Category: Emerging Threats

Letter Re: An Oil Trader’s Observations on the Market Implications of War with Iraq

Jim, I’ve been trading crude oil for a few decades now, and in the last two sessions I’ve seen trading like I haven’t seen since Desert Storm, large unexplained up moves, $5.50 yesterday (6/5) and as I type this the market opened $6.00 higher. For a huge liquid market such as Crude Oil, these are large moves. I went to the Jerusalem Post to search out any open source tidbits/indicators and I stumbled upon this article. To buttress this, Gold is up $22 and Silver up 35 cents. The first piece of Israeli ordnance to hit Iranian soil could cause …


Lady Liberty Liberty Has a Hollow Core

The best known symbol of the United States is the Statue of Liberty. It was a gift from the people of France, with a framework designed by Gustave Eiffel. (Yes, the same gent that designed the Eiffel Tower.) Eiffel’s Liberty statue armature design was clever, and made the statue an amazingly lightweight for a structure that towers 151 feet tall. Rather than a traditional solid masonry statue, Lady Liberty is built on a hollow framework to which copper sheets are attached. I have recently come to realize that the Statue of Liberty is a fitting symbol for the United States …


Letter Re: A Clash of World Views–Socialism Versus the Libertarian Ethic

Mr. Rawles: [Your frequent quotes from conservatives such as Thomas Sowell and Austrian School economists] blithely ignore the reality of corporatism, authoritarianism, predation, and entrenched elites. We’ve had our grand experiment in deregulation and the magic of the market, and it’s now perfectly clear where it got us. Why don’t you look up a good quote on the definition of an idealogue [sic] — someone who won’t let go of pretty delusions even when the real world proves the idealogy [sic] wrong. This is where the right wing is today. They want yet more of what has driven this country …


Surviving During the Crisis (Translated from the Energie & Klima Blog)

JWR’s Introductory Note: The following is a re-post from the Energie & Klima Blog, which was kindly translated by SurvivalBlog reader Martyn B., a multi-lingual Danish ex-pat that lives in Spain . To read the original article in German, see: Überleben in der Krise Within the next two years, the price of oil could rise to $150 to $200 per barrel, analysts of the investment bank Goldman Sachs forecasted yesterday under the management of the famous chief analyst, Arjun N. Murti. According to the news agency Bloomberg, the cause is stated mainly as being that the supply of oil cannot …


Letter Re: Martial Arts Fact Versus Fiction

Mr. Rawles I just found this blog after checking out Steve Quayle’s web site and links. I must say this discussion is a breath of fresh air. My experience is much different than many who have posted; I have little training in the martial arts, and never been in the military. I don’t even watch those Ultimate Fighting shows. I work with kids in state juvenile facility here on the West Coast of the US. Most of the “residents” as they are called are 14-20 years of age, and usually very aggressive and violent gang members. Unlike adult corrections in …


Triage In Financial Markets, by Darryl Robert Schoon

Global financial markets are in extreme triage following the credit contraction of August 2007. It is believed central bankers are trying to restore markets to help the economy. In truth, they are like life insurance companies fighting to keep a wealthy patient alive so the high premiums will continue to be paid and the large death payout will be postponed. It has been only nine months since credit markets unexpectedly froze in August 2007. The central bankers who were surprised by the summer 2007 credit contraction now hope the danger has passed. But they are about to be surprised again …


Letter Re: Long Term Storage Food Vendors are Now Painfully Short on Inventory

Hi Jim, I would be interested in you analysis of this: Nitro-Pak, is not even accepting orders for #10 cans of food. Emergency Essentials, (www.BePrepared.com) is out of over half of their #10 can selection. Notice that [presently] you cannot order even wheat in cans or pails. Is this happening throughout the food storage industry? What is up with all this? – Paul D JWR Replies: The storage food industry is relatively small and simply doesn’t have the capacity to handle orders from more than 1% or 2% of the population. Because of the recent headlines about global food shortages …


How To Prepare for Radiation Emergencies, by KLK

Scenario 1 You are sitting at your retreat, enjoying the scenery, when you hear on the radio that there has just been a nuclear weapon that has detonated in a contiguous State . You decide to run into your shelter. After a few days in there, you start to wonder when it might be safe to come out. You also wonder if you would have been better off evacuating and getting as far away from the radiation source as possible. A radiation disaster is a scenario for which we must be prepared. It may be from a radiological source, such …


Two Letters Re: Triage in Emergency Mass Critical Care (EMCC) Events

Jim: Two minor notes:regarding the letter from DS in Wisconsin: Pulse Oximeters are cheaper now than ever. Some drug companies give them away as promo’s. You can find them online starting well under $100, some nearer to $50. These are battery operated self-contained finger clamp units, but I’ve seen nurses at more than one hospital using them to take vitals. Secondly, while it is possible to ventilate a patient by hand for long term, it is not very practical. You’d need a staff of dedicated people that are willing to perform a laborious and painful task for hours on end, …


Two Letters Re: Triage in Emergency Mass Critical Care (EMCC) Events

Dear Jim, This letter is in response to NC Bluedog’s very informative article that appeared today. Here in rural Wisconsin, we have the same problems as he noted–shortage of high-technology life-saving devices. This is due to the overall situation that our medical care industry is dollar-driven. He have a small hospital, and two more within a 15 minute dash via ambulance. Each hospital has at least a four-bed Intensive Care Unit (ICU) with a ventilator per bed, and at least two extra ventilators that can be used outside of their ICUs. Beyond that, there are none available. Extra units would …


Letter Re: Nomex Flight Suits for Ground Troops in Iraq

Dear Mr Rawles, Just wanted to thank you for SurvivalBlog, and I especially like the useful tidbits from the troops overseas. I was a Navy Corpsman / combat advisor with a Marine [Corps] Police Transition Team (PTT) in Hadithah six months after the alleged massacre, interesting times for sure.We got in-country in August 2006, and the Nomex suits were just catching on [with Marines]. We managed to snag a set for each of our 10- man team. The only real reg[ulation]s were that at Al Asad or any large Garrison type Base they wanted you wearing camouflage [utilities], otherwise they …


Letter Re: Triage in Emergency Mass Critical Care (EMCC) Event

Dear JWR: I feel that there is a strong premonition in the article you flagged on Wednesday (Who Should Doctors Let Die in a Pandemic?) This hit the Main Stream Media (MSM) early this week and quickly fell off the news cycle. The topic is simply too uncomfortable. The original articles were published in the medical journal Chest (The Journal of the American College of Chest Physicians and are very dry and difficult reading even for a physician. This is unfortunate because it is a salient topic which needs to be vigorously publicly debated (instead of who got voted off …


Wars, and Rumors of War

I got a hoax press release on Friday about Chile declaring war on Peru. But meanwhile, there are lots of real wars gong on. Fierce fighting has broken out in Lebanon. And to top it off, crude oil spiked to an all-time high of $126 per barrel, in part because of tensions between Venezuela and Columbia. In the midst of all this war news, the ongoing global grain shortage crisis is likely to cause additional civil wars, and possibly cross-border wars. It is all too clear that we are living in very dangerous times. Let’s call them fragile times. In …


Louisiana Sales Tax Holiday for Hurricane Preparedness–May 24 & 25

Residents of the US state of Louisiana can purchase needed items free of sales tax as they prepare for the 2008 hurricane season. The inaugural 2008 Hurricane Preparedness Sales Tax Holiday takes place on Saturday, May 24 and Sunday, May 25. The holiday is an annual, statewide event created by the Louisiana Legislature to assist families with the important job of protecting their lives and property in the event of a serious storm. During the two-day holiday, tax-free purchases are allowed for the first $1,500 of the sales price on each of the following items: • Self-powered light sources, such …


Is Survivalism Just “Unbounded Imagination of Anxiety”?

It never fails that when the mainstream media writes about survivalists, they try to lump us together with racists and tin foil hat whackos. Failing that (since the whackos represent such a miniscule fraction of “survivalists”), they will often trot out a psychologist or other “expert”, to try to convince the general public that preparedness is irrational and that it is evidence of some deep-seated paranoid delusion. This was the case in the recent BBC news article titled: “Do you need to stock up the bunker?”. The article focused on Barton Biggs, who is a well-known and relatively mainstream hedge …