Economics and Investing:

News about the results of the Federal Reserve’s “Stress Test” got out, and it sent a shock wave through the financial world. The news was quite disturbing. Although with the caveat that it is not yet confirmed, I recommend reading the summary at Hal Turner’s web site. Reader “NDSS” mentioned this bit of much-needed common sense from Charles Hugh Smith: Why a 50% Drop in Housing is Not the Bottom. JWR’s comment: Anyone that thinks that the US real estate market will soon “recover” is dreaming. The peak in Alt-A and Option ARM mortgage rate resets won’t be until 2011. …


Odds ‘n Sods:

W. in Washington recommended this blog site: Little House in the Suburbs    o o o “Goff” sent an item from a Bangor, Maine newspaper: Firepower Fever; Worried about how gun laws might change, some enthusiasts stock up and local suppliers feel the heat    o o o Fred the Valmetmeister notes: “The market for [reloading] primers is so scary. Take a look at the auctions at GunBroker.com and go to the reloading section. Look at the auctions for primers! For example: [cases of] 5,000 CCI Large Pistol primers for $340! I now see single boxes [of 1,000 primers selling] …



Letter Re: Bicycles as Bug-Out and Utility Vehicles

I read SurvivalBlog almost every day. I see lots of folks talking about bug out vehicles, going to great lengths to describe storing fuel long term, stripping down vehicles and even planning on parking them out of the way when fuel runs out. But I rarely see much mentioned about one of the best long term, low tech tools out there for transportation: The bicycle, the cargo bike and the adult tricycle. Bicycles are inexpensive, ubiquitous and take only a pair of legs and half a brain to use. People in Third World countries haul huge amounts of stuff with …


Letter Re: Pedal Power for Electricity Generation and Water Pumping

Hi Mr. Rawles: Thank you so much for your efforts on this blog as well as Rawles Gets You Ready. I have a question that I haven’t seen addressed. Are there products out there based on pedal power? Meaning, I can’t afford a real alternative energy system or a large storage area for gasoline. What I’d like is a way to keep a few deep cycle batteries charged to power my rechargeable AA-size batteries (do they make rechargeable batteries in any other size?), my cordless power tools and other objects. There must be alternator/bicycle systems to do that but I …


Letter Re: The Mexican Drug Wars Come to the United States

Jim, As the economy gets worse, crime of this sort will only increase. Small towns that have secondary and tertiary highways are not immune. Often these secondary routes parallel the primary highways that have the heaviest enforcement which leads the traffickers to use the secondary routes to evade Law Enforcement. We have had first hand experience with interstate drug traffickers in our Midwestern town of 1,300 people that has a parallel secondary highway running through it. I shudder to think what will happen to our borders, cities, and towns when bankrupt states and cities are forced to confront the stark …


Letter Re: Why Survivalists Should Buy Local Organic Food

Jim ~ We subscribe to an organic grocery delivery service and have the food dehydrator running non-stop around the clock now that local produce is coming in. Our preference is dried over frozen because of smells and off flavors that frozen can pick up. Even through I pay a premium for organic foods, my feeling is that if inflation or hyperinflation is around the corner, the price I’m paying now will at the least even out in the face of inflation, and I’ll still have a superior product. I know that the food we are preserving is top quality, not …


Economics and Investing:

Charley keyed in on a piece in The Atlantic, where Jeffrey Goldberg contemplates survivalism: Why I Fired My Broker. The accompanying video clip, titled “The Con Game” is quite entertaining and has some snippets about his acquaintance Cody Lundin–a survivalist and author.(Cody is the author of When All H*ll Breaks Loose: Stuff You Need To Survive When Disaster Strikes — currently around #300 in the Amazon ranks.) Here is a quote from the print article: “For the record, I don’t think the grid is buckling under the weight of consumer debt or the mistakes of AIG. But we’re in a …


Odds ‘n Sods:

Hawaiian K. sent us the link to a video clip showing the Mexican Back-Country Improvised Method of Tire Bead Sealing. Don’t try this at home! (This method can leave un-burned explosive gasses inside your tire, not to mention remove your eyebrows in a flash, even if you try to be careful!)   o o o From Cheryl (aka The Economatrix) Guns: A Better Buy Than Stock    o o o Writing in The Washington Times, Ollie North asks: Who are dangerous ‘extremists’? (Thanks to KAF for the link.)    o o o Our Editor at Large Michael Z. Williamson sent …



Notes from JWR:

If you have any favorite quotes that relate to survival, preparedness, faith, patriotism, Constitutional rights, or perhaps something on economics, then please e-mail it to me, and I’ll likely post them as Quotes of the Day. Thanks! — The high bid in the SurvivalBlog Benefit Auction. is now at $650. This auction is for a large mixed lot, which includes: 1.) A Three-Color Desert Camo Interceptor OTV (Outer Tactical Vest) size XL only, and a spare Woodland camouflage outer shell, kindly donated by BulletProofME.com. These items have a combined retail value of $960! 2.) A vehicle detection system, which includes: …


Letter Re: Tidal Waves of Urban Refugees

Jim, I was stationed on the DMZ in Korea with the 2nd Infantry Division. One of the big concerns the US army has is all of the millions of refugees that will be on the roads going south, if the North Koreans were to invade. We would be moving heavy equipment, and needing to move it fast, and the roads would be very congested. The US and the ROK army now have an agreement, that the ROK army would be responsible for clearing the roads, and believe me, they will. The US does not want to be responsible because, without …


Letter Re: Why Survivalists Should Buy Local Organic Food

Mr. Rawles–please accept my apologies for replying so delinquently. I just found your “blog” and have to say it is quite good. Thanks for all your work. Though I will admit to being an organic gardener for 20 odd years now I would like to reply to a few things L.D.M. said against organic gardening and in “praise” of commercial/chemical agriculture. My reply is from a “survivalist” perspective. First..yes, American[-origin] natural gas is the basis for fertilizer not Middle Eastern oil. However…in a catastrophe of any type when you can’t get food how exactly are you planning on getting Inorganic …


Economics and Investing:

D.S. flagged this:Why There will be no other Bubble to Save us from this 40 Year Financial Bubble: From Manufacturing, Technology, and Financial Services. Real Estate Bubble. Drop in Corporate Tax Receipts D.S. also recommended an Op-Ed piece by Paul Krugman in The New York Times: Green Shoots and Glimmers Kern County, California unemployment jumps to 15.9 percent. (Thanks to JWP for the link.) Krys in Idaho sent us this article. US regulators close American Sterling Bank. Krys’s comment: “In case anyone’s counting, that’s an average of almost 1.5 banks closed every week so far this year. It is only …


Odds ‘n Sods:

Warning: Don’t exhale, folks! The new and improved Obama-era EPA has declared carbon dioxide a “greenhouse gas”. Next, I suppose they’ll declare dihydrogen monoxide “a powerful unregulated universal chemical solvent.”    o o o Reader KAF flagged this: A cure for [honeybee] colony collapse–New research has proposed both a concrete cause for bee colony collapse disorder, as well as a cure    o o o KAF also sent a link to the latest commentary by political pundit Victor Davis Hanson: President of the World–The globe is hearing a deeply pessimistic view of what America was and is.