Day: December 31, 2008

Note from JWR:

It’s your last day! More than 675 SurvivalBlog readers have bought Foodsaver vacuum packing/sealing systems at the special December $59.99 sale price. We get a little “piece of the action” for each order. So this a is a great way to save money and to support SurvivalBlog in the new year. Don’t miss out on this sale! You can buy a FoodSaver v2830 for $59.99 (originally $169.99) with free Standard Shipping for orders over $100, directly FoodSaver.com.Use code L8FAV28 at checkout. This sale ends at midnight Eastern Time, tonight. By buying foods in bulk and re-packaging them in more handy …


Two Letters Re: The Best College Degrees for the Next Depression?

Sir, College is alarmingly pricey. As a child of the 1970s, I grew up understanding that you either got a useful degree or paid your own way. I contend that the most useful education currently is learning a trade. Welding, auto repair or electrician’s certification will pay the bills through the rough times as people choose to repair instead of purchase. As times get better, some of those trade school credits may transfer to a college and you are on your way. What is that architecture degree, but about a year of drafting plus three tortuous years of art…the discovery …


Two Letters Re: Seeking Advice on Assembling Web Gear

Sir, In a recent post you mentioned unbuckling your ALICE belt when going prone. I learned a little trick in ROTC using a carabiner and two pieces of 550 [parachute] cord. First, adjust belt the way you want it. Second, tie the two pieces of 550 cord onto the end of the ALICE belt and hook them together with the carabiner. Adjust the length of the 550 cord to get the slack needed when going prone. This allows you to keep your belt buckled but when you need additional slack, just release the buckle and the 550 cord keeps the …


Odds ‘n Sods:

 Reader N.L. spotted this useful article at the Backwoods Home magazine web site: Bury a gun and ammo for 15 years. (BTW, I consider a subscription to Backwoods Home magazine for families that are seeking genuine self-sufficiency.)    o o o Eric flagged this Wall Street Journal piece: Bumpy Crop: Farming’s Sudden Feasts and Famines, As Grain Prices Rise and Fall and Perhaps Rise Again, Growers Struggle to Navigate a New Age of Volatility and High Costs    o o o The Werewolf (SurvivalBlog’s correspondent in Brazil) must have been thinking about the snow-bound Great White North when he spotted …


Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“While 2008 will probably be best known as the year that global stock markets had their values cut in half, it was really much, much more. It was a year in which every major asset class – stocks, real estate, commodities, even high-yield bonds – suffered significant double-digit percentage losses, resulting in the destruction of over $30 trillion of paper wealth. To blame this on subprime mortgages alone would be to dismiss an era of leveraging that encompassed derivative structures of all types, embodying a belief that economic growth was always and everywhere a certainty and that asset prices never …