Year: 2008

Odds ‘n Sods:

Norman in England suggested a piece of commentary about the Mother of All Bailouts: The Rescue of the Wealthy    o o o Brad E. and Kevin A. both forwarded some bad news from Forbes, that confirms what the Peak Oil crowd has been telling us: Here comes $500 oil. The law of supply and demand is inescapable. I do, however, have my doubts about the supply side of the equation. (See, for example, the arguments presented by the Abiotic Oil proponents.)    o o o More Odds ‘n Sods gathered by Cheryl N., our Economic Editor: Dow Down 373 …


Jim’s Quote of the Day:

Every economy in the world has experienced booms and busts, but somewhere along the line someone came up with the bright idea of eliminating the busts. Throughout the 1990s the world experienced a series of economic crisis in Asia, Mexico, Russia, and even in the US markets that would have been enough to cleanse the system and restore equilibrium. On each and every occasion the Fed met the problem head on with the printing press, so a full blown reaction was avoided thereby creating what I call a “distortion” in the financial system that would eventually have to be sanitized. …


The MOAB Accelerates the Inevitable Destruction of the US Dollar

Back in March, I coined the acronym MOAB (for Mother Of All Bailouts), to describe the Federal government’s continuously-expanding response to the global credit collapse. My family has been getting great chuckles mentioning each time that commentators and legislators start using the term. These have included Michelle Malkin, Congressman Ron Paul, Senator Richard Shelby, and Joel Skousen. So now we are waiting for a pronouncement for Al Gore, that he invented both the term and the acronym. The government’s virtually uncontrolled bailout spree has now expanded to more than 1.5 trillion dollars, and there is no end in sight. At …


Five Letters Re: Preparedness Advice for the Parents of a Newborn Infant

Dear Memsahib: I’d like to suggest exploring the Wear Your Baby site There are free directions for making your own baby wearing wraps and free videos demonstrating different wrapping/carrying styles. The free printable items have good clear photographs to help in choosing the right fabric for the job. Now that slings have become poplar and trendy the prices have become rather expensive. There is nothing like spending $30+ dollars to find that baby doesn’t like that carrying style or is wrong for momma’s back. I’d rather buy fabric and try different styles (more comfy). If it is a total washout …


Odds ‘n Sods:

Eric sent a link to a London Telegraph article: Financial crisis: Default by the US government is no longer unthinkable.   o o o Wayne S. suggested this article: Great Myths of the Great Depression. Wayne’s comment: “I found it to be a great educational primer on the Great Depression. It is interesting to draw parallels with today’s tumultuous times and MOAB with the government policies of the 1929-to-1941 Depression years.”    o o o Eric also found this important tidbit in The Des Moines Register: Brasher: Corn, soybean supply on brink of shortages. Stock up!    o o o Laura …



Note from JWR:

The high bid in the SurvivalBlog Benefit Auction is now at $770. The auction for a large mixed lot that includes: A Special Mixed Vegetable Case-Six #10 Dehydrated Food Cans (Retail Price $105.95) This special Mixed Vegetable Case contains six #10 (96-ounce) cans–one can of each of the following: Mixed Vegetable Blend, Green Beans, Sweet Garden Peas, Mixed Peppers, Potato Dices, and Sweet Potatoes and a EZ-Towels 10 Pack Combo (10 bags of 50 towels. Retail value: $99.95). These items were donated by Jan at Healthy Harvest Foods. An assortment of world class loose leaf teas, and a box of …


Even Chuck Schumer Thinks that We Might Be in Deep Schumer

A front page headline in The New York Times on Friday shouted: Congressional Leaders Stunned by Warnings. The article began: “It was a room full of people who rarely hold their tongues. But as the Fed chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, laid out the potentially devastating ramifications of the financial crisis before congressional leaders on Thursday night, there was a stunned silence at first.” Later in the piece, it mentions: “…the congressional leaders were told “that we’re literally maybe days away from a complete meltdown of our financial system, with all the implications here at home and globally.’” U.S. Senator Charles …


Letter Re: An Expedient Toilet Flushing Method for Grid-Down Situations

Salutations, [In a recent letter to SurvivalBlog,] Jeff in Ohio mentioned filling the toilet tank with water in order to flush it, however, this is not necessary. You can flush by pouring about a gallon directly into the bowl. (Don’t dribble it in, but also don’t get carried away and slosh it in at once . . . unless you really want to use more water to mop the floor.) I learned this from my military service in Okinawa in the late 70s where we had water rationing with running water only every other day. On water days we filled …


Letter Re: Finding a Mineshaft or a Gemeinschaft

JWR I think that your “Mineshaft or a Gemeinschaft” article was especially true and timely. However, there are some problems [with living in a community]. Even given how imminent I personally fear financial Armageddon is, there is still time that it might be a nuclear event or a disease pandemic, etc., all of which demand slightly different responses. There is no possible way one or even five individuals can be totally self-sufficient. Even the hermits come out once a year or so to trade for things like salt or ammo, or whatever. Personally, I think a small community of up …


Odds ‘n Sods:

Nanny State Britannia run amok: YouTube bans knife and gun videos in England. I suppose that this ban will also include instructional and safety videos, but worry not: They tell us that it is all for the public good! (Tut, tut! We mustn’t “glamorise!”) OBTW, I think that using a third party web browsing portal such as Anonymizer will probably remove any do-gooder impediments. (And, BTW, it is wise for everyone to use  Anonymizer, just on general principle, to prevent leaving an audit trail of your web browsing. Think OPSEC!)    o o o From Cheryl, our Economic Editor: Bush, Congress …



Finding a Mineshaft or a Gemeinschaft

I’ve observed that survivalists tend to fall into two schools of thought: those that are loners and those that are community-minded. The loners would prefer to disappear into the wilds and essentially find a mineshaft to crawl into–somewhere they can lay low, whilst things sort themselves out, back in civilization. That is both a naive and selfish starting point for preparedness. Short of moving to the roadless interior of Alaska, it is not realistic to expect that you can find a remote rural property where you’d have no contact with outsiders for an extended period of time. We live in …


Letter Re: Comments on the 2008 Financial Collapse and the Mother of All Bailouts (MOAB)

Hi Jim, This [current economic news] is nauseating. Now, not only are we in the insurance business, but we the taxpayer are going to be forced to purchase all of the bad and recklessly created debt generated over the last eight years. We know it’s bad, it’s even been called “toxic debt”. We’re not going to be given a choice on whether or not we want to purchase it. It’s being purchased in our name and we have no say about it. I can think of no better definition of socialism. If this is not the end of the world …


Letter Re: Preparedness Advice for the Parents of a Newborn Infant

Mr. & Mrs. Rawles, I hope you and the family are doing well. I have been reading your blog for over a year now and it has been quite helpful. We are making our way slowly in our preps but now I have a new issue. My wife has blessed our home with a child. We had been trying for 12 years with no luck, I guess God decided it was time! My daughter is now two weeks old and with all the excitement I hadn’t put any thought into preps for a new born. Maybe the Memsahib could give …