Category: Survival Mindset

The MOAB Expands Yet Again: Five State Governors Seek $1 Trillion from Uncle Sugar

Back in November I reiterated my point that the Mother of All Bailouts (MOAB) would know no limits. One of my specific warnings was: “The States – Some 29 of the 50 states are reporting budget crises. Lo an behold, most of the hardest hit states are those with bloated Nanny State bureaucracies. No surprise there. The states that had the worst fiscal management, of course, will get the biggest share of the taxpayer funds. Those that were fiscally conservative will get nothing.” A recent wire service headline confirmed that prediction: U.S. governors seek $1 trillion federal assistance.The article begins: …


From the SurvivalBlog Archives: Survival On a Shoestring Budget

I often get e-mails from readers claiming either directly or indirectly that preparedness is “only for wealthy people”–that working class people cannot afford to prepare. That is nonsense. By simply re-prioritizing your budget and cutting out needless expenses (such as alcohol, cigarettes, convenience foods, and cable television) almost anyone can set aside enough money for a year’s worth of storage food in fairly short order. It is amazing what can be done with hard work, ingenuity, and very little money. While I do not endorse interloping on public lands nor do I suggest that you live like a hermit, the …


Five Letters Re: Home Invasion Robbery Countermeasures–Your Mindset and Architecture

Dear Jim, Just one caution amid all the excellent advice on hardening a house against intruders–be sure it’s possible to get out from the inside easily in event of a fire or other disaster. Shutters, or latchable bars are better for this than those mounted solidly into the structure. Alternately, consider paying for ballistic glass. – Michael Z. Williamson Mr. Rawles, Thanks for your time and efforts – SurvivalBlog has been a great help to me and I am planning to mail a 10 Cent Challenge contribution to support your work. In the meantime, I thought I would comment on …


Letter Re: It’s a Scary World Out There: Fearsome Attack Hens

Jim, I recall awhile back you posted a message that offered humor and a bit of the lighter side of life since we’re inundated with intimidating subject matter. I haven’t seen too many lighter sided anecdotes of late so here’s mine. When I was 20 yrs old, I was a paratrooper and foolhardy scared of nothing. Now, after serving five years as an airborne, ranger, infantryman and 20 years in law enforcement, I’ve learned to respect dangerous situations. Recently, my insurance agent dispatched her part time picture-taker to my residence to snap some pictures of the place to keep records …


Six Letters Re: Home Invasion Robbery Countermeasures–Your Mindset and Architecture

Greetings Mr. Rawles, I read your blog everyday and am learning so much. Thanks for your dedication to helping prepare us for the future. In reference to the recent article on home security, we lived in Argentina for three years and we could all learn from their security measures. The first house we lived in had steel shutters, as did everyone in the neighborhood, and they were all shut at night. The doors have locks that automatically lock when you leave the house. The small front yards usually have tall steel fences with the same height gates. The gates were …


Two Letters Re: The Best College Degrees for the Next Depression?

Sir, College is alarmingly pricey. As a child of the 1970s, I grew up understanding that you either got a useful degree or paid your own way. I contend that the most useful education currently is learning a trade. Welding, auto repair or electrician’s certification will pay the bills through the rough times as people choose to repair instead of purchase. As times get better, some of those trade school credits may transfer to a college and you are on your way. What is that architecture degree, but about a year of drafting plus three tortuous years of art…the discovery …


Letter Re: Home Invasion Robbery Countermeasures–Your Mindset and Architecture

Dear Mr. Rawles: First and foremost thank you for your novel “Patriots” which I am currently reading. I live in the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex. As of late there seems to be a rise in the number of “home invasion” type of crimes in this area. Every morning that I go to work I hear about a new incident in the metroplex. This has led me to put inside locks on my bedroom doors and purchase my first gun. I consider myself one of those “know enough to be dangerous” people, but am planning on taking a handgun safety course . …


Letter Re: The Best College Degrees for the Next Depression?

James, longer this [economic death spiral] goes on, the more it looks like this is going to be at least a decade before normality returns. So, if you’ve got a teenage kid you’re probably thinking, what kind of career (assuming we don’t totally melt down at a societal level) path he or she should take… I was talking to someone the other day and he told me his kid was studying art. “Oh, I asked, is he any good?” He replied “No, not really.” This family man is spending good money, money that could be put into preparations into a …


The “Prepper-Lawyer” by The Fourth Whirlwind

I have been deeply perplexed ever since first beginning to read SurvivalBlog. Every night, while the wife and new baby daughter slept in peace, I have thought about my lack of tangible knowledge. Sure, I have many skills over a variety of useful tasks in our everyday lives, and even some that would help my family survive in a bad situation. But, when we have to be brutally honest with ourselves, self-doubt can get the best of us. I say this now because it was reading the highly useful SurvivalBlog that brought on this doubt for me. I wanted to …


Charity, Civility, Community, and Hope

Whilst pondering the various possibilities for the future, it is easy to get caught up in the minutiae of radio frequencies, milligram dosages, microns of filtration, calibers, and calories per ounce. (You” read plenty of those details in SurvivalBlog. But in doing so we can easily lose sight of bigger, far more important issues such as charity, civility, community, and hope. Charity Most of you reading this are the heads of households that are far better prepared than your neighbors. Your deep larder, expansive fuel storage, advanced skills, and wide range of useful tools will put you in a distinctly …


Bug Out Bag Preparedness Tips From the Mouths of Babes

Hello Thank you for all the work you do. I thought I’d give you a Christmas chuckle. My small daughter was telling us the Christmas story, but it had a twist. She told us that “the wise men brought Jesus gold, food, and water, because they [Joseph and Mary] had to leave quickly and didn’t get their bags ready.” Just when you think your children aren’t listening… Needless to say, we set her straight on the real story, but have been, and will continue to smile over that story for a long time. Have a terrific Holiday, – Mr. O. …


Letter Re: Winter Solstice Slam 2008–Observations from the Pacific Northwest

Hello Jim: I send this to you from the snowy Seattle, Washington metropolitan area where we are digging out of a fairly impressive storm of snow and icy temperatures that have plagued an unprepared area. As a cop and a Preparedness Oriented Person (POP), I have been watching the lead up to and duration of this weather event. Here are some observations: Advance Warning & Notification Folks in these parts complained that there was little warning of the impending snow event. Some stated that since weather forecasters were often wrong, they would be wrong about this. When you had local …


Fear and Loathing in America’s Age of ZIRP

You’ve surely heard by now that the Federal Reserve has effectively lowered interest rates to zero. Obviously having learned nothing from the mistakes of Japans’s decades-long recession, Ben Bernanke & Company have instituted their own Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP). By artificially lowering interest rates, many economists predict that the Fed will actually delay economic recovery for many years. ZIRP was a failure for Japan, and I predict that it will be a spectacular failure for the United States. The Fed could, in fact, lower interest rates below zero, to the so-called “Super Zero” range. Such absurdities are not impossible …


Four Letters Re: Firewalls, Anonymity, and SurvivalBlog

Two notes about Some Call Me Tim’s excellent recommendation of JanusVM: 1) Use Decloak.net to verify that you’ve done everything right. It uses a whole host of very strong tests to attempt to locate your computer and will find out if you’ve slipped up somewhere. The place you’ve slipped up is almost always DNS but cookies and other things can give you away too. 2) Be aware that this encrypts the traffic you’re sending and receiving, it doesn’t make it go away. Someone listening in can tell when you’re sending/receiving and how much, they just can’t read it. Timing and …


Specialization and Decline, by J. R. Nyquist

Years ago, when the West entered onto a path of decadence, it became fashionable to deny the historical consequences of permissiveness and bad behavior. As the old standards fell away, new standards of “tolerance” and “acceptance” took hold. With the fall of colonial empires and the upsurge of student radicalism in the sixties, the notion of “barbarians at the gates” became outdated. Heaven forbid that anyone should be described as a “barbarian” or as “uncivilized.” The idea that some peoples were more advanced, that some civilizations had more to offer, was no longer an acceptable way to talk. The fall …