Category: Emerging Threats

Letter Re: Securing Needed Prescriptions for Family Preparedness

Jim, I’ve been stockpiling medicine since before it was fashionable. My dad is a physician and gave me an Rx for ciprofloxacin and other antibiotics before 9/11 (in prep for Y2K). That is all refrigerated and despite official expiration dates, probably still fine. More recently, my dentist wrote me an Rx for TamiFlu. I won’t drag on about it, but the bottom line is that virtually anyone with a medical degree who is semi like-minded can give you an Rx for whatever you want. All you have to do is assure them you are only worried about shortages and won’t …


Letter Re: Economic Gloom and Doom is Justified

Jim, Ironically, just a day after I wrote an e-mail chiding you [for giving too much attention to economic gloom and doom in SurvivalBlog], I had a meeting with one of our clients that has been a very successful Wall Street trader. He gave me a laundry list of banks that he expects to fail before the end of the year and predicted a complete collapse of the financial sector. Worse [for us], since we are in Michigan, he said that some of the Big Three auto makers are in serious trouble. When I asked him where he saw the …


Letter Re: The Reactive Culture, or 20 Years of Greater Depression

Dear Jim, America, and modern industrial democracy, is a reactive culture. We wait for disaster to strike, then we talk about it, vote, and throw money at it until it goes away. That’s what we’ve been doing since the deficit spending initiated by FDR, socialist that he was. Now we’ve reached the end of deficit spending, having exported our jobs, currency, and control of our economy overseas and become a great big lazy balloon floating over the glass recycling bin at the local dump. Gasoline, food, and other essentials are in a tight 18% inflationary spiral and the public is …


Two Letters Re: The Five Minute Bank Run

Dear Mr. Rawles, Read the letter from W.D. in Texas with great interest. I have been a recent visitor to your blog and read the postings on the banking system with great interest – and shared them with immediate family. As a Florida resident, even though in the less vulnerable northeastern part of the state, it is prudent to be ready for adverse weather as the ATMs and banks could be closed in an emergency. Good luck trying to get cash at that point in time. I strongly suspect that most people nationwide have about as much cash on hand …


Letter Re: Simulation of Pandemic Influenza – Preparedness Implications

Jim, I appreciate everything that you and your readers are doing to help change the mindset of people around the world. I was reviewing the May/June issue of a health care trade magazine that contained a report on a simulation carried out in Philadelphia at the start of this year dealing with pandemic influenza. While much of the discussion was relevant only to health insurers, the scenario that served as the simulation is detailed below. Readers can draw their own conclusions of the type of things that they should prepare for. The following is exerted from: Raymond, A.G. (2008). Pandemic …


Letter Re: The Five Minute Bank Run

Dear Mr. Rawles: I wanted to tell you a personal experience I just had at the bank that scares me to death. If you think a bank can last a few days during a bank run, then you will be very surprised by my story. I wanted to withdraw $10,000 from a JP Morgan Chase Bank branch in a local Houston [, Texas] suburb. Chase is the second largest bank in the US and Houston is the fourth largest city in the US. I went in and said: “Can I please have my money?” The teller disappeared for 10 minutes …


Letter Re: Huge Price Hikes by Dow Chemical are an Ominous Inflation Indicator

Jim, In the news today, Dow Chemical is announcing a 25% price increase, following a 20% increase three weeks ago. Since they produce the feedstock chemicals for almost every industry on earth, this should be a great indicator of what’s coming. – ZBM JWR Replies: Ay carumba! Dow produces a huge variety of chemicals and compounds that go into everything from fertilizers to plastics. This is an alarming indicator of consumer price increases in the near future. When paired with fuel price jumps, this becomes downright frightening for near-future food prices at the consumer level. At this point, precious metals …


Two Letters Re: Tomorrow’s Headlines? — A Nationwide Banking Panic

Hi James, First, thanks for sharing Mike [“Mish”} Shedlock’s recent article with the SurvivalBlog.com community. Like you, I’ve grown to trust his observations and analysis and I read his work as often as I read yours – daily. I wanted to add a couple of comments, which will strengthen both Mish’s and your viewpoints concerning your observations on the potential for a nationwide banking panic. First – is that [as mentioned,] the FDIC is preparing for this crisis right now, by hiring back some retirees, with specific experience in dealing with bank failures, as they are expecting a large number …


Tomorrow’s Headlines? — A Nationwide Banking Panic

Since September of 2007, I’ve been warning SurvivalBlog readers about the potential for bank failures and bank runs in the US, spawned by the unfolding global credit collapse. I am now raising my warning to multiple red flags. There are certainly some ominous signs. These include: New banking scrutiny–especially for investment banks. Plunging bank reserves. A few more bank failures this year than in a typical year. A record increase in “bank owned” (foreclosed) houses. New FDIC rules on assessing risks at major banks.To be ready for bank runs, the FDIC has even re-hired some former employees from its division …


Letter Re: Numerous New Economic Crash Warnings

Hi Jim, Within the last couple of days I have noticed that multiple economic and financial institutions have started to issue global financial crash alerts. For instance: – Morgan Stanley warns of a ‘catastrophic event’. The point of maximum stress could occur in coming months if the European Central Bank (ECB) starts to raise rates and the Fed backs away from expected tightening. The rates differential “could trigger a ‘catastrophic’ event”. – The Global Europe Anticipation (LEAP/E2020) team is now convinced that this period will consist for the whole world in a major plunge into the heart of the phase …


Letter Re: Gasoline Prices in the UK–a Preview of Upcoming Prices in the US?

Mr Rawles, First, I will be taking the 10 Cent Challenge starting this week, as I get far more than 10-cents worth of information per day from this wonderful blog. Second, I saw this article on the BBC web site. Fuel £1.99 a litre as tanks dry That’s right, for stations that haven’t run dry yet (1970s America all over again?), gas is selling for the equivalent of $14.76 per US gallon. Time to start thinking about what the US would look like at $15 a gallon. Yours, – DLF


Letter Re: More About Recent Flooding in the US Midwest

Jim, I’m sending a follow-up to your link on the historic flooding in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Typical issues: Roads closed or collapsed, bridges flooded or swept away, traffic jams for miles, power and gas outages, water shortages, businesses closed, forced evacuation of 20,000 people included the local jails and a hospital. Cleanup will take months, and there will be shortages of construction material. Heck, we had shortages of lumber and sheetrock in Iowa during the Florida and Louisiana hurricanes. And what has become typical – jurisdictional disputes. Local law enforcement has its own issues, but FEMA doesn’t play well with …


Some Preparedness Implications of Rapidly Escalating Fuel Prices

The recent jump in fuel prices are going to have some far reaching effects on our economy. There is speculation that crude oil may soon spike to $150 to $170 per barrel. As prepared individuals, we need to adapt our plans, accordingly. It is noteworthy that many of us long hence foresaw these dark days, and installed underground fuel tanks, bought alternate fuel vehicles, multi-fuel generators, and at least one vehicle just for the sake of fuel economy. (If you look at the Retreat Owner Profiles–most of which were written in late 2005 and early 2006–you will see a remarkable …


Letter Re: Neighbors and Friends are Failing to Adapt and Prepare for New Threats

Mr. Rawles: I stumbled upon your blog site last month and it was the equivalent of a “reboot” in terms of my own thinking about how to adapt to the conditions surrounding “Peak Oil” and Global Warming. I’m grateful for your web site and efforts. I commend your honesty. I envy your faith. In the past months local and national events highlight the scope of the trouble we now all face. I’m afraid the direction is irreversible. To list a few, gasoline and diesel prices have climbed to new heights, both global and local weather conditions indicate a promise of …


Letter Re: Consumer Price Hikes for Food Will Continue

James – I’m a long time reader first time writer. I have been in the food business for 31 years with many companies, over the past 12 months I have had to raise my prices around 27% but my costs have risen 57%. We are afraid to continue passing on the rise because business has already decreased substantially but within the next few months we will be forced to raise our prices another 25% or quit the business. What I am trying to say is that we are at most, only halfway through the food inflation which has already occurred, …