Note from JWR:

Welcome to the thousands of new SurvivalBlog readers who’ve arrived after yesterday’s prominent mention of SurvivalBLog.com on MSNBC.The same mention also pushed up the Amazon sales rank of my novel “Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse” to around #800. (Out of more than two million books listed. Not bad for a novel that has been in print for 11 years!) OBTW, I’ve been getting dozens of e-mails from SurvivalBlog newbies, asking very familiar questions, such as: “What’s the safest area to relocate to?”, “How do I store rice to protect it from vermin?”, “What are the best things to keep on …




The Savvy Barterer–References, Skills, and Tools for TEOTWAWKI Barter

One of my long-standing Precepts is that every prepared individual should be ready for both barter and dispensing charity. Today, I’ll be briefly discussing barter. Being ready to barter is not just a matter of having a pile of “stuff” to barter. While barter and charity logistics are important, what is even more important is what is between your ears. A Bazaar Experience Bartering takes practice. Dickering is an acquired skill. Short of buying yourself a plane ticket to Marrakech, I suggest that you start attending gun shows, garage sales, and flea markets. Learn how to haggle. One of my …




Four Letters Re: Currency Inflation Expectations for the US

James: The letter [from reader PNG] has severe mistakes and is fundamentally misleading – your readers deserve even more refutation before anyone is lulled into a false sense of security. To quote: “Let’s say the Treasury just invents another two trillion dollars by printing currency and forgiving loans. Let’s say they do that every year for the next five years. How much inflation would that create? The absolute maximum inflation rate from this example is about 20%, because there’s ten trillion dollars in circulation already.” These numbers are incredibly far off the mark. Actually M1 is the narrow definition of …




Odds ‘n Sods:

From Rick D.: Inflation Creates Run On Argentine Coins    o o o David in Israel, one of our foreign correspondents, and a rabbinical student sent us this comment: “It is interesting that you mention the shmita (the jubilee or yovel in Hebrew is a 49 year cycle where sold property is returned and slaves freed) a seven year cycle where all debts are forgiven, and at the end of the year that we let our fields lie fallow. The day of the 777.68 point Dow drop, the largest point drop in history, hit on the exact day that the …