Category: Emerging Threats

Two Letters Re: 21st Century Property Squatters

Dear Jim: < Sarcasm On > Your disappearing home equity got you down? Behind on your mortgage? What if you could live payment free for up to 8 months or more and walk away without owing a penny? See: You Walk Away < Sarcasm Off > The foregoing is a real solicitation to delay the foreclosure process. When real estate parasites like this have a business helping deadbeats game the foreclosure process, you know the Schumer is starting to really hit. Not that I have much sympathy for the crooked bankers and lenders being taken advantage of here (just wait …


Letter Re: Credit Unions Versus Banks for Safety?

Good Morning Jim, As I read today’s blog, I thought again about the safety of credit unions. As far as I have been able to discover, they have not jumped in to the derivatives like banks and mortgage companies did, and seem much safer than banks. Credit unions are mostly local and (though the requirements are often much less restrictive than they used to be) usually only have local residents as customers. Does anyone know any more on credit unions? I’ve long recommended credit unions to my friends and family in place of banks, since they usually offer lower loan, …


The Elephant in the Room, by Norman Church

“I’m right there in the room and no one acknowledges me.” “We must face the prospect of changing our basic way of living. This change will either be made on our own initiative in a planned way, or forced on us with chaos and suffering by the inexorable laws of nature.” – President Jimmy Carter (1976) Before we discuss this Elephant in the Room we must first briefly consider the notion of ‘sustainability’. Too often people debate sustainability issues from an understanding that is vague, incomplete or frankly flawed. “Just exactly what is meant when the word ‘sustainable’ or ‘sustainability’ …


Letter Re: Spot Shortages at a COSTCO Store a Portent of Things to Come?

Jim: I stopped by COSTCO tonight to pick up some items and they had signs limiting people to two containers of soybean oil and two bags of flour. They were completely out of flour. And they had no 50lb sacks of rice either. So its starting to hit home. This was the case in the West Springfield, Massachusetts store anyway. – John E.


Letter Re: With Bank Runs Looming, Check Your Bank’s Safety Rating!

Jim, Here is a link to “The Street”–a web site that offers ratings of banks throughout the USA. I checked out the banks in my state (California) and found that I currently bank with a “B” rated bank. However, there are a number of A rated banks that are in my town. It might make sense for each of us to know and check up on our financial institutions on a regular basis. This along with choosing the highest rated bank in your area could provide additional layers of insulation from the bank runs that I believe with be inevitable. …


Letter Re: A Reminder on the Terrorist Toxins Threat

Jim, I bring this news story to your attention: Ricin Found in Las Vegas Hotel Room; Man in Hospital The Center for Disease Control (CDC) protocols don’t give one much hope if ricin is inhaled or ingested. Unclothing and washing procedures for external contact are not reassuring. Other sources indicate that skin contact is usually not fatal unless accompanied by other agents that enhance absorption. [JWR Adds: DMSO is a well-known transdermal carrier.] Other sources also indicate that ricin is 30 times more potent than VX nerve gas. Full MOPP suit and gas mask seem to be indicated to avoid …


The Fleecing of the Sheeple–America Discovers “What That Thing Will Bring”

There is a very old legal maxim: “The value of a thing, is what that thing will bring.” It was developed by the courts to establish the value of a loss, in civil claims. The maxim has been perhaps over-used in central Europe, where if you recklessly drive your car and run down a farmer’s laying hen, you can be held liable for for not only the replacement cost of the chicken, but also the value of its future offspring for the next year–or perhaps even two years if the judge is in a bad mood. That ancient maxim is …


Letter Re: Are Simultaneous Inflation and Deflation Possible?

Hi Jim, Your excellent post about the possibility of simultaneous inflation and deflation got my head to spinning about ways to protect ourselves from a seemingly near-certain banking crisis. Such a scenario would certainly be a major headache for everyone, no matter how large their bank accounts, but it would be a huge problem for those of us who are in business for ourselves and need a constant cash flow through the banking system to pay payroll, expenses, taxes, etc. Therefore, I wondered if you and/or any of your readers had any suggestions for preparing for banking problems ahead of …


Two Letters Re: Are Simultaneous Inflation and Deflation Possible?

Jim, We are clearly experiencing deflation, as bad debt and derivatives unwind. At the same time there appears to be massive inflation by the Fed, or else where did the three Trillion for Iraq come from? The only “X factor” now is the money multiplier. Reserve requirements are now [effectively] zero. A good video (Flash required). But now eliminate the reserve component, [and its] Zimbabwe dollars ahoy. Here is some scary stuff, directly from the Fed. And here is an explanation similar to what I had wanted to write about the “Its the Economy Stupid” with Clinton and Greenspan – …


Are Simultaneous Inflation and Deflation Possible?

I often have friends and clients ask me how I can talk about inflation and deflation in the same breath. They’ve asked: “But I thought that inflation and deflation were contradictory. How do you think that we could experience both inflation and deflation at the same time?” Let me explain, starting with a bit of background: The fractional reserve banking system, based on usury, creates money. Here is a simplified example: Each time you deposit a $1,000 at your local bank, the bank then lends nearly all of that money out to someone else, charging interest. The bank holds just …


Letter Re: Building a Kalashnikov at Home

Dear Jim, As you know, it’s legal in America to build your own standard firearm for personal use [by manufacturing your own receiver.] One of the best ways to get a discreet, legal, off-paper SHTF rifle is an imported de-milled Kalashnikov (AK) kit, with a new, home-built receiver. Take a look at this web site. His heat treating and machine and tool instructions are accurate. This is the best site I’ve seen on the subject. I was able to tear down a Romanian kit and assemble a working AK in about 8 hours. Beginners will likely need a couple of …


Letter Re: Drastic Changes in the Global Derivatives Market–Be Ready for the Mother of All Bailouts

Jim, Scroll down this article to the link to the Quarterly Derivatives Fact Sheet. It shows Citi[Bank] exposed to $3 trillion and J.P. Morgan at $7.8 trillion [in OTC derivatives.] Continue to the bottom of the piece for “Intelligence Czar Can Waive SEC Rules.” It looks like the Plunge Protection Team is operating in overdrive. Eisenhower warned of “The military-industrial complex”. What about the corporate-government complex? This looks like something Il Duce would have been proud of. Best wishes for our free enterprise system, – William JWR Replies: I’m glad to see that some readers took the time to look …


Letter Re: Tradeoffs of Various Retreat Designs

Hi Jim What are your thoughts on the advantages of basements for cool storage, elevated construction for flood protection, sod roof/earth contact for insulation versus steel roofs for water collection? Perhaps some of the SurvivalBlog readers may wish to submit hypothetical retreat layouts with advantages and disadvantages and why they would choose a particular layout design. Regards,- JG JWR Replies: A sod roof or earth-berming creates some contradictions in retreat design goals, most notably that they typically block the defender’s view of one entire flank. This can be partially mitigated by properly placing supplementary defensive positions. Sod roofs are also …


The Credit Collapse–The World’s Bankers Revert to Saying “No”

A recent news article titled Dresdner Rescues $19 Billion SIV, Follows Citigroup illustrates the severity of the global liquidity collapse. Note that the article mentions that the K2 SIV had no “direct exposure” to securities backed by subprime or midprime debt. But yet the fund failed dramatically. This adds credence to my assertion that the world’s entire credit market is essentially broken, and that despite frantic attempts by the central banks to inject liquidity (BTW, another $25 billion was just injected the Fed on Thursday), most of the major financial institutions are starting to crumble. In the very near future, …


The “Come as You Are” Collapse–Have the Right Tools and Skills

When the Second World War broke out in September, 1939, the United States had nearly two full years to ramp up military training and production before decisively confronting the Axis powers. In the late 1970s, looking at the recent experience of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, the Pentagon’s strategic planners came to the realization that the next major war that the US military would wage would not be like the Second World War. There would not be the luxury of time to train and equip. They realized that we would have to fight with only what we had available on Day …