Labels: preparedness, spiritual

Labels: felicity and jocularity

Many readers of Survival Blog are either in the process of moving to a lightly populated area or actively planning to bugout to such an area when the balloon goes up. Twenty years ago I moved from the edge of a large city to a fairly remote property, and have been quietly setting up the doomstead and perfecting skills ever since. In the process, I became part of the fabric of country life here and have learned some valuable lessons which may benefit the rookie country dweller."

Labels: not-laws, society and culture

Labels: San Pedro homestead

"Read in between the lines of Putin's speech and you find all the hints you want. The Chinese and Russians are burying the US alive. The Japanese, Germans, and Gulf States keep a very low profile for the moment. The decisions have been made: wait for 2010 . They will use the unfolding chaos to introduce the new currency basket and trade rules…

There is a brand new system being designed that will borrow from the past and apply 21st century tools for barter / counter trade / excess capacity etc. An Exchange Platform will cut out the banks altogether … [Chinese Premier] Wen delivered his speech in Davos and went straight to Berlin where they put the final touch on the new world currency basket , sponsored by Berlin-Moscow-Beijing-Tokyo-Riyadh. Moscow and Berlin already have a massive counter trade / barter trade agreement in place, and Beijing was eager to joint that platform as well.” The new global currencies are planned for launch in January 2010. They will be launched amidst growing chaos. Events up to that time will be tumultuous.

And the ten horns that you saw, they and the beast will hate the whore; they will make her desolate and naked; they will devour her flesh and burn her up with fire. For God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose by agreeing to give their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God will be fulfilled. The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth.’ Rev 17:15-18

Labels: financial ponderings, watching the skies

Labels: watching the skies

The cuts would come mostly from Iraq troop withdrawals and higher taxes on the wealthy. It will also include revenues from a plan to require businesses to purchase permits from the government to emit carbon dioxide and other emissions blamed for global warming.
Obama will also call for letting the Bush tax cuts on income, dividends and capital gains lapse after 2010 for individuals who make more than $250,000 a year.

Labels: financial ponderings, The Failed Obama Presidency

The Austrian school argues that business cycles are driven by central banks keeping interest rates too low, expanding credit and encouraging uneconomic investments, creating an unsustainable boom, inevitably followed by a bust.

That's what happened here, says Woods, most recently with the Fed's multiple interest rate cuts to stave off the 2000-2002 slowdown.

Certainly debt levels had reached historic highs before the crash.

Woods argues the crash of 2008 was a perfect storm. Other elements included immense government pressure on mortgage lenders to loosen standards and make loans to questionably credit-worthy but politically favored demographic groups; and securitization, which spread the effects of bad mortgage lending around the world.
Recovery from even serious business cycle downturns can be swift, says Woods, citing the almost-forgotten 1920-1921 slump. But that's because the federal government did not step in. It allowed excesses to correct themselves. In contrast, the federal government did step in after 1929, as Japan's government did in a similar downturn after 1990. Result, according to Woods: the Great Depression in the U.S.; 18 years of stagnation in Japan.

If Woods is right, public policy is on exactly the wrong course right now in trying to sustain demand and asset prices, just as it was in the early years of the Depression. Ironically, this wrong course is bipartisan. Both Hebert Hoover and George W. Bush, Woods notes, were highly interventionist presidents just like their successors, contrary to myth.

Woods' cheerful prediction: prolonged stagnation, eventual inflation and an even bigger collapse.

Labels: financial ponderings, The Failed Obama Presidency

Labels: financial ponderings, The Failed Obama Presidency

Labels: financial ponderings, society and culture, watching the skies

Labels: liberty, statism, The Failed Obama Presidency, watching the skies

Labels: financial ponderings

Labels: minutiae, preparedness

Labels: San Pedro homestead

It is November 7 2012. At three in the morning, an exhausted-looking President Barack Obama appears before weeping supporters in the ballroom of the Chicago Hilton and concedes defeat. The euphoria of his victory-night speech in Grant Park four years earlier is a distant memory. The Obama administration has been overwhelmed by America’s economic problems. Sarah Palin is the new president of the US.

Elected on a ticket of populism at home and nationalism overseas, President-elect Palin starts to take congratulatory phone calls from foreign leaders. First on the line is Avigdor Lieberman, the prime minister of Israel; then comes President Vladimir Putin of Russia. Five different leaders claiming to speak in the name of the European Union try to place calls – but they are all put on hold. As for the Chinese leadership, the new president is not speaking to them. How could she, after she has campaigned against the “communist currency manipulators of Beijing”?

Right now the Washington economic stimulus team is putting on their Scuba gear and diving down to the engine room to try to invent a way to get a diesel engine to run on seawater. They spoke of change, but in reality they are terrified of change and want to cling with all their might to the status quo. But this game will soon be over, and they don’t have any idea what to do next.

I’ve covered what I think are basics, based on what I saw work and what I think might work reasonably well here. I assume that a lot of you are thinking that this is all quite far into the future, if in fact it ever gets that bad. You should certainly feel free to think that way. The danger there is that you will miss the opportunity to adapt to the new reality ahead of time, and then you will get trapped. As I see it, there is a choice to be made: you can accept the failure of the system now and change your course accordingly, or you can decide that you must try to stay the course, and then you will probably have to accept your own individual failure later.

There is nothing any of us can do to change the path we are on: it is a huge system with tremendous inertia, and trying to change its path is like trying to change the path of a hurricane. What we can do is prepare ourselves, and each other, mostly by changing our expectations, our preferences, and scaling down our needs. It may mean that you will miss out on some last, uncertain bit of enjoyment. On the other hand, by refashioning yourself into someone who might stand a better chance of adapting to the new circumstances, you will be able to give to yourself, and to others, a great deal of hope that would otherwise not exist.

Labels: financial ponderings, preparedness, society and culture, The Failed Obama Presidency

Labels: financial ponderings, The Failed Obama Presidency

Labels: art

Labels: armed citizen, firearms, personal responsibility

Labels: firearms

Labels: financial ponderings, society and culture

President Obama's Justice Department signaled in a San Francisco courtroom Monday that the change in administrations has not changed the government's position on secrecy and the rights of foreign prisoners - and that lawsuits by alleged victims of CIA kidnappings and torture must be dismissed on national security grounds.

'Judges shouldn't play with fire,' Justice Department lawyer Douglas Letter told the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco

The Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous draw-down of money market accounts in the United States, to the tune of $550 billion dollars.The Treasury opened its window to help. They pumped a hundred and five billion dollars into the system and quickly realized that they could not stem the tide. We were having an electronic run on the banks. They decided to close the operation, close down the money accounts, and announce a guarantee of $250,000 per account so there wouldn't be further panic and there. And that's what actually happened. If they had not done that their estimation was that by two o'clock that afternoon, five-and-a-half trillion dollars would have been drawn out of the money market system of the United States, would have collapsed the entire economy of the United States, and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed.

Labels: financial ponderings, politics, preparedness, society and culture

Labels: resources

more animals

Labels: minutiae, San Pedro homestead

Labels: blogospheric navel-gazing

Labels: financial ponderings, politics

Labels: politics

I am hoping that this post finds you. I know that it could quite possibly be the most humiliating first date that you have ever been on, but I am willing to look past that.

I thought we had chemistry sitting at McMenamins sharing that basket of Cajun Tots while drinking the Terminator Stout. I really felt like there was a connection there. I found you to be intelligent and witty and looked forward to further conversation with you.

At some point in life, everyone has gambled on a fart and lost. It just happened to be on a first date in the passenger seat of my car. Please don't feel bad. The package I sent you with Pepto the next day and the note that said "First dates are always a crap shoot. Call me" was meant to be funny, not offensive.

I have gambled on a fart and lost on multiple occasions. The first time I did it was very memorable. It happened when I was five and sitting on my uncle's lap. I am lactose intolerant, but love cheese. I probably win 95% of the time, but I don't think anyone wins 100% of the time. That's why they call it "gambling". I'm the last person to judge you for crapping your pants. In fact, I am impressed by your boldness. The timing on the other hand, could have been a tad bit better...like when you're not sitting on a heated leather seat...

What I am trying to say is that if you want to go out again, I would be more than happy to take you someplace where we can get a meal that is high in fiber and less taxing on the digestive tract.

I await your call, Tad

P.S. - If you shat yourself on purpose to end the evening early…Touché…

Labels: felicity and jocularity

Labels: art appreciation, food, society and culture

Labels: politics

Where do you think the FEMA camp closest to your house will be established?

Are you ready to go to a “national emergency center” when the government declares martial law?

What will your response be if they come to put you on a train that will take you and your family to one of these camps?

But you know what one of the saddest things is?

The machinery of martial law is being put into place, and the American people are hardly uttering a peep in protest."

Labels: politics, society and culture, watching the skies

"I have often thought that if heaven had given me choice of my position and calling, it should have been on a rich spot of earth, well watered, and near a good market for the productions of the garden. No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden. Such a variety of subjects, some one always coming to perfection, the failure of one thing repaired by the success of another, and instead of one harvest a continued one throughout the year. Under a total want of demand except for our family table, I am still devoted to the garden."

Labels: gardening, ponderings

Labels: financial ponderings, watching the skies

Labels: blogospheric navel-gazing

Labels: cats, San Pedro homestead