Posted on 10/31/2011 8:07:51 PM PDT by Kartographer
Jim Rawls is with Peter Schiff today. He maintains a survivalist blog and is the author of several science fiction survival books. He is concerned about the possibility of an economic collapse and the hyperinflation that may be right around the corner. Interest in survival and family preparedness is up by about 30% in the past year. Right now, people seem to be more concerned about man-made disasters rather than natural disasters. You can see this in Egypt right now. The primary catalyst for all the riots over there is because the price of food has increased so substantially. Coffee beans is a great way to protect yourself. It is an item that can be easily bartered in the case of a survival situation. A product like coffee is also a good item to buy because if the price of it goes up, you won’t have to pay any capital gains taxes. Alcohol is another such product. The situation that we are in right now is similar to the way people felt back in the 1970s. Many people were stocking up for the future, but it turned out to be a false alarm. Back then, Reagan and the Federal Reserve did the right thing by raising interest rates. However, it might not be a false alarm this time. Even though the dollar wasn’t backed by gold, we were able to restore confidence in the dollar. We did that with high interest rates. This time, it is impossible for the Fed to raise interest rates that high because it would make the debt
(Excerpt) Read more at snapwire.com ...
Preppers Ping!
We are on the edge. Everyday there is a new story about the ‘Yutes’ who grow more restless everyday and when you add the fact that because of the economy people are already on edge it won’t take much to set things off.
Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:
“Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Siege of AR-558 (#7.8)” (1998)
Quark: Let me tell you something about Hew-mons, Nephew. They’re a wonderful, friendly people, as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people... will become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon. You don’t believe me? Look at those faces. Look in their eyes.
Today we have ‘yutes’ who roam our streets who are with out morals, without respect for law or life itself. They will look are you with the same ‘doll eyes’ a shark does before he eats you and they will feel no more compassion than the shark does.
That will be the test of many. Most preppers I know are Christian people and they will hesitate to do what they might have to do to stop the ‘yutes’. On the other hand the ‘yutes’ won’t think twice nor lose a minute of sleep, in fact they will smile and laugh about it.
For those who are just starting or are old hands at prepping you may find my Preparedness Manual helpfull. You can download it at:
http://www.tomeaker.com/kart/preparedness1i.pdf
For those of you who haven’t started already it’s time to prepare almost past time maybe. You needed to be stocking up on food guns, ammo, basic household supplies like soap, papergoods, cleaning supplies, good sturdy clothes including extra socks, underwear and extra shoes and boots, a extra couple changes of oil and filters for your car, tools, things you buy everyday start buying two and put one up.
As the LDS say “When the emergency is upon us the time for preparedness has past.”
Or as the bible says: A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it.
NIV Proverbs 22:3
most dire.
For those that missed it I suggest that you look over post:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2797776/posts
This is about a Bosnia war survivor and some of his first-hand observations of real SHTF. Like:
“OK, i wanna share with you my own experience. (be patient with my English, i am from far away ) I am from Bosnia, and as some of you may know it was hell here from 92-95, anyway, for 1 whole year i lived and survived in a city of 50 000- 60 000 residents WITHOUT: electricity, fuel,running water,real food distribution, or distribution of any goods, or any kind of organized law or government.The city was surrounded for 1 year and in that city actually it was SHTF situation. (SNIP) Some of us was better prepared, but most of families had food for couple of days, some of us had pistol, few owned AK-47 when all started.
Anyway, after one month or two, gangs started with their nasty job,hospital looked like butchery, police force vanished, 80 percent of hospital staff gone home. I was lucky, my family was big in that time (15 members in one big house, 5-6 pistols, 3 Kalashnikov s) so we lived and survived, most of us. (SNIP) After three months rumors started abouth first deaths from starvation,deaths from low temperatures, we stripped every door , window frame from abandoned houses for heating, i burned all my own furniture for heating, lot of people died from diseases, mostly from bad water (two of my family members), we used rain water for drink, several times i ate pigeons, once i ate rat. Money did not worth sh..
we traded things, black market worked, few examples: for 1 corned beef can you could have woman for couple of hours(sounds bad, but it was reality) i remember, most of that womans were just desperate mothers, candles, lighters,antibiotics,fuel,batteries, rifle ammo and of course food, we fight like animals for that.”
The U.S. Army has found that canned meats, vegetables and jam were in “excellent states of preservation” after 46 years.
ping
I always preach to my kids “Hope for the best but prepare for the worst”. They think I am too negative! Oh well they are 18 & 20 year old’s!
I am STILL soooo not prepared having come off a tough year...just in past couple weeks coming out of the woods...though very pleased to be getting on track again...they are saying the most time might be two or three years before the whole thing blows. Not much time and no gurantee that long.
So how does one prioritize with time running down?
Food , Water, Protection...then what? Seems the lists on line are endless!
ping for later
I was serving with the Marines in Vietnam in 1966-67. Our C-rations at the time usually read 1944 or 1945. They generally tasted like crap either way. But they didn’t kill you either. Plus we got gum, four cigarettes, TP and matches!
Going on day 4 with no power.
Here is what I did not have:
gasoline
Enough cash
A freakin radio ( I know, stupid)
A switch installed in my furnace to hook up to a generator
No need for ammo, but based on the lines at the gas station, it would not be far away...if there was no end in site.
I have plenty of food, but the stores are open a few miles away. But they had no produce.
Just a quick list from a pretty tame emergency. Good practice. The list grows every day.
You can get a cheap .22 marlin model 60 out of pawn shop for $100, and buy 1000 rds of ammo for $50. I recently bought 6,000 rds on special, online, for $170.
Getting to know your neighbors takes a little time, but no money. It is likely some of the best “prepper” preparation that you can do.
My digestive system for the last day or so has been pretty grumpy, and it’s highly unusual...
Think I got into a can of clam chowder that was a bit off!
I once opened a can of Hunt’s Spaghetti sauce that was about 6 years old. Except for the level being a bit down, which I assume was due to some evaporation (still can’t figure that, but a water molecule is pretty darn small, and if gas can work it’s way through a metal can, I suppose water can do the same).
Besides for the fact it was a bit down, I could detect NO difference with the same product if I had bought it yesterday.
Been there, done that! I recently bought two nice batter operated radios. I find that I use them quite a bit. You can get a decent multiband for about $25.
I did my basic training in 1980. They gave us C-rations for two days (USAF). They were the same thing (same kind of dates, but a decade later), including the smokes.
No smokes in the MREs, but they do have TP, gum, and matches, these days.
Upside is you don't need a P-38 to open anything. Downside is after a while, they also taste like crap.
In the Mexican war, the War Department finally used up the last of the hardtack from the Civil War. That's some old crackers.
/johnny
I urge you to consider a pump action shotgun (Mossberg 500 is what I have) and 100 rounds of buckshot. A shotgun is a good intimidating weapon and could at times be enough to convince and bad guy that the price is just going to be to high.
I take it rice and dried beans last indefinitely? Been thinking about buying a few months worth of MREs, but maybe this is a better idea?
Then start throwing extra cans in the cart every trip to the grocery store. (Start with the biggest cans of peanut butter you can find).
We also have a monthly delivery of about $100 worth of freeze-dried meat from "Shelf Reliance" each month. That's for putting into the beans and rice so that it's actually edible (and it also has an extremely long shelf life).
Next, set your sites on a "Big Berkey" water filter with at least 4 "Black Berkey" filter elements. That'll go a long way towards taking care of the water need.
Once you've done these fairly modest things you can at least breath a little easier.
BTW, it's also good to put back a good supply of raw honey (preferably from a local beekeeper). Also some candy bars might not be a horrible idea to put back just as a pick-me-up during difficult times (I've read that suggestion several places).
Forget precious metals, but there seems to be a concensus that in the worst case that bullets will make a decent medium of exchange.
I've been preparing since Nov. 2008, and I still have plenty more I need to be doing. This is at least a start. Once you do get started...just keep at it. We may still have a couple of years before the wave hits.
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