20 pounds of body weight and malnutrition was nearly universal. The Cuban GDP fell dramatically and inhabitants of the island nation experienced a substantial decline in their material standard of living.³⁸

Several agronomists at Cuban universities had for many years been advocating a transition to organic methods. Cuban authorities responded to the crisis by giving these ecological agronomists carte blanche to redesign the nation's food system. Officials broke up large state-owned farms, offered land to farming families, and encouraged the formation of small agricultural co-ops. Cuban farmers began employing oxen as a replacement for the tractors they could no longer afford to fuel. Cuban scientists began investigating biological methods of pest control and soil fertility enhancement. The government sponsored widespread education in organic food production, and the Cuban people adopted a mostly vegetarian diet out of necessity. Salaries for agricultural workers were raised, in many cases to above the levels of urban office workers. Urban gardens were encouraged in parking lots and on public lands, and thousands of rooftop gardens appeared. Small food animals such as chickens and rabbits began to be raised on rooftops as well.

As a result of these efforts, Cuba was able to avoid what might otherwise have been a severe famine.

If the rest of the world does not plan for a reduction in fossil fuel use in agriculture, its post-peak-oil agricultural transition may be far less successful than was Cuba's. Already in poor countries, farmers who are attempting to apply industrial methods but cannot afford tractor fuel and petrochemical inputs are watching their crops fail. Soon farmers in wealthier nations will be having a similar experience.

Where food is still being produced, there will be the challenge of getting it to the stores. Britain had a taste of this problem in 2000; David Strahan relates in his brilliant book The Last Oil Shock how close Britain came to political chaos then as truckers went on strike because of high fuel costs. He writes: "Supermarket shelves were being stripped of staple foods in scenes of panic buying. Sainsbury, Asda, and Safeway reported that some branches were having to ration bread and milk."³⁹ This was, of course, merely a brief interruption in the normal functioning of the British energy-food system. In the future we may be facing instead what my colleague James Howard Kunstler calls "the long emergency."⁴⁰

How will Britain and the rest of the world cope? What will be needed to ensure a successful transition away from an oil-based food system, as opposed to a haphazard and perhaps catastrophic one?

Because ecological organic farming methods are often dramatically more labor- and knowledge-intensive than industrial agriculture, their adoption will require an economic transformation of societies. The transition to a non-fossil-fuel food system will take time. Nearly every aspect of the process by which we feed ourselves must be redesigned. And, given the likelihood that global oil peak will occur soon, this transition must occur at a forced pace, backed by the full resources of national governments.

Without cheap transportation fuels we will have to reduce the amount of food transportation that occurs, and make necessary transportation more efficient. This implies increased local food self-sufficiency. It also implies problems for large cities that have been built in arid regions capable of supporting only small populations from their regional resource base. In some cases, relocation of people on a large scale may be necessary.

We will need to grow more food in and around cities. Recently, Oakland California adopted a food policy that mandates by 2015 the growing within a fifty-mile radius of city center of 40 percent of the vegetables consumed in the city.⁴¹

Localization of food systems means moving producers and consumers of food closer together, but it also means relying on the local manufacture and regeneration of all of the elements of the production process - from seeds to tools and machinery. This again would appear to rule out agricultural bioengineering, which favors the centralized production of patented seed varieties, and discourages the free saving of seeds from year to year by farmers.

Clearly, we must also minimize indirect chemical inputs to agriculture - such as those introduced in packaging and processing.

We will need to re-introduce draft animals in agricultural production. Oxen may be preferable to horses in many instances, because the former can eat straw and stubble, while the latter would compete with humans for grains. We can only bring back working animals to the extent that we can free up land with which to produce food for them. One way to do that would be to reduce the number of farm animals grown for meat.

Governments must also provide incentives for people to return to an agricultural life. It would be a mistake to think of this simply in terms of the need for a larger agricultural work force. Successful traditional agriculture requires social networks and intergenerational sharing of skills and knowledge. We need not just more agricultural workers, but a rural culture that makes farming a rewarding way of life capable of attracting young people.

Farming requires knowledge and experience, and so we will need education for a new generation of farmers; but only some of this education can be generic - much of it must of necessity be locally appropriate.

It will be necessary as well to break up the corporate mega-farms that produce so much of today's cheap food. Industrial agriculture implies an economy of scale that will be utterly inappropriate and unworkable for post-industrial food systems. Thus land reform will be required in order to enable smallholders and farming co-ops to work their own plots.

In order for all of this to happen, governments must end subsidies to industrial agriculture and begin subsidizing post-industrial agricultural efforts. There are many ways this could be done. The present regime of subsidies is so harmful that merely stopping it in its tracks might be advantageous; but, given the fact that rapid adaptation is essential, offering subsidies for education, no-interest loans for land purchase, and technical support during the transition from chemical to organic production would be essential.

Finally, given carrying-capacity limits, food policy must include population policy. We must encourage smaller families by means of economic incentives and improve the economic and educational status of women in poorer countries.

All of this constitutes a gargantuan task, but the alternatives - doing nothing or attempting to solve our food-production problems simply by applying mere techno-fixes - will almost certainly lead to dire consequences. All of the worrisome trends mentioned earlier would intensify to the point that the human carrying capacity of Earth would be degraded significantly, and perhaps to a large degree permanently.⁴²

So far we have addressed the responsibility of government in facilitating the needed transformation in agriculture. Consumers can help enormously by becoming more conscious of their food choices, seeking out locally produced organic foods and reducing meat consumption.

The organic movement, while it may view the crisis in industrial agriculture as an opportunity, also bears an enormous responsibility. In the example of Cuba just cited, the active lobbying of organic agronomists proved crucial. Without that guiding effort on the part of previously marginalized experts, the authorities would have had no way to respond. Now crisis is at hand for the world as a whole. The organic movement has most of the answers that will be needed; however, its message still isn't getting through. Three things will be necessary to change that.

The various strands of the organic movement must come together so that they can speak to national and international policy makers with a unified voice.
The leaders of this newly unified organic movement must produce a coherent plan for a global transition to a post-fossil-fuel food system. Organic farmers and their organizations have been promoting some of the needed policies for decades in a piecemeal fashion. Now, however, there is an acute need for a clearly formulated, comprehensive, alternative national and global food policy, and there is little time to communicate and implement it. It is up to the organic movement to proactively seek out policy makers and promote this coherent alternative, just as it is up to representatives of government at all levels to listen.
I have just called for unity in the organic movement, and to achieve this it will be necessary to address a recent split within the movement. What might be called traditional organic remains focused on small-scale, labor-intensive, local production for local consumption. In contrast to this, the more recently emerging corporate organic model merely removes petrochemicals from production, while maintaining nearly all the other characteristics of the modern industrial food system. This trend may be entirely understandable in terms of the economic pressures and incentives within the food industry as a whole. However, corporate organic has much less to offer in terms of solutions to the emerging crisis. Thus as the various strands of the organic movement come together, they should do so in light of the larger societal necessity. The discussion must move beyond merely gaining market share; it must focus on averting famine under crisis conditions.

Richard Heinberg: Conclusion and Footnotes

To conclude, let me simply restate what is I hope clear by now: Given the fact that fossil fuels are limited in quantity and that we are already in view of the global oil production peak, we must turn to a food system that is less fuel-reliant, even if the process is problematic in many ways. Of course, the process will take time; it is a journey that will take place over decades. Nevertheless, it must begin soon, and it must begin with a comprehensive plan. The transition to a fossil-fuel-free food system does not constitute a distant utopian proposal. It is an unavoidable, immediate, and immense challenge that will call for unprecedented levels of creativity at all levels of society. A hundred years from now, everyone will be eating what we today would define as organic food, whether or not we act. But what we do now will determine how many will be eating, what state of health will be enjoyed by those future generations, and whether they will live in a ruined cinder of a world, or one that is in the process of being renewed and replenished.

About the Author

Richard Heinberg is one of the world's foremost Peak Oil (oil depletion) educators and is a Research Fellow of Post Carbon Institute. He is the author of eight books including The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies (New Society, 2003, 2005), Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World (New Society, 2004), and The Oil Depletion Protocol (New Society, 2006).

Heinberg is a journalist, educator, editor, lecturer, a Core Faculty member of New College of California where he teaches a program on “Culture, Ecology and Sustainable Community,” and a Research Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute. He is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost Peak Oil educators. His monthly MuseLetter has been included in Utne Magazine’s annual list of Best Alternative Newsletters. Since 2002, he has given over three hundred lectures on oil depletion (“Peak Oil”) to a wide variety of audiences—from insurance executives to peace activists, from local and national elected officials to Jesuit volunteers. Richard is married to horticulturist/herbalist/massage therapist Janet Barocco; they live in a suburban house retrofitted for energy efficiency and food production.

Footnotes:

1. See Fernand Braudel, The Structures of Everyday Life (New York: Harper & Row, 1982)
2. See Vaclav Smil, Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and the Transformation of World Food Production (Boston: WIT Press, 2004)
3. David Pimentel, "Constraints on the Expansion of Global Food Supply," Kindell, Henry H. and Pimentel, David. Ambio Vol. 23 No. 3, May 1994. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. http://www.dieoff.com/page36htm
4. See also Roger D. Blanchard, The Future of Global Oil Production: Facts, Figures, Trend and Projections (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2005)
5. Longwell, "The future of the oil and gas industry: past approaches, new challenges," World Energy Vol. 5 #3, 2002 http://www.worldenergysource.com/articles/pdf/longwell_WE_v5n3.pdf
6. Energy Watch Group, "Crude Oil - The Supply Outlook," http://www.energywatchgroup.de/fileadmin/global/pdf/EWG_Oilreport_10-2007.pdf
7. "Oil Supplies Face More Pressure," BBC online, July 9 2007 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6283992.stm
8. Energy Watch Group, "Coal: Resources and Future Production" (April, 2007). http://www.energywatchgroup.org/files/Coalreport.pdf
9. John Vidal, "Global Food Crisis Looms as Climate Change and Fuel Shortages Bite," The Guardian, Nov. 3, 2007 http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/03/food.climatechange
10. Jacques Diouf quoted in John Vidal, op. cit.
11.http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/03/food.climatechange
12. http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/ah876e/ah876e00.htm
13. Peter Apps, "Cost of Food Aid Soars As Global Need Rises, Reuters, October 16 http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN648660.html
14. See Jack Santa Barbara, The False Promise of Biofuels (San Francisco: International Forum on Globalization, 2007)
15. Vidal, op. cit.
16. Lester Brown quoted in Vidal, op. cit.
17. "IMF Concerned by Impact of Biofuels of Food Prices," Industry Week online, October 18, 2007, http://www.industryweek.com/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=15197
18. Ziegler, quoted by George Monbiot http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/11/06/an-agricultural-crime-against-humanity/
19. Monbiot, op. cit.
20. Vidal, op. cit.
21. Vidal, op. cit.
22. Patrick Déry and Bart Anderson, "Peak Phosphorus," http://energybulletin.net/33164.html
23. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39083
24. "Agriculture Consuming World's Water," Geotimes online, June 2007 http://www.geotimes.org/june07/article.html?id=nn_agriculture.html
25. "Unsustainable Development 'Puts Humanity at Risk'," New Scientist online, October 17 2007, http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12834
26. "Between Hungry People and Climate Change, Soils Need Help," Environmental New Service, August 31, 2007, http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2007/2007-08-31-03.asp
27. Celia W. Dugger, "World Bank Puts Agriculture at Center of Anti-Poverty Effort," New York Times, October 20, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com...
28. Stephen Leahy, "Dirt Isn't So Cheap After All," http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39083
29. Ibid.; http://www.worldwatercouncil.org
30. See, for example, William M. Muir, "Potential environmental risks and hazards of biotechnology," http://www.biotech-info.net/potential_risks.html
31. http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/~christos/articles/cv_organic_farming.html
32. (vol 22, p 86) University of Michigan, July 10, 2007
33. "Organic Agriculture," FAO report, 1999, http://www.fao.org/unfao/bodies/COAG/COAG15/X0075E.htm
34. Ibid.
35. "Between Hungry People and Climate Change, Soils Need Help," Environmental New Service, August 31, 2007, http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2007/2007-08-31-03.asp
36. FAO, op. cit.
37. F.H. King, Farmers of Forty Centuries: Organic Farming in China, Korea and Japan, (New York: Dover Publications, 1911, ed. 2004)
38. The story of how Cuba responded to its oil famine is described in the film, "The Power of Community," http://www.powerofcommunity.org
39. David Strahan, The Last Oil Shock (London: John Murray, 2007), p. 15
40. James Howard Kunstler, The Long Emergency (Nerw York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005)
41. Matthew Green, "Oakland Looks toward Greener Pastures," Edible East Bay, Spring 2007, http://www.edibleeastbay.com/pages/articles/spring2007/pdfs/oakland.pdf
42. Peter Goodchild, "Agriculture In A Post-Oil Economy," 22 September, 2007

Odds 'n Sods:

The latest news is that Detroit's Big Three Auto makers are courting Congress for a $25 billion dollar bailout. This will make the $1.2 billion in loan guarantees to Chrysler in 1979/1980 seem small, by comparison. Just as I had warned, the Mother Of All Bailouts (MOAB) continues to expand in both size and scope. It seems that Congress knows no bounds when it comes to plunging their hands into our wallets.

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Cheryl N. flagged this: US Still Naked to EMP Threat

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Cheryl also sent us this raft of economic articles and commentaries:
Another Friday, Another Bank Closing (#9-Columbian B&T of Kansas), Sterling Tumbles as UK Economy Grinds to a Halt, Goldman Sachs Research Says Half the World Economies Are In Recession or on the Brink, The Silver's So Cheap It's Practically Free, The Final Fate of Fannie and Freddie, and The Gold Rush Is Still On.

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Farmer's Almanac Says Cold Winter Ahead

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Tamiflu Resistance at 100% in Australia and South Africa (for the H1N1 virus)

Jim's Quote of the Day:

"The US economy is crumbling because the way we conduct the activities of daily life is insane relative to our circumstances. We've spent sixty years ramping up a suburban living arrangement that has suddenly entered a state of failure, and all its accessories and furnishings are failing in concert. The far-flung McHouse tracts are becoming both useless and worthless in the face of gasoline prices that will never be cheap again. The strip malls and office "parks" are following the residential real estate off a cliff. The retail tenants of all those places are hemorrhaging customers who have maxed out every last credit card. The lack of business is now leading to substantial layoffs. The airline industry is dying and will probably cease to exist in its familiar form in 24 months. The trucking industry is dying, threatening the entire just-in-time distribution system of things that even people with little money to spend still need, like food.
These conditions will now get a lot worse, no matter whether the banks continue to conceal their problems. All of it leads to an inflection point that coincides with the November election. By then, I expect that quite a few banks will be toast, job layoffs will rise spectacularly, foreclosures and bankruptcies will be raging across the land, and homeowners north of the magnolia belt will be shattered by the cost of staying warm this winter." - James Howard Kunstler

Saturday August 23 2008

Note from JWR:

Today we present part one of a lengthy and scholarly guest article from Richard Heinberg, the author of eight books, and a Research Fellow of PostCarbon.org. Part two will be posted tomorrow.

What Will We Eat as the Oil Runs Out? (Pt. 1), by Richard Heinberg

The first dilemma consists of the direct impacts on agriculture of higher oil prices: increased costs for tractor fuel, agricultural chemicals, and the transport of farm inputs and outputs.

The second is an indirect consequence of high oil prices - the increased demand for biofuels, which is resulting in farmland being turned from food production to fuel production, thus making food more costly.

The third dilemma consists of the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events caused by fuel-based greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change is the greatest environmental crisis of our time; however, fossil fuel depletion complicates the situation enormously, and if we fail to address either problem properly the consequences will be dire.

Finally comes the degradation or loss of basic natural resources (principally, topsoil and fresh water supplies) as a result of high rates, and unsustainable methods, of production stimulated by decades of cheap energy.

Each of these problems is developing at a somewhat different pace regionally, and each is exacerbated by the continually expanding size of the human population. As these dilemmas collide, the resulting overall food crisis is likely to be profound and unprecedented in scope.

I propose to discuss each of these dilemmas briefly and to show how all are intertwined with our societal reliance on oil and other fossil fuels. I will then argue that the primary solution to the overall crisis of the world food system must be a planned rapid reduction in the use of fossil fuels in the growing and delivery of food. As we will see, this strategy, though ultimately unavoidable, will bring enormous problems of its own unless it is applied with forethought and intelligence. But the organic movement is uniquely positioned to guide this inevitable transition of the world's food systems away from reliance on fossil fuels, if leaders and practitioners of the various strands of organic agriculture are willing to work together and with policy makers.

Structural Dependency

Until now, fossil fuels have been widely perceived as an enormous boon to humanity, and certainly to the human food system. After all, there was a time not so long ago when famine was an expected, if not accepted, part of life even in wealthy countries. Until the 19th century - whether in China, France, India or Britain - food came almost entirely from local sources and harvests were variable. In good years, there was plenty - enough for seasonal feasts and for storage in anticipation of winter and hard times to come; in bad years, starvation cut down the poor, the very young, the old, and the sickly. Sometimes bad years followed one upon another, reducing the size of the population by several percent. This was the normal condition of life in pre-industrial societies, and it persisted for thousands of years.¹

By the nineteenth century a profound shift in this ancient regime was under way. For Europeans, the export of surplus population to other continents, crop rotation, and the application of manures and composts were all gradually making famines less frequent and severe. European farmers, realizing the need for a new nitrogen source in order to continue feeding burgeoning and increasingly urbanized populations, began employing guano imported from islands off the coasts of Chile and Peru. The results were gratifying. However, after only a few decades, these guano deposits were being depleted. By this time, in the late 1890s, the world's population was nearly twice what it had been at the beginning of the century. A crisis was in view.

But crisis was narrowly averted through the use of fossil fuels. In 1909, two German chemists named Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch invented a process to synthesize ammonia from atmospheric nitrogen and the hydrogen in fossil fuels. The process initially used coal as a feedstock, though later it was adapted to use natural gas. After the end of the Great War, nation after nation began building Haber-Bosch plants; today the process yields 150 million tons of ammonia-based fertilizer per year, producing a total quantity of available nitrogen equal to the amount introduced annually by all natural sources combined.²

Fossil fuels went on to offer other ways of extending natural limits to the human carrying capacity of the planet.

In the 1890s, roughly one quarter of British and American cropland had been set aside to grow grain to feed horses, of which most worked on farms. The internal combustion engine provided a new kind of horsepower not dependent on horses at all, and thereby increased the amount of arable land available to feed humans. Early steam-driven tractors had come into limited use in 19th century; but, after World War I, the effectiveness of powered farm machinery expanded dramatically, and the scale of use exploded throughout the twentieth century, especially in North America, Europe, and Australia.

Chemists developed synthetic pesticides and herbicides in increasing varieties after World War II, using knowledge pioneered in laboratories that had worked to perfect explosives and other chemical warfare agents. Petrochemical-based pesticides not only increased crop yields in North America, Europe, and Australia, but also reduced the prevalence of insect-borne diseases like malaria. The world began to enjoy the benefits of "better living through chemistry," though the environmental costs, in terms of water and soil pollution and damage to vulnerable species, would only later become widely apparent.

In the 1960s, industrial-chemical agricultural practices began to be exported to what by that time was being called the Third World: this was glowingly dubbed the Green Revolution, and it enabled a tripling of food production during the ensuing half-century.

At the same time, the scale and speed of distribution of food increased. This also constituted a means of increasing human carrying capacity, though in a more subtle way. The trading of food goes back to Paleolithic times; but, with advances in transport, the quantities and distances involved gradually increased. Here again, fossil fuels were responsible for a dramatic discontinuity in the previously slow pace of growth. First by rail and steamship, then by truck and airplane, immense amounts of grain and ever-larger quantities of meat, vegetables, and specialty foods began to flow from countryside to city, from region to region, and from continent to continent.

The end result of chemical fertilizers, plus powered farm machinery, plus increased scope of transportation and trade, was not just an enormous leap in crop yields, but a similar explosion of human population, which has grown over six-fold since dawn of industrial revolution.

However, in the process, conventional industrial agriculture has become overwhelmingly dependent on fossil fuels. According to one study, approximately ten calories of fossil fuel energy are needed to produce each calorie of food energy in modern industrial agriculture.³ With globalized trade in food, many regions host human populations larger than local resources alone could possibly support. Those systems of global distribution and trade also rely on oil.

Today, in the industrialized world, the frequency of famine that our ancestors knew and expected is hard to imagine. Food is so cheap and plentiful that obesity is a far more widespread concern than hunger. The average mega-supermarket stocks an impressive array of exotic foods from across the globe, and even staples are typically trucked or shipped from hundreds of miles away. All of this would be well and good if it were sustainable, but the fact that nearly all of this recent abundance depends on depleting, non-renewable fossil fuels whose burning emits climate-altering carbon dioxide gas means that the current situation is not sustainable. This means that it must and will come to an end.

The Worsening Oil Supply Picture

During the past decade a growing chorus of energy analysts has warned of the approach of "Peak Oil," the time when the global rate of extraction of petroleum will reach a maximum and begin its inevitable decline.

During this same decade, the price of oil has advanced from about US$12 per barrel to nearly $100 per barrel.

While there is some dispute among experts as to when the peak will occur, there is none as to whether. The global peak is merely the cumulative result of production peaks in individual oilfields and whole oil-producing nations, and these mini-peaks are occurring at an increasing rate.

The most famous and instructive national peak occurred in the US in 1970: at that time America produced 9.5 million barrels of oil per day; the current figure is less than 5.2 Mb/d. While at one time the US was the world's foremost oil exporting nation, it is today the world's foremost importer.

The history of US oil production also helps us evaluate the prospects for delaying the global peak. After 1970, exploration efforts succeeded in identifying two enormous new American oil provinces - the North Slope of Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. During this period, other kinds of liquid fuels (such as ethanol and gas condensates) began to supplement crude. Also, improvements in oil recovery technology helped to increase the proportion of the oil in existing fields able to be extracted. These are precisely the strategies (exploration, substitution, and technological improvements) that the oil producers are relying on to delay the global production peak. In the US, each of these strategies made a difference - but not enough to reverse, for more than a year or two at a time, the overall 37-year trend of declining production. To assume that the results for the world as a whole will be much different is probably unwise.

The recent peak and decline in production of oil from the North Sea is of perhaps of more direct relevance to this audience. In just seven years, production from the British-controlled region has declined by almost half.

How near is the global peak? Today the majority of oil-producing nations are seeing reduced output: in 2006, BP's Statistical Review of World Energy reported declines in 27 of the 51 producing nations listed. In some instances, these declines will be temporary and are occurring because of lack of investment in production technology or domestic political problems. But in most instances the decline results from factors of geology: while older oil fields continue to yield crude, beyond a certain point it becomes impossible to maintain existing flow rates by any available means. As a result, over time there are fewer nations in the category of oil exporters and more nations in the category of oil importers.⁴

Meanwhile global rates of discovery of new oilfields have been declining since 1964.⁵

These two trends (a growing preponderance of past-peak producing nations, and a declining success rate for exploration) by themselves suggest that the world peak may be near.

Clearly the timing of the global peak is crucial. If it happens soon, or if in fact it already has occurred, the consequences will be devastating. Oil has become the world's foremost energy resource. There is no ready substitute, and decades will be required to wean societies from it. Peak Oil could therefore constitute the greatest economic challenge since the dawn of the industrial revolution.

An authoritative new study by the Energy Watch Group of Germany concludes that global crude production hit its maximum level in 2006 and has already begun its gradual decline.⁶ Indeed, the past two years have seen sustained high prices for oil, a situation that should provide a powerful incentive to increase production wherever possible. Yet actual aggregate global production of conventional petroleum has stagnated during this time; the record monthly total for crude was achieved in May 2005, 30 months ago.

The latest medium-term report of the IEA, issued July 9, projects that world oil demand will rise by about 2.2 percent per year until 2012 while production will lag, leading to what the report's authors call a "supply crunch."⁷

Many put their hopes in coal and other low-grade fossil fuels to substitute for depleting oil. However, global coal production will hit its own peak perhaps as soon as 2025 according to the most recent studies, while so-called "clean coal" technologies are three decades away from widespread commercial application.⁸ Thus to avert a climate catastrophe from coal-based carbon emissions, our best hope is simply to keep most of the remaining coal in the ground.

The Price of Sustenance

During these past two years, as oil prices have soared, food prices have done so as well. Farmers now face steeply increasing costs for tractor fuel, agricultural chemicals, and the transport of farm inputs and outputs. However, the linkage between fuel and food prices is more complicated than this, and there are other factors entirely separate from petroleum costs that have impacted food prices. I will attempt to sort these various linkages and influences out in a moment.

First, however, it is worth taking a moment to survey the food price situation.

An article by John Vidal published in the Guardian on November 3, titled "Global Food Crisis Looms As Climate Change and Fuel Shortages Bite," began this way:

Empty shelves in Caracas. Food riots in West Bengal and Mexico.

Warnings of hunger in Jamaica, Nepal, the Philippines and sub-Saharan Africa. Soaring prices for basic foods are beginning to lead to political instability, with governments being forced to step in to artificially control the cost of bread, maize, rice and dairy products.

Record world prices for most staple foods have led to 18 percent food price inflation in China, 13 percent in Indonesia and Pakistan, and 10 percent or more in Latin America, Russia and India, according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).

Wheat has doubled in price, maize is nearly 50 percent higher than a year ago and rice is 20 percent more expensive...

Last week the Kremlin forced Russian companies to freeze the price of milk, bread and other foods until January 31...

India, Yemen, Mexico, Burkina Faso and several other countries have had, or been close to, food riots in the last year...

Meanwhile, there are shortages of beef, chicken and milk in Venezuela and other countries as governments try to keep a lid on food price inflation.⁹

Jacques Diouf, head of the FAO, said in London early this month, "If you combine the increase of the oil prices and the increase of food prices then you have the elements of a very serious [social] crisis..." FAO statistics show that grain stocks have been declining for more than a decade and now stand at a mere 57 days, the lowest level in a quarter century, threatening what it calls "a very serious crisis."¹⁰

According to Josette Sheeran, director of the UN's World Food Program (WFP), "There are 854 million hungry people in the world and 4 million more join their ranks every year. We are facing the tightest food supplies in recent history. For the world's most vulnerable, food is simply being priced out of their reach."¹¹

In its biannual Food Outlook report released November 7, the FAO predicted that higher food prices will force poor nations, especially those in sub-Saharan Africa, to cut food consumption and risk an increase in malnutrition. The report noted, "Given the firmness of food prices in the international markets, the situation could deteriorate further in the coming months."¹²

Meanwhile, a story by Peter Apps in Reuters from October 16 noted that the cost of food aid is rising dramatically, just as the global need for aid is expanding. The amount of money that nations and international agencies set aside for food aid remains relatively constant, while the amount of food that money will buy is shrinking.¹³

To be sure, higher food prices are good for farmers - assuming that at least some of the increase in price actually translates to higher income for growers. This is indeed the case for the poorest farmers, who have never adopted industrial methods. But for many others, the higher prices paid for food simply reflect higher production costs. Meanwhile, it is the urban poor who are impacted the worst.

Odds 'n Sods:

Reader RH says: "I have been collecting Foxfire books for some 20 years now. I was so happy to find Foxfire.org! These books have so much important information from the past for our future, lest we forget."

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Tina in the Philippines sent us this article: Iligan folk seek St. Michael help, also bear arms. Tina's comment: "A real big surprise for me, cause I've been asking around about the gun laws here, and generally understand that its very restrictive. So many various permits are needed, and separate permits if you want to transport your gun to the range, and even then, for a good chunk of the year, guns are banned from the streets because politicians tend to get shot. Guns aren't practical or usable for self defense, with laws like this. I hope there'll be positive effects from what happens in Iligan when the fighting stops."

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Cyberiot recommended a piece of insightful economic commentary by James Quinn, posted over at The Prudent Bear: The Great Consumer Crash of 2009

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Terry B. In Upstate New York flagged a piece of commentary by The Mogambo Guru: The new silver - made with paper. Terry's comment: "This article explains why it's important to own actual physical silver, not a piece of paper promising silver."

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There is now talk that the pending bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may force the breakup of the organizations into numerous regional privatized organizations. If this happens it will very likely push up mortgage interest rates. And this in turn, will further exacerbate the collapse of residential real estate prices in the US. To my mind, this represents a huge "lose-lose". Not only will it balloon the cost of the Mother Of All Bailouts (MOAB), but it will also make the impending depression deeper and last longer. (And to add insult to injury, the cost of the bailout will be extracted from our wallets. The Fannie and Freddie debaclesare indicative that the global credit market is indeed badly broken. It will be many years until global liquidity is restored, and I'm certain that there will be be plenty of pain in the interim.

Jim's Quote of the Day:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool.
He laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.
The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold. - Aesop (620BC - 560BC)

Friday August 22 2008

Note from JWR:

If you find what you read in SurvivalBlog useful, then please consider becoming a voluntary 10 Cent Challenge subscriber. Thanks!

Letter Re: How to Store All Those Saved Nickels

Mr. Rawles:
I diligently read your “nickels”article and archived follow-ups, but nowhere do you mention which size ammo can it is that cubes rolled nickels for storage most efficiently?

I have cleaned out my children’s bank accounts slowly over the last few weeks and am walking into random banks and grocery stores converting the cash into rolled nickels. ”Havin’ a yard sale, don’t ya know.”.Wink. It keeps the Stepford bank weenies from asking unnecessary questions.
- Laura C.; Hiding in Plain Sight, Somewhere Deep In The People’s Republic of Northern Virginia

JWR Replies: In my experience, the USGI .30 caliber ammo cans work perfectly for storing rolls of nickels. Each will hold $180 face value (90 rolls of $2 each) of nickels. The larger .50 caliber cans also work, but when full of nickels are too heavy to carry easily. Speaking of weight, several bags of "junk" silver coins or ammo cans full of nickels coins make great "ballast" for the bottom of a gun vault. This makes it more difficult for a burglar to haul away a vault intact. (But of course gun vaults also need to be securely bolted to a floor, for the same reason.)

2008-08-08T10:23:00.001-07:00

Friday August 8 2008

Note from JWR:

I was saddened to hear that Skip Ellsworth recently passed away, at his home in the Philippines. He was the founder of the Log Builder's Association. Skip was an amazing craftsman, teacher, and patriot. He will be missed!

Letter Re: Finding a Family Oriented Survival Retreat

We are a devoted Christian family located in N.E. Oklahoma who are looking to encourage, help, and possibly connect with other families that are like minded. My wife and I have been preparing since we have been together (1999). We now have three young children, and are very family oriented. We homeschool and even home church. Despite the fact that some 'hard core' survivalists cringe at the thought of caring for little ones, we love children and consider them a blessing, and we believe that it is an honorable duty to be able to provide for and protect them. Besides ourselves, we also have two other family members who are part of our core group. For the last year we have invested all of our time, energy, and extra funds into preparing for what is coming. We prayerfully approach all of our decisions, and realize that 'unless the Lord builds the house' all of our efforts are vain. We do not believe we have all the answers as to what is coming and how to best deal with it, but we feel confident in stating that if we seek the Lord with all our hearts that he will direct our path. We do believe that the evidence shows that what we see happening to our nation is part of God's plan to bring judgment upon this wicked backslidden people. As I've heard it said before 'if God doesn't judge this nation, than he will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah'.

Logistically, we are in good shape in most areas. The Lord has blessed us to be able to accumulate a large food supply (2-3 years), gardening supplies, food processing and preserving equipment and supplies, lots of various outdoor gear, water purifiers of all sorts, bug-out vehicles, medical supplies, rechargeable batteries, and also guns and ammo. Areas we are working on presently are communications, power independence, more medical knowledge and gear, and other various training to help 'hone' all of our skills. I agree with JWR that gadgets and gear are useless without the skills to use them.

My biggest area of concern right now is location. We have a fairly secluded spot with acreage, but there are three major issues we have discovered:

1) We still have a mortgage on the place that cannot be quickly paid-off (too much, too little time). Which, when the economic crash comes, would put us at the mercy of the government controlled bank (due to bail-outs). This would cause us to have to relocate at a time of tremendous risk to our family. (This is not wise) We do have a 'plan B', that will be discussed on point 3.

2) Mentality of the populous: After living here for five years, we have come to the conclusion that most people in this area, sadly, even many who claim the name of Christ, are either lazy and dependent upon government programs to sustain them, or have no apparent discernment and therefore see no need to prepare. That means that they will likely succumb to the pressure and do the bidding of the powers that be, and/or they will come knocking demanding another 'free ride' from those of us that are prepared. (A great example of this can be found in Matthew 25, The Parable of the Ten Virgins) . Either way that spells trouble and possibly an armed confrontation, which we are ready and willing to withstand, but we realize that at this point we are under-manned. This is not a good situation for our Family Orientated Survival Retreat. Our philosophy is to avoid all potential armed confrontations if possible, but to be willing and ready to defend when necessary.

3) Physical Location & Plan B: This particular area of Oklahoma, though it is very rural and has a longer growing season, is very difficult to farm. Because we are in the foothills of the Ozarks, the soil is extremely rocky and very difficult to cultivate. We had to bring in top soil to be able to start our own garden. It also gets extremely hot in the summer months, so irrigation would be critical to keep crops from withering up & dying. That requires a whole separate set of logistics that would need to be sustainable during a crisis period. If we had to leave the homestead under adverse conditions, there's Plan B.

Plan B is to retreat into the plentiful woods surrounding my area, but here is what I have discovered. There is a tremendous amount of poisonous snakes and spiders inhabiting the terrain, and even worse, there is also an innumerable amount of ticks and chiggers out there to torment even the casual traveler or hiker. Even though statistically the ticks in this area predominately do not carry Lyme disease, there are other diseases that can be transmitted by these tormenting Arthropods. My family and I have suffered many other physical reactions from the bites of ticks and chiggers. You can scarcely walk out into the grassy area of the yard during the warmer months and not get infested by ticks, chiggers, or both. We even looked at some retreat property in the mountainous terrain of N.W. Arkansas and found the very same problems with these nasty critters. Even with good repellents you can still get attacked, and realistically, if you are on the run how much repellent can you carry with you along with the rest of your critical supplies? The thought of having to hide a family with little ones in the deep woods of this area for any extended period of time worries me. When we first moved here I thought this area would suit our needs well, and for our present needs it's worked out okay, but simply put, this is not what would be considered an ideal area for survival.

With all that said, I stated above that our main concern is location. We believe that it is expedient for us to look for another location for our group. Here is a breakdown of important items that must be part of finding the ideal location.

A) Safety

Because we are family orientated and have small children, we must try to establish the safest location possible, preferably making that location your primary residence. Also, your location must be set up to be able to best provide for the needs of families, which includes children of all ages. Number one priority is safety, that means being safely away from the hordes, safe from looters, and safe from tyrants and their minions. Think about what it was like when you and your spouse were first married, and how easily the two of you could just 'up and go' when you wanted to, but now that you have children all of that has changed, and, depending on the number of children you have, it can be a major project just 'packing up' for church! Now imagine what it would be like if your retreat was about to be, or was being overrun by a group of attackers. How fast could you and your family, with all of their necessary gear, move to safety? Would you even be able too? That is why the best way to protect your little ones is to gain an 'advantage' by choosing the optimal retreat location now while you still can. This may mean sacrifice and teaming up with others, but what is the alternative? This deserves careful consideration on the part of all concerned parents and retreat members. Even if all cannot be permanent residents, there still needs to be a concerted effort by several families to establish the best scenario possible. Therefore the Family Oriented Survival Retreat must be remote enough to be avoided by most, but reasonably accessible to the members who are not full time residents. As most realize, moving a family to a safe location during times of crisis can be very difficult and dangerous. There are so many potential hazards that can occur during a 'bug-out' situation that time and space cannot allow for them to be written here. Not to say it's impossible, but it is a notable risk. Therefore all families that cannot be permanent residents should strive to be located as close as possible to the retreat location.

B) Team Work

The Family Oriented Survival Retreat location must also be properly manned and defendable. This means that one family by itself is not enough, no matter how remote you get. We all need help, and we should all want to help others. This is how all truly great institutions have worked, this is how Christianity works, and this is how a Family Oriented Survival Retreat must work. This is probably the biggest stumbling block of all, because Americans are generally selfish, we only think about ourselves and that's the way we plan. We generally don't try to work with other families to create a better situation for all. I realize that we must be discerning about others, and character does matter, but if you haven't found the people you are looking for in your immediate area than maybe it would be advantageous to look for others outside your area. The bottom line is that there are others out there who would be great to work with and have the right mind set, but maybe like yourselves, don't quite have the financial means to buy a big remote property, and even if they did, they wouldn't have the man power to make it work. That's why we need to connect with others somehow, maybe even set-up a forum for people to be able to discuss these matters and potentially find other like minded families too work with.

C) Relocation

This leads me to my last point, and that is location, or maybe better stated, re-location. After studying several areas and reading the articles written by Mr. Rawles and others, it seems that the Northwestern region of the U.S. may be the most plausible place to look. There are several important factors to consider and for sake of space I would just recommend checking out this comprehensive write-up [by JWR] that goes into greater detail on the subject. I have spent time talking to a few realtors and others in Northern Idaho and in Northwest Montana, and my impression is the basic mindset in these areas is geared more toward that of the survivalist. There also seems to be a greater sense of community as well. If this is true than it could go a long way in a crisis. But regardless, this may be a good place for a few like minded families to band together and create several Family Oriented Survival Retreats. This would pool resources, skills, and abilities and would increase the chances of surviving the coming years.

I realize that a lot more can be said on this subject, but I challenge those of you who feel moved to look into these things to put it to prayer, and if you would like to share your thoughts or are interested in pursuing a Family Oriented Survival Retreat you can contact me at: quityourselveslikemen@yahoo.com. - David M.

Letter Re: GPS Receivers with a Back Road Mode

Jim,
In answer to the recent inquiry: I can't speak for other manufacturers, but Garmin's Mapsource software has a setting for the road types along routes. I took my family on a camping trip a few weeks ago and we were on a single-lane dirt road for several miles between paved roads. We saw a group of wild turkeys cross the road and numerous deer bounding away as we passed.
Since this trip, I found the setting in Mapsource that the software uses to determine road types. Click the "Edit" menu and select "Preferences" and in the resulting dialog, select the "Routing" tab. There is a slider for "Road Selection" adjusting from "Prefer Highways" to "Prefer Minor Roads".

I personally have the Garmin GPSMap 60CSx and wouldn't trade it for anything else. I have had the unit just over a year and updated maps once from City Navigator North America 2008 to City Navigator North America NT 2009. NT is a smaller file-size allowing you to hold more maps on a single Micro SD card. I use a 2-gigabyte card and have both sets of City Navigator and Topo 2008 for a good portion of the Eastern Seaboard. Updated maps are imperative as roads are always changing, but Garmin does a good job of software releases and bug fixes. - Reid

Odds 'n Sods:

John T. spotted this thought-provoking piece by Chris Sullins posted over at Of Two Minds: The Self-Selected Remnant

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David in Israel recommends the Pyromid Folding Grille. David notes: "I got mine at an outdoor gear shop closing sale. I was surprised by the high list price for a grille but that was before I used it. Made of stainless steel the infrared energy from the coals is all aimed upwards toward the food, after many seasons of use the once mirror shiny grille is a dull gold color where it was heated but there is no sign of corrosion. I follow the instruction to use a foil liner every time and this makes cleanup easy, just carefully remove the foil liner with the dying coals add a little water and once the grille is cool fold up and go. Newer grilles also include a super heat grate which is supposed to intensify the heat by holding briquettes sideways so the ash will fall off. Since the grille is only an inch deep and 12 inches wide when folded up in its bag it easily straps to the side of my bicycle rack for trips to the park or farther. I have burned everything form Sterno to charcoal to driftwood when touring and it has always been good to grill burgers, cook a chicken, or boil a pot of water.

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Reader CRW notes: "David Walker, a national hero and former comptroller for the US government, who resigned earlier this year, now heads the Peter G. Peterson Foundation which is devoted to warning the public about the looming bankruptcy of the government. I have just discovered that they have a movie, "I.O.U.S.A." coming out in theaters in a few weeks. A movie trailer is available on their web site. "I.O.U.S.A". may be to the US economy what "An Inconvenient Truth" was to the environment.

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Take a look at the new Be A Survivor blog. It is quite interesting.

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Inyokern sent us this ABC News article link: Into the Economic Abyss: How Deep Will It Go?

Jim's Quote of the Day:

"The harsh reality is that Starbucks is a microcosm of scores of enterprises that have come to comprise the core of the U.S. Bubble economy. The economic viability of so many businesses and even industries will be in jeopardy in the unfolding credit and financial landscape. The stock market is still in the early stage of discounting the unfolding credit and economic bust. And I'll reiterate that we expect the unfolding economic adjustment to be of such a magnitude as to be classified as an economic depression." - Doug Noland, The Prudent Bear

Thursday August 7 2008

Note from JWR:

Today we present another entry for Round 18 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The contest prizes include:

Round 18 ends on September 30th, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entries. Remember that articles that relate practical "how to" skills for survival will have an advantage in the judging.

The author spent his time in the Army working in Long Range Reconnaissance and Surveillance (LRRS) and 11B scout units. He recently returned from a tour in Iraq. This article is abased upon his hands-on experience, rather than doctrine and manuals.

A Practical Guide to the Recon Patrol, by TMC

Okay, the stuff has hit the fan, you have made it to your retreat, and you are geared up, stocked up and ready to survive. Inner security has been established, with LP/OPs located at likely avenues of approach. You at some point will start to wonder what else is out there, how far away it is, and what it means for your group. You might want to start implementing the recon patrol. While I could write what may very well be a small manual on the subject, I will just put out the basics that will point you in the right direction to successfully run a patrol. As most retreats will not be in the desert, I am using the normal type terrain expected in a well selected retreat. Your mileage may vary. I will also not go into detail on certain subjects that can easily be researched. If I did, I would surely exceed any limit on how large a document on the subject should be. Rather I will concentrate on things learned in the field, not in any manual.

What exactly is a recon patrol?
Field reconnaissance is the gathering of information of your surroundings in a stealthy manner. You will use this information to determine the safety of your current position and it will most likely be a determining factor for your daily operations planning. Information gathered can give you an idea of opposing force (OPFOR) strength, intentions, direction they are traveling and the likelihood of them coming in contact with your base element.

While much of the doctrine is the same a standard patrol, the recon patrol is a bit different than a regular patrol. The recon patrol is to gather information on your surroundings without making contact with other elements. That being said, I have on occasion been ordered to use harassing techniques to slow down or try to change the course of an element, which I will touch upon later.

Patrol Size
The size of a recon patrol is going to be smaller than the standard squad patrol. You are trying to be invisible and the more boots you have on the ground the more noise you will make. In my experience, a four person team is the size limit which I would recommend. Three is the optimal number, and two being the least that should go out. This is in comparison with the standard squad patrol size of nine (if you are lucky enough to have that many in your squad. [Even active duty military units are often short of manpower versus their authorized strength under their table of organization.]).

Patrol Equipment
Travel light, flee the fight. Unless you come across a solo element, you will most likely be outnumbered and if compromised you will need to hastily retreat. The preferred engagement ratio is 3:1, so bear that in mind.

Weapons
Take light carbines such as the M4 or Mini-14. I choose the AK-47 for myself as I believe it has a lot to offer for this type of mission. Should you get compromised, you will need to lay down a furious wall of fire to make the enemy think they just encountered a platoon or a least squad sized element so semi-auto is in my opinion a bare minimum. Larger weapons such as the M1 Garand or long barreled assault rifles will slow you down as they are heavy and cumbersome, but if that is what you have you will have to make do. Even though I sometimes carried a sidearm, it would be better just to take a couple of extra mags for your primary. This is much better added value weight. You should pack two reloads for your combat load just in case you keep getting paralleled by OPFOR and have time to refresh magazines.

The “light” part seems to be getting to be a stretch with this type prep, which is why I stress lighter ammo such as 5.56 or 7.62x39. The 7.62 NATO ammo gets pretty heavy with this type of packing and does not add much value in a reconnaissance mission. If you do have a mule in your team (a human one) and he has skills with a sniper rifle, you may want to consider taking it along in an appropriate style carrier as a target of opportunity may come up that may be just way too good to pass up. This does violate the "no contact" premise of the recon patrol, but proper escape route planning can be implemented to help with this scenario. Just a thought and should only be done by experienced personnel.

Optics
Optics such as binoculars or [spotting] scope are pretty much necessities. The further that you can stand off and observe your objective the better off you are. Binoculars with some type of "flash kill" device are recommended. Also make these quality optics that you are comfortable using. I don’t mean you have to buy a $1,000 pair of Steiners. For under $40 at WalMart you can get Bushnell’s 10x42 hunting binoculars that are clear as a bell and very rugged. You can use a sheer sniper veil over them as a kill flash. Rifle scopes are okay, but require that you expose yourself a little more than with binoculars. Generally, you also have a better field of view with binoculars. In my opinion binoculars are a better choice.

Food
You need to travel light, so try to keep this to a minimum. A recon patrol should be fairly short, a day or two probably at most. If it is going to be extended,then pack 2-1/2 times the food you think you will need. Utilizing light foods like jerky that you can carry a lot of will go a long way. I learned that one the hard way. When a two day patrol turns into six days that extra little bit of "Pogey bait" is worth it and can be rationed. Also learn what is edible in your surroundings as this can help sustain your mission without being a burden on your supplies. Take foods that need little or no preparation. Jerky, trail mix, MREs and foods of that nature are recommended.

Try to avoid foods that are particularly aromatic, such as curry, onion, garlic, etc. I can’t tell you how many times I have found an OPFOR element’s area of operations (AO) just by smell. While in Korea, I could find Korean [troop] elements by their body odor due to their diet of kimchi sometimes up to 400 meters away, depending on the wind and how long they had been out. This odor discipline also includes cigarettes, No smoking! Obviously colognes and other “smelly goods” have no place on a recon patrol.

Communications
Radios should be carried but utilized only when absolutely necessary. Chances are your patrol might take you out of radio communication reception distance especially if you don’t have high power equipment. This is risky, but sometimes necessary. You need to know the operating limitations of your comms equipment and operate accordingly. Designate times and places to transmit from if you cannot [continuous] maintain radio contact during the patrol.

Uniforms
Camoflage should go without saying. The type will obviously be determinate on your terrain and season. Burlap with proper color spray paint is a great way to make cheap [outline] breakup for weapons. It can be manipulated to just about any terrain out there. You can use [burlap strips] to throw off scent-detecting animals such as dogs by using fox urine or other types of masking scents. A very useful item indeed.

Helmets and body armor are optional, but I do not recommend them on a recon patrol. The body armor is heavy and can impede your quick getaway. It merits are known factors in the safety of soldiers, but in this mission you need to be able to flat out run if compromised. The ballistic helmet is also heavy, but its main downfall is the fact that it masks your environment. It can impair your vision and it mostly covers your ears and keeps you from hearing sounds that may be the enemy. A boonie cap is the first choice, patrol cap is second for traditional headgear.

Plan the Route
Route planning is essential. Pick a route that will minimize danger area crossings and contact with high traffic areas. Do not use roads, rivers, trails or any other obvious routes of travel. You may skirt these areas to view them. Never plan a straight route. Use various patterns of travel such as zigzagging or button hooking. This keeps the enemy off guard as to where you came from. Also, should you think you are being trailed, do a wide 360 until you come back on your own tracks. If you encounter more tracks than yours, then you are being followed. React according to your [contact] SOPs.

Learn to use a compass and map. While GPS systems can be useful tools, they are not always reliable and in a Grid Down situation may not even function. Know this: the US Department of Defense owns all the GPS satellites and merely provides data to GPS companies like Garmin so their GPS devices will work. Should the government choose to, they can encrypt them at will and leave your commercial GPS worthless. Learning how to use a compass and map can be a fun experience for everyone. It can give kids and adults alike a great sense of accomplishment and help get you or keep you in shape. Map and compass skills can trump a GPS any day, and on many occasions I have been right on the mark while the guy using the GPS has been wandering around waiting for the satellites to give him a decent grid. Rely on basic navigation skills. Technology is a crutch for the weak.

Plan Actions
Make sure to plan out the time you are leaving, time to be on the objective, time you will transmit information if necessary, and time you expect to be back. Plan for contingencies, such as what to do if you make contact, where to meet if you get separated, and what frequencies to be on at what time of the day. Most of these will be dictated by your groups prior established SOPs. Follow them.

Preparing for the Patrol
If you follow proper procedure when you leave the base of ops you will conduct "stop, look, listen, and smell" (SLLS). This is to get you oriented to your environment. However, I have found that a short 10 minute halt like this is not nearly as effective as having the recon team acclimate [to the natural environment] over a day or so without distractions such as television, radio, or any other man-made devices that are not essential to ops. In a grid down situation this will most likely not be a problem. Your sense of smell, hearing, and vision get better the longer you are out. If possible, do this and you will be much more inclined to pick up on enemy positions and movement long before they pick you up.

Make sure all equipment gets inspected, including weapons and optics. Make sure all equipment is quiet and free of protruding gear or things that will snag on foliage. This includes weapons that have a multitude of “Mall Ninja” gear hanging off of them. While it may be value added in a MOUT situation, it is just more junk to hang up on vegetation and obstacles. Have each patrol member jump up and down and run in place with their gear on to identify anything noisy and use 100 m.p.h. [olive drab duck] tape or 550 [parachute] cord to lash it down. Make sure food and water are easily accessible as you may be eating on the fly. Check for proper and complete camouflage. Get ready to roll, get your mind right.

On the Patrol
Use your wits. Be aware of your environment, and anything that may not be right. Learn to use nature to warn you of potential danger. Have you ever been close to a squirrel’s nest in the woods? He will let you know you are too close by making a lot of noise. This type of natural warning device can serve you as well as hinder you. Be mindful of nature and learn to move in the woods as part of your surroundings rather than against it. This takes time, is a learned behavior, but can be done by just about anyone. Avoid sandy terrain where you will leave an obvious trail. Use rocks and other terrain to move while minimizing [leaving] sign and making noise. Be mindful of how loud your footsteps are. That is a common mistake I see soldiers make all the time. They don’t listen to how much noise they are making. Learn to roll your feet. This can be practiced around the house while doing chores. Just learn to walk quietly.

On the Objective
If you are doing an area recon, which is a specific area you want to check out, make sure you spend the time you need on the objective to properly gather intelligence. Walk a zigzag pattern to cover as much terrain as possible.
If you are doing a point recon, which is a recon of a specific target such as a house or a point on a road, lay your team in collect as much info as you can. Include info you would normally not consider important as later on down the road you may find it useful. Remember, you can never collect too much intel, but you can collect not enough. You can sort through what is important later on when you have time to analyze the intel.
While glassing your objective, make sure only one member of each buddy team is using binoculars, while the other keeps an eye out for anyone who may be using a clandestine approach to your location. Use a notebook to write down everything you see.

Departure
When the allotted time on the objective is complete, always leave the objective in a different direction [than from which you approached]. Pick up any trash or tell tale sign of you being there. Brush over where you were laying, cover any foliage cuts you might have made. Try to leave no sign at all that you were ever there. Maintain noise discipline on the way back just like you did on the way in. You are in just as much danger going home as you were going out. Don’t get complacent.

Well, there you have it. You can research the patrol by using military manuals and implement what I have written here for a successful mission. This will give you a heads up on what’s out there and give you an advantage over any element that may be inbound on your location. Knowledge is power, and if you have solid intel on your enemy and surroundings, then you have the tactical advantage. I hope this is of use to you.

Letter Re: Advice on Finding a Retreat

Hello Mr Rawles;
Back around 1996, I downloaded (and paid for) a copy of your novel "Triple Ought" [an early shareware draft "Patriots"]; I and others around me, learned from it and enjoyed it immensely. I now have an autographed copy of "Patriots", and have read it more than once.

A little background;
We lived on a ‘farm’ retreat in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula ("U.P.") with two other families from the Summer of ’99 (read: Y2K) to the Spring of 2002 and experienced first-hand the trials and joys of such an existence. We survived on the very basics; we raised our own chickens, a few head of beef cattle, one hand-milked dairy cow, had a couple pigs, and several meat rabbits. Built and utilized a greenhouse and gardened as much as is possible in that climate. Picked apples from our own apple trees, made cider, and put up hay from our own 40 acre hay field, (with a neighbor’s help and equipment that we bartered barn space for). Stocked our pantry with home canning, including venison. Had generators and fuel on hand. Heated at least in majority with wood-burners, etc, etc.

Unfortunately, due to a change in employment circumstances, and a very tough job market in the U.P., we had to move back ‘down-state’ and resume a ‘normal’ life. The whole retreat has been sold (we didn’t have much ownership) and everything is gone. We are left with little other than the mindset that we know how to survive and now have a little ‘been-there-done-that’ know how.
I work in the construction industry and have never been able to get far enough ahead of the bills to do much of anything ‘extra’ and right now with the economy where it is we couldn’t be much less affluent! We are not able to maintain anything above a minimum standard of preparedness, and I worry that when the ‘balloon goes up’ on this economy, we certainly will lose our home (we are close now) and therefore will be little more than refugees ourselves, with limited ability to carry our gear on our backs. I don’t have any connection to anyone that has a home that they wouldn’t lose in a spiraling economic collapse.

My question in this letter is this: What is your best advice for people in similar situations that lack a retreat or the means to acquire one, and cannot plan on maintaining their residence as a ‘stronghold’?
Tactically, I know an R.V. is just transportation to the next ambush, and don’t have the funds to acquire one anyway, but I know we will be ‘boots on the ground’ long before things get really bad.

Thank you for ‘taking my call’. - GvO

JWR Replies: I often get inquiries from readers that, like myself, have a tight budget. The best course of action is to join an existing retreat group, offering your skills. To find such as group, see our Finding Like-Minded People in Your Area static web page. If you can't find one, then form a new one, by putting out "feelers"--looking for like-minded people in your region.

Odds 'n Sods:

Reader KAF suggested this piece over at Pajamas Media: Ask Dr. Helen: Preparing for Disaster — Prudent or Paranoid? It sounds like she might have been reading SurvivalBlog.

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Steve N. flagged this article: Iran threatens to shut Gulf shipping lanes

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Eric sent us this piece on the significance of "local" produce: Supermarket Chains Narrow Their Sights

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A reader e-mailed me to ask: "Do you know of any GPS that has a "Scenery mode" or other mode that chooses back roads instead of major roads and highways, so I can move quickly and efficiently during a G.O.O.D. event?" This goes beyond my expertise, since my personal research was for picking out the best model for back-country topographic modes, and that was four years ago. (So that technology used in my GPS receiver is now practically obsolete.) Can anyone make a detailed recommendation?

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Speaking of GPS, here is a lesson on over-reliance on gee-whiz navigation devices, and leaving common sense at home: Convoy rescued after GPS led them to Utah cliff.

Jim's Quote of the Day:

"[T]he mantra of the chicken money investor is: "I'm not so concerned about the return on my money, as I am about the return of my money!" - Terry Savage

Wednesday August 6 2008

Notes from JWR:

There was recently an interesting write up of SurvivalBlog in the Scripps Metropulse newspaper. Somehow, they came to the conclusion that I live in Georgia. But I can assure them that I indeed live "somewhere west of the Rockies."

Today we present another entry for Round 18 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The contest prizes include:

Round 18 ends on September 30th, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entries. Remember that articles that relate practical "how to" skills for survival will have an advantage in the judging.

On Rural Retreat Safety and Secrecy, by E.I.D.

A major worry for many urbanites considering maintaining a rural retreat is their ability to, from a distance, ensure the secrecy and security of their property. Many of us cannot afford a full time retreat-sitter, and must use other legal methods to ensure the security of our property and supplies in both grid-up and grid-down scenarios.

First, county roads running to or through your property are always a liability. I set my retreat as far back off of the gravel county road as possible by clearing my own road, with the help of friends, through thick pine forest. My road is wide enough for a single large vehicle, and is approximately a mile long. The road is not straight, but rather, zig-zags like a large Z, with each leg of the road intersecting with, and then continuing beyond, the next leg, and then stopping at a dead end. This design is advantageous for a few reasons: first, if someone looks down a single leg of the road, they will see it die in a dead end some distance ahead. The “turn off” onto the next leg is not visible until you are almost right upon it, because of the acute angle of the turnoff. Secondly, these turns create many opportunities for barricades or defense concealment. Vehicles must also make sharp turns onto each leg of the road, and thus must slow down to a near stop, making them more vulnerable to fire at these locations.

To disguise the entrance to your road, use natural foliage. The county road near my retreat has ditches dug on either side of it. Rather than putting a permanent bridge or tin horn culvert, I left the ditch as it was. This provides an initial defense, and helps disguise the entrance to casual drivers-by. Because I drive a 4x4 vehicle, I cross this ditch by tossing large logs into the ditch, driving over them, and then removing the logs when I leave and stashing them back in the woods a short distance. Once could also use a section of cattle-guard as a portable bridge Paint it camo, and stash it back in the foliage.

To disguise the entrance further, I allowed the natural grass and weeds at the first five feet or so of my forest road to grow as tall and thick as they could. I can easily drive my vehicle right over these weeds, but visually, they help to conceal the 8 foot gap in the trees, and deter any unwanted foot-traffic. I didn’t trim any of the tree limbs that stretched across the road (so long as my vehicle could pass beneath them), and even used ropes to train younger limbs to grow across the road as well. This helps to disguise the road itself from air-traffic and satellite photos. It’s true that the limbs sometimes fall across the road, but that just gives me an opportunity to add to my firewood stash.

Make sure that your retreat itself doesn’t stand out too hard from the surroundings. Paint your retreat using the colors of the surrounding area, perhaps even in a camo scheme, and don’t forget about the roof! The roof is most visible from the air, so take great care in painting it so that it blends. Any outbuildings should also be disguised thusly, and some structures can merely be covered with weather resistant camo netting. One of my past bosses lived in a subterranean concrete home that was visible from only one side. Three sides, and the top of the home, appear as a natural grassy hill with small trees and shrubs, but one side of the hill had a door and windows! This would be the ultimate retreat home for anyone willing to invest in it, as he spent very little on heating and cooling the home, and never worried about tornadoes, heavy winds, or other such destructive weather.

Remember that your clearing doesn’t need to be a pasture. My retreat is built amongst the trees, helping to disguise it. I cut the shrubs and smaller

2008-07-29T13:44:00.001-07:00

Tuesday July 29 2008

Note from JWR:

The Memsahib would appreciate your prayers. She is scheduled for surgery for 11 a.m. Pacific Time, today. We are praying for a quick and full recovery.

Letter Re: More Observations on the Aftermath of Hurricane Dolly

Dear JWR and Memsahib,
On June 30, in a response to "Help with a Non-Preparedness Minded Spouse", I shared the thoughts of like-minded men in a group meeting regularly with my husband to prepare for survival needs. Due to the lack of female companionship I was experiencing, and the frustration my husband's buddies were experiencing, I offered to start a "Ladies Auxiliary" group to motivate the wives to see the value of preparing for emergency survival. Living near the coast of Texas provides us with the challenge of hurricanes each summer, so that became the topic for personal and immediate preparedness.

We had NOAA hurricane tracking maps, National Hurricane Center Weather Service information, hurricane terminology lists, emergency preparedness time lines, steps for a family plan, lists for emergency/bug out kits and first aid kits, what to do before, during and after the storm, links to pet plans, and how to secure your home, help for the elderly, online vulnerability awareness of communities, plans for escape routes, and the Contraflow Plan for one way traffic during evacuation, all in binders with appropriate tabs. At the back of each binder, I placed a print out from the well-known Red Cross web site which showed kits for general emergency equipment such as three day pack, AM/FM shortwave radios with flashlights, and cell phone chargers. There was an article on how to put together a 72 hour kit and another on clarifying and purifying water. The final article was on dangers in the world right now. (The Internet is an invaluable source of information.)

I sent out invitations, planned snacks, set out chairs, provided TV trays to set binders on for note taking, sent out my husband for hi-liters, then waited in hopes of an hour or so of introductions and preparedness discussion. About half of my ladies came and they stayed for four hours of in-depth planning!! The ladies who couldn't come that day came the following week and also stayed for four hours, with the same results!

The short story is that three days after meeting with my latest group of ladies, the coast of Texas was visited by Hurricane Dolly. Like everyone else in the area, we were busy boarding up windows, filling the bathtub with water, bringing out the flashlights, batteries and radios. The lights went out and we were off the grid for about 22 hours. We got our generator to working for a window AC unit and refrigerator and were able to connect a neighbor's fridge until the lights were back on. We lost one tree branch and developed a small ceiling leak. A neighbor came by and prayed with my husband for protection before the storm. We were spared from local flooding but have seen piles of branches all over town. Unfortunately, other towns have had serious flooding and property damage.

I was able to disperse additional booklets to half of my ladies to file in a front pocket of their binders before Dolly hit. The new booklets are sealed in waterproof Ziploc bags and have charts that I wish I had when I was first married. The charts provide space for valuable information on certificates for births, marriage, insurance, important phone numbers, emergency items, banking, safe deposit box, investments, medical info, property inventory, Social Security, military, adoptions, etc.

I have been able to speak to one of my ladies who couldn't be thankful enough for the planning we did. She stockpiled water in her home and tried to spread the word in advance to everyone she knew. Unfortunately, she told me that some did not prepare and now have serious flooding problems, and have limited drinking water. Hurricane Dolly came upon us very quickly and those who did not prepare early are having serious problems. FEMA is waiting until cities can finish local evaluations before they move in for assistance.

So [ladies and] gentlemen, don't give up if you or your friends have a "Non-preparedness Minded Spouse"! Consider the natural hazards your area is prone to experience, such as: earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, winter storms, volcanoes, landslides, fires, wildfires, hurricanes, thunderstorms and lightning, hazardous materials, etc. Begin collecting information addressing safety needs in your own locale and gently take your spouse and family on a fact sharing mission to prepare in a very real, practical way to protect your loved ones if a natural disaster should hit your area. From there you may be able to move on to even greater plans before something permanent hits the fan. Good Luck! - Charlotte R.

Four Letters Re: Questions from A Not-Quite Convinced Reader

Jim,

I was intrigued by Robert C.'s recent letter which questions why we should prepare. I think he has a great question there, and one which deserves further discussion.

I put together a personal 'Top Five' I'd like to share: Top Five Reasons To Be Preparedness Oriented:

5) It's simply a natural extension of growing up -- understanding and fulfilling our responsibilities. As babies we have all of our basic needs provided for us by our parents. As we mature, we all begin to take some responsibility for our own needs by doing things like getting an education; learning how to cook; learning a trade; working for money which we trade for food, shelter, and other needs; etc.

Lots of people stop in their development when they get to a point where their current personal activities interface with their current societal and cultural infrastructure in a way that meets their current needs. Part of this is their current revenue supports desired 'quality of life', but it's really more than that. The problem is that current personal activities (including but not limited to career); the interface to society (including but not limited to economy, government, and society); and current needs (including but not limited to shelter, water and food) are all dynamic.

Some people experience a moment of insight during their development that says, "Hey, if xyz changes I'm going to be in trouble. I won't be able to so I had better be ready, just in case!" there this person realizes, "Wow, what else have I been taking for granted in a way that might adversely affect my ability to achieve my responsibilities?"

Preparedness living in this context is the realization that as adults, and in particular as heads of households, we must be able to provide for all the basic needs of our families without relying on preconceived assumptions about what others will provide for us.

4) Because we're not mentally ill. We have uncontrolled wildfires at times that threaten life and property, right? Sometimes we have earthquakes, right? sometimes have tornados, right? Hurricanes? Flooding? Hard Winters? Crop failures? Food contamination? Do heavy winds sometimes knock-down power lines? Do heavy snows sometimes preclude me from driving into town to get a pizza? Do we ever have banking failures? Do we sometimes experience economic recession? Do some entire industries (like manufacturing) get 'outsourced' threatening job security? If I'm not mistaken we've had all these in the USA in just the last 10 years, right?

On a less frequent basis do cultures experience wars? Pandemics? Great Depressions? Government collapse/restructuring? Genocide? Haven't all these happened on a world scale in the last 50 years?

To deny these things happen would be diagnostic of a mental illness. They do happen. Preparedness orientation is simply the acknowledgement of this truth, coupled with the will to act.

3) For the same reasons we wear seat belts when we drive our cars; have fire extinguishers in our kitchens; carry health insurance for ourselves and our families; and buy life insurance. It's not that we want to be involved in motor vehicle accidents; experience kitchen fires; have medical problems; nor die young leaving a wife and children behind -- we just recognize that such things are possible and seek to mitigate these dangers.

2) In the end, we will either be right -- there was a need for preparedness and we were ready to face all challenges; or we will be pleasantly surprised -- there was no need to prepare and live through a time of hardship. Either way, we win!

1) In obedience to God who tells us that all things will not continue as they have in the past; and that we should: Provide for our families. Arm ourselves. Not be destroyed for lack of wisdom. Keep oil in our lamps. - Keith C.

Jim,
Please refer the reader back to the link you and others have posted on the Internet over the past year to "Topsoil and Civilization" : "Civilized man has marched across the face of the earth and left a desert in his footprints." What more documented evidence should he need after that? Here's my Cliff-notes version of the problem
and solution (with some more useful links). - Thanks, - Chris

Hi Jim:
It seems an odd request from the poster today that he wants someone to convince him to prepare to take care of himself. He probably has never faced being unemployed? Never faced any family member of friend being unemployed? Too bad as that would have given him the understanding of how much on his own he can be. He likes to have his trash collected. In my community I have to pay the trash collection service to take away my trash. It doesn't come for free. I have to pay for my water to come into my home. That water station uses energy and with energy costs rising -- that water is going to cost more money.

Why prepare? Well, read what even the US government and the global governments are urging citizens to do to to help themselves. They are telling folks to prepare to help themselves. Hint: the government is not going to be their immediately on a white horse to bring you your groceries, haul away your trash, etc.

Any historic events to support a need for being prepared? Good grief! Has this person being residing in a cave all of his life? Where to begin -- 1) The dot.com bust; 2) the current housing bust; 3) the financial bust globally in sub-primes; 4) the 1980s; 5) 1970s (stagflation); 6) WWII -- goods were rationed and quality went down (read historic newspapers -- you have to help educate yourself); 7) the Great Depression -- shortages of food supplies (people hungry in some areas while farmers burned potatoes in other areas; droughts so bad that dust clouds rolled from Kansas all the way to Washington DC); 8) The Panic of 1907. Crawl out of under the rock and spend some time reading! - Cynthia W.

Dear Jim:
Reader Robert C. wrote: “There have been depressions before, and the fall of civilizations, but as far as I can tell, nothing on the scale of what you seem to talk about. Do you have any good historical examples I could look into?”

Well, we have been very fortunate in the US to have only experienced one “Great” Depression, and have kept all our recent wars overseas, but you don’t have to look too far abroad for examples of depressions and war that put the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse back in the saddle.

Just a few highlights:
Try living in Germany 1914 to 1945: war, famine, hyperinflation, depression, Nazi takeover, war, concentration camps, urban saturation bombing… The Russians’ 20th century looks even worse… war, Communist coup, farm “collectivization”, the forced starvation of millions, Stalin’s purges/mass murder, war, German invasion… China 1920 to 1970: civil war, Japanese invasion, Communist takeover, starvation, Mao’s purges/mass murder…

Legendary Wall Street investor Barton Biggs has a new book “Wealth, War and Wisdom” that reviews the horrific 20th Century and recommends that wealthy folks put perhaps 5% of their net worth in a self-sufficient farm, and stock up.

To quote “The trigger event could be a massive terrorist or nuclear attack that disrupts the economy for months and maybe for years. A power failure that lasted not a day but a month would paralyze a modern economy. Or it could be a plague, a massive SARS-like epidemic, in with hundreds of millions die, or an electronic explosion that cascades into a complete breakdown of the world’s financial accounting systems. Whatever happens, it most likely will be an event that is both unexpected and we will not be prepared for. The world is very good at locking the barn door after the horses have been stolen.”
Biggs left out EMP terrorist strikes! (By the way, read the e-novel "Lights Out" for a very entertaining and educational portrayal an EMP strike on the US.)

Dr Gary North’s "favorite" TEOTWAWKI disaster would be an NBC attack on banking centers designed to bring down our inherently unstable fractional reserve banking system, which would then shutdown the payment system for the division of labor that keeps us all fed. (Of course the way things are going, the terrorists might just decide that this is not really necessary, now that our political and financial elites have done such a good job of wrecking the economy...)

What are the odds? For any individual scenario, low. But as Nassim Nicholas Taleb argues persuasively, low probability statistical outlier events - “Black Swans” - are a lot more common than we think, as we are prone just extrapolate current trends ad infinitum.

Put it this way - if you were going to jump out of an airplane with just one parachute - what kind of reliability odds do you want? Is a 1% chance of a catastrophic failure
Okay? How many jumps would you make with a 1% chance of having a non-functioning parachute? None, for me! Metaphorically that’s what we do every day. or every year, our parachute being the complicated, interdependent, and fragile systems that keep us alive… until an unforeseen Black Swan event comes up.

My intuition tells me the ongoing increase in government taxation and regulation, the decline of moral standards, educational standards, and the increasing complexity and interdependency of the economy makes it even more likely that a disaster would cascade into chaos. Even “just” a rerun of the Great Depression would be likely to turn into something much more horrible with our current society…. Noted investor Doug Casey forecasts what he calls a “Greater Depression”.

It’s seems very prudent to me to have some catastrophe insurance. Don’t spend your whole life, or all your money on it. But do get some, because our Black Swan event is out there - we just don’t know when it’s going to show up. Regards, - OSOM

Odds 'n Sods:

I'm still predicting a dramatically weaker US Dollar in foreign exchange in the months to come. As I've mentioned before, you should watch the US Dollar Index (USDX) closely. If and when it dips decisively below 72, watch out. From there, we might see a precipitous drop! (Back in August of 2007, I first mentioned the "magic number " 72. It is a sort of "line in the sand" number for currency traders in their assessment of the US Dollar. Anywhere south of 72 lies extreme peril--and below 55 perhaps the traders will start to question the very existence of the US Dollar as a viable currency unit. It is notable that the USDX has been bouncing off the new-found "floor" of 72 for the past three months. Continue to watch the USDX closely. It is an important barometer that may provide a brief warning of of a Dollar Collapse.

o o o

Speaking of weaker currencies, Paul from Kentucky sent us this: Zimbabwe to remove [more] 'zeros' from currency.

o o o

Jack B. mentioned this: Inflation dogs Russia's booming economy. When inflation worsens, move even more of your assets to tangibles.

o o o

Thanks to Cheryl N. for this article link: Costco to Raise Prices as much as 15%. If you haven't done so already, it is time to implement an Alpha Strategy, in anticipation of mass inflation. The spiraling price of fuel, just by itself, is making significant inflation inevitable. If you need to exactly what to stock up on, see my "Rawles Gets You Ready" preparedness course. It is geared toward stocking up at "Big Box" stores such as Costco and Sam's Club.

o o o

It has been announced that Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (TSCC) will return to the small screen on September 8th. IMHO, it is the best quasi-survivalist show on television. (But I'm probably not the best judge of that, since I don't get the chance to see much television. We don't own a television set. The few shows that we do watch are either on DVD or via Internet streaming.) OBTW, this reminds me: One of the stars of TSCC is Summer Glau, who played River Tam in the outstanding television series Firefly, and in the subsequent Hollywood movie Serenity. A new Collector's Edition of Serenity was recently released. Great stuff!

Jim's Quote of the Day:

"One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who complain." - Thomas Sowell

Monday July 28 2008

Note from JWR:

I was quoted in a recent Alternet piece by Scott Thill: Massive Economic Disaster Seems Possible -- Will Survivalists Get the Last Laugh? Some of my comments were taken slightly out of context and in one instance mischaracterized, so it might be better for you to read my entire set of responses to Mr. Thill's interview questions. I should mention that if they were alive today, my great-great grandparents--that came out west via covered wagon in the 1850s--might be miffed to hear that they were branded as part of a "genocidal" movement. They didn't come out west looking to slaughter Indians. In fact, some of their sons married into a tribe. I have some cousins that are bona fide ("tribally enrolled") Native Americans.

Finding Your Land Rover in the Wild Kingdom of Banking

I grew up in the1960s glued to the television, like most other suburban kids. One of the shows that I enjoyed watching was Wild Kingdom, sponsored by Mutual of Omaha. The wise old narrator, Marlin Perkins, went way out in the hinterboonies of South America and Africa to film his documentaries. But I noticed that he was almost always a detached observer. It was usually his young, muscular assistants that were put in harm's way, but not Perkins himself, who was safe and sound. He often made comments such as: "'I'll watch from the safety of the Land Rover, while Jim wrestles the massive Anaconda. Ouch! Be careful, Jim!"

The Wild Kingdom documentary television show makes a nice analogy for the current banking crisis. (And, coincidentally, it was Mutual of Omaha that last week came to the rescue of two failed banks.) The recent news of numerous bank failures makes it clear that it is now coming down to survival of the fittest, in the banking world. Welcome to another episode of Wild Kingdom, folks. There are a lot of banks that are unfit creatures. The pools of credit have dried up, and these creatures are dying of thirst, and starting to stagger. The vultures are beginning to circle. Its a dangerous world out there, and if you are wise, you won't be in the thick of it, exposed to risk. Instead, you will find yourself a safe vantage point and simply observe, nod, sip a Mint Julep, and make sagacious comments like: "I told you so", and "Those poor, deluded souls."

So where will you find your safe vantage point, from which you can observe the dramatic unraveling of the banking system? What will be your "Land Rover" equivalent? I've said it many times before: tangibles. You should shelter the majority of your assets in either productive rural farming or ranching land (that can double as a retreat), or in tangible, easily barterable assets that will hold their value. For the latter, I prefer practical tools, rather than baubles. You can't eat Krugerrands! In the real world, Beans, Bullets, and Band-aids are much more practical.

In the next few weeks, as the nascent wave of bank failures accelerates, you will likely be hearing a lot about the"Texas Ratio" of any given bank. This is the ratio of a bank's assets and reserves to its non-performing loans, based upon its financial data. Conduct due diligence on your bank, and cover your assets! It is best to have accounts with several institutions rather than just one.

Start your research by reading this article: Calculating Your Bank's Health. Also, don't miss this piece by Mish Shedlock. Based on Mish's warning, it is clear that you should not depend on Bankrate.com, since their evaluations are glaringly inaccurate. Instead, I recommended Weiss Ratings (now part of TheStreet.com) as a more objective judge of the the safety of banks and insurers. I have recommended Marty Weiss to my consulting clients for many years. Marty and his staff do excellent research and, unlike many of their competitors, they are truly independent and objective.

Letter Re: Advice on Food Storage and Preparation

Hi James:
Thanks for publishing my past essay and thanks again for what you do on your SurvivalBlog. Your web site and the consequent path I've traveled since I began reading here has put me in contact with many folks who are pursuing similar courses of action; to take personal action to be prepared, and when possible to discuss and work with others to secure a survivable future.

Please advise me on some of the best and up to date books you've found on food storage. Being new to this line of endeavor, I feel our family needs some better ideas on organizing food and storage methods.

My apologies if you've already covered this topic or already made such recommendations on your site. All Our Best, - Jon F. in New York

JWR Replies: Don't worry about redundancy, Joe. The importance of food storage cannot be overemphasized. Most of what you'll need to know about food storage is available in Alan T. Hagan's Food Storage FAQ, which available for free download. I may be biased, but I also recommend my own "Rawles Gets You Ready" preparedness course, available from Arbogast Publishing. It is geared toward stocking up with little more than what you can find at your local "Big Box" store or supermarket. It includes some extensive tables on the shelf lives of various foods.

One often overlooked aspect of food storage is how to cook and bake with the foods that you've stored. Three books on this subject that I strongly recommend buying are:

Cookin' With Home Storage

and,

Making the Best of Basics. OBTW, if you use this link to Lehmans.com, we will get a credit from Lehman's when you place an order for any of their products.

and,

The Encyclopedia of Country Living. (I've heard that the new 10th Edition of Carla Emery's book has just been released. Reader Jeff F., mentioned that his local Costco (in Woodinville,Washington) had the latest edition on sale for $17.99. (The list price $29.95). So check your local Costco.

Letter Re: Cigarette Smoking and Preparedne

2008-07-28T07:40:00.000-07:00

Monday July 28 2008

Note from JWR:

Finding Your Land Rover in the Wild Kingdom of Banking

Letter Re: Advice on Food Storage and Preparation

One often overlooked aspect of food storage is how to cook and bake with the foods that you've stored. Three books on this subject that I strongly recommend buying are:

Cookin' With Home Storage

and,

Making the Best of Basics. OBTW, if you use this link to Lehmans.com, we will get a credit from Lehman's when you place an order for any of their products.

and,

Letter Re: Cigarette Smoking and Preparedness

James,
My husband and I think you are smart and I was hoping for a few words about cigarette dependency (and perhaps alcohol as well).

We are fairly prepared and often strategize on making our plan better. I see cigarette smoking as a weak link. Just when I am going to need his help the most, he will be in the fetal position with withdrawals from the inability to smoke. Or perhaps I will have to deal with lung disease when there are no doctors available. A person can't successfully hide while smoking. There is extra tension and confusion from quitting cold turkey and that will come when a clear head is most needed.

This is an addiction issue rather than an intellectual one, but if you have advice (either how to get him to quit, or how I can plan around it), I would be very appreciative. Thanks, - Anna

JWR Replies: Thanks for raising this issue! The expense and health issues are tremendous. But even more overwhelming--as you pointed out--is the prospect of going Cold Turkey, starting on TEOTWAWKI+1. In the event of a catastrophe, our stress levels will already be critical, and adding one more major stress could be enough to push some folks to the point of a nervous breakdown.

There are umpteen methods for quitting smoking. I recommend that my readers try as many of them as necessary until you finally quit the habit. Since I've never smoked, I'm hardly the one to opine about the "best" method to quit. Perhaps this article is a good starting place. The only advice that I can offer comes to you from my perspective as a Christian: I believe that prayer is very helpful in breaking the bonds of any addiction. Just ashamedly admit your bad habits as the sins that they are, and repentantly ask God to free you from them. Prayer works!

Odds 'n Sods:

Reader Gary J. asks: "So, you say you don't have any room to garden where you live? Maybe you actually have a lot! You might like to do a web search on "vertical gardens" and check out this site: GardensUp.com

o o o

Several readers mentioned a recent blog entry by Charles Hugh Smith: Yes, There Will Be Armageddon: Government Goes Bankrupt

o o o

I spotted this linked at Drudge: U.S. Foreclosures Double as House Prices Decline. I strongly recommend that anyone looking for a rural retreat property should studiously monitor the foreclosure listings, via a service such as Foreclosures.com. There will be some genuine bargains in the next few years.

o o o

Reader Ken R. recommended a "must read" piece by James Turk, posted over at DollarCollapse.com: Last Plane Account. Ken notes: "This article clearly outlines that tangibles including a ranch or farm are the best investment of all when TEOTWAWKI arrives. Your thesis is correct!"

2008-07-21T08:16:00.000-07:00

Monday July 21 2008

Letter Re: Pre-Assembling Charity Food Packets for Storage

JWR –
I am putting together food stores, and collecting food grade buckets for bulk storage (local store lets them go for 60 cents each), but I had a question come across as I was planning this out.
Based on my own sense of charity, as well as your comments, I thought about a self-contained package that could be handed out, some rice, wheat, dried veggies and more, all sealed with a gamma lid using your dry ice method. Not only would this be good to avoid having multiple bulk cans open at once, but also as I said if people in need come asking, you can hand of 3-to-5 days food in one package.

Then I started thinking about comfort foods, pretzels, chips, candy bars and the like, and I wondered if you can actually put all of these different food products in the same can, separated into baggies, and if so, can you keep some foods like pretzels/chips or candy in their original packaging or repackage them in baggies? - Geoff in North Dakota

JWR Replies:

Using separate clear plastic baggies--or better yet mylar bags--within a sealed container is a practicable solution.

Distributing whole wheat is only marginally workable, since most folks are used to baking with wheat flour. But this raises two issues: If distributing flour, does the recipient have access to a working baking oven or Dutch Oven? In most disaster situations, that would be a rarity. And, if distributing while wheat, does the recipient have a access to a wheat grinder. Of course you could instruct them to make wheat berries (soaked wheat to eat as hot or cold cereal). But then they must have water available and at least 10 hours to soak the wheat. Because of the much shorter shelf life of flour (versus whole wheat), you might consider packaging the wheat in the form of freshly-ground flour, only on an "as-needed" basis, after the onset of an emergency.

Letter Re: Satellite Images and Your G.O.O.D. Route

Hi James,
While they are still available, now might be a good time to use one of the satellite image sites (like Google Earth) to download and print out detailed satellite images of planned bug-out routes. Having those images with you during a bug-out strikes me as a great way save time and energy by knowing exactly where important survival-related features are located. For example, my own route includes a stretch of rather barren territory with no lakes or streams shown on the topo map, but the satellite images show ponds and small reservoirs too small for inclusion by the map makers. As they may only be seasonal irrigation ponds I wouldn't want to depend on them, but at least I would know where to start looking, if it became necessary. The images also show features that flat maps only approximate. And, while nothing takes the place of actually checking the route personally before it is needed, one could take a "virtual walk" of their route to get an idea of what they might encounter, and adjust their plans accordingly.

My prayers are with your wife for a speedy and full recovery. My best, - John in Colorado

Letter Re: Springfield Armory XD Pistol Accessories

James-
I wanted to thank you for the great web site! It's fantastic!
I was on the Springfield Armory web site yesterday, and noticed that they are having a 20% off sale on all accessories, including XD magazines, through July 31st. I picked up four more, and thought I'd pass the info along.

Keep up the great work, and I pray for a healthy recovery for your wife. - Kristopher in Afghanistan

JWR Replies: Thanks for your prayers for The Memsahib. We are now hopeful that she will make a complete recovery.

I am enthusiastic about the XD pistols. Now that spare parts for the XD pistols are available, they are my top pick for self defense pistols.

An important reminder to all SurvivalBlog readers in North America: Front Sight's Gun + Gear + Training special offer (that includes a free XD pistol in your choice of calibers) will be ending soon, so don't hesitate!

Odds 'n Sods:

I was recently doing a web search on "Asymmetric Warfare" and I came across this interesting article (in PDF) from Military Review magazine in 2001: America's Frontier wars: Lessons for Asymmetric Conflicts.

o o o

Reader Michael H. suggested this article from Bob Chapman's The International Forecaster: The Formula For Hyperstagflation

o o o

Trent H. sent us a link to an article summarizing a recent speech by Congressman Ron Paul: "Some Big Events Are About To Occur"

o o o

Pyotr in the Czech Republic wrote me to mention that he was researching custom-built intrusion detection systems for rural retreats, and he found this interesting reference: Perimeter Security Sensor Technologies Handbook.

Jim's Quote of the Day:

"If ... ...Fannie and Freddie are flat-out taken over entirely by the US government (and remember the Federal Reserve is not the government), then the national debt will roughly double overnight -- which will pound the US dollar down a rat-hole." - James Howard Kunstler

Sunday July 20 2008

Letter Re: Rampant Inflation in Steel Products

Hey Jim,
I used to make my living as a construction electrician and had several big steel Greenlee brand tool boxes with my tools. There is usually one in the back of my
truck all the time.

Price of gun safes has continued to rise, so I took one of my boxes and cut out a plywood rack for my guns, then filled in around the rack with polyurethane foam. After it was set and cured, I painted the urethane foam flat black.

The fit and finish on my Greenlee tool box/gun safe is good enough to protect my weapons, keep them locked and secure. It also has the advantage of handles and skids so it can be loaded into a pickup or bug out trailer to get to the remote retreat in a hurry. If necessary, I can load it with a forklift, or a chain hoist, or muscle it on with three other men.
Anyway, I thought you might be interested in my improvised gun safe.

The steel tool boxes can still be bought from Lowe's [hardware store] for $199. Regards, - Lawrence, editor of SurvivingTheDayAfter@yahoogroups.com

JWR Replies: Thanks for that cost-saving suggestion. Just keep in mind that "portability" works both ways. It is essential that you secure your vault, box, or chest to a floor or a very sturdy wall, to prevent burglars from hauling off "The Whole Shebang." Be sure to use heavy duty lag bolts!

Letter Re: A Reminder to Readers About Botulism

I think that the author of "Letter Re: A Reminder to Readers About Botulism" [posted on July 18th] is a little mistaken about the deadliness of "even a single small whiff of Botulinum toxin." The video in the link he provided is a discussion of the effects of weaponized botulism toxin. In the video, it's stated that botulism doesn't make a very good open-air weapon, although it may have potential as a weapon in enclosed areas or by infecting food.

According to the Botulism Handbook for Epidemiologists, Clinicians, and Laboratory Workers:

...botulism can be picked up by (a) eating contaminated food, (b) through intestinal colonisation in infants fed contaminated-honey (though apparently not in adults fed the same honey), and (c) through open wound contamination when cleaning up contaminated surfaces or substances. In a later section, it states that "Botulinum toxins are extremely poisonous for humans. Minute quantities acquired by ingestion, inhalation, or by absorption through the eye or a break in the skin can cause profound intoxication and death;" however, I believe that in this section, they are referring to refined botulism toxin in a laboratory environment.

On the CDC "Botulism > Botulism Associated with Canned Chili Sauce, July 2007 > Questions and Answers" page, they describe the cleanup procedure for suspected or known-contaminated canned food as follows:

Do not open or puncture any unopened can of the recalled product.
Dispose of food that may be contaminated by placing in a sealable bag, wrapping another plastic bag around the sealable bag, and then taping tightly. Place bags in a trash receptacle for non-recyclable trash outside the home and out of reach of humans and pets. Do not discard the food in a sink, garbage disposal, or toilet. Avoid splashing and contact with the skin. Wear rubber or latex gloves when handling open containers of food that you think may be contaminated. Wash hands with soap and running water for at least 2 minutes after handling food or containers that may be contaminated.
Wipe up spills using a bleach solution (use 1⁄4 cup bleach for each 2 cups of water). Completely cover the spill with the bleach solution. Place a layer of paper towels, 5 to 10 towels thick, on top of the bleach. Let the towels sit for at least 15 minutes, then put the paper towels in the trash. Wipe up any remaining liquid with new paper towels. Clean the area with liquid soap and water to remove the bleach. Wash hands with soap and running water for at least 2 minutes. Sponges, cloths, rags and gloves that may have come into contact with contaminated food or containers should be discarded with the food.

While extreme care should be taken to limit exposure to contaminated food, including immediate disposal, wearing rubber gloves, and surface cleanup with bleach, again, the CDC doesn't seem to be advocating the use of a respirator or warning to avoid breathing in "even a single small whiff" of the air from the can. Botulism is dangerous, but a botulism-contaminated food source is unlikely to kill you unless you touch it with an open wound or ingest some of the food. That said, I probably wouldn't try and sniff around a bulging can of bad food; but if I did, and later suspected botulism, I wouldn't be terrified I might die, either. - M.C.P.

Odds 'n Sods:

Thanks to Eric B. for potting this: Study shows fuel cell cars still 15 years away at best

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SF in Hawaii forwarded this video link: Jim Rogers Speaks the Truth about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

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Wolf sent us this: Merrill Drops After $4.65 Billion Second-Quarter Loss, the same day that Cheryl sent us this: Citigroup posts $2.5B loss, but beats expectations. It seems neither the brokers nor the banksters are faring well in this credit-starved environment.

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JT flagged this one from The Daily Telegraph: Africa's Oil Boom Shifts Balance of Power

Jim's Quote of the Day:

"We are not what we know, but what we are willing to learn." - Mary Catherine Bateson

Saturday July 19 2008

Note from JWR:

I'm posting things early today, since we are going in to town where The Memsahib will be seeing the doctors. Thanks for your many e-mails of support and your continuing prayers.

Letter Re: The Tomato Rebuild--Machining Technology is Crucial to Modern Society, by Thomas G.

Jim,
After reading the recent letter by Thomas G, I felt compelled to offer a response to demystify some of the technologies he talked about. First, I am a tool and die maker for an ammunition manufacturer. If it's broken, I fix it, if we need it, but can't buy it, I design and make it.

From reloading dies, case feeders, powder measures, primer feeders, cold header press parts, I have done a lot. So I feel somewhat qualified to shed some light onto how things are done. I'll start basic, and then work up to complex.

Aside from the technology of making metal, the most basic component is arguably the screw, or the nut and bolt. While these can be made on a lathe, that's simply not practical in the world of mass production. Since at least the turn of the previous century (1800-1900) bolts have been made using machines called headers and rollers. Headers come in two forms, cold and hot. A cold header is typically used for making bolts, these take wire (and by wire, I mean form, not size) the wire is then cut, and pushed into a die. A forming die will then come down and crush the wire that sticks outside the base die, this forms the bolt head, this can also be done for nails, rivets, screws etc. In the case of bolts and screws they are then dropped into a thread rolling machine. This is a device which has two panels which have flattened threads cut onto them, the bolt rolls between the two panels and is threaded.

Nuts are made by hot-heading. A slug of wire is heated until it's pliable, and is then smashed into a form. When it's cooled it's then threaded using a tap.

Gears are made on machines called hobbers, but can be made on a horizontal mill, or a shaper with an indexing head. The hobber works by holding a gear blank between centers, and then has a cutter that rotates above the gear. Once a gear is made, it can be used as a template for casting more, either die cast, or sand cast, depends on size and material.

A lathe is a fairly basic machine, if anyone has ever seen a wood lathe, a metal lathe works on the same principle. If you can build a wood lathe, you can build a metal lathe in a number of iterations. Given the scrap available from even a post-collapse society cobbling a functional lathe together should be fairly easy. The same applies to a mill.

For those who have interest, I suggest checking out the gingery machines web site, and perhaps even buying the book set. While a long time ago I decided it was easier to buy and rehab an old lathe than to build a new one, the books will give even the novice user a good idea about how machines are made.

It is important to note that most machine tools were conceived back in the 1800s. With a few decent measuring tools, almost anything can be made. The greatest thing about the age we live in currently is our ability to measure. If you have a few decent sets of dial calipers, a few dial indicators, a pyrometer (for heat treating) and a stop watch, you can produce just about anything you need.

At times after reading "Patriots" I laugh at the [refugee] character who was the machinist, (Lon Porter) since he carried his tools around in a bicycle trailer. While one tool box may satisfy the storage space required for some measuring tools, it would take a truck to move all of the various tools (tool bits, drill bits, mills, punches, indicators, angle finders,
etc) that I would consider ideal for a post-apocalyptic machine shop.- AVL

Letter Re: PetroMax Kerosene Lanterns

Hi Jim,
I figured I’d better write about my experience with PetroMax (BriteLyt) Kerosene lanterns.
I’ve had their 150CP (Candle Power) (100 watts of light) for a couple years now and really like it.
BriteLyt is now providing their 500CP (400 watts of light ) to the US Government as Model MR-2 with a federal stock number.
BTW they also make a nice 11,000 BTU kerosene stove which they are also making for the government.
So I got two of the new USG MR-2s and tried them out. Right away I had a problem!

As you know, I’m [living and own a retreat at] at 6,600 feet MSL and 9,800 feet MSL. (I should have picked up on this earlier. Altitude! Lack of air! Ha!) Okay, sometimes I can be slow witted.

Anyway, I had a miserable time of it with these two lamps. If I’d have been at sea level, I wouldn’t have had any problems.
Working with BriteLyt, I used the jets for their 150CP lamp and now the MR-2s series work great at my altitude. I’m going to try their 350CP jets (a little bigger gas flow) and see how they work. More light should be the result. Actually, I like the way the 150CP jets work.

How great are these lamps? Really great.
Nice light! Absolutely. [Because of the intense glare,] I highly recommend the lampshade style reflector.
Burn anything. Gasoline, Paint thinner, kerosene, diesel, JP-8. What do you have, I’d probably try it in these lamps.

The word I’ve got from my research worldwide is “If you have a PetroMax that works well, it’ll be a thing of joy for a lifetime.”
BTW, repair parts are really inexpensive and worth putting in a supply if you get these lamps. As you know, the [US] military has geared up for exclusively JP-8 and done away with gasoline, except for those darned never-worked-right gasoline lamps. Now one more thing is JP-8 capable. A lantern that burns JP-8 diesel.

I heard we had some boys freeze to death in Afghanistan last year and the inclusion of the kerosene stove will make sure that doesn’t happen again. With the kerosene stove in a pit under a tent or tarp, you’re not gonna freeze.

All in all, for a good prep, I recommend these lamps. However, as with all technology, toy with them and learn the little quirks that they have. Overall, I’m well pleased especially with the [large quantity of] diesel I have put away.

I’ll update you when I get the 350CP jets and also when I can get one of their stoves. - The Army Aviator

Odds 'n Sods:

Thanks to Cheryl for sending a link to an article that describes how more banks are in trouble. These include: Wachovia (downgraded on the 15th), WaMu, National City Corp., and U.S. Bancorp

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Eric sent a link to an editorial from The Des Moines Register: Help farmers, consumers: Revive grain reserve

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KMA spotted an article in The Economist titled Peak Oil, The Only Way is Down.

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John T. sent us a link to an article that is a sign of the times: Pakistani Investors Stone Exchange as Stocks Plunge

Jim's Quote of the Day:

"If you ever hear a government official come out and say that an institution is fine, you know it's time to get your money out because history shows they're likely lying. Look what happened with Fannie and Freddie. The government said everything was fine right up to the day the US Treasury dropped the biggest government bailout of all time on the American taxpayer. The bill for Fannie, Freddie and the bank failures could cost the taxpayer over $400 billion. (That's your money, of course.)". - Richard Benson in: Is Your Money Safe?

Friday July 18 2008

Note from JWR:

The high bid in the current SurvivalBlog Benefit Auction is $500. This auction is for a big mixed lot: a NukAlert radiation detector, donated by KI4U--a $160 value), a DVD of 480 E-books on Alternative Energy (donated by WK Books--a $25 value), and the following package of survival gear all kindly donated by CampingSurvival.com: One case of MREs, one pack of water purifications tablets, a bottle of colloidal silver, a fire starter, a bottle of potassium iodate tablets, an emergency dental kit, a pack of "Shower in a bag" bath wipes, and one messenger bag to pack it in.

Letter Re: A Reminder to Readers About Botulism

Jim,
Feel free to post the following if you think it would be of help and interest.

Bulging cans with botulism are worse than most think. While bulging cans of food are relatively rare and most everybody knows that any bulging can should be discarded, few know just how seriously dangerous they can become if opened or accidentally ruptured. Botulism is so extremely deadly, it must be suspect in all bulging cans and they must not only be discarded, but put away from anyone else. Botulinum toxin is one of the most lethal substances known to man, as seen in this CDC article. When food is in short supply some will begin buying and using whatever old cans they can find and be eager not to waste anything too, thus many will also be tempted to open suspect bulging cans to better inspect the contents, before just rejecting it, and usually by smelling it.

People need to know that even a single small whiff of Botulinum toxin, especially when concentrated and released from a pressurized bulging can, can kill you stone dead in a few paralyzing hours, it's truly that deadly. Please warn people at every opportunity to never fool with any suspect cans and to dispose of them as if a live grenade, where no one will come across them either. - Shane Connor, www.ki4u.com

Letter Re: The Cost of Things to Come

We are in a simultaneously deflationary and inflationary situation.
The deflationary forces are:
1) We've been a credit based society and with less credit available, less purchasing will happen driving down prices.
2) Most people have most of their wealth in their home, their stocks and their banks (Indy Mac anyone?), all decreasing in value thus putting the brakes on discretionary purchasing driving down prices.

The inflationary forces are:
1) The rising price of oil raises transportation and manufacturing costs for everything.
2) The increasing population and decreasing supply of commodities (food, metals etc.) increases prices.
3) The Fed cannot raise the interest rate and slow down inflation without causing an even worse housing collapse.

With two opposite forces pulling on the economy, for a time we have had a dynamic stasis as the forces balanced each other. Now these two forces are literally tearing the fabric of the economy asunder.

On one side, anything available that is sold in the international marketplace or has intrinsic value will increase in price.
This means food, oil, ammo, metals, commodities. This is due to the loss of the value of the dollar and the fact that the demand for these items is less negotiable. On the continuum, you must have food, and you'd really like not to freeze this winter due to lack of heating oil.

You, along with six billion other people will do what you have to, in order to continue to eat but do you really need that 40" television, a dinner out or a vacation or...
Anything that is sold exclusively locally (not including commodities), and is discretionary will begin to decrease in price.
Expect deep discounts as stores that do not have international presences liquidate inventory to cover expenses. Have you been to [shop at] The Sharper Image lately?
This includes anything that people own and don't really need such as: Trucks, cars, boats, electronics etc...

Consider what you do for a living. If you have hard skills (plumbing, gardening, medical), your skills are non-discretionary. You will be needed and your prices can rise with the prices of commodities.

If you are a consultant, artist, analyst, if you have a store that sells non-essentials, you're vocation is discretionary. Your prices will likely go down if you want to attract work.- SF in Hawaii

Letter Re: The Backwoods Home Magazine Anthologies

Jim,

I recently purchased Backwoods Home's "The Affordable Whole Shebang" offer which includes printed anthologies of Backwoods Home starting from year one to the present (13 years) as well as 11 CD-ROMs packed full of information: recipes, alternative energy, firearms info, preparedness guide, etc. The CD-ROMs include a partial electronic anthology of the magazine (years 7-14) for easy portability.

I was very impressed by the sheer volume of reading material for only $257! I am a voracious reader and it will take quite a while for me to consume it all. I highly recommend this fantastic offer and feel that not only is it entertaining to read, it is very informative as well. This is an important addition to the preparedness library. I'm not associated with the magazine--just a satisfied reader. - Rob M.

Odds 'n Sods:

Downturn gains steam as inflation roars ahead

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Cheryl N. sent us this: Fears Over Safety in Savings Triggers Panic in US

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Jason M. flagged this: ‘Flying IEDs’ Pose New Iraq Threat. (OBTW, I've had the acronym "UAVIED" in the SurvivalBlog Glossary since August of 2005. Terrorists may soon use radio-controlled planes--from the size of light model planes, on up--packed with explosives.)

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The International Forecaster anticipates "A Complete and Systemic Breakdown" of the US and world financial systems and economies. (Kudos to Kevin A. for finding that item.)

Jim's Quote of the Day:

"Today is the day you swore was going to be different - yesterday." - Nick Murray

Thursday July 17 2008

Note from JWR:

The high bid in the current SurvivalBlog Benefit Auction is $390. This auction is for a big mixed lot: a NukAlert radiation detector, donated by KI4U--a $160 value), a DVD of 480 E-books on Alternative Energy (donated by WK Books--a $25 value), and the following package of survival gear all kindly donated by CampingSurvival.com: One case of MREs, one pack of water purifications tablets, a bottle of colloidal silver, a fire starter, a bottle of potassium iodate tablets, an emergency dental kit, a pack of "Shower in a bag" bath wipes, and one messenger bag to pack it in.

A July, 2008 Jim Rawles Interview by AlterNet

The following is a transcript of an interview that will soon be run at the popular left-of-center AlterNet web site:

AlterNet: Is survivalism a failure of community? A celebration of it?

JWR: I'd say that survivalism is indeed a celebration of community. It is the embodiment of America's traditional "can do" spirit of self-reliance that settled the frontier.

AlterNet: Is it engineered by personal issues? Is it a racial, or economic phenomenon, in your opinion? Or both?

JWR: Survivalism [is a movement that] crosses all racial and religious lines. It is essentially color blind. For 99% of us, we could care less about the color of someone's skin, but we care a lot about about including people with valuable skill sets. The preparedness movement is simply a rational quest for family and community level self-sufficiency in an increasingly dangerous world. There is unfortunately a very small but very vocal minority that are disgustingly racist idiots. I'm sad to say that they also call themselves survivalists. They get an inordinate amount of press coverage, making that 1% look much larger than it really is. In my opinion they should be ignored and shunned, and I certainly don't give them a platform on SurvivalBlog.

The economic cross section of SurvivalBlog readers is also amazing. We have working class readers that a worried about how they are going to make their next car payment posting alongside surgeons and entrepreneurs. We have both starving students and Little Old Lady pensioners. The readership is also global. We have regular readers in more than 90 countries. But even with this diversity, we all get along. [I didn't mention that I also edit out a lot of rants and foul language from the readers' letters that I post.] Part of this is the realization that the next Great Depression will be a tremendous "leveler".

AlterNet: Do you think survivalism is a rational response to our current crises?

JWR: Absolutely.

AlterNet: After all, we have an administration with minority support that is ruining the economy and world without a care for what its majority thinks. Do you think the unilateral policies of America over the last several years has contributed to the mindset? Or is it just gun nuts going too far?

JWR: There is greater interest in preparedness these days because the fragility of our economy, the lengthening chains of supply, and the complexity of the technological infrastructure have become apparent to a broader cross-section of the populous. All parties concerned may not realize it, but the left-of-center Greens that are calling for "local economy" and encouraging farmer's markets actually have a tremendous amount in common with John Birchers that are decrying globalist bankers, and likewise with gun owners that complain about their constitutional rights being trampled. At the core, for all of them, is the recognition that big, entrenched, centralized power structures are not the answer. They are, in fact, the problem.

AlterNet: What do survivalists get right?

JWR: They recognize that smaller scale economies and older technologies are appropriate. They also recognize that meaningful solutions are found at the community level--not from top-down, command-driven bureaucracies.

AlterNet: What do they get wrong?

JWR: A minority of SurvivalBlog readers are over-enamored with gadgets. I call these folks "Mall Ninjas." They live in a fantasy world. In the real world, skills beat gadgets every time. But in our "big box" consumerist economy, some people mistakenly think that they can buy happiness, or--in this case--buy preparedness. A big, expensive pile of "tacticool" gear without the hard-earned skills to know how to use it is essentially useless. It takes time and a requisite expenditure of sweat to really know how to tend a garden, hang a gate, cut a cord of firewood, or field dress a deer. Some people have simply never done something so basic as digging a post hole in rocky ground, and they will break down in tears if they ever have to. Their fancy gear can't do everything for them.

AlterNet: Do you think Peak Oil and climate crisis will team up to smack the American Dream down?

JWR: I think that Peak Oil is already upon us, but I'm reserving my opinion on climate change, since there is so much conflicting evidence.

AlterNet: Do you think technology can save us?

JWR: I don't think that technology--in and of itself--can save us. Again, it is practical skills, not gadgets that will help us to pull through tough times. This not to say that I don't recommend some high tech items like photovoltaic panels. Life without them in a "grid down" situation would be very uncomfortable. I'm also a great fan of hydrogen fuel cell, alcohol gas, and biodigester technologies. But those will likely be a case of "too little, too late." If anything, life in the 22nd Century will more closely resemble the 19th Century than it will the 20th Century. I predict that it will be a century of steam and horse power. And between now and then? Sadly, the 21st Century will probably be remembered as the time of the Great Die-Off.

AlterNet: Are Americans too spoiled to change their ways before it is too late?

JWR: For some Americans, yes. But others are clearly showing the wisdom to "Get Out of Dodge" while the getting is good, by moving to lightly-populated "retreat" regions to genuinely pursue self-sufficiency. Again, these people come from all across the political spectrum. I think that in the the next couple of decades we will witness the formation of some remarkable intentional communities (a.k.a "gulches") that will feature some unlikely bedfellows: Anarchists and Ayn Rand readers, Mennonites and gun enthusiasts, Luddites and techno-geeks, fundamentalist Christians and Gaia worshippers, tree huggers and horse wranglers. We welcome them all. I have been pleasantly surprised to see SurvivalBlog readers set aside some very sharp differences for the sake of a common goal. That consensus is one of the things that gives me the most pride about SurvivalBlog. I'm a conservative Christian but that doesn't mean that I'm not willing to listen to a leftist agnostic, if he has something useful and productive to say about practical preparedness and self-sufficiency.

AlterNet: And what do you see as the chief threats legitimizing a survivalist defense?

JWR: The threats are clearly manifold: Peak Oil, a derivatives meltdown, pandemics, economic instability, food shortages, stock market and currency collapses, terrorism, bank runs, state sponsored global war, rationing, and more. In a situation this precarious I believe that it is remarkably naive to think that mere geographical isolation will be sufficient to shelter communities from the predation of evildoers. I strongly believe in turning the other cheek, but as a realist, I also believe in Rule 308. (See the SurvivalBlog Glossary.)

AlterNet: What are you [personally] preparing for?

JWR: All of the above. I read Psalm 91 regularly. I encourage AlterNet readers to take a look at the SurvivalBlog "Precepts" page for the details of my philosophy and envisioned scenarios. Again, I believe that we have more in common than we have differences.

Letter Re: Insect-Free Long Term Food Storage

Jim.
I have been buying flour and corn meal in five pound bags and placing in the freezer for a couple of weeks to destroy any "nits" still in them, and after that putting them in plastic bins. I really have no idea if this works long term, but would appreciate any suggestions on whether or not there is any method to preserve these items other than this. I have a Porkett hand grinder, but to grind wheat fine enough for bread flour is difficult. Thanks, - Charlie P.

JWR Replies:
Just freezing the grain doesn't kill all the insect eggs, which can hatch later. You need to use either dry ice (CO2) or oxygen absorbing packets, (the latter available from Nitro-Pak and several other Internet vendors), to get a 100% kill of adult bugs, larvae, and eggs. I've posted details of the dry ice method a few time in SurvivalBlog. It is also described at in my "Rawles Gets You Ready" preparedness course and in Alan T. Hagan's Food Storage FAQ.

You also asked about wheat grinders. To grind fine flour, I recommend the Country Living grain mill, available from Ready Made Resources and several other Internet vendors. It is an excellent mill, designed for a lifetime of use. We have one here at the ranch. It is a hand mill, but because its driving wheel has a V-belt ("fan belt") slot, it can be easily converted to be powered by an electric motor, a bicycle, or even a water wheel or windmill.

Odds 'n Sods:

Reader Robert V. mentioned a news service report on the recent bank run in California.

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From Yahoo! Finance, What if my bank fails? Some questions and answers. (A hat tip to Kevin A.)

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Outfitters Supply (one of our advertisers) is offering SurvivalBlog readers free freight on all wall tents and wall tent frames, which is a savings of at least $29 and up to $240 for a full tent package. Mention that you are a SurvivalBlog reader and they will deduct the freight charges.

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Paul B. sent a Bloomberg article quoting investment guru Jim Rogers. Paul's comment: "I'm amazed at how many of your observations seem to dovetail into 'professional' investors' take on the economy. Jim Rogers, one of the most successful investors in the last 20 years, outlines in clear terms what is happening in the current financial world."

Jim's Quote of the Day:

"It only took a sinking dollar, US$4 gas, sky-rocketing food inflation, pathetic employment numbers, a limping stock market, and a housing crash for the mainstream to start to question our dominance. But apparently, we're there." - Kathlyn Von Rohr, writing in the Sovereign Society's Offshore A-Letter, July, 2008

Wednesday July 16 2008

Notes from JWR:

Congrats to JJW, the high bidder in the recent SurvivalBlog Benefit Auction. Today we begin a new SurvivalBlog Benefit Auction. This one is for a big mixed lot that includes: a NukAlert radiation detector, donated by KI4U--a $160 value, a DVD of 480 E-books on Alternative Energy (donated by WK Books--a $25 value), and the following package of survival gear all kindly donated by CampingSurvival.com: One case of MREs, one pack of water purifications tablets, a bottle of colloidal silver, a fire starter, a bottle of potassium iodate tablets, an emergency dental kit, a pack of "Shower in a bag" bath wipes, and one messenger bag to pack it in. The opening bid for this combined lot is just $70.

The following is another article for Round 17 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The writer of the best non-fiction article will win two valuable four day "gray" transferable Front Sight course certificates. (Worth up to $4,000!) Second prize is a copy of my "Rawles Gets You Ready" preparedness course, generously donated by Jake Stafford of Arbogast Publishing. Round 17 ends on July 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entries. Remember that articles that relate practical "how to" skills for survival will have an advantage in the judging.

The Tomato Rebuild--Machining Technology is Crucial to Modern Society, by Thomas G.

Have you ever really thought about your food? The intricate system that conveys it to your fingertips, and often to your mouth directly? The complicated processes and machinery that make everything run so smooth? You mat be amazed at the phenomenally complicated process involved in bringing that jug of milk, candy bar, or perhaps a simple tomato to your feast. This is an abbreviated sequence with the express purpose of shedding light on a dwindling craft: Machine work. While this trade is flourishing around the world, we here at home have swept it under the rug in favor of cheap imports and strip malls. This may soon come back to bite us. And it will be hard.

Try this illustration. After wandering about the store, pick up a tomato. Average sized, normal red, no cuts no bruises, Nothing special right? Wrong. Start hefting the tomato, looking at it from all sides, studying it with more fascination than could possibly be warranted for "just a tomato". After a while start thinking... How did this get here? And why is it so similar to all the rest, sitting here in a box along with hundreds of brothers neatly packed inside?

Well, never rejecting the oddball challenges, lets begin to think backwards through the process. The last thing that was done was a store clerk rolled it out there on a pallet jack with twenty other boxes. Hmmm... pallet jack. A small hydraulic jack whose piston and cylinder have been turned on a lathe to an exact specified size, then precision ground to within a couple of ten thousandth parts of an inch. Take your average sized hair, divide it up long ways thirty equal times, that is near .0001" or one ten thousandth part of an inch. The valve housing was drilled and tapped and cut to size in a fixture on a milling machine. The whole pallet jack was fabricated and welded up by skilled craftsmen. Wow, that is intense, and its just the tip of the iceberg! What else is not as simple as it seems? Lets keep going.

Well, it got here in a big semi truck. The trailer may have been built from extruded aluminum. The extrusion dies having been cut on a Computer Numerical Controlled (CNC) milling machine, The pistons of the large diesel have been precision turned on a lathe to about plus or minus .0005 inches. Then placed in a mill and given its flat sides, and the precision bored hole for the wrist pin. The dashboard of the truck was made by the injection molding of plastic.) The mold being cut from a large chunk, or billet, of high grade tool steel on a CNC machine cutting in three axis simultaneously, (X, Y and Z) The entire truck is assembled with nuts, bolts screws and rivets, Every one of these came off a screw turning lathe, most likely somewhere in Taiwan or Mainland China. Each one of the 18 wheels was cut from a big billet of forged aluminum on a large CNC lathe. The gears, the axles, the bearings, everything goes back to a machine tool at some point.

So, at the plant, these tomatoes ran through the gauntlet of an enormous system of computerized cameras to check for color, size, blemishes and sugar content, along with washing waxing and labeling machines. All this is achieved on miles of conveyor belts running on thousands upon thousands of rollers axles, gears, bearings, mechanical fingers and arms, motors, and actuators. Every gear was cut on a lathe for its outside diameter, and later to a four axis (X Y Z and A) indexing mill to cut each tooth. Every one of these parts had to be machined on a machine tool directly or molded from a machine tool cut mold.

Need I even mention the intricacies of a modern combine harvester being a combination of a tractor, harvester, conveyor and loading system, and sometimes even packaging plant?
The manufacturing world is based completely on the interchangeability or parts derived from the accuracies of modern metalworking machinery, and their machinists.
One of Man's claim for dominance in this world, besides being Children of God, is the use of tools. The machine tool is the pinnacle. These tools solve innumerable problems, such as building the machines to process tomatoes, looms to make cloth, printing presses for publications, molds for cups... The list goes on almost without end. But unlike power looms, printing presses or tomato processing machinery, the machine tool is self replicating. Meaning that if you have a lathe and a milling machine, you can build yourself another lathe and milling machine to continue solving more problems and conceivably create more machine tools. Can a loom build another loom?

So, TEOTWAWKI, Now what?
Remember how machine work and most other skilled work like it have been pushed aside by cheap imports? Here comes the big bite. The inability of the US to import enough basic "stuff." Oil, machine tools, computers, medical equipment, sponges, toothpicks etc... combined with our lack of an industrial infrastructure to take up the slack will result in, well, nothing. And that will last for a long time, until we re-build that infrastructure.

Modern US manufacturing is dependent on CNC machines. In a grid down/EMP situation, all this incredibly productive machinery will be completely 100% worthless, except as scrap. Although scrap is very valuable, it is not directly valuable as a machine tool. Without their computers, stepper and servo motors, glass scales (for precise measurement), and especially without tons of power, these amazing machines can not function. You can't even take the motors off the axis and put hand wheels in their place because all the measurement is digital.

China, India, and other developing nations will not fall as far back as we will during a global crisis. They're not nearly as dependent on others for their basic commodities. For example they make their own basic fasteners, their own hand tools, and basic human necessities, nearly everything. Including and especially machine tools. Also, they do more work by hand, scraping, honing, lapping, and filing. These are basic metalworking operations that can be key in machine tool fabrication. The US has lost most of the people who know these skills. These I can think of only three machine tool makers who still construct machines here. HAAS, Hardinge, and Moore. Probably a couple more, but not many. In the US this is becoming a lost art.

Third world countries rely more heavily on manual machine tools, which have integral mechanical position indicators. This is key for our infrastructure to be rebuilt, the manual machine tool. As stated earlier, most CNC machines will become boat anchors without their multitude of motors, computers, hydraulics, pneumatics. Oh, did I mention the tons of electricity to run it all? Not so with manual machine tools. The vast majority of manual machine tools have their position displayed on or near the hand wheels that power their feed and position axis. Notice the words hand wheel. Generally these machines rely on a motor to turn the spindle only. Other functions, many times, are powered off the spindle. This gives much more ready access to their belts, gears and motors, and it can conceivably only take one belt to power the whole setup. This makes these machines much more inclined to operate on alternative energy sources, such as hand cranks, leather belts and steam (or Lister) engines, bicycle chain and pedals, foot treadle, windmill, waterwheel, etc... Most can live without compressed air, hydraulics and digital readout displays. As an example, I have recently cut special round and buttress formed threads while pushing the lathe spindle around by hand.

These threads were not your ordinary 1/4-20 from your local Ace Hardware. I had to grind the shape into the high speed steel (HSS) tool bit by hand. The tools simply did not exist in any metalworking catalogs. This is the next key. The fundamental most basic cutting tool is a hard flat rock. Something to sharpen and form cutting tools and others. In its basic form it is a flat rock. In an advanced form it is a pedestal grinder. We won't discuss the more advanced types. Since there will be conceivably very few to nobody selling cutting tools, and postal services not likely, these will need to be fabricated in-house. Find an antique hand crank grinder at an antique shop or on eBay. Many still have years of life left. Many have no life left. It is a crap shoot. I've purchased two, one old and one brand new. The brand new one from India was worse than the old worn out one which I had already disposed of. Possibly a better solution, and much less of a gamble, will be to modify our existing pedestal grinders. This is quite simple, as they have standard sized shafts, and they have bearings inside. (Good grinders spin for minutes after power is removed.) Simply buy a small pulley the same size as your grinder spindle from mcmaster.com for about $4, and replace one grinding wheel with it. This can be hooked up to a big pulley with a hand wheel and any number of other alternate energy sources. Try and get a 6-to-1 ratio or more. The pulley can be put in place when the Schumer hits the fan and the grinder is still serviceable in our modern world. Very useful machine tool - Done.

Now that we've got a grinder, what are we going to grind with it? Well, to make the best tools, obviously tungsten carbide is ideal. This offers incredible rates of metal removal and lasts much longer than HSS, so it is truly the best. Oh wait, hold on, our machines may have trouble reaching the thousands of revolutions per minute necessary for tungsten carbide to cut properly without chipping and breaking. Carbide is brittle and hard, it chips and shatters at the slightest mistake. Carbide is also very difficult to re-sharpen, partially due to the fact that it needs special green silicon carbide grinding wheels that last 1/3 as long as your standard gray aluminum oxide wheels. Also, that most is in the form of disposable inserts means they wont be available anywhere. [JWR Adds: So stock up!)

High speed steel will be king in these days. The benefits of HSS for survival are; It is cheap, HSS is 5 to 50 times less than carbide. I just priced HSS blanks at kbctools.com from $0.90 to $10. People tend to think of them as strictly for a lathe. Not so, as we shall see. They are re-sharpenable with the ubiquitous gray aluminum oxide wheel. Depending on how dull they have become, smooth rocks like a whetstone or sandpaper, may work. They can be re-sharpened for more than 2/3rds their entire length! As long as you can get a bite on them with your tool holder, it is long enough. It also uses slower speeds than tungsten carbide. Its called "High speed steel" because back near the early part of the 20th Century when it was developed it was a huge advance over what people were then using - high carbon steel. This is the steel used for files, chisels, punches, and other heavy duty uses. This is the next option when the High speed steel is all depleted. It just needs slower speeds and feeds.

Much of the above pertains to both the basic lathe and milling machine. Now specifically though for the milling machines. A milling machine normally uses what is called an end mill. An end mill looks similar to a drill bit but cuts not just at its point, but on its sides as well. These kinds of cutters will be great to have, but they will run out eventually too. The great difficulty in the manufacture of these cutting tools is prohibitive to reproduce in hard times. It takes a highly complex system of grinders, usually CNC, and we all know how useful those will be after these huge solar flares coming in 2011-to-2013. Manual re-sharpening is very complex, and still involves a complex machine tool with air bearing helical indexing fixtures and grinding wheels. For example, a cheap end mill sharpener costs $4,000. Luckily all is not lost with the mill. It is possible to use a milling machine with cutters ground out of the same HSS blanks used primarily for the lathe. (Or, when push comes to shove, hardened high carbon steel) All they need is to be mounted in special holder called a fly cutter.

A much more survival style machine than the milling machine is the obsolete and no-longer produced metal shaper.
This is not like a modern woodworking shaper. This machine can make flat surfaces, grooves, T-slots, and internal and external key ways. (Internal is near impossible with a mill.) This tool pushes a cutter across the surface of the workpiece much like a wood plane cuts. No rotation of the tool or workpiece. It makes incremental steps across or down the workpiece for flats, grooves, etc. The great benefit is that it uses the same HSS blanks as your lathe turning tool and mill fly-cutter. This machine can use very simple cutters to make very complex details and shapes.

More extremely basic tools necessary for survival metalworking are files. These tools have been around since 1200 B.C. in Egypt. Their manufacture is difficult when not mechanized. Its manufacture was even shrouded in secrecy by the file-makers guilds for hundreds of years because they were such a valuable tool. Just think, blacksmiths, gunsmiths, clock makers, and locksmiths have made guns, locks clocks and precision movements for centuries with the most rudimentary of metalworking tools; a forge, and a file. With enough practice and knowledge, even making taps and dies is possible by filing.

Hacksaw blades are not necessarily super old tech, but they are just about the only hand powered way to cut thick sections of metal. These will cut through most materials, but they take time, which there ought to be plenty of again.

Taps, dies and drill bits are all going to be worth their weight in gold. Consider "roll form" taps. They don't cut the metal, they push the metal around and make the threads. They are all the rage in machine shops for a reason - they last a long time and seem to never wear out.

Find yourself an old fashioned egg beater style drill. It's mighty hard to turn a drill bit by hand through any material, even plastic and wood. Again, I haven't found any new[ly manufactured] ones that are worth considering.

Buy reprints of out-of-print books on old time skills from Lindsay Books. These classic books teach old fashioned basic skills from homesteading, blacksmithing, metal casting, steel making, boiler making and producer gas (extensively used back in the thirties to power automobiles, now usually called syn-gas or underground coal gasification) all the way to machining, wind generators, electronics, and backyard ballistics. Incredible resource at decent prices. You'll love them. Get your own copies.

If your budget permits and all your other supplies are already together, consider a small lathe and mill from kbctools.com or grizzly.com. Both companies send out free toy, ahem, tool catalogs. Also, most used machine tools are still very serviceable, and in larger metropolitan areas there are machine tool re-builders. They can make a machine like new again. They posses many of the useful skills to restart the precision metalworking economy.

If you have interest in learning the machining trade, even as a hobby, you might consider a junior college class in machine tools. The machines are not self explanatory. Most levers and handles are not labeled and you will really hurt yourself without proper training. Encourage your kids to at least give machine shop a try. We need them.
I recently heard a machinist of 30 years explain this to his co-workers. This is an example of how we are losing our manufacturing knowledge base, and how not to encourage your kids to try machining.

"I put a bottle of beer and a set of micrometers [a precision measuring instrument representing machining] in front of my son. I told him to pick one, but if he takes the micrometers, I would hit him over the head with the beer" This stems from direct competition from overseas and the accompanying shrinking profit margins. All the pressure goes straight to the shoulders of the machinist. Lower wages and lots of "Hurry up!"

In an economic depression, my reasoning tells me that people won't buy new. But they will need the old repaired, and that takes replacement parts. Cuba, because of the trade embargo, has a fleet of 1950s-vintage cars looking fine and running well because they make all their own replacement parts. This is done with machine tools and skills. In a total rebuild, we'll need everything again.

Those who are knowledgeable and posses those tangibles, HSS blanks, lathes, mills drills, taps, dies, files, hacksaws, shapers (if you can find one) and non-digital precision measuring equipment are possibly set to become wealthy. If nobody else can do it, and it doesn't come from China anymore, then where will it come from? Machine shops, machinists, welders, and blacksmiths.

In summary:
-- Our modern society rests upon machinists and their tools. Everything traces back to a machine tool.
-- CNC machines are worthless without huge amounts of energy (50 to hundreds of Amps at 220-440 VAC)
-- Manual machine tools will be our best shot because of integral measuring and ease of using alternate energy. They often have one motor and will be easier to use leather belts et cetera.

Letter Re: .22 Rimfire Conversion Kits for SIG-Sauer Centerfire Pistols

Dear Jim:
Recently, I purchased a .22 conversion kit for my SIG P226 .40 S&W pistol. I was not aware that SIG was making such a unit until I saw it in the gun shop. Although pricey, ($369 factory price, $315 store price, [and I] managed to get one for $295) I went ahead and bought it.

I can happily report that this conversion worked flawlessly out of the box. While I did not have the opportunity to really test it for accuracy, I was able to bounce a pop can around at fifty yards. The three kinds of ammo used were CCI Stinger, Remington Golden hollow point, and Remington Thunderbolt with the angular bullet. In firing approximately 90 rounds (all there was time for), there were no malfunctions.

The conversions are made for the P220, P226, P229R, and P228/229. I tried to put the unit on my [SIG Model] and [Model] 229, but it wouldn't fit, (darn!). My employer is looking at purchasing the 229 kits training. We were using a K22 for shooters that were having problems. With the price of ammo, it makes no sense to keep throwing expensive ammo into the backstop, when you can drop back to a .22, work through a problem, and move back to the larger caliber.

With this unit, you keep the trigger pull of the original pistol, unlike the SIG Mosquito [,22 LR], which has a horrible DA trigger. I was told at an armorer's class in November of 2007 that the trigger was mandated by California law. Further, I was told that SIG had no plans to bring out a conversion. I guess they