Day: August 13, 2007


A Full Scale U.S. Dollar Panic Before November?

The news wires were abuzz last week about the global credit squeeze. Bankers are unwilling to make loans when they can’t calculate risk. What risk? Here is a big one: Many of their clients have derivatives exposure, which means that lenders can no longer calculate their credit worthiness. In the banking world, the standard “safe” answer to any loan question in the absence of data is almost universally no. I surmise that if this situation gets any worse, governments may step in and make loan guarantees. (Meaning that the taxpayers would shoulder the risk instead of the bankers.) That may …


Letter Re: Food Reserves and Summer Kitchens

Hello James, Not long ago, our friends at FEMA destroyed six million MREs, (which we taxpayers had purchased at a cost of $40 million). Why? Because of storage conditions. Now this is an extreme example: FEMA placing food products in unrefrigerated containers under the Gulf Coast summer sun. But it does serve to illustrate that no matter how large one’s pantry may be, to avoid turning that food into so much garbage, you have to monitor storage conditions. Our “summer kitchen” at our home/retreat occupies a 200 square foot area in one of the outbuildings. This room is double insulated …


Letter Re: Power Takeoff (PTO) Generators?

Jim: A short comment on using any power source without a governor to drive a generator. While it will work, it will not maintain a constant voltage or frequency under varying loads. I am 69 years old and have watched people build “tractors,buzz saws, water pumps etc” over the last 60 years using car or truck engines. Usually with very little luck. A tractor has a decent governor and will maintain a near constant RPM from about 10 % to 100 % load. Old tractors often used oil pressure to control RPM, don’t know about the modern ones as mine …


Odds ‘n Sods:

Courtesy of SHTF Daily: Israeli website causes panic in NY. I’ve warned SurvivalBlog readers before: The DEBKA files material is predominantly gray propaganda that originates from the Russian Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti (FSB).   o o o Reader J.D. recommended this vendor for knives: The Outlaw Knife Shop. I haven’t done business with them yet, but they seem to have a great inventory!    o o o I’ve been told that there are just a couple sets left for the outstanding Medical Corps “Medical Response in Hostile Environments” field medicine course. It will be held on August 24-25-26 at the Ohio …


Jim’s Quote of the Day:

"There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved." – Ludwig Von Mises