SAILING AWAY
No, not actual boat type sailing away. I stay off any surface that only temporarily suspends me above hungry sharks. That's why I did the sensible thing and never joined the Navy. Just shark bait waiting around on a half billion dollar platform. What I am referring to is constructing the metaphorical life boat and sailing away from the sinking ship. Since a loyal minion brought it up in yesterday's comments section. What would it take to leave civilization and survive without any outside trade or income? This is just a thought exercise. Not too many of us can or want to actually drop out totally. And he was advocating living up north. Sure, wood and game a plenty. Also, freezing weather. I'm not cold enough here in northern Nevada? I want an even longer winter than the six months I unwittingly signed up for by moving here?
*
The land part is easy. You can be a hermit anywhere. Pick an area with plenty of junk land, or one that has a totally dysfunctional economy for relatively cheap land. Don't worry about the ability to farm. That is outside most of our budgets ( and even on junk land you can import good soil and build a greenhouse and have potatoes and greens ). We are going to be stockpiling food anyway. Better to be out of the reach of raiders, and farmland will have plenty of those. It will be a magnet for them rather than your salvation. You should be able to find something, even desert near a river, for about two grand. If you can't afford even a trailer, live in a tent until you construct a dug out made with old tires and a tin roof. Tires make up the walls ( fill with dirt and lash together ). Do it small for under five hundred bucks.
*
Next up is food. Ten years is not unreasonable, given the projected die off we will face. I used to recommend corn, but the Happy Bush Ethanol Circus has messed with that supply. And you can grow some of your own ( use non-hybrid ). To keep things simple and cheap, just do the basics. Wheat kernels ( ground, and used to sprout ), flour and beans and rice. Kernels are forty cents a pound, flour the same, twice that for beans and rice. The wheat is the bulk of your calories, the flour helps to lighten the whole grain. Rice is for variety and beans are for a complete protein. You will be able to supplement with the occasional animal protein, and be able to grow some corn and potatoes. I would recommend a pound and a half a day, with at least a quarter being beans, another quarter rice. Long term, a single pound might not be enough. To simplify, a pound of wheat, a quarter pound each of beans and rice. Eighty cents a day. A lot more than it was just a year or two back, but bound to get a lot more expensive. Three thousand bucks.
*
You will want to be armed. Get that warm and fuzzy feeling of wood and steel and nitro based explosives. To be cheap and to simplify we'll go with the Russian bolt guns and a used revolver plus a cheap rimfire. Two rifles, $200. The revolver is another $200. And the rimfire with three thousand rounds is another two hundred. Two thousand rounds of 54R might be $200. Perhaps a bit more. I'm a bit out of date with my ammo prices. Add on a bit more, just in case. Some .38 rounds. Reloading supplies. Reloadable brass for the Russians. You should be able to squeak by for $1,500. I know, a lot of you will do it different, use a shotgun, etc. I'm just going bare bones and simple here. Please don't lard up the comments section nit picking this part.
*
You'll need a lot of extra gear, mostly cold weather clothes and camping crap. But none of it need be expensive. You can buy a months supply of thermal underwear for a hundred bucks ( changing a pair every other day ). LED lights, a minimum of solar panels, cast iron cookware, a used wood stove. Quality water containers, a lot of used paperback books. Footwear ( get them while they're used and cheap ). This is a "stranded on a desert island" kind of thing. How to be a hermit successfully. You can fill out a bare bones list for stuff you simply must have. And remember, this is a list of survival supplies. Not a list of luxuries you want in the boonies. Simple as possible. Cost? Seven grand. Is $700 a year too much to spend to drop out of society? Of course, coming up with that all at once is a challenge. There are other ways to do it, such as land on payments, keep a nearby job and buy several months food supply each payday. But, then, you delay sailing away. As the iceberg looms. Not advocating this so much as just pondering. Cheers.
END
YOU MUST BUY!!!!! THE END IS NIGH!!!!!! www.bisonpress.com
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
tin bunker
TIN BUNKER
Before we start today, a hearty hi ho and thank you to the loyal minion who sent me a Christmas gift ( actually wrapped up ). A book and a red LED light for night reading. Plus $20 which I feel pressured into using for propane ( since the note said to buy the black hearted ball and chain propane- okay, it didn't say that but it should have ). This should come in handy if the batteries get drained again. If not, it's a cool toy. Okay, enough obsequiousness. Today's article which everyone set their alarm for, called in sick to read, or might happen to read this weekend when they get some free time from scratching themselves, is on tin bunkers. I read Rawle's site today and really liked the article on the vulnerability of modern homes ( www.survivalblog.com ). Quite a good read. Unfortunately, the solutions usually mean serious money. As in enough money to almost bail out the banks. Even with general contractors slitting their wrists and Mexican nationals going back home where they can actually find work, it is still going to cost the equivalent of your first born and your eternal soul to build a solid fortress to protect yourself from the new and improved home invaders.
*
So, being the tight fisted guy that I am, I've been trying to think of ways that the tin walled housing people ( trailer trash ) such as myself can fortify their dwelling. Not as hard as it first appears. The most important thing is, we don't own anything worth stealing. No professional criminal is going to mess with a trailer on junk land. And the only time a trailer is going to get invaded is when a crackhead next door in the park needs a quick fix. Being the sensitive and smart husband that you are, you leave the wife at home with a shotgun instead of making her work. Since the vast majority of a second income goes to taxes and a vehicle to get to work, plus daycare, plus convenience foods or services that are needed by a double income family that is too busy for housework, you almost come out ahead by not working. Factor in someone is home to protect your few meager belongings and it just makes sense to keep the old lady at home. If she starts gaining weight and watching too many soaps, make her get a mini job online to keep her busy. Craig's list freebies, then garage sale them on the weekend, for instance.
*
Next up, after looking and acting poor and keeping the heavily armed wife at home ( the only instance where it makes sense to own a semi-auto poodle shooter ), have a few dogs. Dog food is pretty cheap and stores well. Dogs are filthy, stupid beasts, but make good guards. Besides licking their own ass and gonads, plus crapping on the walkway, this is all they are good for. Man's best friend. I want a best friend that shits all over the yard and then expects me to pick it up before I step in it or spray it all over the place while mowing. Yes, dogs and wife's are less than perfect. If someone wants to go through the trouble they can poison the wife with tainted chocolates and the dogs with bad meat. But they don't cost a few dozen grand in construction costs. Now, Rawles makes a great point that construction or remodeling gives you several benefits besides huddling in fear from gangs throwing the BBQ through the sliding glass door and walking off with the fifty inch flat screen and your youngest daughter ( you said you wanted to leave home, honey, here's your chance. Try to distract them while we set the time lock, that's my girl ). There is a safe place for your twenty grand worth of guns, a fallout room, etc. I can't argue against that as it is all a good idea. But you are poor. You get less than perfect.
*
Now, on to the flimsy walls of your trailer. They barely hold back a cool breeze, so bullets and axes will make short work of them. Not that modern homes of wood and sheet rock are much better, but we are talking about trying to be safe while bad people try to steal what is in your home. I'm not saying you will need to worry just yet. But there will come a time when folks get desperate enough to steal even your few and meager possessions ( and then they hit the jackpot since you look poor and act it but have three years of food in your trailer plus ten thousand rounds of ammo ). This all depends on your budget. You could use the trailer as a form and get native rock and mortar them outside the trailer. A few beams and a ferro-cement roof should be almost no cost ( this assumes you have ground that grows rocks ). Or, the straw bale walls around outside of the trailer. Stuccoed, naturally, or they are just tinder. Even an earthen and straw wall would do wonders insulation and protection wise. This is a gift, being able to work with low cost material since you have no neighbors to narc you out to the zoning police.
*
And of course, everyone's favorite. Remember Lethal Weapon, where the trailer had a trap door and an escape tunnel? That would really be cool. If you don't want to cut up the trailer, you could have an enclosed porch that has that. You might even be able to fashion a fallout shelter of a crude nature. Trailers have their drawbacks, but vulnerability doesn't have to be one of them with a little effort and almost no cash.
END
Buy my crap! www.bisonpress.com
Before we start today, a hearty hi ho and thank you to the loyal minion who sent me a Christmas gift ( actually wrapped up ). A book and a red LED light for night reading. Plus $20 which I feel pressured into using for propane ( since the note said to buy the black hearted ball and chain propane- okay, it didn't say that but it should have ). This should come in handy if the batteries get drained again. If not, it's a cool toy. Okay, enough obsequiousness. Today's article which everyone set their alarm for, called in sick to read, or might happen to read this weekend when they get some free time from scratching themselves, is on tin bunkers. I read Rawle's site today and really liked the article on the vulnerability of modern homes ( www.survivalblog.com ). Quite a good read. Unfortunately, the solutions usually mean serious money. As in enough money to almost bail out the banks. Even with general contractors slitting their wrists and Mexican nationals going back home where they can actually find work, it is still going to cost the equivalent of your first born and your eternal soul to build a solid fortress to protect yourself from the new and improved home invaders.
*
So, being the tight fisted guy that I am, I've been trying to think of ways that the tin walled housing people ( trailer trash ) such as myself can fortify their dwelling. Not as hard as it first appears. The most important thing is, we don't own anything worth stealing. No professional criminal is going to mess with a trailer on junk land. And the only time a trailer is going to get invaded is when a crackhead next door in the park needs a quick fix. Being the sensitive and smart husband that you are, you leave the wife at home with a shotgun instead of making her work. Since the vast majority of a second income goes to taxes and a vehicle to get to work, plus daycare, plus convenience foods or services that are needed by a double income family that is too busy for housework, you almost come out ahead by not working. Factor in someone is home to protect your few meager belongings and it just makes sense to keep the old lady at home. If she starts gaining weight and watching too many soaps, make her get a mini job online to keep her busy. Craig's list freebies, then garage sale them on the weekend, for instance.
*
Next up, after looking and acting poor and keeping the heavily armed wife at home ( the only instance where it makes sense to own a semi-auto poodle shooter ), have a few dogs. Dog food is pretty cheap and stores well. Dogs are filthy, stupid beasts, but make good guards. Besides licking their own ass and gonads, plus crapping on the walkway, this is all they are good for. Man's best friend. I want a best friend that shits all over the yard and then expects me to pick it up before I step in it or spray it all over the place while mowing. Yes, dogs and wife's are less than perfect. If someone wants to go through the trouble they can poison the wife with tainted chocolates and the dogs with bad meat. But they don't cost a few dozen grand in construction costs. Now, Rawles makes a great point that construction or remodeling gives you several benefits besides huddling in fear from gangs throwing the BBQ through the sliding glass door and walking off with the fifty inch flat screen and your youngest daughter ( you said you wanted to leave home, honey, here's your chance. Try to distract them while we set the time lock, that's my girl ). There is a safe place for your twenty grand worth of guns, a fallout room, etc. I can't argue against that as it is all a good idea. But you are poor. You get less than perfect.
*
Now, on to the flimsy walls of your trailer. They barely hold back a cool breeze, so bullets and axes will make short work of them. Not that modern homes of wood and sheet rock are much better, but we are talking about trying to be safe while bad people try to steal what is in your home. I'm not saying you will need to worry just yet. But there will come a time when folks get desperate enough to steal even your few and meager possessions ( and then they hit the jackpot since you look poor and act it but have three years of food in your trailer plus ten thousand rounds of ammo ). This all depends on your budget. You could use the trailer as a form and get native rock and mortar them outside the trailer. A few beams and a ferro-cement roof should be almost no cost ( this assumes you have ground that grows rocks ). Or, the straw bale walls around outside of the trailer. Stuccoed, naturally, or they are just tinder. Even an earthen and straw wall would do wonders insulation and protection wise. This is a gift, being able to work with low cost material since you have no neighbors to narc you out to the zoning police.
*
And of course, everyone's favorite. Remember Lethal Weapon, where the trailer had a trap door and an escape tunnel? That would really be cool. If you don't want to cut up the trailer, you could have an enclosed porch that has that. You might even be able to fashion a fallout shelter of a crude nature. Trailers have their drawbacks, but vulnerability doesn't have to be one of them with a little effort and almost no cash.
END
Buy my crap! www.bisonpress.com
Monday, December 29, 2008
wooden dreams
WOODEN DREAMS
I have said it before, I'll say it now, and when you have failed to panic to my liking I'll say it a few more times. There will not be enough wood to keep you alive once a serious petroleum shortage develops. I'm not saying that wood isn't a good idea. It is. You can easily stock up for a whole winter season of heat and be nice and comfortable when the power goes out or the Saudi's go tell their little infiltrator Muslim buddy Obammy to piss up a rope after he botches the job of nucking Israel and they cut off our oil. For short term use, while almost every other Tom, Dick or Harry is using heating oil, natural gas or electricity, wood is a great way to go. However, once any shortage of oil comes about you will see a serious shortage of wood. Every home that has an unused or underused stove will suddenly start buying wood to use and the price will go out of sight. Then, when actual Peak Oil happens and the oil never starts flowing again but instead decreases every year, you will have no wood, regardless of price.
*
I know, our burly super stud survivalists will puff up his chest and bellow out that by gum, he lives right next to a national forest and he'll take his stockpile of chainsaws and gasoline and fell trees until the end of Doomsday. Good thinking, Leroy. Now, what happens when the government bans private firewood? You will sneak in, start up your Super Deluxe Model Tree Ripper, alert the nearest resident or camper that calls you in on their cell phone and collects a nice fat reward while you get shipped to a reeducation camp. Remember those quaint stories of jolly old England where poachers try to kill the Kings game and elude the authorities? Remember that cool scene in the western Heaven's Gate where the cow rustler was gunned down by a bounty hunter? This could happen with firewood. Look at a lot of places in the Third World and you will see massive deforestation. The natives can't afford fuel and must get firewood to cook with. So they strip the hills, it rains, the hill comes down on their homes. And that is just for cooking. Imagine how quick our sparsely treed West will be cleared. Nevada used to have a lot more trees than the three we have now. Building, mining and heat used them all up. With a relatively small population.
*
Two hundred years ago the US had a population of only three million. And they all lived in a pretty well forested region. Or in the South with no need for winter heat, just cooking and water heating. Now, New York City alone has three times that number or more. There is no way we will see our way through one winter without stripping away all available wood. Even if we burn most of the wood from the suburban homes. We have 100 times the population that was able to survive on a renewable resource. Until a massive die-off happens, there is no way we can feed or fuel the present population without oil. Wood is fine, as long as you realize its future limitations. Don't rely on a massive supply to be available at your convenience, in your price range. Just keep that number in mind. One Hundred Times As Many People. And it only takes a few percent less oil being available to stampede everyone into wood. Right now you might be burning construction trash or pallets for free wood, and that will work great until just a few more folks get the same idea. I can see violent fights over scrap wood that you "burned" fifty bucks in gas getting to.
*
You should either/or try to go underground ( or at least a dug out ) or insulate a lot better or learn to do without as much heat. Wood will get scarce as it is the only way most folks will be able to replace the oil stove. Get yourself squared away now before all alternative supplies disappear.
END
You will buy my crap at www.bisonpress.com
I have said it before, I'll say it now, and when you have failed to panic to my liking I'll say it a few more times. There will not be enough wood to keep you alive once a serious petroleum shortage develops. I'm not saying that wood isn't a good idea. It is. You can easily stock up for a whole winter season of heat and be nice and comfortable when the power goes out or the Saudi's go tell their little infiltrator Muslim buddy Obammy to piss up a rope after he botches the job of nucking Israel and they cut off our oil. For short term use, while almost every other Tom, Dick or Harry is using heating oil, natural gas or electricity, wood is a great way to go. However, once any shortage of oil comes about you will see a serious shortage of wood. Every home that has an unused or underused stove will suddenly start buying wood to use and the price will go out of sight. Then, when actual Peak Oil happens and the oil never starts flowing again but instead decreases every year, you will have no wood, regardless of price.
*
I know, our burly super stud survivalists will puff up his chest and bellow out that by gum, he lives right next to a national forest and he'll take his stockpile of chainsaws and gasoline and fell trees until the end of Doomsday. Good thinking, Leroy. Now, what happens when the government bans private firewood? You will sneak in, start up your Super Deluxe Model Tree Ripper, alert the nearest resident or camper that calls you in on their cell phone and collects a nice fat reward while you get shipped to a reeducation camp. Remember those quaint stories of jolly old England where poachers try to kill the Kings game and elude the authorities? Remember that cool scene in the western Heaven's Gate where the cow rustler was gunned down by a bounty hunter? This could happen with firewood. Look at a lot of places in the Third World and you will see massive deforestation. The natives can't afford fuel and must get firewood to cook with. So they strip the hills, it rains, the hill comes down on their homes. And that is just for cooking. Imagine how quick our sparsely treed West will be cleared. Nevada used to have a lot more trees than the three we have now. Building, mining and heat used them all up. With a relatively small population.
*
Two hundred years ago the US had a population of only three million. And they all lived in a pretty well forested region. Or in the South with no need for winter heat, just cooking and water heating. Now, New York City alone has three times that number or more. There is no way we will see our way through one winter without stripping away all available wood. Even if we burn most of the wood from the suburban homes. We have 100 times the population that was able to survive on a renewable resource. Until a massive die-off happens, there is no way we can feed or fuel the present population without oil. Wood is fine, as long as you realize its future limitations. Don't rely on a massive supply to be available at your convenience, in your price range. Just keep that number in mind. One Hundred Times As Many People. And it only takes a few percent less oil being available to stampede everyone into wood. Right now you might be burning construction trash or pallets for free wood, and that will work great until just a few more folks get the same idea. I can see violent fights over scrap wood that you "burned" fifty bucks in gas getting to.
*
You should either/or try to go underground ( or at least a dug out ) or insulate a lot better or learn to do without as much heat. Wood will get scarce as it is the only way most folks will be able to replace the oil stove. Get yourself squared away now before all alternative supplies disappear.
END
You will buy my crap at www.bisonpress.com
Friday, December 26, 2008
holiday sales turd
HOLIDAY SALES TURD
The wife and I didn't make a huge deal out of Christmas. We haven't for years. Of course, she hasn't made a big deal out of housework or sex either ( which is harder to get used to than a meager holiday ). But I digress. I got her a pair of snow boots from Wal-Mart for $20 ( the slip on kind, not the Sorrel type ) that were rated at fifteen below. My theory is that if we're lucky it will keep her feet warm when it is above freezing in the trailer. I got a calender from Santa at work, which I was glad to get since it would have been a pain looking for one. And my back ordered thermal tops came from www.sportsmensguide.com the day before Christmas. That was nice. And, another loyal minion made a PayPal donation which was really nice. So, I had a pretty excellent holiday. The nation as a whole, retail wise, sucked large donkey member.
*
Holiday sales were down about five percent. Some items were down twenty percent, such as electronics. Luxury items ( a growing category ) where down a bit more than that. Wal-Mart and Amazon did well which is no surprise. So the average came to around five percent down. I was laughing my ass off. Sorry, but anyone that expected anything better was a damn fool. Luxury goods down thirty percent mean a lot of retailers are going to be going out of business soon. In case you kind of missed things the last ten years, a lot of luxury retailers were riding the housing boom. They will consolidate or more likely go out of business. People have very little need to go shopping in a specialty shop for scented candles or certified organic peasant cooperative grown coffee selling for five times Folgers price. Sure, in the midst of soup kitchens and tenth story CEO swan dives there will still be plenty of connected crooks ( er, I mean rich people ) that can waste gasoline driving a Hummer to the cities last remaining mall outlet and spend extravagant amounts of cash on non-necessities. But their numbers will be shrinking as house re-fi's and credit cards credit limit retractions bump the upper middle class back down to lower middle class or working poor.
*
So, why am I laughing in the midst of an imploding economy? Sorry, I'm a poor sport. I've been telling everyone who doesn't want to listen for over twenty years that the sky is falling. They scoffed and looked at me as if I were mad. Okay, I suck at being a seer. But now it looks as if I'm finally right. The sky is indeed falling. I don't know if the falling holiday sales will actually be the event that pounds this into peoples heads, but it should be. My bank didn't fail, I'm safe. My state hasn't gone bankrupt yet so I'm safe. I still have a job so I'll keep the house payments coming in. Jim is friggin wacked so I'll just go buy more MRE's and AR-15 magazines with my Social Security payment which I just know will never stop coming.
*
The retail business model of this country is based on cheap credit and expanding sales. You borrow a hundred million to expand and buy out your competitor. You gain his customers. Your required profit margin goes up from ten percent to fifteen to pay for the debt load. Now, what happens when sales fall five percent? You lay off that amount of labor. Existing employees are supposed to be thankful for a delayed pink slip, but in reality most know the welfare state will cushion them if they tell you to shove the extra twenty percent work requirement. In the meantime they react negatively to the sword hanging over their head and snarl at customers. Your customers aren't idiots about consuming ( about the only thing most are good at ) and stop shopping there, plus tell their martinee slurping cocktail party throwing, car-pooling the fat spawn to private school buddies what a dive your business has become. Word of mouth causes further sales drops, more workers are laid off, the whole thing gets worse. These people will never stoop to shopping at Wal-Mart where there are absolutely no employees to hold their hand ( I never really have bad experiences at Wal-Mart. If you can find an employee who isn't overworked and treat them like a fellow human they are more than happy to try to help you out ) but they can pick and choose which Rich Bitch Boutique they will patronize. Plenty more of those can fail without pushing the Beautiful People into China-Mart.
*
Increased unemployment and economic contraction to come. Enjoy.
END
Join the blessed loyal minions by buying my crap at www.bisonpress.com
The wife and I didn't make a huge deal out of Christmas. We haven't for years. Of course, she hasn't made a big deal out of housework or sex either ( which is harder to get used to than a meager holiday ). But I digress. I got her a pair of snow boots from Wal-Mart for $20 ( the slip on kind, not the Sorrel type ) that were rated at fifteen below. My theory is that if we're lucky it will keep her feet warm when it is above freezing in the trailer. I got a calender from Santa at work, which I was glad to get since it would have been a pain looking for one. And my back ordered thermal tops came from www.sportsmensguide.com the day before Christmas. That was nice. And, another loyal minion made a PayPal donation which was really nice. So, I had a pretty excellent holiday. The nation as a whole, retail wise, sucked large donkey member.
*
Holiday sales were down about five percent. Some items were down twenty percent, such as electronics. Luxury items ( a growing category ) where down a bit more than that. Wal-Mart and Amazon did well which is no surprise. So the average came to around five percent down. I was laughing my ass off. Sorry, but anyone that expected anything better was a damn fool. Luxury goods down thirty percent mean a lot of retailers are going to be going out of business soon. In case you kind of missed things the last ten years, a lot of luxury retailers were riding the housing boom. They will consolidate or more likely go out of business. People have very little need to go shopping in a specialty shop for scented candles or certified organic peasant cooperative grown coffee selling for five times Folgers price. Sure, in the midst of soup kitchens and tenth story CEO swan dives there will still be plenty of connected crooks ( er, I mean rich people ) that can waste gasoline driving a Hummer to the cities last remaining mall outlet and spend extravagant amounts of cash on non-necessities. But their numbers will be shrinking as house re-fi's and credit cards credit limit retractions bump the upper middle class back down to lower middle class or working poor.
*
So, why am I laughing in the midst of an imploding economy? Sorry, I'm a poor sport. I've been telling everyone who doesn't want to listen for over twenty years that the sky is falling. They scoffed and looked at me as if I were mad. Okay, I suck at being a seer. But now it looks as if I'm finally right. The sky is indeed falling. I don't know if the falling holiday sales will actually be the event that pounds this into peoples heads, but it should be. My bank didn't fail, I'm safe. My state hasn't gone bankrupt yet so I'm safe. I still have a job so I'll keep the house payments coming in. Jim is friggin wacked so I'll just go buy more MRE's and AR-15 magazines with my Social Security payment which I just know will never stop coming.
*
The retail business model of this country is based on cheap credit and expanding sales. You borrow a hundred million to expand and buy out your competitor. You gain his customers. Your required profit margin goes up from ten percent to fifteen to pay for the debt load. Now, what happens when sales fall five percent? You lay off that amount of labor. Existing employees are supposed to be thankful for a delayed pink slip, but in reality most know the welfare state will cushion them if they tell you to shove the extra twenty percent work requirement. In the meantime they react negatively to the sword hanging over their head and snarl at customers. Your customers aren't idiots about consuming ( about the only thing most are good at ) and stop shopping there, plus tell their martinee slurping cocktail party throwing, car-pooling the fat spawn to private school buddies what a dive your business has become. Word of mouth causes further sales drops, more workers are laid off, the whole thing gets worse. These people will never stoop to shopping at Wal-Mart where there are absolutely no employees to hold their hand ( I never really have bad experiences at Wal-Mart. If you can find an employee who isn't overworked and treat them like a fellow human they are more than happy to try to help you out ) but they can pick and choose which Rich Bitch Boutique they will patronize. Plenty more of those can fail without pushing the Beautiful People into China-Mart.
*
Increased unemployment and economic contraction to come. Enjoy.
END
Join the blessed loyal minions by buying my crap at www.bisonpress.com
Thursday, December 25, 2008
stocking stuffer
STOCKING STUFFER
Merry Christmas, jerk-offs. Here is your pink slip to put in your stocking.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081224/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/financial_meltdown
END
I don't usually post a regular length article on days I don't work. Sorry. Friday will be back to normal. You can still buy my crap at www.bisonpress.com
Merry Christmas, jerk-offs. Here is your pink slip to put in your stocking.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081224/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/financial_meltdown
END
I don't usually post a regular length article on days I don't work. Sorry. Friday will be back to normal. You can still buy my crap at www.bisonpress.com
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
practical gifts
PRACTICAL GIFTS
I usually try to do something holiday like this time of year. Without the kids or grand kids around it is all to easy to get grumpy and be flippant and disregard Christmas as just another day. I'm not religious but I've always considered it a day for family. Yes, mostly for the kids, but also when it is nice to pretend to like those you share DNA with. So, an article that is nominally about the holiday. This year, the hopeful revival for practical gifts.
*
It used to be, as kids, practical gifts were like poison. OOH! Clothes- that's not even a real gift. We want candy and dolls and BB guns! And the worse one was underwear or socks. Then, of course, China Mart got going and specialty boutiques opened everywhere a newly paved over farm appeared. It was cheap enough to indulge in extravagant gifts but soon it became the expected norm. Practical gifts were out of fashion, uncomfortably reminding people how close to post oil meltdown we came to in the '70's. Gift exchanges became mostly an exercise in giving the best dust collectors or guaranteed to break in a week plastic doo-dad or recently any electric item sure to be obsolete by next December.
*
I hope this isn't our last nationally observed Christmas. I hope we can get back in the habit of giving practical gifts. No more talking Billy The Bass, no more edible underwear ( that might be practical, but only depending on the weight of the spouse ), no more X-Box Three Million. Knives made from quality steel, reloading equipment, dehydrated food, cold weather gear, even underwear and socks. Okay, you caught me, this is just a rework of others saying give prep gifts to encourage preparedness. Although, those can be your wish list. I hope others start to ask for and/or receive anything practical. Non-disposable, non-frivolous. A book teaching a skill, a tool towards a vital hobby. Sturdy boots, clothing to protect from the elements rather than being fashionable. A kitchen tool that is manual rather than electric. It doesn't have to necessarily be a survival gift ( although a lot can fall under that category ).
*
Merry Christmas, everyone.
END
Shorter than usual today. Sorry. Back to normal Friday. Thursday will be the usually non-work day cop out of a link and one snide comment.
I usually try to do something holiday like this time of year. Without the kids or grand kids around it is all to easy to get grumpy and be flippant and disregard Christmas as just another day. I'm not religious but I've always considered it a day for family. Yes, mostly for the kids, but also when it is nice to pretend to like those you share DNA with. So, an article that is nominally about the holiday. This year, the hopeful revival for practical gifts.
*
It used to be, as kids, practical gifts were like poison. OOH! Clothes- that's not even a real gift. We want candy and dolls and BB guns! And the worse one was underwear or socks. Then, of course, China Mart got going and specialty boutiques opened everywhere a newly paved over farm appeared. It was cheap enough to indulge in extravagant gifts but soon it became the expected norm. Practical gifts were out of fashion, uncomfortably reminding people how close to post oil meltdown we came to in the '70's. Gift exchanges became mostly an exercise in giving the best dust collectors or guaranteed to break in a week plastic doo-dad or recently any electric item sure to be obsolete by next December.
*
I hope this isn't our last nationally observed Christmas. I hope we can get back in the habit of giving practical gifts. No more talking Billy The Bass, no more edible underwear ( that might be practical, but only depending on the weight of the spouse ), no more X-Box Three Million. Knives made from quality steel, reloading equipment, dehydrated food, cold weather gear, even underwear and socks. Okay, you caught me, this is just a rework of others saying give prep gifts to encourage preparedness. Although, those can be your wish list. I hope others start to ask for and/or receive anything practical. Non-disposable, non-frivolous. A book teaching a skill, a tool towards a vital hobby. Sturdy boots, clothing to protect from the elements rather than being fashionable. A kitchen tool that is manual rather than electric. It doesn't have to necessarily be a survival gift ( although a lot can fall under that category ).
*
Merry Christmas, everyone.
END
Shorter than usual today. Sorry. Back to normal Friday. Thursday will be the usually non-work day cop out of a link and one snide comment.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
a revolting development
A REVOLTING DEVELOPMENT
Talking about Jarhead Checkpoints, domestic troop deployment and other Lincolnesque actions, I of course let my attention wander aimlessly until it landing on another topic you could care less about and I am eager to annoy you with. Let's just say, for the sake of argument because I would never attempt to formant dissent because it is forbidden by the new and improved subject to change without notice constitution ( now spelled with a small "c" to denote less importance ), that things actually got bad enough that a revolt took place. Since I have very little faith in my fellow man, forced by DNA programming to seek out their company, acknowledging my need as a naked defenceless ape to band together with my herd but not for one minute liking it because the filthy flea picking toads will turn around and stab me in the back in a split second to advance their own welfare, I of course will always assume the worse. So here are the basic things you have to keep in mind come a revolt.
*
When the food runs out and hyperinflation has ruined you since COLA's were outlawed except with home interest rates, we might actually see a few formally fat brutes drag themselves from their easy chairs and take up black market arms against the government. When this happens you can be assured of two things. One, it will not be about the peoples rights, despite its original intentions or propaganda. It will be about a new set of rulers taking power. Initially, the masses will see some improvements. But don't bet the farm they will last too long. Perhaps as long as it took from the end of the original Revolutionary War to the Whiskey Rebellion. Two, you most likely won't be able to opt out of it. When you aren't "for" a side, you will be declared to be "against" them. Both sides will play this game and you will be just like a poor Vietnamese rice farmer forced to hide weapons for the VC and bombed by the Americans for doing so. Between a rock and a hard place.
*
Oh, of course you'll scoff at my observation. Declare me unfit for publishing. Send big cash donations and then turn me in to the IRS for not declaring them ( hint, hint ). But look at history. Not our own, as it is so clouded in propaganda and mysticism you'll be hard pressed to find much published that is impartial. But other countries. Revolutions were nasty, vulgar businesses. The helpless suffered, innocent or not. The guerrillas used fear to compel the population. Of course, many had popular support. But if you opposed them you were killed. And a lot of times not helping them was the same as opposing them.
*
Keep it in mind. As a neutral you will still be attacked. So either hide really well or be able to keep both sides at bay through the use of superior force. Think Appalachian moonshiners. Or desert nomads. They were left alone when the fight was not worth the reward.
END
Huge, big-hugs-and-sloppy-kisses for another very generous donation from Eugene in the Silver State. Thanks, bro!!
The rest of you slackers buy my crap http://www.bisonpress.com/
PS-for yesterday's trolls: copy others words and it is plagiarism. Copy their ideas and it is research.
Talking about Jarhead Checkpoints, domestic troop deployment and other Lincolnesque actions, I of course let my attention wander aimlessly until it landing on another topic you could care less about and I am eager to annoy you with. Let's just say, for the sake of argument because I would never attempt to formant dissent because it is forbidden by the new and improved subject to change without notice constitution ( now spelled with a small "c" to denote less importance ), that things actually got bad enough that a revolt took place. Since I have very little faith in my fellow man, forced by DNA programming to seek out their company, acknowledging my need as a naked defenceless ape to band together with my herd but not for one minute liking it because the filthy flea picking toads will turn around and stab me in the back in a split second to advance their own welfare, I of course will always assume the worse. So here are the basic things you have to keep in mind come a revolt.
*
When the food runs out and hyperinflation has ruined you since COLA's were outlawed except with home interest rates, we might actually see a few formally fat brutes drag themselves from their easy chairs and take up black market arms against the government. When this happens you can be assured of two things. One, it will not be about the peoples rights, despite its original intentions or propaganda. It will be about a new set of rulers taking power. Initially, the masses will see some improvements. But don't bet the farm they will last too long. Perhaps as long as it took from the end of the original Revolutionary War to the Whiskey Rebellion. Two, you most likely won't be able to opt out of it. When you aren't "for" a side, you will be declared to be "against" them. Both sides will play this game and you will be just like a poor Vietnamese rice farmer forced to hide weapons for the VC and bombed by the Americans for doing so. Between a rock and a hard place.
*
Oh, of course you'll scoff at my observation. Declare me unfit for publishing. Send big cash donations and then turn me in to the IRS for not declaring them ( hint, hint ). But look at history. Not our own, as it is so clouded in propaganda and mysticism you'll be hard pressed to find much published that is impartial. But other countries. Revolutions were nasty, vulgar businesses. The helpless suffered, innocent or not. The guerrillas used fear to compel the population. Of course, many had popular support. But if you opposed them you were killed. And a lot of times not helping them was the same as opposing them.
*
Keep it in mind. As a neutral you will still be attacked. So either hide really well or be able to keep both sides at bay through the use of superior force. Think Appalachian moonshiners. Or desert nomads. They were left alone when the fight was not worth the reward.
END
Huge, big-hugs-and-sloppy-kisses for another very generous donation from Eugene in the Silver State. Thanks, bro!!
The rest of you slackers buy my crap http://www.bisonpress.com/
PS-for yesterday's trolls: copy others words and it is plagiarism. Copy their ideas and it is research.
Monday, December 22, 2008
disposable to craftsmen
DISPOSABLE TO CRAFTSMEN
We live in a disposable society. Almost every tool we use. Our homes. Our transportation. Our farm land. Our relationships. Our jobs. This has mainly been the result of the Oil Age. Incredibly cheap energy made almost everything else too cheap to repair. Just a few short decades ago this wasn't the case. But as Asia embraced the Oil Age, she took all of our factories, replaced the middle class tradesmen and craftsmen with legions of disposable laborers and priced us out of the market ( with the active encouragement of our corporate class ). Alvin Toffler got rich pushing the line that it was all okay, all is well, do not panic. We can all shuffle paperwork instead. To see how well that all worked out, refer to exhibit A- our financial and real estate implosion. If we still had oodles of oil still in the ground ready to be pumped out at almost no cost, it wouldn't matter. The US hasn't really had a true manufacturing economy for fifty years, we just lived off of our seed corn. It worked good for about two decades until our oil production peaked. The general trend since then has been down, masked by our Empire Legacy which allowed past accomplishments to pay the dividends that gave the illusion of prosperity. In effect, we've been drawing down on our principle to live well. But now, there are only a few withdrawals left before the checking account is empty and we start seeing bouncing checks.
*
Now, the problem with our disposable society is not that we fill up our landfills and pollute the sky. That is bad enough, but there are more troublesome aspects. Our entire economy, our entire outlook, our means of production, all are based on disposable mentalities. In some ways that is good. It would not do to invest too much mental attachment to a home that is turning into a ghetto or soon to be twenty feet on the wrong side of high tide. The mental gymnastics necessary to uproot and move can save your sorry butt. It is seen as normal to be such gypsies, to be able to start over again. This has been the case as long as we've filled up the continent. But it really isn't normal. Normal is setting down roots and fighting for your family and friends and community. Putting effort into improving the home and neighborhood. In other ways this is bad. Disposable relationships ( and I'm guiltier than most ) mean no stable families for children growing up. And don't play the feminist card. I'll wager for every abusive husband divorce allowed a women to escape from, there are ten or more ill adjusted children not helped by the need of Mom to escape a "mentally abusive" relationship.
*
Rigid societies, where change was never embraced and any that did occur was over lifetimes rather than years, allowed stability and security. No, members never advanced or made things easier for themselves. But at the same time they didn't take unnecessary risks that could have endangered their survival. It might be hard to remember that this used to be the norm, before cheap energy transformed our lives. Not that energy alone was responsible. Gunpowder itself changed most of the globe radically. But big picture, one can safely measure social change to carbon fuel use. As cheap abundant energy runs out, depopulation and a devolution back towards rigid social structures is sure to follow. If you are caught in this transformation, you are going to have to realize this sea change. You can't fight it, but you can roll with the punches.
*
One example of a useless fight is your home. We are still at the beginning stages of collapse. Your house is still seen as disposable. Local government won't care how much of your life blood you've put into making a safe and comfortable home. They will still steal it from you and give the land to a corporation or developer if they so desire. I'm not saying you won't lose your home to theft at other times in history. What I'm saying is that no one has a sense of permanency. Progress is still seen as a need. The whole mentality is disposable. Don't put too much effort or treasure into your home. Look at it as a rental, and be flexible enough to move if needed. You can't fight eminent domain, the rust-belting of a region, the approach of a ghetto, insane local property taxes, etc.
*
On the other side of this coin, you need to start looking at how you are going to survive once the disposable economy is washed away. You need a craft. Not car repair, or electronics repair. An old school craft such as leather worker, barrel maker, making shoes. Weapons inventor ( not just a reloader or parts replacer but a blackpowder manufacturer or some such ). Pre-carbon fuel crafts. For a time, organic gardening will serve you well. Just keep in mind that in time farmers will go from teacher-saviors to serfs. The most vital and skilled usually end up at the lowest ladder rung after the evil buttholes are finished fighting for power. Sorry, fact of life. You might be one of the few that can craft shoes from scratch, one of the few with tools. But you might still end up as a slave. A valuable one, but still vulnerable to anothers whims. I think this is one of the few flaws about Kurt Saxon's world view of the Apocalypse. He envisioned a nineteenth century economy. I'd say it is going to be more like pre-coal, pre-oil, pre-Civil War ( as far as slavery ). A lot from the sixteenth century with a few odd anachronisms thrown in from the pre-collapse times ( that will slowly fall apart and not be replaced, to include modern guns ).
*
Be prepared to discard your worldview as needed.
END
PS- Thanks a million for the snail mail donation, Lloyd.
PPS- buy my crap at www.bisonpress.com
We live in a disposable society. Almost every tool we use. Our homes. Our transportation. Our farm land. Our relationships. Our jobs. This has mainly been the result of the Oil Age. Incredibly cheap energy made almost everything else too cheap to repair. Just a few short decades ago this wasn't the case. But as Asia embraced the Oil Age, she took all of our factories, replaced the middle class tradesmen and craftsmen with legions of disposable laborers and priced us out of the market ( with the active encouragement of our corporate class ). Alvin Toffler got rich pushing the line that it was all okay, all is well, do not panic. We can all shuffle paperwork instead. To see how well that all worked out, refer to exhibit A- our financial and real estate implosion. If we still had oodles of oil still in the ground ready to be pumped out at almost no cost, it wouldn't matter. The US hasn't really had a true manufacturing economy for fifty years, we just lived off of our seed corn. It worked good for about two decades until our oil production peaked. The general trend since then has been down, masked by our Empire Legacy which allowed past accomplishments to pay the dividends that gave the illusion of prosperity. In effect, we've been drawing down on our principle to live well. But now, there are only a few withdrawals left before the checking account is empty and we start seeing bouncing checks.
*
Now, the problem with our disposable society is not that we fill up our landfills and pollute the sky. That is bad enough, but there are more troublesome aspects. Our entire economy, our entire outlook, our means of production, all are based on disposable mentalities. In some ways that is good. It would not do to invest too much mental attachment to a home that is turning into a ghetto or soon to be twenty feet on the wrong side of high tide. The mental gymnastics necessary to uproot and move can save your sorry butt. It is seen as normal to be such gypsies, to be able to start over again. This has been the case as long as we've filled up the continent. But it really isn't normal. Normal is setting down roots and fighting for your family and friends and community. Putting effort into improving the home and neighborhood. In other ways this is bad. Disposable relationships ( and I'm guiltier than most ) mean no stable families for children growing up. And don't play the feminist card. I'll wager for every abusive husband divorce allowed a women to escape from, there are ten or more ill adjusted children not helped by the need of Mom to escape a "mentally abusive" relationship.
*
Rigid societies, where change was never embraced and any that did occur was over lifetimes rather than years, allowed stability and security. No, members never advanced or made things easier for themselves. But at the same time they didn't take unnecessary risks that could have endangered their survival. It might be hard to remember that this used to be the norm, before cheap energy transformed our lives. Not that energy alone was responsible. Gunpowder itself changed most of the globe radically. But big picture, one can safely measure social change to carbon fuel use. As cheap abundant energy runs out, depopulation and a devolution back towards rigid social structures is sure to follow. If you are caught in this transformation, you are going to have to realize this sea change. You can't fight it, but you can roll with the punches.
*
One example of a useless fight is your home. We are still at the beginning stages of collapse. Your house is still seen as disposable. Local government won't care how much of your life blood you've put into making a safe and comfortable home. They will still steal it from you and give the land to a corporation or developer if they so desire. I'm not saying you won't lose your home to theft at other times in history. What I'm saying is that no one has a sense of permanency. Progress is still seen as a need. The whole mentality is disposable. Don't put too much effort or treasure into your home. Look at it as a rental, and be flexible enough to move if needed. You can't fight eminent domain, the rust-belting of a region, the approach of a ghetto, insane local property taxes, etc.
*
On the other side of this coin, you need to start looking at how you are going to survive once the disposable economy is washed away. You need a craft. Not car repair, or electronics repair. An old school craft such as leather worker, barrel maker, making shoes. Weapons inventor ( not just a reloader or parts replacer but a blackpowder manufacturer or some such ). Pre-carbon fuel crafts. For a time, organic gardening will serve you well. Just keep in mind that in time farmers will go from teacher-saviors to serfs. The most vital and skilled usually end up at the lowest ladder rung after the evil buttholes are finished fighting for power. Sorry, fact of life. You might be one of the few that can craft shoes from scratch, one of the few with tools. But you might still end up as a slave. A valuable one, but still vulnerable to anothers whims. I think this is one of the few flaws about Kurt Saxon's world view of the Apocalypse. He envisioned a nineteenth century economy. I'd say it is going to be more like pre-coal, pre-oil, pre-Civil War ( as far as slavery ). A lot from the sixteenth century with a few odd anachronisms thrown in from the pre-collapse times ( that will slowly fall apart and not be replaced, to include modern guns ).
*
Be prepared to discard your worldview as needed.
END
PS- Thanks a million for the snail mail donation, Lloyd.
PPS- buy my crap at www.bisonpress.com
Friday, December 19, 2008
jarhead checkpoints
JARHEAD CHECKPOINTS
It used to be I could be really rude to Marines, Jarheads, Leathernecks, etc. Well, now I have distant family members amongst their ranks, and my son is now in the Junior Jarheads ( Junior ROTC for the Marines in High School ). He has every intention of going to the Navy Academy or regular ROTC. The Army, good enough for dad and grandpa ( and a few great grandpas ), is not good enough for my spawn. Noooo. He wants to shove a government issue broomstick up his butt and parade around ( dad, their uniforms look so much nicer ). He would also like to shoot things and imagines that is where the better opportunities will be. I would chalk it up to teenager fantasy, but since he is getting a taste of it, and liking it, and wanting more... He does me proud, much more motivated than his old man ever was at that age. So, the short version is that I have to be nice now to that strange breed of soldier.
*
The newest outrage on the InterWeb is that Marines are now "training" alongside civilian law enforcement personnel at checkpoints. As one wag put it, we need to train our troops to conduct sobriety checkpoints in Afghanistan. Well, everyone is aghast at this of course ( I don't know where they were when Bush made this sort of thing "legal" years back ). Mayberry is hoping a fraction of a percent of the population will fight back. At one percent of the population being freedom fighters, the military and police are outnumbered. And I did mention he was merely hoping this would happen. I don't think so. We've talked about this before ( and by the way, trolls, if you look at your hero Rawles, he also repeats the same topics ). As long as the people are on welfare, you won't get one hundredth of one percent to revolt. I don't care if you put Marines at the airport ( oops, did that already with National Guardsmen ), guarding prisoners that have not been charged with a crime ( oops, doing that ), shooting innocent unarmed civilians with squad automatic machineguns ( not officially done yet, except by contract mercenaries overseas or at hurricane decimated ghettos ) or having them intimidate civilians driving drunk.
*
It won't matter if Obammy takes their guns. It won't matter if their sons are drafted and sent over to a radioactive Iran to pump the oil. It certainly won't matter if more troops are sent back home to help police the streets. Even rationing gas to the SUV won't get the public to fight back. As long as the cable stations keep broadcasting and the average lard ass can go to McDonald's and Super Size all grease and sugar portions, there will be no one that will fight back against our government that is ALREADY un-Constitutional and either fascist or socialist, depending on the four year flavor currently acting as the corporate puppet. Already, as in we haven't revolted yet so why assume we will in the future. And even if we did get a sizable portion of folks revolting, the two things they can't shoot at with their semi-autos are neighbors narcing and control of the centralized food supply.
*
Relax, either our society will implode and starve centralized control ( of course, local tyrants will be worse ) or the food will run out and the bulk of the population will revolt. Don't rush things, they will happen soon enough.
END
It used to be I could be really rude to Marines, Jarheads, Leathernecks, etc. Well, now I have distant family members amongst their ranks, and my son is now in the Junior Jarheads ( Junior ROTC for the Marines in High School ). He has every intention of going to the Navy Academy or regular ROTC. The Army, good enough for dad and grandpa ( and a few great grandpas ), is not good enough for my spawn. Noooo. He wants to shove a government issue broomstick up his butt and parade around ( dad, their uniforms look so much nicer ). He would also like to shoot things and imagines that is where the better opportunities will be. I would chalk it up to teenager fantasy, but since he is getting a taste of it, and liking it, and wanting more... He does me proud, much more motivated than his old man ever was at that age. So, the short version is that I have to be nice now to that strange breed of soldier.
*
The newest outrage on the InterWeb is that Marines are now "training" alongside civilian law enforcement personnel at checkpoints. As one wag put it, we need to train our troops to conduct sobriety checkpoints in Afghanistan. Well, everyone is aghast at this of course ( I don't know where they were when Bush made this sort of thing "legal" years back ). Mayberry is hoping a fraction of a percent of the population will fight back. At one percent of the population being freedom fighters, the military and police are outnumbered. And I did mention he was merely hoping this would happen. I don't think so. We've talked about this before ( and by the way, trolls, if you look at your hero Rawles, he also repeats the same topics ). As long as the people are on welfare, you won't get one hundredth of one percent to revolt. I don't care if you put Marines at the airport ( oops, did that already with National Guardsmen ), guarding prisoners that have not been charged with a crime ( oops, doing that ), shooting innocent unarmed civilians with squad automatic machineguns ( not officially done yet, except by contract mercenaries overseas or at hurricane decimated ghettos ) or having them intimidate civilians driving drunk.
*
It won't matter if Obammy takes their guns. It won't matter if their sons are drafted and sent over to a radioactive Iran to pump the oil. It certainly won't matter if more troops are sent back home to help police the streets. Even rationing gas to the SUV won't get the public to fight back. As long as the cable stations keep broadcasting and the average lard ass can go to McDonald's and Super Size all grease and sugar portions, there will be no one that will fight back against our government that is ALREADY un-Constitutional and either fascist or socialist, depending on the four year flavor currently acting as the corporate puppet. Already, as in we haven't revolted yet so why assume we will in the future. And even if we did get a sizable portion of folks revolting, the two things they can't shoot at with their semi-autos are neighbors narcing and control of the centralized food supply.
*
Relax, either our society will implode and starve centralized control ( of course, local tyrants will be worse ) or the food will run out and the bulk of the population will revolt. Don't rush things, they will happen soon enough.
END
Thursday, December 18, 2008
cash flow
CASH FLOW
To yesterday's comments, 1) I never promised to be original every single day- if its too disappointing I will gladly refund your paid description, and 2) my e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com and yes, please, rush as many guest articles as possible my way.
*
Today's boring, rehashed and uninspired article is on reducing your cash flow. I already tried to give you a way to raise preparedness cash, but by suggesting replacing semi's with bolt actions and revolvers I might as well been asking half of you to cut off your manhood. Sorry, I thought it would be a great way to raise cash and reduce future costs. What was I thinking? So, since your only assets are an upside down house and car, and since if I suggest you peddle your butt on a street corner you will roll your eyes and declare that flatly impossible without giving it any thought whatsoever, another way would be to reduce your cash flow. I'm not talking about calling the cable company and going from the Super Deluxe HBO Premium Channel Package to the Less Than Premium But Better Than Rabbit Ears Package. No, you need to simply cancel cable altogether. And instead of cutting back on the number of cell phones in the family from that approaching the entire nation of Bangladesh, you need to get to a more reasonable number of zero. You are not a brain surgeon that needs to be contacted on the golf course when a skateboarder is critically injured after tripping on his jeans that were hanging around his knees and fell down a few stairs and by random chance happened to hit what little there was that he sometimes used for such crucial decisions as what rap song to play. Cell phones are what the sheep use to emulate their masters. It is sad and pathetic. Get rid of them as they are time and money pits.
*
Are you actually concerned with your credit rating? You fool! Western civilization is sinking into the financial open pit sewage lagoon it constructed a shiny castle on and you care about getting into debt in the future? Trash your credit rating. Repo your car and mail the house keys to the bank. You might not be able to stop the cash flow towards shelter or transportation, but you can make a good start by reducing it drastically. I understand about spousal reluctance. All I can say is, insist on protecting your family or prepare to die with them surrounded by the now useless trappings of Petroleum Age. Yes, an economic meltdown might postpone the Peak Oil crash. Half dozen of one, six of the other. You can still die, hungry and cold and fighting Blackwater troops for the last rancid rat corpse. What I'm trying to do here is suggest to you how to postpone the day of reckoning. By reducing your cash flow now, you free up funds to buy more supplies. Then, when you are laid off or your 401k is reduced to a smoldering ruins or the state you rely on for retirement declares bankruptcy and the Feds take over that obligation and pay $1,000 NewBucks a month ( while a loaf of bread cost N$20,000 ) you will be able to survive just a little bit longer in the current economy.
*
Reducing cash flow means giving up luxuries. No more eating out. Not even McDonald's. No more cosmetics for the wife. If she is too ugly to wake up to with her natural face, cover the bedroom windows with black out cloth. No more Starbucks. Make your own coffee. Take in thermos. Stainless steel thermos thus acts as a back up for slow cooking meals. A Two-Fer. Roll your own cigarettes and make your own wine if you want alcohol. Buy the cheapest cut of meat and crock-pot it while at work. I've gone through all this before, which you would know if you're already unemployed and have nothing better to do than read my back stock of articles. Almost all of us live above our means. Stop it. Live below them. Practice now for being poor later. And as a bonus stockpile a garage full of wheat berries and ammunition reloading components. And, by the by, hurry the heck up. None of us know when the economy really starts to sink. I'll bet it's before your mortgage is paid off. Other than that, who knows.
*
Also, if all this is just baseless panic, a reduced cash flow means less stress. With cash saved up for emergencies instead of a waiting credit card. If you need to move or cut back work hours, you don't need to stress since you are already living on less than you take home. You become the winner, the banks lose out, either way.
END
To yesterday's comments, 1) I never promised to be original every single day- if its too disappointing I will gladly refund your paid description, and 2) my e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com and yes, please, rush as many guest articles as possible my way.
*
Today's boring, rehashed and uninspired article is on reducing your cash flow. I already tried to give you a way to raise preparedness cash, but by suggesting replacing semi's with bolt actions and revolvers I might as well been asking half of you to cut off your manhood. Sorry, I thought it would be a great way to raise cash and reduce future costs. What was I thinking? So, since your only assets are an upside down house and car, and since if I suggest you peddle your butt on a street corner you will roll your eyes and declare that flatly impossible without giving it any thought whatsoever, another way would be to reduce your cash flow. I'm not talking about calling the cable company and going from the Super Deluxe HBO Premium Channel Package to the Less Than Premium But Better Than Rabbit Ears Package. No, you need to simply cancel cable altogether. And instead of cutting back on the number of cell phones in the family from that approaching the entire nation of Bangladesh, you need to get to a more reasonable number of zero. You are not a brain surgeon that needs to be contacted on the golf course when a skateboarder is critically injured after tripping on his jeans that were hanging around his knees and fell down a few stairs and by random chance happened to hit what little there was that he sometimes used for such crucial decisions as what rap song to play. Cell phones are what the sheep use to emulate their masters. It is sad and pathetic. Get rid of them as they are time and money pits.
*
Are you actually concerned with your credit rating? You fool! Western civilization is sinking into the financial open pit sewage lagoon it constructed a shiny castle on and you care about getting into debt in the future? Trash your credit rating. Repo your car and mail the house keys to the bank. You might not be able to stop the cash flow towards shelter or transportation, but you can make a good start by reducing it drastically. I understand about spousal reluctance. All I can say is, insist on protecting your family or prepare to die with them surrounded by the now useless trappings of Petroleum Age. Yes, an economic meltdown might postpone the Peak Oil crash. Half dozen of one, six of the other. You can still die, hungry and cold and fighting Blackwater troops for the last rancid rat corpse. What I'm trying to do here is suggest to you how to postpone the day of reckoning. By reducing your cash flow now, you free up funds to buy more supplies. Then, when you are laid off or your 401k is reduced to a smoldering ruins or the state you rely on for retirement declares bankruptcy and the Feds take over that obligation and pay $1,000 NewBucks a month ( while a loaf of bread cost N$20,000 ) you will be able to survive just a little bit longer in the current economy.
*
Reducing cash flow means giving up luxuries. No more eating out. Not even McDonald's. No more cosmetics for the wife. If she is too ugly to wake up to with her natural face, cover the bedroom windows with black out cloth. No more Starbucks. Make your own coffee. Take in thermos. Stainless steel thermos thus acts as a back up for slow cooking meals. A Two-Fer. Roll your own cigarettes and make your own wine if you want alcohol. Buy the cheapest cut of meat and crock-pot it while at work. I've gone through all this before, which you would know if you're already unemployed and have nothing better to do than read my back stock of articles. Almost all of us live above our means. Stop it. Live below them. Practice now for being poor later. And as a bonus stockpile a garage full of wheat berries and ammunition reloading components. And, by the by, hurry the heck up. None of us know when the economy really starts to sink. I'll bet it's before your mortgage is paid off. Other than that, who knows.
*
Also, if all this is just baseless panic, a reduced cash flow means less stress. With cash saved up for emergencies instead of a waiting credit card. If you need to move or cut back work hours, you don't need to stress since you are already living on less than you take home. You become the winner, the banks lose out, either way.
END
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
saving the world
SAVING THE WORLD
First off, don't get too excited. This is not a plan that will save the world. Your world, my world and Ross Perot's world is ending now as we speak. Sure, go ahead and deny it. The doomsayers have been wrong before, they'll be wrong again. Go ahead and buy a box full of AK magazines instead of a years worth of wheat and a shotgun. What could possibly hinder delivery of a Russian round? No, this is simply telling you why no one will save the world. I don't care how good of a plan you have. It won't work. We could sit down and drink a few beers and come up with great plans all day long. I could stick a pencil up my butt and sit on a piece of paper and come up with a great plan to save the world.
*
My personal favorite has always been the mirror farms in the desert. Position the mirrors around a liquid filled generator. Sun heats up liquid, spins, generates electricity. Lines back to civilization or produce hydrogen. Easy. Simple. Relatively cheap. Advance notice we needed this- thirty five years ago. Now, add in your own favorite power generating idea. I'm hearing about the algae oil from loyal minions. Whatever. Some are eventually doomed, such as nuclear ( as practiced today ) due to fuel eventually running out there too. Coal is the same. Hydro power is maxed out. Some have never been tried. Others are tested on a small scale. And it doesn't matter which one you pick. They all are competing, not with common sense or what's best for our country. But against vested interests. If there is a group in power that has an interest in the way things are currently being done, no change will be allowed except in a minority of instances or by accident.
*
Look at alternate medical practices. Blocked by a herd of those benefiting by the way things are done currently. Politics. Anything involving a lawyer. Anything involving a corporation. Those currently being enriched by standard practices will not yield profit. We are silly to assume otherwise. Look at the Roman Senators. They profited handsomely by mining the soil of nutrients to rush as much food to market as possible. The Southern plantation owners did the same. Both ignored long term sustainability, and did it with history as a guide. Short term profits triumph over long term civilization survival. In good times and bad. You might find a few percent of enlightened persons that fought the tide, but they are the exception to the rule. If you think any Americans are going to belong to this exception, you haven't been paying attention for three decades. The system as a whole does not allow long term thinking. Our farms are centralized and overly dependant on oil, as well as continually being sold off as subdivisions. Our manufacture sector all went overseas. Our remaining car makers can't even use old '80's models for the gas sippers we need. State pensions were over exposed to dangerous investing to get a few extra percent profit.
*
There is no magic pixie dust to sprinkle over the current problems. The ship will go down without altering course. You are betting your life thinking otherwise.
END
First off, don't get too excited. This is not a plan that will save the world. Your world, my world and Ross Perot's world is ending now as we speak. Sure, go ahead and deny it. The doomsayers have been wrong before, they'll be wrong again. Go ahead and buy a box full of AK magazines instead of a years worth of wheat and a shotgun. What could possibly hinder delivery of a Russian round? No, this is simply telling you why no one will save the world. I don't care how good of a plan you have. It won't work. We could sit down and drink a few beers and come up with great plans all day long. I could stick a pencil up my butt and sit on a piece of paper and come up with a great plan to save the world.
*
My personal favorite has always been the mirror farms in the desert. Position the mirrors around a liquid filled generator. Sun heats up liquid, spins, generates electricity. Lines back to civilization or produce hydrogen. Easy. Simple. Relatively cheap. Advance notice we needed this- thirty five years ago. Now, add in your own favorite power generating idea. I'm hearing about the algae oil from loyal minions. Whatever. Some are eventually doomed, such as nuclear ( as practiced today ) due to fuel eventually running out there too. Coal is the same. Hydro power is maxed out. Some have never been tried. Others are tested on a small scale. And it doesn't matter which one you pick. They all are competing, not with common sense or what's best for our country. But against vested interests. If there is a group in power that has an interest in the way things are currently being done, no change will be allowed except in a minority of instances or by accident.
*
Look at alternate medical practices. Blocked by a herd of those benefiting by the way things are done currently. Politics. Anything involving a lawyer. Anything involving a corporation. Those currently being enriched by standard practices will not yield profit. We are silly to assume otherwise. Look at the Roman Senators. They profited handsomely by mining the soil of nutrients to rush as much food to market as possible. The Southern plantation owners did the same. Both ignored long term sustainability, and did it with history as a guide. Short term profits triumph over long term civilization survival. In good times and bad. You might find a few percent of enlightened persons that fought the tide, but they are the exception to the rule. If you think any Americans are going to belong to this exception, you haven't been paying attention for three decades. The system as a whole does not allow long term thinking. Our farms are centralized and overly dependant on oil, as well as continually being sold off as subdivisions. Our manufacture sector all went overseas. Our remaining car makers can't even use old '80's models for the gas sippers we need. State pensions were over exposed to dangerous investing to get a few extra percent profit.
*
There is no magic pixie dust to sprinkle over the current problems. The ship will go down without altering course. You are betting your life thinking otherwise.
END
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
12v LED
12V LED
Just when you thought I couldn't possibly come up with another article on LED lighting. Silly rabbit. Okay, I complain and snivel and act all pathetic about being without lights. We had two weeks without sun and my two marine batteries were drained. And that was only using twelve watts a day on the TV ( one hour on the piece of crap Best Buy B&W portable-the old lady needs to watch at least one soap opera to stay sane ) and about fifty watts on using one 18 watt light. Being a travel trailer, it uses 1156 type auto bulbs. So, roughly five amps a day. You would have thought I would have had a bit more juice. But such is life with the wonders of modern civilization. We can put man on the moon, or at least act like we did ( OJ Simpson said we didn't so it must be true ), but you can't improve solar panels much in three decades. Which would get me going on a tangent about vested interests and alternate energy, but I'll save that for tomorrow. Even if you're only getting half the rated watts, I should be seeing 120 watts a day in winter, double my usage. But I can never seem to get the batteries topped off. So I went over a month using mostly candles and hand held LED flashlights using disposable batteries. We only used about one amp a day trying to recharge the batteries.
*
Well, let me just tell you. Living that way sucks. I felt like I was living in a cave. A cold and dark cave. Well, Bigbear took pity on me and recommended 12 volt light bulbs. When he had mentioned it in previous writing I thought he was talking about those light bars powered by disposables like you see in the RV section of Wal-Mart. I didn't realize he was talking about a replacement for auto bulbs that are LED's. I'd seen the LED auto lights that were the red tail light. Perhaps that was what I was thinking about. But, no, I was technologically back in the Stone Age. They now make white LED auto bulbs. The push and turn type you put in the brake light socket after the Highway Patrol pulls you over for a burned out light, hoping to bust you for something much more nefarious such as animal molestation or smoking the evil Devil Weed. Thank you Bigbear!! You can visit him at www.bearridgeproject.com
*
Being the Super Patriotic Local Shopper that I am, I first tried to buy one of these bad boys in town. None of the auto parts stores had them except Checkers. But they only had red or amber colors ( careful, they appear white ). The RV parts supply had no idea what I was babbling about. Of course, their supply catalog looked like it had been borrowed from the Smithsonian. So I went to www.superbrightleds.com and looked up what they had. There were plenty of units for under $10, but no wattage was listed. You want the one listed as three or five watts. If your auto bulb was 1157 or 1156 ( essentially you are looking for the identical base, a bayonet base in the same measurement- there will be a table to check ) you will want their part number BA15. Make sure to check everything. That your bulb is the same, that it is a white LED, that it is the wattage you want. The reason you need to be so careful is that the low watt units cost $35 each. I was a bit appalled they charged $30 and then had the gall to charge $5 shipping, but what the hay.
*
I was so tired of living in the dark, squinting at everything, tripping over cats, the wife and my own feet I decided to take a chance here. $35 is a heck of a lot of cabbage, but we were literally talking about my sanity. Sure, once there is no other option and we are living in the smoldering radioactive ruins of Western Civilization, I'll come to terms with living by smoldering animal fat candles. For now, after working eleven hours a day and only seeing the sun from my trailer in the summer or on the weekend, I would like to live in the twentieth century, illumination wise. The bulb was delivered last night and I was as excited as a mail order bride driving up to a mansion before she discovered they were going in the servants entrance. It worked! Light, glorious light. I could see. It was a bright white light rather than the normal yellow light we were used to, but it gave as much illumination as the old bulbs. We could play cards by it, I could read by it ( even across the table ). Sorry, I don't own a tool to measure light output for just such occasions. It might not have been a complete match. It might deliver a bit less light. But not so as I could tell. It seemed comparable.
*
Was it worth the money? Sure. Will I order any more? I don't know. We can get by with just one in the living room. And I don't want to invest as much money in bulbs as I did in solar panels. But it sure is nice to know I can have four times the light as I used to for the same power. Two amps for an evenings worth of light rather than almost eight amps. And it sure is nice having loyal minions that fill in those vast stretches of emptiness in my skull.
END
Just when you thought I couldn't possibly come up with another article on LED lighting. Silly rabbit. Okay, I complain and snivel and act all pathetic about being without lights. We had two weeks without sun and my two marine batteries were drained. And that was only using twelve watts a day on the TV ( one hour on the piece of crap Best Buy B&W portable-the old lady needs to watch at least one soap opera to stay sane ) and about fifty watts on using one 18 watt light. Being a travel trailer, it uses 1156 type auto bulbs. So, roughly five amps a day. You would have thought I would have had a bit more juice. But such is life with the wonders of modern civilization. We can put man on the moon, or at least act like we did ( OJ Simpson said we didn't so it must be true ), but you can't improve solar panels much in three decades. Which would get me going on a tangent about vested interests and alternate energy, but I'll save that for tomorrow. Even if you're only getting half the rated watts, I should be seeing 120 watts a day in winter, double my usage. But I can never seem to get the batteries topped off. So I went over a month using mostly candles and hand held LED flashlights using disposable batteries. We only used about one amp a day trying to recharge the batteries.
*
Well, let me just tell you. Living that way sucks. I felt like I was living in a cave. A cold and dark cave. Well, Bigbear took pity on me and recommended 12 volt light bulbs. When he had mentioned it in previous writing I thought he was talking about those light bars powered by disposables like you see in the RV section of Wal-Mart. I didn't realize he was talking about a replacement for auto bulbs that are LED's. I'd seen the LED auto lights that were the red tail light. Perhaps that was what I was thinking about. But, no, I was technologically back in the Stone Age. They now make white LED auto bulbs. The push and turn type you put in the brake light socket after the Highway Patrol pulls you over for a burned out light, hoping to bust you for something much more nefarious such as animal molestation or smoking the evil Devil Weed. Thank you Bigbear!! You can visit him at www.bearridgeproject.com
*
Being the Super Patriotic Local Shopper that I am, I first tried to buy one of these bad boys in town. None of the auto parts stores had them except Checkers. But they only had red or amber colors ( careful, they appear white ). The RV parts supply had no idea what I was babbling about. Of course, their supply catalog looked like it had been borrowed from the Smithsonian. So I went to www.superbrightleds.com and looked up what they had. There were plenty of units for under $10, but no wattage was listed. You want the one listed as three or five watts. If your auto bulb was 1157 or 1156 ( essentially you are looking for the identical base, a bayonet base in the same measurement- there will be a table to check ) you will want their part number BA15. Make sure to check everything. That your bulb is the same, that it is a white LED, that it is the wattage you want. The reason you need to be so careful is that the low watt units cost $35 each. I was a bit appalled they charged $30 and then had the gall to charge $5 shipping, but what the hay.
*
I was so tired of living in the dark, squinting at everything, tripping over cats, the wife and my own feet I decided to take a chance here. $35 is a heck of a lot of cabbage, but we were literally talking about my sanity. Sure, once there is no other option and we are living in the smoldering radioactive ruins of Western Civilization, I'll come to terms with living by smoldering animal fat candles. For now, after working eleven hours a day and only seeing the sun from my trailer in the summer or on the weekend, I would like to live in the twentieth century, illumination wise. The bulb was delivered last night and I was as excited as a mail order bride driving up to a mansion before she discovered they were going in the servants entrance. It worked! Light, glorious light. I could see. It was a bright white light rather than the normal yellow light we were used to, but it gave as much illumination as the old bulbs. We could play cards by it, I could read by it ( even across the table ). Sorry, I don't own a tool to measure light output for just such occasions. It might not have been a complete match. It might deliver a bit less light. But not so as I could tell. It seemed comparable.
*
Was it worth the money? Sure. Will I order any more? I don't know. We can get by with just one in the living room. And I don't want to invest as much money in bulbs as I did in solar panels. But it sure is nice to know I can have four times the light as I used to for the same power. Two amps for an evenings worth of light rather than almost eight amps. And it sure is nice having loyal minions that fill in those vast stretches of emptiness in my skull.
END
Monday, December 15, 2008
pissing away a grand
PISSING AWAY A GRAND
I went to read the comments from the last article and even when I knew any topic touching on guns would bring everyone out of the woodwork to pipe up I wasn't prepared for so many. So, I'll read them later when I have more time and likely pick another juicy topic out of all that. For now I would like to comment on my favorite subject, the idiocy of Yuppie Survivalists. Now, please don't get me wrong. Rawles is not in this game to hold everyone's hand and coo soothing advise into everyone's ear. He is in it to make a living. Despite generations of communist teachings in our Youth Detention And Indoctrination Centers I hope everyone reading this still can see the good and usefulness of a profit incentive. And we all do what we can to get readers that are used to reading for free to pony up a few cents so we can survive after expenses. I have no problem with his auctions to raise money. That said, I'm amazed that no one thinks twice about dropping a grand on a few AR mags, a radiation monitor, some hot chocolate and a few DVD's.
*
We are no where near the point of Zimbabwean hyper-inflation when a grand has lost all value. A grand is over an ounce of gold. It is 100 ounces of silver. It is two tons of wheat. It is almost a parcel of junk land or a used trailer. For now it is six or seven hundred gallons of gas. Why does anyone think it is worth a few dozen mags, a fallout meter and a wilderness instructional course on video? It is high priced toys, not goods that will do you much good in the general scheme of things. Oh, sure, when the CIA does a false flag nuclear attack on Washington DC those folks down wind might think this was a heck of a deal. But for most of us normal folks scrapping up enough after the mortgage to buy a box of rimfire ammunition, this is simply indicative of the wastefulness of Yuppie Survivalism. He that is attacked by zombie bikers and dies with the most expensive toys wins. Look, there is nothing wrong with owning the best tools. This is the niche Rawles has created and is successful with. I honestly wish him all the luck in the world. I hope he is the next Ruff in fame and fortune. I mostly blame his legions of readers that fall for this crap. If you are not well off financially and can't afford the best tools, stop deluding yourself. You are a poor bastard and had better get used to the idea. Live within your means, and prepare within your means.
*
Okay, this is old hat to most of my readers. I hope those you you who are new here are paying attention. Yes, you, the guy in the back looking befuddled. I knew I would get one new reader in the last month. I most likely lost three of them to my rudeness and callous disregard to anyone's feelings. I didn't use to be like that. I was careful to patiently explain my views and tiptoe around gross insults. Then I got tired of being nice. It is a lot more fun being rude and insensitive. And I'm here mostly to enjoy myself. If you enjoy the ride, all the better. But, please, keep in mind that you can't have the best of both worlds. You can't normally pick and choose between Frugal and Yuppie Survivalism. Oh, I'll buy cheap food as soon as I've completed my ten thousand dollar arsenal. How much time do you think we have left? I don't care if this is all a ploy by the bankers and we continue to limp along ( a very real possibility ). If you are wrong about that you place your family in danger. You may not care if you live or die, but you have responsibilities to others. You must err on the side of caution.
*
Don't piss away the last of your resources buying toys. There is nothing sexy about wheat kernels or beat up old guns. But they will do the trick. On a budget.
END
I went to read the comments from the last article and even when I knew any topic touching on guns would bring everyone out of the woodwork to pipe up I wasn't prepared for so many. So, I'll read them later when I have more time and likely pick another juicy topic out of all that. For now I would like to comment on my favorite subject, the idiocy of Yuppie Survivalists. Now, please don't get me wrong. Rawles is not in this game to hold everyone's hand and coo soothing advise into everyone's ear. He is in it to make a living. Despite generations of communist teachings in our Youth Detention And Indoctrination Centers I hope everyone reading this still can see the good and usefulness of a profit incentive. And we all do what we can to get readers that are used to reading for free to pony up a few cents so we can survive after expenses. I have no problem with his auctions to raise money. That said, I'm amazed that no one thinks twice about dropping a grand on a few AR mags, a radiation monitor, some hot chocolate and a few DVD's.
*
We are no where near the point of Zimbabwean hyper-inflation when a grand has lost all value. A grand is over an ounce of gold. It is 100 ounces of silver. It is two tons of wheat. It is almost a parcel of junk land or a used trailer. For now it is six or seven hundred gallons of gas. Why does anyone think it is worth a few dozen mags, a fallout meter and a wilderness instructional course on video? It is high priced toys, not goods that will do you much good in the general scheme of things. Oh, sure, when the CIA does a false flag nuclear attack on Washington DC those folks down wind might think this was a heck of a deal. But for most of us normal folks scrapping up enough after the mortgage to buy a box of rimfire ammunition, this is simply indicative of the wastefulness of Yuppie Survivalism. He that is attacked by zombie bikers and dies with the most expensive toys wins. Look, there is nothing wrong with owning the best tools. This is the niche Rawles has created and is successful with. I honestly wish him all the luck in the world. I hope he is the next Ruff in fame and fortune. I mostly blame his legions of readers that fall for this crap. If you are not well off financially and can't afford the best tools, stop deluding yourself. You are a poor bastard and had better get used to the idea. Live within your means, and prepare within your means.
*
Okay, this is old hat to most of my readers. I hope those you you who are new here are paying attention. Yes, you, the guy in the back looking befuddled. I knew I would get one new reader in the last month. I most likely lost three of them to my rudeness and callous disregard to anyone's feelings. I didn't use to be like that. I was careful to patiently explain my views and tiptoe around gross insults. Then I got tired of being nice. It is a lot more fun being rude and insensitive. And I'm here mostly to enjoy myself. If you enjoy the ride, all the better. But, please, keep in mind that you can't have the best of both worlds. You can't normally pick and choose between Frugal and Yuppie Survivalism. Oh, I'll buy cheap food as soon as I've completed my ten thousand dollar arsenal. How much time do you think we have left? I don't care if this is all a ploy by the bankers and we continue to limp along ( a very real possibility ). If you are wrong about that you place your family in danger. You may not care if you live or die, but you have responsibilities to others. You must err on the side of caution.
*
Don't piss away the last of your resources buying toys. There is nothing sexy about wheat kernels or beat up old guns. But they will do the trick. On a budget.
END
Friday, December 12, 2008
selling semi's
SELLING SEMI'S
I mentioned this yesterday, and today for no good reason I'm going to expand it into an article. Back eons ago before the Internet and when I was sending out a crappy little paper newsletter and postage cost under twenty cents, I had a real problem fleshing out ideas. I would write a concise description in a few sentences and then move on to the next topic. Well, those times are long gone. Now you get an unimaginable length of drivel and ranting, if lucky a shot of humor and it will all drown a small nugget of wisdom. You would think I got paid by the word. Here we are, minding our own business and for no reason whatsoever except for our economy produces nothing of value, our currency is worthless toilet paper, we are running out of oil and the bankers took three cents in deposits and bought a derivative for a dollar that was a bet on a hundred bucks houses would increase in value forever, we find ourselves in a Depression.
*
So, as employers shed all jobs except the CEO and the window washer ( so the CEO can look out clearly on his global empire ) and China wonders what to do with a trillion bucks of our junk bonds, you are now faced with yet another problem. When our Western Religion Challenged President ( Chief Muslim In Charge ) decides to ban most guns because they are not "reasonable" ( a Beavis and Butthead schtick comes to mind " Are you threatening me!? I am Cornholeo! I must have TP for my bunghole." ) and because secretly he is a flamer who is very sensitive to those big brutes who carry them, on top of being a communist, the rational response has been that everyone is panicking. Well, not the folks in the Hood, they can get guns anytime. And not some cheesy Saturday Night Special, but cool full auto machine pistols. And they don't pay a $200 transfer tax on it or ten grand for the gun itself because the legal supply has dried up, but merely pay off their supplier in a few extra bricks of coke for all the high firepower coolness that can be imported from former Evil Empire countries. But everyone else is panicking. Even the guys that were cheap and frugal and bought an SKS are paying three times the price for ammo because all those anti-social militia types have AK's and they are buying the crap out of ammo because they are planning to hit the streets fully prepared to kill off Blackwater shock troops, Crips or Bloods, anyone looking like an ATF agent or a census worker trying to inventory their supply of MRE's.
*
Gee, all this time I'm telling you to buy bolt action war surplus rifles because they were cheap and did a lot better job in just about every aspect except volume of fire ( as I famously quipped, it was a wonder the white man survived with his single shot musket while being attacked by Indians armed with rapid fire short range weapons ) . You can't club someone to death with an M-16, nor will a bayonet do you much good. They don't penetrate anything with their souped up rimfire round. They were expensive before the current panic and they had a million spare parts to stock up. And you needed to buy a lot of magazines. I decided to give up my mostest favorite ever gun the .45 auto due to the higher cost and the need for the magazines. I don't prefer revolvers, but they do simplify your life and cost you less. Then, out of the blue, shortages started to appear. Now, besides the war induced shortages ( military rounds being diverted to our indigenous stoolies in the security/police ) we are seeing shortages caused by Obammy election panic.
*
This is a wonderful time to sell all your semi automatic guns. Get top dollar for them, then add on twenty percent because they are private sales without jackbooted thug traceable paperwork. Sell your dented rusty magazines for full retail price. You bought it for $5, sell it for twenty. Take all of your ill gotten gains and buy the still reasonably priced war surplus rifles and their non-current military ammunition. You know I only recommend The British Enfield No4. It is sloppy on target but will laugh at dirt and filth. It has ten rounds versus everyone else's five. Its round is not rare, like the Swiss bolt rounds are. Yes, it costs twice the Russian guns. And users tell me my fears about lack of gas bleed are inflated. But I prefer the Queens rifle to those of the communists or Krauts. They are user friendly.
*
You don't need semi-auto. Buy bolts and revolvers and learn how to use them. Skill instead of a wall of lead. Almost any future you can envision will see ammo being scarce or costly. You need to learn to conserve it. Semi's don't do that. You've now made a profit. Go buy more food. Or some junk land. Go the E-Bay and look under Real estate, All Parcels, Buy Now, Under $2K. They have a lot better deals than they did not too long ago. And in other places than just desert. Start acting like our consumerist oil bloated credit card led lifestyles is coming to an end. It is. Get it now, get what you need rather than what you want.
END
Do you threaten me!? Buy my crap at www.bisonpress.com
I mentioned this yesterday, and today for no good reason I'm going to expand it into an article. Back eons ago before the Internet and when I was sending out a crappy little paper newsletter and postage cost under twenty cents, I had a real problem fleshing out ideas. I would write a concise description in a few sentences and then move on to the next topic. Well, those times are long gone. Now you get an unimaginable length of drivel and ranting, if lucky a shot of humor and it will all drown a small nugget of wisdom. You would think I got paid by the word. Here we are, minding our own business and for no reason whatsoever except for our economy produces nothing of value, our currency is worthless toilet paper, we are running out of oil and the bankers took three cents in deposits and bought a derivative for a dollar that was a bet on a hundred bucks houses would increase in value forever, we find ourselves in a Depression.
*
So, as employers shed all jobs except the CEO and the window washer ( so the CEO can look out clearly on his global empire ) and China wonders what to do with a trillion bucks of our junk bonds, you are now faced with yet another problem. When our Western Religion Challenged President ( Chief Muslim In Charge ) decides to ban most guns because they are not "reasonable" ( a Beavis and Butthead schtick comes to mind " Are you threatening me!? I am Cornholeo! I must have TP for my bunghole." ) and because secretly he is a flamer who is very sensitive to those big brutes who carry them, on top of being a communist, the rational response has been that everyone is panicking. Well, not the folks in the Hood, they can get guns anytime. And not some cheesy Saturday Night Special, but cool full auto machine pistols. And they don't pay a $200 transfer tax on it or ten grand for the gun itself because the legal supply has dried up, but merely pay off their supplier in a few extra bricks of coke for all the high firepower coolness that can be imported from former Evil Empire countries. But everyone else is panicking. Even the guys that were cheap and frugal and bought an SKS are paying three times the price for ammo because all those anti-social militia types have AK's and they are buying the crap out of ammo because they are planning to hit the streets fully prepared to kill off Blackwater shock troops, Crips or Bloods, anyone looking like an ATF agent or a census worker trying to inventory their supply of MRE's.
*
Gee, all this time I'm telling you to buy bolt action war surplus rifles because they were cheap and did a lot better job in just about every aspect except volume of fire ( as I famously quipped, it was a wonder the white man survived with his single shot musket while being attacked by Indians armed with rapid fire short range weapons ) . You can't club someone to death with an M-16, nor will a bayonet do you much good. They don't penetrate anything with their souped up rimfire round. They were expensive before the current panic and they had a million spare parts to stock up. And you needed to buy a lot of magazines. I decided to give up my mostest favorite ever gun the .45 auto due to the higher cost and the need for the magazines. I don't prefer revolvers, but they do simplify your life and cost you less. Then, out of the blue, shortages started to appear. Now, besides the war induced shortages ( military rounds being diverted to our indigenous stoolies in the security/police ) we are seeing shortages caused by Obammy election panic.
*
This is a wonderful time to sell all your semi automatic guns. Get top dollar for them, then add on twenty percent because they are private sales without jackbooted thug traceable paperwork. Sell your dented rusty magazines for full retail price. You bought it for $5, sell it for twenty. Take all of your ill gotten gains and buy the still reasonably priced war surplus rifles and their non-current military ammunition. You know I only recommend The British Enfield No4. It is sloppy on target but will laugh at dirt and filth. It has ten rounds versus everyone else's five. Its round is not rare, like the Swiss bolt rounds are. Yes, it costs twice the Russian guns. And users tell me my fears about lack of gas bleed are inflated. But I prefer the Queens rifle to those of the communists or Krauts. They are user friendly.
*
You don't need semi-auto. Buy bolts and revolvers and learn how to use them. Skill instead of a wall of lead. Almost any future you can envision will see ammo being scarce or costly. You need to learn to conserve it. Semi's don't do that. You've now made a profit. Go buy more food. Or some junk land. Go the E-Bay and look under Real estate, All Parcels, Buy Now, Under $2K. They have a lot better deals than they did not too long ago. And in other places than just desert. Start acting like our consumerist oil bloated credit card led lifestyles is coming to an end. It is. Get it now, get what you need rather than what you want.
END
Do you threaten me!? Buy my crap at www.bisonpress.com
Thursday, December 11, 2008
looming jobless
LOOMING JOBLESS
Do you have a plan for when you lose your job and there aren't any to replace it? I can foresee where their are no jobs at all to replace it, not even those paying 20%. Yes, I could be full of crap. I could be screaming that the sky is falling. Some believe the bankers are just playing us, getting even more of our money than before. It's all a plot by the socialists to nationalize the economy and make the Muslim In Chief supreme dictator for life. I'm being sarcastic, but that scenario is no more far fetched than forecasting the imminent collapse. As in everything you hear or read, you have to make your own decisions as best you can on incomplete information. My standard response is always to panic. It doesn't penalize you as much as inactivity when you are wrong.
*
What are you going to do when your job evaporates? If you thought you had it bad with Chinese competition for the last fifteen years, how bad do you think it's going to be when they start suffering from idle factories and cut prices even lower? Detroit couldn't cut their costs if you gave them preassembled cars for free. Most of their costs are medical and pension. China has no such burden. The Japanese could sell below cost to capture the market, and did. China did the same thing ( one example- vitamin C production went 90% or so to China, then the prices doubled ). I'm not saying they will jack up the price because they can, rather they can lower the cost when they must.
*
At times I entertained the notion that once my child support payments were up I could move to east Texas and live at my lot there in a trailer. All I would need was food. Since the jobless rate there is twice the national average, odds were good I wouldn't find a job and I could get Food Stamps. I could be a slacker the rest of my days. Anymore, forget that strategy. I don't trust the government to stay solvent anymore. I hope that is not what you are planning, depending on a government handout. Social Security, welfare, whatever. They are not as good of a fallback position as they once were. Zimbabwe has shown you can have multiple million dollar inflation and not fall apart right away. But we are not peasants planting bananas on a jungle plot. Our society is 100% reliant on oil for every activity. We could weather inflation. We won't weather the down side of Peak Oil.
*
Junk land is not the answer for everything. Most waited too long for that. So you had better have a secure place to go, at least. A mortgage free piece of land with friends or family. A squat location no one else is aware of. Something. A casual perusal of the news daily will tell you the economy is contracting severely. Local governments are having budget crisis'. Nevada saw a 25% decline in gaming revenue. Even the whorehouses had a rough patch. No job is safe. They pay people to dream of ways to eliminate your position. Off the top of my head, even cops. Say, half the patrolman and then each trained officer supervises his new partner a minimum wage security guard. Sound far fetched? What until your county sees housing values and property taxes cut in half or worse. Then see if someone tries it.
*
Quality companies are seeing drastic sales reductions, such as Sony and Toyota. An American company doesn't compare, so should fair worse. And even good companies such as Google will see revenues decline as everyone has less credit to play with. I run a food bank single handed for near minimum wage. I don't think my job is safe. At any time the Feds could decide to ax funds to this industry. I don't even feel safe here in Elko. Sure, better off than most with gold production. But not 100% secure. We will still see bruising even if this was all just a recession. Which it isn't. If you want my advice, sell everything not nailed down or that won't keep you alive in a collapse. Buy preps like crazy and secure a place to hunker down. I would even sell my semi's. Obama Panic is ripe. You can smell it in the air. Sell your gun toys and those suddenly appreciated magazines. Buy more sensible bolt actions and revolvers and use the difference for food and shelter. Obama might go ahead with a ban. You might as well profit from it instead of having it cost you. Again, as always, panic now. One day I'll be right and you don't want to be dead because you waited too long.
END
Do you have a plan for when you lose your job and there aren't any to replace it? I can foresee where their are no jobs at all to replace it, not even those paying 20%. Yes, I could be full of crap. I could be screaming that the sky is falling. Some believe the bankers are just playing us, getting even more of our money than before. It's all a plot by the socialists to nationalize the economy and make the Muslim In Chief supreme dictator for life. I'm being sarcastic, but that scenario is no more far fetched than forecasting the imminent collapse. As in everything you hear or read, you have to make your own decisions as best you can on incomplete information. My standard response is always to panic. It doesn't penalize you as much as inactivity when you are wrong.
*
What are you going to do when your job evaporates? If you thought you had it bad with Chinese competition for the last fifteen years, how bad do you think it's going to be when they start suffering from idle factories and cut prices even lower? Detroit couldn't cut their costs if you gave them preassembled cars for free. Most of their costs are medical and pension. China has no such burden. The Japanese could sell below cost to capture the market, and did. China did the same thing ( one example- vitamin C production went 90% or so to China, then the prices doubled ). I'm not saying they will jack up the price because they can, rather they can lower the cost when they must.
*
At times I entertained the notion that once my child support payments were up I could move to east Texas and live at my lot there in a trailer. All I would need was food. Since the jobless rate there is twice the national average, odds were good I wouldn't find a job and I could get Food Stamps. I could be a slacker the rest of my days. Anymore, forget that strategy. I don't trust the government to stay solvent anymore. I hope that is not what you are planning, depending on a government handout. Social Security, welfare, whatever. They are not as good of a fallback position as they once were. Zimbabwe has shown you can have multiple million dollar inflation and not fall apart right away. But we are not peasants planting bananas on a jungle plot. Our society is 100% reliant on oil for every activity. We could weather inflation. We won't weather the down side of Peak Oil.
*
Junk land is not the answer for everything. Most waited too long for that. So you had better have a secure place to go, at least. A mortgage free piece of land with friends or family. A squat location no one else is aware of. Something. A casual perusal of the news daily will tell you the economy is contracting severely. Local governments are having budget crisis'. Nevada saw a 25% decline in gaming revenue. Even the whorehouses had a rough patch. No job is safe. They pay people to dream of ways to eliminate your position. Off the top of my head, even cops. Say, half the patrolman and then each trained officer supervises his new partner a minimum wage security guard. Sound far fetched? What until your county sees housing values and property taxes cut in half or worse. Then see if someone tries it.
*
Quality companies are seeing drastic sales reductions, such as Sony and Toyota. An American company doesn't compare, so should fair worse. And even good companies such as Google will see revenues decline as everyone has less credit to play with. I run a food bank single handed for near minimum wage. I don't think my job is safe. At any time the Feds could decide to ax funds to this industry. I don't even feel safe here in Elko. Sure, better off than most with gold production. But not 100% secure. We will still see bruising even if this was all just a recession. Which it isn't. If you want my advice, sell everything not nailed down or that won't keep you alive in a collapse. Buy preps like crazy and secure a place to hunker down. I would even sell my semi's. Obama Panic is ripe. You can smell it in the air. Sell your gun toys and those suddenly appreciated magazines. Buy more sensible bolt actions and revolvers and use the difference for food and shelter. Obama might go ahead with a ban. You might as well profit from it instead of having it cost you. Again, as always, panic now. One day I'll be right and you don't want to be dead because you waited too long.
END
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
your father's recession
YOUR FATHER'S RECESSION
Before we start today on an article I gave almost no thought to because I've been busy up to my neck in a half ton of donated holiday meat ( Bah! Humbug! ), I want to thank everyone for their thoughts on my fiction. To those that replied with a "sucked bad", I learn that this won't sell to most folks. So I won't labor ahead unless it is for my own satisfaction. To those that responded with helpful hints, thank you. Both types helped. I probably won't change, for good or bad. But then, any fiction will be sold with a substantial free peek inside so no one will be disappointed with what they get. But I did need the feedback.
*
It's laughable that the economic period we have entered has been labeled a recession. If it is one, it sure as heck ain't your fathers recession. I don't recall too many previous recessions where the entire Federal deficit that took two hundred years to build up was matched in six months by bail outs of the banks. Perhaps you can find another time where international trade contracted 90%. Or when car sales fell by a third. Or where a city that was just booming now has over fifty percent of its homes in foreclosure ( Las Vegas ). Any other recession ring a bell? A lot of activity is being measured to far surpass that of the 1970's contraction, only matched by the last Depression.
*
We are in a Depression. If we are lucky. If not, we are in a collapse. I hope nobody reading this is just sitting on their ass. I didn't take a week writing yesterday's fiction because I think I'll be the next Great American Author. I surely don't think I'll make more than pocket change off of it. I didn't even do it to amuse myself ( although that played a role ). I did it because of that burning sensation of impending doom I'm trying to share with you ( and, no, that burning sensation is not hemorrhoids ). It fell flat as a warning. Sorry. I thought my feeble attempt would illustrate a warning better. That it didn't just tells me I must rant at you in my regular way. I accept the majority didn't find it entertaining. But I hope it at least gave you something to think about.
*
Things are getting worse. And at a quickening pace. I can't see them getting better. Peak Oil plays a big role. The Derivatives markets imploding plays a big role. You tell me why the economy is contracting as oil prices plunge. Cheap energy has always driven the economy. Conversely, why is the financial market now collapsing? I know I'm simplifying things. There are behind the scenes market manipulations going on. There are competing currencies to consider. Overpopulation. But consider this. You do nothing, it is the same as betting things will go back to normal. If we are already seeing signs to rival the last Depression, do you really think that is the case? You had better do something to insulate yourself from the falling economy. I'm not saying run away to the woods, as appealing as that is. I'm saying, start being suspicious of all financial dealings. A job can evaporate, even civil service. A house can be lost, wiping out equity. A car can break down just as your credit card limit has been lowered. You can lose the value of your 401k. Your pension can be lost.
*
A six months supply of food and a few rifles with a thousand rounds of ammunition is what you need for short term disasters. We are potentially facing a long term disaster right now. Perhaps it was a stretch to consider a total collapse in two years. But what is going on now is the end of the economic arrangement that has been the norm for many years. The norm we all took for granted. What we worked around our whole lives. Go to school, get in debt for higher learning, work for the man, retire. We thought our bank balance was insured against both bankruptcy and hyperinflation. If we went along, we got along. Now, the little people are being abandoned. The old contract has been broken. Stop waiting for things to get back to normal and start panicking a little. One day you might be glad that you did.
END
Before we start today on an article I gave almost no thought to because I've been busy up to my neck in a half ton of donated holiday meat ( Bah! Humbug! ), I want to thank everyone for their thoughts on my fiction. To those that replied with a "sucked bad", I learn that this won't sell to most folks. So I won't labor ahead unless it is for my own satisfaction. To those that responded with helpful hints, thank you. Both types helped. I probably won't change, for good or bad. But then, any fiction will be sold with a substantial free peek inside so no one will be disappointed with what they get. But I did need the feedback.
*
It's laughable that the economic period we have entered has been labeled a recession. If it is one, it sure as heck ain't your fathers recession. I don't recall too many previous recessions where the entire Federal deficit that took two hundred years to build up was matched in six months by bail outs of the banks. Perhaps you can find another time where international trade contracted 90%. Or when car sales fell by a third. Or where a city that was just booming now has over fifty percent of its homes in foreclosure ( Las Vegas ). Any other recession ring a bell? A lot of activity is being measured to far surpass that of the 1970's contraction, only matched by the last Depression.
*
We are in a Depression. If we are lucky. If not, we are in a collapse. I hope nobody reading this is just sitting on their ass. I didn't take a week writing yesterday's fiction because I think I'll be the next Great American Author. I surely don't think I'll make more than pocket change off of it. I didn't even do it to amuse myself ( although that played a role ). I did it because of that burning sensation of impending doom I'm trying to share with you ( and, no, that burning sensation is not hemorrhoids ). It fell flat as a warning. Sorry. I thought my feeble attempt would illustrate a warning better. That it didn't just tells me I must rant at you in my regular way. I accept the majority didn't find it entertaining. But I hope it at least gave you something to think about.
*
Things are getting worse. And at a quickening pace. I can't see them getting better. Peak Oil plays a big role. The Derivatives markets imploding plays a big role. You tell me why the economy is contracting as oil prices plunge. Cheap energy has always driven the economy. Conversely, why is the financial market now collapsing? I know I'm simplifying things. There are behind the scenes market manipulations going on. There are competing currencies to consider. Overpopulation. But consider this. You do nothing, it is the same as betting things will go back to normal. If we are already seeing signs to rival the last Depression, do you really think that is the case? You had better do something to insulate yourself from the falling economy. I'm not saying run away to the woods, as appealing as that is. I'm saying, start being suspicious of all financial dealings. A job can evaporate, even civil service. A house can be lost, wiping out equity. A car can break down just as your credit card limit has been lowered. You can lose the value of your 401k. Your pension can be lost.
*
A six months supply of food and a few rifles with a thousand rounds of ammunition is what you need for short term disasters. We are potentially facing a long term disaster right now. Perhaps it was a stretch to consider a total collapse in two years. But what is going on now is the end of the economic arrangement that has been the norm for many years. The norm we all took for granted. What we worked around our whole lives. Go to school, get in debt for higher learning, work for the man, retire. We thought our bank balance was insured against both bankruptcy and hyperinflation. If we went along, we got along. Now, the little people are being abandoned. The old contract has been broken. Stop waiting for things to get back to normal and start panicking a little. One day you might be glad that you did.
END
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
fiction first draft
FICTION FIRST DRAFT
A very rough first draft. Keep in mind, I'm saving the minute detail of a collapse for another story. This is just setting up the scene for after the collapse. And far from complete. Either a first chapter of a novel or the first part of a short story. Let me know what you think.
*
PODA
John looked down at the village through his binoculars. Calling it a village was being generous as it consisted of an old gas station at the bottom of the off ramp from I-80, its mobile home set up in the back with a barricade of semi trailers tipped on their sides surrounding the whole thing. There was a few add ons to the original structures, spit gum and glue providing walkways between buildings and a few rooms. Old wooden shipping pallets seemed to be the predominant building material. The only smoke in evidence was from the roof of the old mechanic bays, which made sense. The only wood for hundreds of miles around was short sage bush which burned darn hot, very quickly and very dirty. Using the old bays not only provided a fire proof structure when using that kind of wood, it also provided a wind break for something parked inside. And, entirely by accident he was sure, given the total disregard for solar exposure all old buildings shared, the bay windows faced south. It had to be the warmest part of the place. The sun hit the windows, heated the inside of the bays and the vehicle inside provided its own insulation. So it had a big envelope surrounding it keeping a comfortable temperature. At least when the sun was shining. Now it was cold and cloudy and hence the wood smoke. Even if the big kahuna of this village did manage to have an RV inside he would want some kind of heat. The chief didn't like to suffer as an example to the troops. Or, the whole population was in there if things were a bit more democratic. All that body heat and a small fire should keep things tolerable. John would know soon enough, his job being to scout out this location. He just enjoyed speculating first thing on his arrival. It was interesting to see how close he came to reality.
He could stay reasonably warm himself, being heavily bundled against the winter chill. It wasn't as if a recon scout was given much thought as far as personal comfort went, but to do a proper job of lying prone for long periods of time it was necessary to be bundled up. He was so encumbered by layers of wool and leather he almost broke a sweat hiking here from the far ravine where he had stashed his bicycle. Another luxury. Rubber and spare parts were expensive and scarce. A mule was much cheaper and ate from the side of the road. To fuel the bike required iron rations, mostly pemmican. Again, it wasn't for him but the success of the mission. He thought of them as small perks, the only kind he could expect. He liked the quiet and solitude, and it was much better duty than front line combat. But he knew what was once considered hard duty, skilled duty, was looked on as a reward by the brass. Welcome to the brave new world, a nice carbon copy of the nineteenth century. No Unions, no job security, no sick leave or combat pay ( or much of any kind of pay for that matter ). Injury meant unemployment if you were unlucky, a teaching position if fortune smiled at you. Retirement was a hard twenty years away, and either a land grant for a farm that grew mostly rocks or sage or a business loan begrudgingly granted at usurious interest rates. John wasn't that old, he remembered what the old ways were. A dream time of leisure and luxuries. Well, he had seen what was coming. Not the details, but the general direction. The new ways were far less of a shock to him than most others.
John shifted a bit, glanced up at the sun and guessed it was about noon. He slid a bit backwards to root through his sack and took out lunch. Yummy. What proverbial taste treats were in store for today? Why, it was pemmican. And crap rations at that. Fat, ground jerky and what might pass for dried berries to some joker. He swore it was a few lumps of unsweetened Kool-Aid or Tang. He might be grateful for even that token fruit flavor, but it was still chewing on grease. He hoped the stuff wasn't so old the vitamins were gone. Did ascorbic acid have a shelf life? Hell if he knew. He ate, not wasting even the fat on his fingers. Eat what you could when available, no matter the less than desirable aspects. Did you become used to hunger? Or was it just being too weak to care anymore? Well, despite being a pessimists, he still counted his blessings. Time to get back to work. Inch up to his perch, trying to minimize movement. Settle in for a long watch. Could it be more boring, watching a building? In the summer at least people did things. Of course, in summer they wandered the hills where you wanted to hide. He did most work in the cold weather for just that reason. Collect data points for the boys sitting around maps, when they select a target pay that area another visit to confirm nothing had changed overly much. Occasionally you varied the routine with sniper work. Well, you acted as the guide and spotter. Ammunition was too precious to waste on anyone not constantly practiced enough not to waste rounds.
Time passed at the usual crawl. He could still pay attention to what was in front of him, not totally ignore his rear ( it would have been nice to have a team mate for that, but why pay two guys when one would do? ) and still have a few thoughts to himself. Gather wool, daydream. As usually his thoughts drifted back to just before the collapse. The happy times. Oh, at the time it was less than perfect. But in perspective it wasn't bad at all. Sure, he held a crap job at little above minimum wage. He lived in a metal shoebox, a travel trailer in a park near the less desirable part of town. He was mostly content, putting most of his efforts into his art. He had been a nerd in school and never made much effort to change that. Drew fantasy art as a hobby, even made a buck or two on the occasional job. Only managed to attract the odd girlfriend by accepted that weird fringe of witchcraft or comic book geek. Of course, underneath their Goth hair and clothes or multiply piercings they were like most other women in the end, demanding too much of his time. How do you stay focused on the hobby that attracted them in the first place when they wanted to share their feelings about their day? And it was always great sex, the proclamations of your attractiveness in bed, your more than adequate manhood, when the relationship started, followed inevitably by complaints about your addiction to sex. Soon to be followed by their being repulsed, and sharing with anyone who would listen what a foul lay you were the whole time. If he had been rich, they would have sung his praises while Hoovering his wallet and boffing the pool boy. Why did it have to be so difficult? You feed a guy, make sure he only has eyes for you by keeping him happy in bed and he was your slave. Females had to make it more difficult than it needed to be. Well, he had the military whores now, and he got all the solitude he wanted. He only got to practice his art by tattooing others now, but it kept the itch at bay and got him the occasional extra pay. And a ton of favors if he ever needed to cash some in.
Military pay really was near to zero. The only reason it wasn't pure conscription was the need to attract some kind of talent. There wasn't near enough labor to go around, thanks to the massive die offs, the constant disease and malnutrition, and the nearly universal replacement of machines with muscle power. Back in better pasture land he was sure there was plenty of animal power, but here in the West with minimal forage the animals they couldn't breed fast enough were as scrawny as the people. So, the military paid above starvation wages. You were charged for your meals and uniforms, the reasoning being you were grateful to be fed and sheltered from the elements, and you ended up with a token at the end of the month. The few other tat artists worth a crap only worked for some of those leftovers. John did too, if you were an asshole and he didn't like the guy. If you were cool, you got it done as a favor. And tattoos were in demand. You couldn't really express your individuality many other ways. And they could really go a long way giving you more of a vicious martial feel. There was even a few guys he had heard about that got that Braveheart blue and white face thing done. You needed to be one tough bitch for that. They hadn't had to resort to the most primitive form, copying Polynesians or prisoners and do it manually. You could still get a few guys together to pedal stationary bikes awhile and juice up a few batteries. So the modern guns still worked. But it was still a damn painful process. And all over your face! John had a lot of street cred with the guys from his tattoos and his willingness to charge nothing most of the time. And he got to keep drawing. It would have been nice to keep up on paper, but that and pencils and pens were military necessities and off limits. It reminded him of the old British hoarding of lead because pencils were a battlefield tool for messages.
It was amazing how quickly things changed like that. Paper used to be so cheap you bought a newspaper to read once and throw away. Or you could buy a seventy page spiral notebook for a dime during back to school sales. Amazing. The paper was from the next continent over and the pad was bound by steel and it was shipped thousands of miles and you paid a dime for it. When wages were seven bucks an hour, and flour was twenty cents a pound. Now, paper was rationed. Wages were little more than room and board. And a pound of flour was almost a days pay. He knew it was all because of the oil. Cheap and abundant petroleum. He had studied up on the economics of it while reading about Peak Oil. The inevitability of running out of a non renewable resource. Of course, the whole life of three hundred million people in America was founded on oil. Oil running everything. Always cheap and gushing from the ground. Oil warming vast spaces between thin walls. Oil allowing muti-ton cars to carry carefree occupants tens or hundreds of miles around. To window shop at the mall. To visit a friend. To go to work at a meaningless job. It allowed our military to control more oil. It almost entirely fed us all. Large, heaping mounds of fat filled and heavily salted foods. And no one wanted to believe it would run out. Those that even admitted that shared in the illusion. Look, they said, it won't end that badly. Rome took three hundred years to fall. The Mayans lasted 150-200 years. We can expect a very slow falling standard of living. And, others proclaimed, if you just change to compact florescent bulbs and buy an electric car, all will be just fine and dandy.
It didn't sell for John. He knew it would end badly. There wasn't a way to replace oil. And thus no way to replace everything that kept people alive and well. If you were the average American, you couldn’t make your own bow and arrow. The concept was simple, but you needed specific knowledge to do it properly. And you needed to then practice. You couldn't suddenly do it after you fired your last round from your centerfire rifle. Now, use that same example millions of times. Who knew how to replace a diesel train engine with a wood fired boiler? Who could properly farm hundreds of acres with people, rather than machines? Again, organic, French intensive farming was simple in concept, but you needed training in specifics and practice. One harvest away from starvation wasn't enough time. Who knew how to build items in metal, wood, canvas or clay instead of plastics? Who knew how to naturally cure livestock without vet medicines? Were there enough folks that could rebuild from modern building material to harness the suns energy? Using salvaged material? The list was endless. You didn't replace an entire infrastructure built on ever increasing supplies of cheap energy overnight using a decreasing energy supply. It took a few hundred years to build the modern world, first with coal and then with oil. You couldn’t instantly replace that to go back several hundred years using only solar and muscle power. You could easily replace everything that way. We knew how. But only a few people had that know how. And it would only sustain a much smaller population. Between the old modern ways and the new ancient ways a lot of people died in the transition.
Peak Oil was an abstract concept when introduced. In practice, it was worse than the 1970's oil shortages immediately. And just kept getting worse. Everything fell apart very quickly. The peak of global oil production was about 2005. By 2007 we were burning thirty percent of our corn crop as ethanol, the last of the natural gas was being used to produce oil from tar sands in Canada. Mexico's production was falling close to ten percent a year. Saudi Arabia was pumping so much sea water into their wells to force out the last of the oil that sometimes they had only a few percent oil in all that water. By design or merely bad luck, the Depression that started in 2008 put the brakes on oil use. The Christmas of '08 saw $35 barrel oil. But still supplies shrank, even with so much demand being scaled back. It was cheap at the very time it was running out, all because the economy was contracting so badly. Before it really even got bad, Las Vegas had almost 90% home foreclosure rates! I think in the end a lot of people even confused the economic with the energy availability. Did they feed each other? Go hand in hand? Did the start of the end of oil spell the end of the economy? Was it all part of the perfect storm, that convergence of oil running out with the destruction of the American Empire due to overreach with global warming thrown in ( with a few extra subsets such as soil infertility, population explosion, etc. )? In the end it didn't really matter, did it? Even before everyone's number one superhero Osama Obama got sworn into office, the train was already off the tracks. But the engineer just ordered the last of the fuel to be poured on to get a few more feet down the way.
When Obammy took over as the captain of the Titanic he immediately ordered the reinstatement of the semi-auto ban from the Clinton era. This didn't accomplish anything more than increase prices. You could still own the plastic Mattel rifles in most states. But for some reason the public backlash was a lot worse this time around. Perhaps it was because Obama wasn't ushering in a new and improved economy. People instinctively knew things were going to shit and they feared for their lives. They might have little more than half a case of chili and a bag of flour in the cupboard, but that didn't worry them as much as being unable to defend themselves against the perceived mobs of fellow neighbors trying to steal whatever they had. Or maybe it was a black man telling whitey he couldn't defend himself against black criminals. Or once they realized that the first prediction about Obama was true, they figured the rest was also. Like perhaps he really was a Muslim and would betray us to the towelheads. Resistance exploded. At first it was just huge demonstrations. Protect The Second Amendment, things of that nature. After that got little response, crime with battle rifles exploded. And usually the target was a uniformed official. Was it all just a false flag attack, designed by the government itself to justify martial law and introduce rationing? Or was it genuine protest? If it was all staged, it didn't work as they planned. When a federal mandatory semi-automatic registration was passed, folks really started panicking. Even if they only had bolt action rifles, or revolvers. More than likely all the paranoid conspiracy theories started becoming true. Hoarding reached a point widespread shortages appeared. More than one patrol car started looking like Swiss cheese. Those weren't from people attempting rebellion or subversion but just lashing out in protest. The target was the symbol not the driver. But the government reacted as if an invasion had taken place. Obama acted like Lincoln when he appointed top government posts to those running against him in the Presidential race. And now he acted just like him by suspending habeas corpus, the Constitution and even common sense.
Every old Clinton dark rumor was dusted off and tried out for size. The trains headed for concentration camps. Criminal gangs deputized by the Feds to be shock troops. Forced national health care to compel injected computer chips for ID. Magnetized strips in paper currency tracked from a distance. Hell, after Bush and the War On Terror fiasco, you wouldn't think any of this would warrant a reaction. So perhaps the protest was not about losing freedom but losing luxury and leisure and the welfare state. The first quarter of 2009 saw unemployment hit the double digits. And that was even after taking into account the feds usually massaging the numbers to make them look better. It was hard to miss the legions out of work, or their families living out of an SUV, constantly scrounging gas to stay one step ahead of the repo man. Nationally, all real estate markets started looking like Las Vegas. As did their tourism industry. As in, what tourism industry? States started going bankrupt, unable to get credit after failing to pay interest on the old loans. As usually, California was the bellwether state for anything idiotic. They went begging at Capital Hill for a bailout and got the cold shoulder. Bankers only need apply. But if this was a plan by that breed to own the rest of the nation, on par with their property grab during the Depression, it was doomed to fail. Seventy five years ago, we had most of the oil globally. We had an industrial base. We had rich fertile farmland. Now, we had no means to support their robbery. They could only steal their own IOU's.
But, again, it wasn't really economic. Country after country started using free falling prices on oil as an excuse to decrease production. John couldn't prove it, but he was convinced there was less oil to pump. From all major fields. Why give away the last of it for paper or IOU's that would prove to be worthless? The credit contraction made it hard to buy now and pay later. But no one wanted to pay up front. Or couldn't. Less credit, less selling, less employment. And a dwindling supply of oil. There was sure to be plenty left in the ground. Not enough to keep the economy growing. Enough to keep most of what was already there alive? At least that? But the whole world turned into Africa. Starving, warring factions living in poverty atop a continent of resources. If trade didn't happen, the resources stayed in the ground. And trade wouldn't happen without credit. So, it was a chicken and egg problem. Did the dwindling oil cause an economic contraction, or did the economy stop the oil flowing? Or had the tea leaves already been read earlier. We would have plenty of oil left, but the economy based on cheap and abundant oil was over. We had already reached the plateau in global production. From then on it just took another reason to officially end the economy that was already a walking skeleton. It had always been about nearly free energy. Not just about oil.
We didn't see a repeat of the 70's gasoline lines. Less and less people had jobs to go to. Daily, the traffic got lighter. Almost all state budgets went into freefall. Cops started walking or biking. Military bases overseas started closing. The troops came home to unemployment or were redeployed to Iraq. Why, who knew? Iraq might have been number three in reserves of oil, but nearly all the facilities to pump it had been destroyed. We would eventually pull out from there, but it drug on long past when it was reasonable. Business after business started closing up shop. Less structures to heat and light. Less gas the old workers used to get there. Public transportation folded without public tax subsidies. Hardly anyone noticed. Most of suburbia started to empty as public services were cut and no one could buy gas, even when it was cheap. A few foreclosures and the neighborhood lost most home equity as values plunged. More people moved out. Values fell lower, even far below prices decades ago. At first, no one starved or froze to death. Slowly, it dawned on folks they would have to double or quadruple up in one place. Everyone chipped in for a monthly trip into town, assuming at least one person still had auto insurance. The police patrols might be down, but those that existed needed to make it a paying proposition. Driving without insurance got a lot more expensive. As did any moving violation. It might have seemed ridiculous before when the fine for a California Stop ( coasting through a stop sign rather than completely halting ) was $100 and the lack of an insurance card was $700, but those were the good old days. Desperate for revenue, all levels of government besides the Feds started hiking fees. Parking in a handicap spot, minimum fine $500. Of course they didn't post the maximum which could thousands. For every five miles over the speed limit, $150. Of course, if metal thieves took the posted speed limit signs, that wasn't the judges problem. But, hey, it was just something else to bitch about. Nothing drastic.
Then came the summer of '09. Saudi Arabia announced fifty percent reductions in oil output, claiming the prices were far too low. Mexico announced it couldn't import any more oil due to falling production, with the exception of small amounts in trade for corn. The stock market didn't even pretend anymore and fell below three thousand on the Dow, two hundred on the NASDEX. Canada announced it was suspending oil exports due to Union strikes, and cut natural gas deliveries despite NAFTA regulations. By this time, no letters of credit were being granted for any trade, almost all personal credit cards in the US were rolled back to less than several hundred dollars credit lines, regardless of credit worthiness. The Fed had to bail of Bank Of America. Almost every 401 (k) plan was almost without value and states started to cancel retiree medical benefits and suspending pension payments. The unemployment rate surpassed that of the Great Depression. Regardless of the trillions created by the Federal Reserve for one type of bailout after another, every financial entity was hemorrhaging money. Saudi Arabia announced it would stop pricing oil in dollars and allowed any currency to be used instead. She invited in China to protect the monarchy.
Shortages skyrocketed of most goods, as China cut its ties with the dollar. They didn't need the Greenback anymore to buy oil. The US threatened to use the Carter Doctrine to occupy Saudi Arabia and reprice oil in our own money. China responded that we were free to try to pump oil from the middle of a nuclear crater. The Chinese experts scratched their heads, confused as to why China would expand beyond its traditional five thousand year old boundaries. China didn't bother setting them straight, but instead happily shipped oil back home to continue keeping the factories lit. The US might not be much of a customer now, but China had a monopoly on a heck of a lot of goods and someone somewhere would buy those goods with something valuable. They knew how to trade. In the US, it was all too sudden and too quick. How could anyone not want America to rule them? How could anyone not think we would rule the world forever? Who could think the dollar wasn't as good as gold? Obammy tried hyperinflation to increase the welfare state, but that didn't work out too well. Without abundant oil and free trade, nothing was moving. Even with producing forty percent of our own oil, we didn't have enough to keep the economy going. No one wanted to accept the new Federal Entitlement Debit Card ( Fed Card ). They had to buy goods with barter or precious metal, if they could find a seller and transportation. Why turn around and take an IOU from the government? When the truckers were nationalized, they promptly went on strike demanding weekly cost of living adjustments. The few remaining grain monopolies refused to plant or harvest without COLA. The government didn't care, as it could just add as many zeros into the computer as it needed. So to make that easier they abolished currency and forced everyone to accept the Fed Card.
That started more protests and rioting. They either thought they were accepting the Mark Of The Beast or would have to pay taxes on the cash hidden under their mattress. Rioting became the new entertainment, as TV revenue declined without anyone but government buying ad time and the only thing to watch was reruns, game shows or "reality" shows. Nevada legalized marijuana in a desperate attempt at raising tax revenue, but almost all states saw open flaunting against its prohibition. The masses of unemployed didn't have television to put their brains to sleep against reality and quite a few turned to drug use. Domestic violence went much higher, as the police response to their calls diminished to lack of funding. All but the most violent criminals were released as states went broke. School holidays grew as teachers went on strike. Even black markets were having problems supplying anything. The winter of '09 saw widespread heating oil and natural gas shortages. Fires became epidemic as people tried to heat with wood, indoors with makeshift stoves. The standard response was to nationalize their companies distributing fuel. The workers promptly went on strike. Predictably, fuel shortages started effecting electrical generation and brownouts quickly turned to blackouts. This despite far less houses using juice and many other customers seeing the suspension of utilities as they failed to pay their bills on time. As with most other sectors, the lack of growth spelled financial trouble for utilities. A contracting customer base put them close to bankruptcy. Add in fuel disruptions and they started blacking out sections of the grid to conserve power.
For many years the power companies had minimalized upkeep in order to keep profits high. Credit contraction plus a shrinking customer base plus fuel shortages added up to Third World reliability. You never knew when the power would be on or off. Now, add in the remaining customers seeing heating fuel and natural gas disruptions. They turned to heating with electricity. Another factor adding in to outages and unreliable services. Even if TV had any good programs on, you couldn't always watch it. Why not go outside and heat and illuminate by setting fires? In that aspect, the '70's repeated themselves. Fires went beyond the control of localities to control them. Even if you kept your house with layoffs and shrinking home values, would you keep it from burning after fire departments started triage? If they weren't on strike or if you kept your insurance. Insurance companies also saw a shrinking customer base as homes were abandoned. Those that stayed saw not only their insurance rates increase, but their taxes as cities and counties desperately tried to keep law enforcement, fire and ambulance personnel from abandoning their posts as benefits were slashed. COLA was out of reach of local governments with a shrinking tax base. Only Federal workers saw any. Social Security recipients saw them also, but they stayed hopelessly behind the inflation rate. National healthcare was introduced, with its mandatory paycheck deductions. Healthcare quickly came to resemble Emergency Room care, as doctors wages fell to civil servant pay levels ( without a corresponding means of paying off insanely high medical school costs- personnel fled from the field ).
Survivalists fantasies started to come true. Police protection fell, crime skyrocketed, the military were far too few in number to help even in martial law areas. Stores quickly ran out of goods and people started going hungry. Even with Food Stamps, the stores didn't get enough transported to stock the shelves. Neighborhood groups quickly went heavily militant. It was close to every man for himself. You mostly had to protect and feed yourself. It wasn't long before the military and gangs were clashing. Militia groups occasionally joined in. The US started fragmenting. Despite the urban legends perpetuated by fiction, the military was not able to take over as strong men, a military dictatorship or even assist in keeping order. They were also affected by fuel shortages. All their supplies were at risk being transported. It became Viet Nam and Iraq all over again, with no control being effective outside of heavily fortified areas. And they couldn't supply themselves as well as in those last two conflicts. It only took a few percent of shortages to guarantee chaos. And we were facing not a few percentage points less of petroleum but forty percent. The military danced around, talked tough and tried their best but they quickly lost at keeping the peace. Too many hungry and armed civilians, plus their own supply problems, and the three hundred year old institution came unraveled.
Hyperinflation never even had a chance of getting that bad. The dollar was abandoned too fast by both foreigners and citizens. Trade ground to a halt. Without transportation, there was even less need for toilet paper currency. Open warfare became the norm. The government, astonishingly, was unable to do anything. They were far too reliant on petroleum and the shortages were too severe. A monopoly of power and force, the one thing all governments are actually good at, had rested on a sea of cheap oil in our case. The one nation blessed with that natural resource had bet all its cards on it and lost in the end. Other governments were able to hold on to power much better, as they were far less dependant on the black gold. As we starved, rioted, fought and died of disease, foreigners started looking to see if we had anything left they could help themselves to. The Chinese, hurting and dying in droves, still managed to hold on to central authority and both keep their industry going on a much smaller scale and meddling in our affairs. One area they coveted was the home of John, Nevada. Third largest gold producing region globally. The Chinese were too smart to invade. They used local proxies to fight their war to pacify the region. With that done, they could channel energy and equipment to a third party to mine the metal for them. It took little more than a few agents and some shipments of small arms ammunition to sway things in their direction. Of course, this was guesswork on the parts of those not in the power loop. John had strong suspicions that the relatively easy access to ammunition and food was no accident. Again, all things being relative. Some food, and some ammunition was available. At what seemed like favorable terms. Not enough to matter, except it seemed most other regions were doing a lot worse. But he knew from previous reading that most business in China had ties or was owned by the Peoples Liberation Army. Why wouldn't they be involved? They had a lot to gain. Gold and silver were once again becoming the international currency of trade. They wanted more gold. And Northern Nevada had plenty. You needed heavy machinery and energy and resources to mine it. China had that. Even crippled economically, they were doing a sight better than anyone else. An interesting two years, to say the least. From recession to depression to collapse to the Chinese trying to take over the remains.
END
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A very rough first draft. Keep in mind, I'm saving the minute detail of a collapse for another story. This is just setting up the scene for after the collapse. And far from complete. Either a first chapter of a novel or the first part of a short story. Let me know what you think.
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PODA
John looked down at the village through his binoculars. Calling it a village was being generous as it consisted of an old gas station at the bottom of the off ramp from I-80, its mobile home set up in the back with a barricade of semi trailers tipped on their sides surrounding the whole thing. There was a few add ons to the original structures, spit gum and glue providing walkways between buildings and a few rooms. Old wooden shipping pallets seemed to be the predominant building material. The only smoke in evidence was from the roof of the old mechanic bays, which made sense. The only wood for hundreds of miles around was short sage bush which burned darn hot, very quickly and very dirty. Using the old bays not only provided a fire proof structure when using that kind of wood, it also provided a wind break for something parked inside. And, entirely by accident he was sure, given the total disregard for solar exposure all old buildings shared, the bay windows faced south. It had to be the warmest part of the place. The sun hit the windows, heated the inside of the bays and the vehicle inside provided its own insulation. So it had a big envelope surrounding it keeping a comfortable temperature. At least when the sun was shining. Now it was cold and cloudy and hence the wood smoke. Even if the big kahuna of this village did manage to have an RV inside he would want some kind of heat. The chief didn't like to suffer as an example to the troops. Or, the whole population was in there if things were a bit more democratic. All that body heat and a small fire should keep things tolerable. John would know soon enough, his job being to scout out this location. He just enjoyed speculating first thing on his arrival. It was interesting to see how close he came to reality.
He could stay reasonably warm himself, being heavily bundled against the winter chill. It wasn't as if a recon scout was given much thought as far as personal comfort went, but to do a proper job of lying prone for long periods of time it was necessary to be bundled up. He was so encumbered by layers of wool and leather he almost broke a sweat hiking here from the far ravine where he had stashed his bicycle. Another luxury. Rubber and spare parts were expensive and scarce. A mule was much cheaper and ate from the side of the road. To fuel the bike required iron rations, mostly pemmican. Again, it wasn't for him but the success of the mission. He thought of them as small perks, the only kind he could expect. He liked the quiet and solitude, and it was much better duty than front line combat. But he knew what was once considered hard duty, skilled duty, was looked on as a reward by the brass. Welcome to the brave new world, a nice carbon copy of the nineteenth century. No Unions, no job security, no sick leave or combat pay ( or much of any kind of pay for that matter ). Injury meant unemployment if you were unlucky, a teaching position if fortune smiled at you. Retirement was a hard twenty years away, and either a land grant for a farm that grew mostly rocks or sage or a business loan begrudgingly granted at usurious interest rates. John wasn't that old, he remembered what the old ways were. A dream time of leisure and luxuries. Well, he had seen what was coming. Not the details, but the general direction. The new ways were far less of a shock to him than most others.
John shifted a bit, glanced up at the sun and guessed it was about noon. He slid a bit backwards to root through his sack and took out lunch. Yummy. What proverbial taste treats were in store for today? Why, it was pemmican. And crap rations at that. Fat, ground jerky and what might pass for dried berries to some joker. He swore it was a few lumps of unsweetened Kool-Aid or Tang. He might be grateful for even that token fruit flavor, but it was still chewing on grease. He hoped the stuff wasn't so old the vitamins were gone. Did ascorbic acid have a shelf life? Hell if he knew. He ate, not wasting even the fat on his fingers. Eat what you could when available, no matter the less than desirable aspects. Did you become used to hunger? Or was it just being too weak to care anymore? Well, despite being a pessimists, he still counted his blessings. Time to get back to work. Inch up to his perch, trying to minimize movement. Settle in for a long watch. Could it be more boring, watching a building? In the summer at least people did things. Of course, in summer they wandered the hills where you wanted to hide. He did most work in the cold weather for just that reason. Collect data points for the boys sitting around maps, when they select a target pay that area another visit to confirm nothing had changed overly much. Occasionally you varied the routine with sniper work. Well, you acted as the guide and spotter. Ammunition was too precious to waste on anyone not constantly practiced enough not to waste rounds.
Time passed at the usual crawl. He could still pay attention to what was in front of him, not totally ignore his rear ( it would have been nice to have a team mate for that, but why pay two guys when one would do? ) and still have a few thoughts to himself. Gather wool, daydream. As usually his thoughts drifted back to just before the collapse. The happy times. Oh, at the time it was less than perfect. But in perspective it wasn't bad at all. Sure, he held a crap job at little above minimum wage. He lived in a metal shoebox, a travel trailer in a park near the less desirable part of town. He was mostly content, putting most of his efforts into his art. He had been a nerd in school and never made much effort to change that. Drew fantasy art as a hobby, even made a buck or two on the occasional job. Only managed to attract the odd girlfriend by accepted that weird fringe of witchcraft or comic book geek. Of course, underneath their Goth hair and clothes or multiply piercings they were like most other women in the end, demanding too much of his time. How do you stay focused on the hobby that attracted them in the first place when they wanted to share their feelings about their day? And it was always great sex, the proclamations of your attractiveness in bed, your more than adequate manhood, when the relationship started, followed inevitably by complaints about your addiction to sex. Soon to be followed by their being repulsed, and sharing with anyone who would listen what a foul lay you were the whole time. If he had been rich, they would have sung his praises while Hoovering his wallet and boffing the pool boy. Why did it have to be so difficult? You feed a guy, make sure he only has eyes for you by keeping him happy in bed and he was your slave. Females had to make it more difficult than it needed to be. Well, he had the military whores now, and he got all the solitude he wanted. He only got to practice his art by tattooing others now, but it kept the itch at bay and got him the occasional extra pay. And a ton of favors if he ever needed to cash some in.
Military pay really was near to zero. The only reason it wasn't pure conscription was the need to attract some kind of talent. There wasn't near enough labor to go around, thanks to the massive die offs, the constant disease and malnutrition, and the nearly universal replacement of machines with muscle power. Back in better pasture land he was sure there was plenty of animal power, but here in the West with minimal forage the animals they couldn't breed fast enough were as scrawny as the people. So, the military paid above starvation wages. You were charged for your meals and uniforms, the reasoning being you were grateful to be fed and sheltered from the elements, and you ended up with a token at the end of the month. The few other tat artists worth a crap only worked for some of those leftovers. John did too, if you were an asshole and he didn't like the guy. If you were cool, you got it done as a favor. And tattoos were in demand. You couldn't really express your individuality many other ways. And they could really go a long way giving you more of a vicious martial feel. There was even a few guys he had heard about that got that Braveheart blue and white face thing done. You needed to be one tough bitch for that. They hadn't had to resort to the most primitive form, copying Polynesians or prisoners and do it manually. You could still get a few guys together to pedal stationary bikes awhile and juice up a few batteries. So the modern guns still worked. But it was still a damn painful process. And all over your face! John had a lot of street cred with the guys from his tattoos and his willingness to charge nothing most of the time. And he got to keep drawing. It would have been nice to keep up on paper, but that and pencils and pens were military necessities and off limits. It reminded him of the old British hoarding of lead because pencils were a battlefield tool for messages.
It was amazing how quickly things changed like that. Paper used to be so cheap you bought a newspaper to read once and throw away. Or you could buy a seventy page spiral notebook for a dime during back to school sales. Amazing. The paper was from the next continent over and the pad was bound by steel and it was shipped thousands of miles and you paid a dime for it. When wages were seven bucks an hour, and flour was twenty cents a pound. Now, paper was rationed. Wages were little more than room and board. And a pound of flour was almost a days pay. He knew it was all because of the oil. Cheap and abundant petroleum. He had studied up on the economics of it while reading about Peak Oil. The inevitability of running out of a non renewable resource. Of course, the whole life of three hundred million people in America was founded on oil. Oil running everything. Always cheap and gushing from the ground. Oil warming vast spaces between thin walls. Oil allowing muti-ton cars to carry carefree occupants tens or hundreds of miles around. To window shop at the mall. To visit a friend. To go to work at a meaningless job. It allowed our military to control more oil. It almost entirely fed us all. Large, heaping mounds of fat filled and heavily salted foods. And no one wanted to believe it would run out. Those that even admitted that shared in the illusion. Look, they said, it won't end that badly. Rome took three hundred years to fall. The Mayans lasted 150-200 years. We can expect a very slow falling standard of living. And, others proclaimed, if you just change to compact florescent bulbs and buy an electric car, all will be just fine and dandy.
It didn't sell for John. He knew it would end badly. There wasn't a way to replace oil. And thus no way to replace everything that kept people alive and well. If you were the average American, you couldn’t make your own bow and arrow. The concept was simple, but you needed specific knowledge to do it properly. And you needed to then practice. You couldn't suddenly do it after you fired your last round from your centerfire rifle. Now, use that same example millions of times. Who knew how to replace a diesel train engine with a wood fired boiler? Who could properly farm hundreds of acres with people, rather than machines? Again, organic, French intensive farming was simple in concept, but you needed training in specifics and practice. One harvest away from starvation wasn't enough time. Who knew how to build items in metal, wood, canvas or clay instead of plastics? Who knew how to naturally cure livestock without vet medicines? Were there enough folks that could rebuild from modern building material to harness the suns energy? Using salvaged material? The list was endless. You didn't replace an entire infrastructure built on ever increasing supplies of cheap energy overnight using a decreasing energy supply. It took a few hundred years to build the modern world, first with coal and then with oil. You couldn’t instantly replace that to go back several hundred years using only solar and muscle power. You could easily replace everything that way. We knew how. But only a few people had that know how. And it would only sustain a much smaller population. Between the old modern ways and the new ancient ways a lot of people died in the transition.
Peak Oil was an abstract concept when introduced. In practice, it was worse than the 1970's oil shortages immediately. And just kept getting worse. Everything fell apart very quickly. The peak of global oil production was about 2005. By 2007 we were burning thirty percent of our corn crop as ethanol, the last of the natural gas was being used to produce oil from tar sands in Canada. Mexico's production was falling close to ten percent a year. Saudi Arabia was pumping so much sea water into their wells to force out the last of the oil that sometimes they had only a few percent oil in all that water. By design or merely bad luck, the Depression that started in 2008 put the brakes on oil use. The Christmas of '08 saw $35 barrel oil. But still supplies shrank, even with so much demand being scaled back. It was cheap at the very time it was running out, all because the economy was contracting so badly. Before it really even got bad, Las Vegas had almost 90% home foreclosure rates! I think in the end a lot of people even confused the economic with the energy availability. Did they feed each other? Go hand in hand? Did the start of the end of oil spell the end of the economy? Was it all part of the perfect storm, that convergence of oil running out with the destruction of the American Empire due to overreach with global warming thrown in ( with a few extra subsets such as soil infertility, population explosion, etc. )? In the end it didn't really matter, did it? Even before everyone's number one superhero Osama Obama got sworn into office, the train was already off the tracks. But the engineer just ordered the last of the fuel to be poured on to get a few more feet down the way.
When Obammy took over as the captain of the Titanic he immediately ordered the reinstatement of the semi-auto ban from the Clinton era. This didn't accomplish anything more than increase prices. You could still own the plastic Mattel rifles in most states. But for some reason the public backlash was a lot worse this time around. Perhaps it was because Obama wasn't ushering in a new and improved economy. People instinctively knew things were going to shit and they feared for their lives. They might have little more than half a case of chili and a bag of flour in the cupboard, but that didn't worry them as much as being unable to defend themselves against the perceived mobs of fellow neighbors trying to steal whatever they had. Or maybe it was a black man telling whitey he couldn't defend himself against black criminals. Or once they realized that the first prediction about Obama was true, they figured the rest was also. Like perhaps he really was a Muslim and would betray us to the towelheads. Resistance exploded. At first it was just huge demonstrations. Protect The Second Amendment, things of that nature. After that got little response, crime with battle rifles exploded. And usually the target was a uniformed official. Was it all just a false flag attack, designed by the government itself to justify martial law and introduce rationing? Or was it genuine protest? If it was all staged, it didn't work as they planned. When a federal mandatory semi-automatic registration was passed, folks really started panicking. Even if they only had bolt action rifles, or revolvers. More than likely all the paranoid conspiracy theories started becoming true. Hoarding reached a point widespread shortages appeared. More than one patrol car started looking like Swiss cheese. Those weren't from people attempting rebellion or subversion but just lashing out in protest. The target was the symbol not the driver. But the government reacted as if an invasion had taken place. Obama acted like Lincoln when he appointed top government posts to those running against him in the Presidential race. And now he acted just like him by suspending habeas corpus, the Constitution and even common sense.
Every old Clinton dark rumor was dusted off and tried out for size. The trains headed for concentration camps. Criminal gangs deputized by the Feds to be shock troops. Forced national health care to compel injected computer chips for ID. Magnetized strips in paper currency tracked from a distance. Hell, after Bush and the War On Terror fiasco, you wouldn't think any of this would warrant a reaction. So perhaps the protest was not about losing freedom but losing luxury and leisure and the welfare state. The first quarter of 2009 saw unemployment hit the double digits. And that was even after taking into account the feds usually massaging the numbers to make them look better. It was hard to miss the legions out of work, or their families living out of an SUV, constantly scrounging gas to stay one step ahead of the repo man. Nationally, all real estate markets started looking like Las Vegas. As did their tourism industry. As in, what tourism industry? States started going bankrupt, unable to get credit after failing to pay interest on the old loans. As usually, California was the bellwether state for anything idiotic. They went begging at Capital Hill for a bailout and got the cold shoulder. Bankers only need apply. But if this was a plan by that breed to own the rest of the nation, on par with their property grab during the Depression, it was doomed to fail. Seventy five years ago, we had most of the oil globally. We had an industrial base. We had rich fertile farmland. Now, we had no means to support their robbery. They could only steal their own IOU's.
But, again, it wasn't really economic. Country after country started using free falling prices on oil as an excuse to decrease production. John couldn't prove it, but he was convinced there was less oil to pump. From all major fields. Why give away the last of it for paper or IOU's that would prove to be worthless? The credit contraction made it hard to buy now and pay later. But no one wanted to pay up front. Or couldn't. Less credit, less selling, less employment. And a dwindling supply of oil. There was sure to be plenty left in the ground. Not enough to keep the economy growing. Enough to keep most of what was already there alive? At least that? But the whole world turned into Africa. Starving, warring factions living in poverty atop a continent of resources. If trade didn't happen, the resources stayed in the ground. And trade wouldn't happen without credit. So, it was a chicken and egg problem. Did the dwindling oil cause an economic contraction, or did the economy stop the oil flowing? Or had the tea leaves already been read earlier. We would have plenty of oil left, but the economy based on cheap and abundant oil was over. We had already reached the plateau in global production. From then on it just took another reason to officially end the economy that was already a walking skeleton. It had always been about nearly free energy. Not just about oil.
We didn't see a repeat of the 70's gasoline lines. Less and less people had jobs to go to. Daily, the traffic got lighter. Almost all state budgets went into freefall. Cops started walking or biking. Military bases overseas started closing. The troops came home to unemployment or were redeployed to Iraq. Why, who knew? Iraq might have been number three in reserves of oil, but nearly all the facilities to pump it had been destroyed. We would eventually pull out from there, but it drug on long past when it was reasonable. Business after business started closing up shop. Less structures to heat and light. Less gas the old workers used to get there. Public transportation folded without public tax subsidies. Hardly anyone noticed. Most of suburbia started to empty as public services were cut and no one could buy gas, even when it was cheap. A few foreclosures and the neighborhood lost most home equity as values plunged. More people moved out. Values fell lower, even far below prices decades ago. At first, no one starved or froze to death. Slowly, it dawned on folks they would have to double or quadruple up in one place. Everyone chipped in for a monthly trip into town, assuming at least one person still had auto insurance. The police patrols might be down, but those that existed needed to make it a paying proposition. Driving without insurance got a lot more expensive. As did any moving violation. It might have seemed ridiculous before when the fine for a California Stop ( coasting through a stop sign rather than completely halting ) was $100 and the lack of an insurance card was $700, but those were the good old days. Desperate for revenue, all levels of government besides the Feds started hiking fees. Parking in a handicap spot, minimum fine $500. Of course they didn't post the maximum which could thousands. For every five miles over the speed limit, $150. Of course, if metal thieves took the posted speed limit signs, that wasn't the judges problem. But, hey, it was just something else to bitch about. Nothing drastic.
Then came the summer of '09. Saudi Arabia announced fifty percent reductions in oil output, claiming the prices were far too low. Mexico announced it couldn't import any more oil due to falling production, with the exception of small amounts in trade for corn. The stock market didn't even pretend anymore and fell below three thousand on the Dow, two hundred on the NASDEX. Canada announced it was suspending oil exports due to Union strikes, and cut natural gas deliveries despite NAFTA regulations. By this time, no letters of credit were being granted for any trade, almost all personal credit cards in the US were rolled back to less than several hundred dollars credit lines, regardless of credit worthiness. The Fed had to bail of Bank Of America. Almost every 401 (k) plan was almost without value and states started to cancel retiree medical benefits and suspending pension payments. The unemployment rate surpassed that of the Great Depression. Regardless of the trillions created by the Federal Reserve for one type of bailout after another, every financial entity was hemorrhaging money. Saudi Arabia announced it would stop pricing oil in dollars and allowed any currency to be used instead. She invited in China to protect the monarchy.
Shortages skyrocketed of most goods, as China cut its ties with the dollar. They didn't need the Greenback anymore to buy oil. The US threatened to use the Carter Doctrine to occupy Saudi Arabia and reprice oil in our own money. China responded that we were free to try to pump oil from the middle of a nuclear crater. The Chinese experts scratched their heads, confused as to why China would expand beyond its traditional five thousand year old boundaries. China didn't bother setting them straight, but instead happily shipped oil back home to continue keeping the factories lit. The US might not be much of a customer now, but China had a monopoly on a heck of a lot of goods and someone somewhere would buy those goods with something valuable. They knew how to trade. In the US, it was all too sudden and too quick. How could anyone not want America to rule them? How could anyone not think we would rule the world forever? Who could think the dollar wasn't as good as gold? Obammy tried hyperinflation to increase the welfare state, but that didn't work out too well. Without abundant oil and free trade, nothing was moving. Even with producing forty percent of our own oil, we didn't have enough to keep the economy going. No one wanted to accept the new Federal Entitlement Debit Card ( Fed Card ). They had to buy goods with barter or precious metal, if they could find a seller and transportation. Why turn around and take an IOU from the government? When the truckers were nationalized, they promptly went on strike demanding weekly cost of living adjustments. The few remaining grain monopolies refused to plant or harvest without COLA. The government didn't care, as it could just add as many zeros into the computer as it needed. So to make that easier they abolished currency and forced everyone to accept the Fed Card.
That started more protests and rioting. They either thought they were accepting the Mark Of The Beast or would have to pay taxes on the cash hidden under their mattress. Rioting became the new entertainment, as TV revenue declined without anyone but government buying ad time and the only thing to watch was reruns, game shows or "reality" shows. Nevada legalized marijuana in a desperate attempt at raising tax revenue, but almost all states saw open flaunting against its prohibition. The masses of unemployed didn't have television to put their brains to sleep against reality and quite a few turned to drug use. Domestic violence went much higher, as the police response to their calls diminished to lack of funding. All but the most violent criminals were released as states went broke. School holidays grew as teachers went on strike. Even black markets were having problems supplying anything. The winter of '09 saw widespread heating oil and natural gas shortages. Fires became epidemic as people tried to heat with wood, indoors with makeshift stoves. The standard response was to nationalize their companies distributing fuel. The workers promptly went on strike. Predictably, fuel shortages started effecting electrical generation and brownouts quickly turned to blackouts. This despite far less houses using juice and many other customers seeing the suspension of utilities as they failed to pay their bills on time. As with most other sectors, the lack of growth spelled financial trouble for utilities. A contracting customer base put them close to bankruptcy. Add in fuel disruptions and they started blacking out sections of the grid to conserve power.
For many years the power companies had minimalized upkeep in order to keep profits high. Credit contraction plus a shrinking customer base plus fuel shortages added up to Third World reliability. You never knew when the power would be on or off. Now, add in the remaining customers seeing heating fuel and natural gas disruptions. They turned to heating with electricity. Another factor adding in to outages and unreliable services. Even if TV had any good programs on, you couldn't always watch it. Why not go outside and heat and illuminate by setting fires? In that aspect, the '70's repeated themselves. Fires went beyond the control of localities to control them. Even if you kept your house with layoffs and shrinking home values, would you keep it from burning after fire departments started triage? If they weren't on strike or if you kept your insurance. Insurance companies also saw a shrinking customer base as homes were abandoned. Those that stayed saw not only their insurance rates increase, but their taxes as cities and counties desperately tried to keep law enforcement, fire and ambulance personnel from abandoning their posts as benefits were slashed. COLA was out of reach of local governments with a shrinking tax base. Only Federal workers saw any. Social Security recipients saw them also, but they stayed hopelessly behind the inflation rate. National healthcare was introduced, with its mandatory paycheck deductions. Healthcare quickly came to resemble Emergency Room care, as doctors wages fell to civil servant pay levels ( without a corresponding means of paying off insanely high medical school costs- personnel fled from the field ).
Survivalists fantasies started to come true. Police protection fell, crime skyrocketed, the military were far too few in number to help even in martial law areas. Stores quickly ran out of goods and people started going hungry. Even with Food Stamps, the stores didn't get enough transported to stock the shelves. Neighborhood groups quickly went heavily militant. It was close to every man for himself. You mostly had to protect and feed yourself. It wasn't long before the military and gangs were clashing. Militia groups occasionally joined in. The US started fragmenting. Despite the urban legends perpetuated by fiction, the military was not able to take over as strong men, a military dictatorship or even assist in keeping order. They were also affected by fuel shortages. All their supplies were at risk being transported. It became Viet Nam and Iraq all over again, with no control being effective outside of heavily fortified areas. And they couldn't supply themselves as well as in those last two conflicts. It only took a few percent of shortages to guarantee chaos. And we were facing not a few percentage points less of petroleum but forty percent. The military danced around, talked tough and tried their best but they quickly lost at keeping the peace. Too many hungry and armed civilians, plus their own supply problems, and the three hundred year old institution came unraveled.
Hyperinflation never even had a chance of getting that bad. The dollar was abandoned too fast by both foreigners and citizens. Trade ground to a halt. Without transportation, there was even less need for toilet paper currency. Open warfare became the norm. The government, astonishingly, was unable to do anything. They were far too reliant on petroleum and the shortages were too severe. A monopoly of power and force, the one thing all governments are actually good at, had rested on a sea of cheap oil in our case. The one nation blessed with that natural resource had bet all its cards on it and lost in the end. Other governments were able to hold on to power much better, as they were far less dependant on the black gold. As we starved, rioted, fought and died of disease, foreigners started looking to see if we had anything left they could help themselves to. The Chinese, hurting and dying in droves, still managed to hold on to central authority and both keep their industry going on a much smaller scale and meddling in our affairs. One area they coveted was the home of John, Nevada. Third largest gold producing region globally. The Chinese were too smart to invade. They used local proxies to fight their war to pacify the region. With that done, they could channel energy and equipment to a third party to mine the metal for them. It took little more than a few agents and some shipments of small arms ammunition to sway things in their direction. Of course, this was guesswork on the parts of those not in the power loop. John had strong suspicions that the relatively easy access to ammunition and food was no accident. Again, all things being relative. Some food, and some ammunition was available. At what seemed like favorable terms. Not enough to matter, except it seemed most other regions were doing a lot worse. But he knew from previous reading that most business in China had ties or was owned by the Peoples Liberation Army. Why wouldn't they be involved? They had a lot to gain. Gold and silver were once again becoming the international currency of trade. They wanted more gold. And Northern Nevada had plenty. You needed heavy machinery and energy and resources to mine it. China had that. Even crippled economically, they were doing a sight better than anyone else. An interesting two years, to say the least. From recession to depression to collapse to the Chinese trying to take over the remains.
END
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