Day: October 22, 2008

Note from JWR:

SurvivalBlog was prominently mentioned in a front page piece on MSNBC yesterday and the resulting hits nearly crashed our server. (We got almost 90,000 unique visits in one day! That’s nearly as many as we usually get in a week.) Here is the article: Hard times have some flirting with survivalism–Economic angst has Americans stockpiling ‘beans, bullets and Band-Aids’. The story itself was well-written, but the headline was a bit much. Flirting? Flirting? I’d say that it is more like America has run off and eloped in Las Vegas with Survivalism. The high bid in the current SurvivalBlog Benefit Auction …


Three Letters Re: Advice on Driveway Alarms for Retreat Security

Mr. Rawles, We’ve been using the Dakota Alert driveway alarm for years. We use the model with the underground sensor that will only go off when a metal object comes near it such as a large (or even small) vehicle. The advantage of this is it has absolutely no false alarms. When the receiver says a car is coming down our (long) driveway, then a car is coming. There is nothing worse than an alarm that gives false alarm all the time and you no longer can trust it. The infrared driveway alarms that I’ve tried do this especially if …


Letter Re: Advice on Silver Coins for Barter

Mr. Rawles, I have only a small amount of silver American coins but I constantly look for more. I find your advice to buy pre-1964 dimes, quarters and half-dollars difficult to realize as coin collectors are not selling junk silver in my area (Dallas/Fort Worth). To be frank the silver coins that are available are being sold at crazy prices (two or more times spot) over priced right now as everyone is freaking out about the economy. Reasonably priced coins, though significantly delayed, are available online and my collection has mainly been purchased this way. On the other hand, silver …


Letter Re: Recreational Vehicles and Investing in Tangibles

Jim, Thank you for the blog and all the great info you put out. I have a couple of questions that I would like to ask you, but first a little info about myself. I am a 40 year old male with a wife and two kids. I live in Kansas, I work at a large manufacturing plant and my wife works for a insurance company. We have a mortgage and other dept. I would like to buy some land out of town and build a retreat for my family and myself for when TSHTF but can not afford it …


Odds ‘n Sods:

More news and commentary, courtesy of our Economic Editor: Layoffs Spreading Across Corporate America — Fed Pushes Purchase of Assets To Bust Credit Logjam —AmEx Profits Fall, Cardholders Struggle — No Chinese Bailout for Pakistan, Next Stop: IMF — Kerkorian Dumps 2/3 of Ford Stock — Bush Says Economic Panic Is Easing — Markets Soar As LIBOR Starts To Fall — Bernanke Wants Second Stimulus Package — Iceland Agrees To $6 Billion Deal With IMF — France To Inject $6.5 Billion Into Top Six Banks — The view from a French think tank: Summer 2009: The US Gov’t Defaults On …