Preparedness Notes for Friday — March 10, 2023

On March 10, 1910, China officially ended slavery. But unofficially, China now has one of the world’s largest slave populations. These are mostly political prisoners, working in laogai  prison factories. Sadly, there is no way of reliably knowing whether or not most of the “Made In China” merchandise that you buy might originate from these prisons. — SurvivalBlog Writing Contest Today we present another entry for Round 105 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include: First Prize: The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC  are providing a store-wide 10% off coupon. Depending on the …




Building A Bicycle Generator, by Ed J.

Being able to generate even small amounts of electricity post-SHTF will be very valuable. A simple, human-powered, 12-volt generator can be constructed easily and for very little money. I started with a used bicycle that I picked up for $50 bucks. I recommend a bike with multiple gears as you are probably going to be using a very low gear most of the time. Single-speed bicycles tend to be geared very high, and it would take a large amount of effort to pedal one of those while powering a generator. To construct this system, at the very least, you will …




Economics & Investing For Preppers

Here are the latest news items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. In this column, JWR also covers hedges, derivatives, and various obscura. Most of these items are from JWR’s “tangibles heavy” contrarian perspective. Today, we look at some gains for precious metals in Dollar terms, and the Silicon Valley Bank crash. Precious Metals: Reported on Friday: Price gains in gold, silver on short covering, friendly outside markets. And at the opening bell in Asia this morning, both gold and silver rose even more. o  o  o Kansas Bill Would …