time is money on nauru

TIME IS MONEY ON NAURU


Because I’m such a swell and wonderful guy, and because I love to waste money proving to myself the glaringly obvious, I simply had to piss away another hard earned $6 and buy the newest copy of “Shotgun News”. Had I merely been hallucinating the last time, unable to find a seller of the beloved Enfield, and as a pathetic sick alternative, a Mauser? Sadly, no. The one Enfield was going for a mere $350 jobber price ( typically, at least 20% below retail ) while there were a few 8mm Mausers and some Swiss straight bolts for $200. For those interested in trying to melt their faces off, the Russian bolts were still only $69. Sigh. A sad tale of woe. The SKS was about $270. What was once ten for a grand, then recently about five per $1,000 was now only three per thousand for those wishing to buy an arsenal rather than just a single arm. There are several factors at play here. Besides the drying up of surplus arms. It could be that retailers don’t much need Shotgun News much anymore, what with the Internet and all. Once Clinton ( I think it was way back then, time flies after all ) jacked up the dealer fees, the garage gun dealer went extinct. And added to that the $25 per transaction Federal tax, folks aren’t as inclined to casually buy a cheap gun on a whim. Buying a $75 rifle with pocket change isn’t as much of an impulse buy with that 33% tax. You tend to NOT buy. So my perusal isn’t as scientific as it could be. But one should be able to claim that as with all things, your choices are being limited more every day.

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Holy blathering drivel, Batman! My daily readers are up to over 1400. No, it ain’t like Rawles’ 30k, or Creekmore’s 5k, but for me it is success indeed. I’m frankly surprised it ever went over the 1300 that it has remained for so long. All you new guys, buy my crap. Buy through Amazon links. Spend those dollars before they are worthless. I am far more worthy than you. If in doubt, just look at my portrait and gaze in astonishment at my hair. Ask yourself, who does Baby Jesus really love? I’m just throwing out some cold hard reality here first thing, so you get used to it.

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The quaint Pacific island of Nauru is a crap stain on the map. Its only claim to fame was its bird waste build-up, phosphate in its pure form. Because of this mining, Nauru has in effect seen 80% of its land mass shipped off to Rosie The Rose Gardener. The natives of the island have gotten rich off the activity but by now the trade-offs aren’t looking quite so good. It seems that taking away a huge chunk of surface island means the sun reflects its heat back off into the atmosphere which makes the current drought much worse. With the desalination plant sucking raw eggs, even water is being shipped in, along with all the food. The last governor that suggested a scaling back to the mining was unelected in a hurry. The jungles of living natives childhood is gone. No hunting and no farming as the ecosystem is basically now a stripped atoll. The mining must continue to bring in the money to buy the food ( and keep the car rich population driving, it seems ). The latest brainstorm is to mine the left overs for lower grade minerals, or something to that effect. Good for another ten years or so. This resonates in my mind, being the gloomy Gus that sees resource depletion just around the corner, and being a Western native familiar with ghost towns atop former ore mines. It is amazing that islanders don’t see their wealthy prisons while they are being constructed, but we are all a bit just like them. Your wealth producer is to be used, if need be abused, and “surely we can figure something out when its all over”. Civilizations from the dawn of agriculture have proven time and again that this isn’t the case.

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Time is money on Nauru. And time is money here in the American economy. We only look through the lens of money, which sadly isn’t a source of life but merely a trading medium ( and a much abused one at that ). Those folks on Nauru will be rich up until they suddenly are starving and dying of thirst, those stupid enough to stay until the last moment. Americans will pursue wealth up until the day their money is null and void by folks that have energy and food to sell. You buy into Peak Oil, you buy into our Petroleum Energy Slave market having an impossible time to replace its product, yet everyone aimlessly drives around the island looking at the desolate landscape, waiting for the next loyalty check to arrive in the mail. I understand it is hard to wean yourself. Even the few rare back-to-lander homesteading folks that managed to pay off their food producing land are still being subjected to the money economy, paying taxes and filling the tank to get into a distant town for supplies ( hard to produce your own ammo primers and 12v batteries ). At times it seems the best we are able to do is have a better stocked cupboard than our neighbors, even if it only means we will die last when the last aircraft ferrying in supplies quits running to our island.

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I don’t bring this up to discourage you from working hard at your corporate job. I need you to keep producing so you keep buying through my Amazon links. I do bring it up to point out our general predicament. We keep working at a doomed system, knowing it is doomed. Should you accept your fate, or should you perhaps become a little more motivated to be one the first, rather than the last, to flee our Nauru? The early movers can take their share of the wealth still coming in, and flee. Should you continue to work in the city for a nice chunk of change, hoping to flee at the last minute? No, you should be making plans NOW to be one of the first to flee. Not bug out. That means leaving amidst collapse. But to jump before the rest of the panicking rats fleeing the burning ship. Having junk land is NOT an optimal solution. But neither is having a mortgage on a perfect homestead. You can shoot for something in the middle of those extremes. But you must do it now. The wheat, grinders and bolt guns are in case of sudden collapse. The junk land is in case of sudden, irreversible unemployment. But you should also be thinking of living off something besides the phosphate ore checks ( in our case, the oil ).

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I don’t think a homestead is a bad idea. I think a mortgaged one is a bad idea. Junk land that can be raised bed farmed from rain catchment surely isn’t perfect, not like forty acres and a stream by your bunker, but it is achievable now. And bypasses the worst of the coming urban famines as the oil runs out and the dollar is worthless. If you live in the city, with no mortgage and chickens and a garden, you are mostly there. It isn’t perfect. Nothing is perfect for most of us. A few of you left years ago and are reaping the reward from long toil. Frankly, I have no idea why you are reading my blog. I have little to offer outside of entertainment or perhaps the occasional cheerleading comment getting you to add one or two needed components to your retreat. I’m mainly speaking to the most vulnerable. Those paying rent and working jobs that on the surface pay well but do nothing but enrich the bankers and big-agri businesses two thousand miles away. It isn’t how much you make but what you spend it on and what is left over, if any.

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The seventies hippies going back to the land in a few ways had it much easier. They had no illusions of the necessity of luxuries. The population was close to only half what it is now and junk land with suitable zoning was a bit easier to procure. We weren’t overly taxed and regulated, and small towns still had Mom and Pop stores for employment. But they did prove it could be done, with willpower being more important than money. Their example can still be emulated. Hell, it is much easier now in that alternate power is so much cheaper, and the Internet offers SOME chance of casual income ( but not much ). They still lived off the system, being able to live less on money but still on the petroleum tit. You will be in the same boat. But sticking around until the bitter end will not benefit you if all your wonderful wealth from a great paying job is going to rent/mortgage. What do you have to fall back on?

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This is just a bit of food for thought. All plans, for the majority of us, will suck. You are working twice as hard to get a plan that sucks less. At this point, that is all that you have left for choices. If I had been less inclined to bury my head in a book for these many years, just leapt into freeing myself, I would be much better off myself. A better growing area, better shelter, more hospitable weather. But you do the best with what you have. Which is better than nothing. Which is usual chosen because the best isn’t affordable. Life isn’t about wallowing in wealth, it is about survival. The party IS over for undeserved wealth. The mine is played out.

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My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
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