Letter Re: It Will Be Skills, Not Gear That Will Count in TEOTWAWKI

JWR, Skill is critical, parts and tools can be improvised. While I agree with C.A.Y.: “… the combination of skills plus tools plus parts is what’s needed”, there are important exceptions. In some south asia villages, a highly skilled artificer [with a few assistants] can create a self-loading pistol, per day, without parts, and only the most primitive tools of drills, belt sanders and files. The steel is recycled from wrecked cars and trucks. The skill is what makes this possible. This town near the Khyber Pass makes one thousand guns per day. Look at minute marks 3:33 and 3:46 …


Five Letters Re: Escape From (Fill in Your City Here), 2009

Jim, I live in a rural farming area east of the Mississippi and can tell you that cutting a gate or fence would be a very bad choice (in this area).  In 99% of the cases you would already be on private property, so cutting the fence or gate would be considered a “hostile” act.   Most of the folks I know would shot first and ask questions later . . . these folks all hunt, so they are not likely to miss . . . and trust me they know when someone is on their property.   When the police are …


Influenza Pandemic Update:

E627K Acquisition In Swine H1N1 Raises Pandemic Concerns “The acquisition of E627K creates concern that the virus will evolve into a more lethal agent that will be associated with an increased case fatality rate in previously healthy young adults, as was seen in the 1918 Pandemic.” The first death from swine flu in Australia Old People May Be Immune to Swine Flu


Economics and Investing:

KAF found this one: Standard & Poor’s cuts ratings on 18 banks Also from KAF comes this item from Foreign Policy: What Does the End of the Recession Look Like? Another week, another three banks bite the dust: North Carolina, Georgia, Kansas Bank Seizures Cost $363 Million. (Thanks to Karen H. for the link.) Dr. Gary North on Inflation Versus Deflation. (Thanks to OSOM for the link.) Another from Karen H.: Port of Los Angeles Inbound Shipping Container Traffic Down 18% Krys in Idaho sent this: Is this the death of the dollar?


Odds ‘n Sods:

Reader Jonathan B. and SurvivalBlog’s Editor at Large Mike Williamson both sent this video clip that displays utter stupidity. (I cannot believe that so many people on the firing line acquiesced to being part of this!)    o o o Ferdinand recommended a great piece of common sense journalism by Patrice Lewis, over at WND: Calling All Kooks.    o o o “Dim Tim” mentioned these YouTube videos: Solar Car and Tractor, and John Howe’s Solar Chainsaw.    o o o KAF flagged this: Absolutely prefabulous: Eco-living has never looked this good thanks to a new wave of prefabricated palaces


Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“He doubted whether they could survive the winter, even though they piled broken furniture into the fireplace. Some accident would quite likely overtake them, or pneumonia might strike them down. They were like the highly bred spaniels and pekinese who at the end of their leashes had once walked along the city streets. Milt and Ann, too, were city-dwellers, and when the city died, they would hardly survive without it. They would pay the penalty which in the history of the world, he knew, had always been inflicted upon organisms which specialized too highly.” – George Stewart Earth Abides , …


Note from JWR:

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Seven Letters Re: Advice on Deep Water Wells in a Grid-Down Era

Hi James, There is a mission-oriented web site with a tutorial on making valve leathers at this site. There is other useful water well-related information on the site, too. Where John C. is living, if the static level is 400 ft., then he will be looking at needing a fairly deep well. If he gets by with less than drilling a 500 foot well I’d be surprised. Water wells here locally have a 350-400 foot static level and run 700-800 feet deep. The depth, quantity, and quality of water you find all depends on the area you live in, the …


Economics and Investing:

Marc Faber: 10-20% Inflation Coming to US (Thanks to Mark H. for the link.) HPD sent us a link to Mish Shedlock’s commentary: Flow of Funds Report Offers Hard Evidence of Deflation Hawaiian K. spotted this in an Australian newspaper web site: Cash to become extinct as chips take off Items from The Economatrix: The Cumulative Impact of Three Rogue Waves Why Deflation, Not Inflation, is the Order of the Day US Banks Operating Without Reserve Requirement China’s Got a New Currency…And it Sure AIN’T the Dollar “China has already begun moving into a new currency, one that is neither …




Notes from JWR:

Several readers mentioned the video clip available of Sean Hannity’s recent special report: Urban Survivalists. OBTW, you will note that just over three minutes into the YouTube clip that Neil Strauss (the author of the poplar book “Emergency” ) displays his survival bookshelf a copy of “Patriots”. — Today we present a guest article by Axel Merk. Be sure to check out his new blog.


U.S. Dollar: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, by Axel Merk

Russian President Medvedev suggests the dollar is on its way out; Russian Finance minister Kudrin says there is no substitute for the dollar. The Chinese see a need to diversify out of the dollar; the Japanese say their trust in the dollar is unshakable. Let’s look at this puzzle and make some sense of it. It’s usually more productive to look at what policy makers do rather than what they say. Having said that, this time around, the talk also speaks volumes. Notably, world leaders have expressed their concern about the U.S. dollar and a need to diversify, to reduce …


Two Letters Re: Escape From (Fill in Your City Here), 2009

Dear Jim:, All this recent discussion by SurvivalBlog readers about hot-wiring airplanes, and cutting fences and locks is missing some basic, well, let’s just say “applied ethics”. Recall the Golden Rule “Do unto others as they have done unto you”. Flip the situation around and look at it from the property owner’s view: How would you feel if you saw someone stealing your airplane? (Your life savings in an aircraft.) How would you feel upon noticing someone cutting the fence or gate that keeps your cattle off the road? Granted, in a life-threatening emergency you may morally take liberties with …


Economics and Investing:

KAF sent this from Newsweek: Making Sense of Stimulus Spending; How accurate is Obama’s claim of 150,000 jobs “saved or created”? Thanks to Douglas S. for sending the link to a lengthy speech by Dimitri Orlov: Definancialisation, Deglobalisation, Relocalisation. It is was a good and well-intentioned speech, overall, but there were elements that showed that Orlov still has a bit of residual Soviet Era collectivism that he needs to work out of his psyche. Oh, and by the way, I’m not giving up my well-provisioned bunker in an undisclosed location. (The Memsahib still jokes about doing a needlepoint that reads …