Preparedness Notes for Friday — January 31, 2025

On January 31, 1616, Cape Horn was rounded for the first time by a Dutch expedition led by Jacques Le Maire and Willem Corneliszoon Schouten. They named Cape Hoorn after Schouten’s hometown. — The Last Day! In honor of the birthday of John Moses Browning (January 23rd, 1855), we are running a 10-day sale at Elk Creek Company.  This January sale is always our biggest sale of the year. These discounts range from 10% to 40%. All of our gun and knife inventory has been deeply reduced until midnight, Pacific Time today  (Friday, January 31st, 2025.)  Don’t miss out on …




Circuit Breaker Panel Labeling, by Free Loader

Most people’s circuit breaker panels that I’ve seen (including my own) are poorly labeled regarding where each circuit breaker’s current actually goes. Many panel descriptions are either very vague about what circuits are on each breaker or they aren’t labeled at all. Usually, this happens because the person who installed the panel was in a hurry to finish the wiring and never returned to label them properly. When they did label them, it was often with something vague like “east half house” or “basement.” These descriptions aren’t very helpful when you’re trying to locate the specific breaker for a particular …




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. This column emphasizes JWR’s “tangibles heavy” investing strategy and contrarian perspective. Today, we look at Government Spending and Deficit Reduction. Precious Metals: Spot gold just posted another record high, yesterday. It was up $51.20 to $2,844.70 per Troy ounce at mid-day. That was a 1.8% gain for the morning.   Meanwhile, spot silver jumped $1.02 to $31.77. That was a 3.3% gain for the morning. Platinum was up …




The Editors’ Quote of the Day: 

“One thing I hate about the New Deal is that it is killing what, to me, is the American pioneering spirit. I simply do not know what to tell my own boys, leaving school and confronting this new world whose ideal is Security and whose practice is dependence upon government instead of upon one’s self. All the old character-values seem simply insane from a practical point of view; the self-reliant, the independent, the courageous man is penalized from every direction.” – Rose Wilder Lane