Economics & Investing For Preppers

In place of my usual news items and commentary on economics and the markets, I have some housekeeping to do:

My Annual Financial/Investing Disclosures:

By Federal law, I am obliged to make the following annual public disclosures.

For the record: I am presently the sole author of SurvivalBlog’s twice-weekly posted Economics & Investing For Preppers column. I am not a paid investment counselor or adviser. Please see our Provisos page for our detailed disclaimers. My paid consulting is on preparedness, relocation, retreat property development, and related topics–not on investing, per se.

I am not a board member of any corporation. I hold no stocks, bonds, options, registered securities, or ETFs whatsoever. I am not paid or otherwise compensated by any company to promote any investment vehicle or currency.

I do not recommend or endorse any financial particular investment advisor, firm, blog, or web site, although I do quote various advisors and make links to their web sites. Such mentions and links are my own choices, and are never compensated.

While I personally hold precious metals, firearms, ammunition, and other tangibles as a large portion of my portfolio, I have no connection or financial arrangement with any firm, other than that some such firms do buy advertising space in SurvivalBlog, and that we have affiliate advertising contracts in place with others. I do on occasion personally make purchases from these companies. However, I receive no special discounts or other consideration from them. Such advertising relationships have no bearing on the investing news that I report and the recommendations that I make. I personally hold some foreign currencies, but I have never held Forex options. I have never held any Comex options.

We maintain walls of separation between advertising, consulting, and editorial realms. No editorial space or content in this column is ever promised to any advertiser or consulting client. Stephen Cochran of Gainseville Coins voluntarily writes a monthly column for SurvivalBlog, but they are not compensated by me nor vice versa, in any way. I am afforded no special discounts by the firm.  and have received no free merchandise or other favors.

A few article links have been suggested by our advertisers, but we have never been compensated or felt obliged to post them. We do earn commissions on sales of books and other items linked to Amazon.com, through the Amazon Associate program. We universally reject the dozens paid editorial, infographic, product review, and link placement requests that we receive every week via e-mail from spammers, scammers, SEO wonks, and manipulators.

I am not now, nor have I ever been an agent of any foreign nation. After being de-briefed from Special Access Programs (SAPs), I resigned my commission as a U.S. Army Intelligence Corps officer on January 20, 1993. (The day that Bill Clinton first took office.)  I have had no tasking or relationship whatsoever with the U.S. government, the U.S. Army, or any government agencies, other than as a normal taxpaying citizen. I did however work as defense contractor in a technical writing and proposal writing capacity for various defense contracting companies up until July, 2006. I no longer hold an active security clearance. I am a past member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO), but have had no contact with that organization since the mid-1990s.

In sum, we do our very best to operate SurvivalBlog.com as ethically as possible. Our editorial integrity is very important to us. We will never betray the trust of our readers. In an age where journalistic prostitution has become the norm in the blogging world, we stand apart.

News Tips:

Please send your economics and investing news tips to JWR. (Either via e-mail of via our Contact form.) These are often especially relevant because they come from folks who closely watch specific markets. If you spot any news that would be of interest to SurvivalBlog readers, then please send it in. News items from local news outlets that are missed by the news wire services are especially appreciated. And it need not be only about commodities and precious metals. Thanks!