Odds ‘n Sods:

The latest from Wranglerstar (one of our favorite vloggers: Best Everyday Carry Gear 2016)

o o o

Reader C.S. sent in this link to a review of some inexpensive/cheap “mop wick” diesel stoves. Part of the article is a video that shows how to re-wick them and their operation. Prepping 101: Cooking With Diesel – Mop Wick Kerosene Stoves Explained

o o o

From Mike Williamson, SurvivalBlog’s Editor At Large: Point source failure – One major highway and only one bridge connecting the nation. Ontario’s Nipigon River bridge fails, severing Trans-Canada Highway

o o o

After Ebola, two other tropical diseases pose new threats – new medical world threats named and assessed. Food for thought: consider the effect of upcoming Olympics as a “means of dissemination”. – D.S.

o o o

Forget fingerprints, Wi-Fi ROUTERS could soon help police solve crimes. Sent in by B.B.

Hugh’s Quote of the Day:

“Property rights are not the rights of property; they are the rights of humans with regard to property. They are a particular kind of human right.” – David Friedman

Pat Cascio’s Product Review: Ruger SR-556 Takedown

I’m a fan of the AR-15 type of rifles. I always have been. So, when some gun makers started coming out with AR-15s that had a gas piston, instead of the direct gas impingement system, I tested several of them. I think we could have a debate all week long as to the merits of the gas piston system versus the direct gas impingement system and we couldn’t change one another’s minds. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the direct gas impingement system, other than your AR really gets dirty, in short order. Yes, I’m aware there were problems with the first M-16s (military select-fire versions of the semiauto AR-15) when they were first shipped to Vietnam. However, there was stupid thinking on the part of someone who said the guns didn’t need to be cleaned very often and no cleaning kits were even supplied. Plus, there was a problem with the gun powder used in the ammo of the first M-16s. Once these problems were corrected, the M-16 ran fine, so long as you kept them halfway cleaned and lubed, just like any other gun.

100_6223

A couple of years ago, Ruger came out with their first version of a gas piston AR type of rifle, called the Ruger SR-556, and it was an immediate hit with gun owners. I did an article on the SR-556 for SurvivalBlog.com and was very favorably impressed with my sample. Ruger had a hard time keeping up with demand. The Ruger gas piston system is proprietary to their guns. You can’t interchange parts with any other gas piston AR, and this seems to be typical of gas piston ARs, no matter who makes them.

I do like the way the SR-556 gas piston adjustments can be made with a simple .223/5.56 round. Simply slide the bullet end into the adjustment knob and turn it from one setting to another. Ruger ships their SR-556 rifles with the setting on the “2” position. Quite honestly, the gun ran fine, no matter what ammo I ran through it or how dirty it got. Still, I played around with the different adjustments from the “0” position to the “3” position. You can find all this information in my previous SR-556 article on SurvivalBlog.com

100_6224

Today, we’re taking a close look at the Ruger SR-556 Takedown version. Ruger did a bang-up job on it. A few specs are in order first. The SR-556 comes with a newer style butt stock that is still adjustable, but I like the shape and feel of the new butt stock a lot better than the older version. There’s nothing wrong with the older version, but the newer one is better in my opinion; it’s stronger, to be sure. The SR-556 Takedown has folding “iron” sights in the front and rear. They are actually made of steel not iron, but for whatever reason we always call them “iron” sights. Go figure. Plus, the sights are readily adjustable without any problems. The barrel is 16.1 inches long, just like the original with a 1:9 right hand twist. The finish is manganese phosphate/hard coat anodized, and the gun weighs in at 7.6 lbs. You can read all the specs on the Ruger website. I hate boring our readers with too many specs when they can read about it themselves.

100_6225

Where we have a drastic change is with the barrel assembly. The Takedown SR-556 comes set-up with the standard .223/5.56 barrel. However, you can swap out the barrel with one chambered in .300 AAC Blackout. Yes, you read that right! Just by changing barrels, you can change calibers; no other changes are required. You use the same bolt and bolt carrier, and you can technically use the same magazines. However, with the .300 AAC Blackout conversion barrel, Ruger sends you two magazines that are marked .300 Blackout. I, however, have one of the first conversion set-ups and my magazines weren’t marked with the .300 Blackout on them.

So, how easy is it to change from one caliber to another? Actually, it’s VERY easy. Simply slide the locking bar on the end of the fore arm, twist and pull the barrel out, and reverse the order to put in the new barrel. It’s just that quick and simple. Now, the .300 AAC Blackout barrel doesn’t come with the gun; this is ordered separately, but I’m hoping that, and I mentioned it to Ruger, maybe they could offer the SR-556 with the .300 AAC Blackout barrel installed, instead of the .223/5/56 barrel. Those of us who already have enough ARs in .223/5.56 might want this gun just in .300 AAC Blackout. Or, we might want the Ruger AR-556 in .300 AAC Blackout instead of .223/5.56. It’s something to think about here, Ruger.

100_6228

The takedown feature on this gun provides repeatable accuracy. I removed both barrels several times, numerous times for that matter, and the bullet point of impact didn’t change at all. Of course, when you change from one caliber to another, the point of impact changes; the .300 Blackout shoots heavier .30 caliber bullets. For my testing, I didn’t change the sight adjustments at all. I just let the different calibers group where they did. I was testing for accuracy, not setting up the sights for different points of impact.

I also wanted to mention the new Ruger Elite 452 AR trigger they are installing on the Takedown. It is a two-stage trigger that is smooth; yet it has a crisp release that is 4.5 lbs. I hope Ruger starts installing this in all their AR-style rifles. It is a great trigger pull, to be sure. Again, for all the specs on the Takedown, go to Ruger’s website.

100_6228

The SR-556 Takedown does come in a nice black ballistic nylon backpack, with the rifle in the takedown set-up. People wouldn’t know you were carrying a rifle in this backpack. Just remove the Velcro Ruger patch on the back of the backpack and you’re good to go. It only takes a minute or two to reassemble the rifle. It’s a nice way to pack a gun in the trunk of your car, or if out hiking no one would know you had a rifle in that backpack. The pack is very well-made, too. It’s super nice!

I had the SR-556 Takedown for a month, before the .300 Blackout conversion barrel arrived, so I had more than a few shooting sessions. Of course, it all took place during the hottest part of our summer and I don’t tolerate heat, especially in the upper 90s and 100 range. I took copious notes, because my testing was spread out over the course of a month.

100_6230

From Black Hills Ammunition, I had their .223 Rem in 55-gr FMJ, 55-gr Soft Point, 60-gr Soft Point, 62-gr Barnes TSX and their 68-gr Heavy Match Hollow Point. In 5.56mm, I had their 69-gr Open Tip Match. I also received some new 5.56mm ammo from Ruger after my initial testing, and that was their new 69-gr Sierra TMK and their 70-gr Hornady GMX loads. So, it was back to the range for more testing, when I thought I was all done shooting. What a hard job, but someone has to do it– the sacrifices I make. LOL

There were zero malfunctions with any of the Black Hills ammo, and all shot great using open sights. I was only shooting at 50 yards this time, and I was getting groups less than two inches using a rest over the hood of my pick-up truck. The 60-gr Soft Point load gave me a one-inch group, so long as I did my part, and I did this several times. A smart writer knows when to quit; you quit when you’re at your best. After that, your groups start to open-up and you get frustrated that you can’t keep on getting those little groups all day long.

Now, here’s something of interest; the 5.56mm 69-gr Open Tip Match load was also giving me groups close to the one-inch mark, so long as I was on my game. However, when I received the 5.56mm 69-gr Sierra TMK and 70-gr Hornady GMX loads, the SR-556 Takedown’s 1:9 barrel twist just didn’t like them at all. The groups were all over the place. Now, this isn’t the fault of the gun or the ammo; it’s the barrel twist. On the Ruger AR-556 rifles, the barrels have a 1:8 barrel twist, and I had no problems with these newest 5.56mm rounds. What I found really interesting is that the 69-gr Open Tip Match 5.56mm load shot fine, but the same 69-gr weight bullet with the Sierra TMK load wouldn’t group. So, you should always test any ammo you plan on using, first of all to make sure it functions and secondly for accuracy.

100_6232

When it comes to barrel twists in ARs, it just depends on the particular rifle and the bullet weights you are using. Many ARs with a barrel twist of 1:9 won’t shoot anything with any sort of accuracy over 62-grs; some will, and some just won’t. It depends on the gun itself and the ammo you are using. If you want to shoot heavy .223 or 5.56 bullets, you should go with a 1:7 inch barrel twist. Who knows, maybe Ruger will offer conversion kits for these Takedown rifles with different barrel twists. Still, I found it a little bit strange that this gun would shoot and group the 69-gr Open Tip Match round, but the 69-gr Sierra TMK round wouldn’t group. One would assume (and we shouldn’t do that should we?) that the bullets are the same weight, so they should shoot about the same, right? Nope!

Black Hills sent me some of their .300 Whisper 125-gr Open Tip Match ammo. I actually received the ammo several weeks before I got the Takedown .300 AAC Blackout barrel conversion. Now, to be sure, you can shoot .300 Whisper through a rifle chambered in .300 AAC Blackout, however, the reverse isn’t always true. You really shouldn’t shoot .300 AAC Blackout in a rifle chambered in .300 Whisper. They are “that” close to being the same ammo, but there is a silly millimeter difference in the specs of the rounds. I know some people don’t have any problems shooting .300 AAC Blackout in a rifle chambered in .300 Whisper, so proceed with caution. Black Hills also manufactures a 220-gr subsonic .300 Whisper round, but it won’t function the action, if you don’t have a suppressor on the end of the barrel, so I didn’t request any of the heavier .300 Whisper ammo from them for my testing.

100_6233

Some months back, I received a Ruger Mini-14 in .300 AAC Blackout, and I’m here to tell you I simply fell in love with this round. It is actually a bit more potent than the 7.62X39 round that is used in the AK-47. Again, the only ammo I had in to shoot in the Ruger Mini-14 in .300 AAC Blackout was the Black Hills .300 Whisper 125-gr OTM round, and it shot great. There is just “something” about the .300 AAC Blackout/.300 Whisper that draws me to it; it’s nothing I can really put my finger on though, strange! The round is super accurate, and it can be used for hunting medium-sized game, and I understand it is great on wild pigs, too.

Once the .300 AAC Blackout barrel was installed on the SR-556 Takedown, I ran out to the range and used the Black Hills .300 Whisper, 125-gr Open Tip Match ammo. Once again, my shooting was done only at 50 yards because of weather conditions– extreme fire danger. I had zero problems keeping all those rounds under one inch. The gun can shoot, and the ammo was second to none. Then again, I expect nothing less from Black Hills Ammunition. I was more than a little impressed with the .300 Whisper ammo in the Takedown. I have since begged Jeff Hoffman, who co-owns Black Hills Ammunition with his lovely wife, Kristi, for some more of their .300 Whisper ammo, just for killing rocks and paper. They happily sent me a good supply for further shooting.

I have zero complaints about the Ruger SR-556 Takedown that I can think of. As I suggested to Ruger, I’d like to see if offered along with their AR-556 in .300 AAC Blackout to start with, and if a person wants to swap out that .300 barrel in the Takedown version for one in .223/5.56 they can. If Ruger offered their AR-556 in .300 Blackout, I’d buy one in an instant. I have no complaints with my Ruger Mini-14 in .300 Blackout, but still I’d buy their AR-556 in .300 Blackout if it was offered.

The .300 AAC Blackout is rapidly gaining acceptance for a round that can outperform the .223/5.56, especially when more power is needed at longer distances. The .300 Blackout will outperform the .223/5.56 out past 450 yards and hit harder and hit with a .30 caliber bullet instead of the lighter .222/5.56 will, and I didn’t even mention recoil. I honestly didn’t notice much more recoil between the .223/5.56 rounds and the .300 Whisper rounds I fired. I guess there was a bit more recoil with the bigger rounds, but I honestly didn’t notice it during my firing.

One of the benefits with the .300 AAC Blackout round is that it fits into AR-sized guns. There’s no changing out the bolt/bolt carrier, just a different barrel, and you can use the same magazines if you want. Ruger, on the side of caution, sends two magazines with the .300 Blackout conversion with the mags clearly marked as to .300 Blackout. Of course, as mentioned, mine didn’t have any markings. Then again, it was one of the first .300 Blackout conversion kits shipped.

Full retail on the Ruger SR-556 Takedown is $2,049.00. To be sure, it is spendy, but there are many other piston-driven AR-style rifles in only .223 or only in .300 Blackout that are a lot more money. Ruger has always offered blue collar prices on their guns. While I’ll readily admit that this is a lot money, the gun is worth it, especially when you consider that you can change calibers in a minute with the conversion kit, and it sells for under $500, too. I’m keeping my sample, and now I have to find a way to pay for it. Maybe I’ll declare it as a Christmas present to myself. How much can the wife complain? I always tell her that, “I just need one more gun…” and it’s still as true today as it was when I first told her that, many years ago. Check out the Ruger SR-556 Takedown at your dealer, if you can find one. They are still in short supply, due to great demand.

– Senior Product Review Editor, Pat Cascio

Recipe of the Week: Amish White Bread, by C.P.

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups warm tap water (Let your wrist tell you the temp. It needs to be like a very warm baby bottle.)
  • 1 1/2 Tablespoon dry yeast
  • 2/3 cup sugar or less, depending on how sweet you want your bread
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil
  • 5-6 cups all-purpose flour

Directions:

  1. In a small bowl to proof yeast, add water, yeast, and 1 tsp of the sugar. Let sit 10 minutes while mixing dry ingredients.
  2. Add 5 to 5 1/2 cups of the flour to mixer bowl.
  3. Add sugar, salt. Mix lightly, then add the oil and water.
  4. After yeast has proofed, add it to the dry ingredients.
  5. Mix with a dough hook on 3-4 speed for 8 minutes (by hand knead for 10 minutes) Add more flour if dough is too sticky a little at a time.
  6. Put in a lightly greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap and a towel, then set aside in a warm spot to rise for 45-60 minutes, until double in size. I like to use my oven that was turned on to 400 degrees for about 4 minutes then turned off.
  7. Punch down dough, then divide in half, squeeze dough well and roll into shapes of loaves.
  8. Place in two greased loaf pans and let rise 30-45 minutes.
  9. Turn oven on to 325 degrees, put pans in and bake for 35-40 minutes.
  10. Remove from oven and turn out loaves. Thump on bottom. Hollow sound means they are done.
  11. Cool on rack. Serve warm with butter.

Makes two loaves.

Notes:

  • You can also use less sugar if desired. Replace sugar with honey, but will need a little more flour.
  • Replace white all-purpose flour with bread flour or fresh ground whole white wheat, but it will take longer to rise.

o o o

Useful Recipe and Cooking Links:

Do you have a favorite recipe that would be of interest to SurvivalBlog readers? Please send it via e-mail. Thanks!

Letter Re: Law Enforcement Officers

Everyone should get a copy of a book titled, The Third Alternative: Christian Self Government, written by Bill Burtness, A Christian with a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering.

The book illustrates that when individuals operate in conduct based on moral relativism (everyone does right in their own eyes), that a large band of law enforcement is needed to keep boundaries or order within society. With that liberal creed, and with so many truths circulating – the LAW automatically becomes alive and with brut force to align everyone. However, the author insightfully points out that when individuals emulate God’s law, there is no need to have law enforcement in such force because now everyone is emulating one truth, one adherence to a common code of conduct. That is, the highest class of law abiding citizen– emulating God’s love for one another. He illustrates in great detail that is how Heaven is governed, through God’s love on human hearts, and there is no law enforcement in Heaven. – X-liberal

Economics and Investing:

A sobering, yet mind-blowing visualization of the world’s money: All of the World’s Money and Markets in One Visualization – Sent in by V.M.

o o o

U.S. Silver Production Drops Significantly Again In October… Has Peak Silver Arrived?

o o o

Items from Professor Preponomics:

US News

When the Salsa Stops (The Economist) Excerpt: “PUERTO RICO’S creditors have plenty to complain about, but they can’t claim they weren’t warned. Last June Alejandro García Padilla, the governor of America’s Caribbean outpost, announced that its $72 billion public debt was “unpayable”, and that a “unilateral and unplanned non-payment of obligations” loomed.”

News Flash from the December Jobs Report: The US Economy is Dead in the Water (Contra Corner) Excerpt: “That’s right. We are not talking tin foil hats here. It is plain as day that the BLS’ seasonal adjustments are a completely stupid waste of time. During the winter season especially, it might as well just use a random numbers generator.”

Deficit Rises to $212B (Washington Examiner) Excerpt: “The deficit has fallen from more than $1 trillion in the wake of the financial crisis to successive lows in recent years. It is expected to begin growing again, however, in fiscal 2017, according to the CBO’s projections.”

How Much Did Obama Hawaii Trip Cost You? (Judicial Watch) Spoiler Alert: $8,098,060.33 Excerpt: “It is nice to know that Obama’s “tradition” of Christmas vacations in Hawaii comes courtesy of overburdened taxpayers.”

International News

When $3T Isn’t Enough (Zero Hedge) Excerpt: “The paradox that China finds itself in is that as it devalues the currency in what it hopes is a controlled fashion, the FX outflows soar, forcing the PBOC to intervene and slow down the devaluation, leading to a self-defeating process in which China not only devalues far slower than it hopes, but results in an accelerated depletion of reserves…”

China’s Largest Bank Buys Huge 1,500-Tonne Gold Vault in London (The Telegraph) Excerpt: “China’s largest bank is buying the lease on Deutsche Bank’s huge London gold and silver vault, enlarging its footprint in the city’s bullion market…”

Personal Economics and Household Finance

37 Things You Should Keep in Your Car (Brad’s Deals) Excerpt: “With winter in full force, now is a good time to get your car in order. Would you have what you needed if your car broke down? Or if you were stranded somewhere? Check out our list of things you should have in your car – then knock on wood that you never need to use them.”

Time Warner Cable Warns 320,000 Customers Their Data May Have Been Stolen (Clark Howard) Excerpt: “If you’re a customer of Time Warner Cable, you might want to change your email password – and also check your financial statements for any potential fraudulent activity.”

Odds ‘n Sods:

Reader B.B. sent in this link. We have been discussing the danger of computer algorithms determining everything about you from your credit worthiness to how “good” a citizen you are, now comes the “threat” score: The new way police are surveilling you: Calculating your threat ‘score’ This should be yet one more wake-up-call for those who are active on social media. Data mining of information that you just “throw out there” is big business.

o o o

Continuing the ongoing bluster coming out of North Korea is a video of a ‘new’ submarine-launched missile test. There is some considerable question about the validity of this video, but the fact that they are actively working on a delivery system for their nukes is most disturbing.

o o o

SurvivalBlog reader D.S. sent in this link on how to use ice to survive. Survive With Ice.

o o o

Wondering why you should carry? Woman raped by five men in New York City park. How different would this have turned out if the father had been carrying and had known how to use it? – Sent in by GJM

o o o

Texas armed standoff ends after 15 years

Notes for Sunday – January 10, 2016

January 10th, 1776 is the day that North Carolina Governor, Josiah Martin, issued a proclamation calling on the king’s loyal subjects to raise an armed force to combat the “rebels”. This ultimately led to Colonel Donald McLeod leading the men on an assault on the Patriots that ended with fifty of his men dead and 880 captured. The Patriots lost only two of their number. Also on this day in 1976 the song “Convoy” by C.W. McCall was the #1 song on the U.S. pop charts.

o o o

Note to our Readers and Advertisers: We are currently updating how we handle the advertising on the Blog. As we make the transition, there are a few bumps along the way. Please be patient with us as we work through the issues. Any ad that is not displaying in the ad bar on the right (or bottom for mobile users) can still be clicked on (the blue link) to get you to the advertiser’s site. We hope to have the issue worked out within the next 48 hours. As an aside, SurvivalBlog works hard at keeping the advertising from being obnoxious as you read the site. Please disable any AdBlock software as you view the site. The advertisers are paying for the bulk of the costs associated with the blog.

Guest Article: Federal Reserve’s “Net Worth” Collapses 33% in Two Weeks, by Simon Black (Sovereignman)

In case it weren’t completely obvious how completely screwed up the financial system is, please allow me to introduce Exhibit A: the Federal Reserve’s own balance sheet.

First, we need a quick accounting background, and stay with me, because this is important.

Think about your own finances. You, me, everyone… we all have assets and liabilities.

Your assets might be things like cash, your house, car, baseball card collection, et cetera.

And your liabilities are loans, credit card debt, et cetera.

The difference between the two can be thought of as your “net worth”. Hopefully, it’s positive, i.e. your assets exceed your liabilities.

In accounting, this concept of net worth is known as “equity”. A company like Apple that has a lot of assets but not a lot of debt has substantial equity.

(As an investor, I typically look for opportunities where I can buy a great business or its shares for less than its equity. But we’ll save that for another time.)

Banks, too, have assets and liabilities.

But while the balance of your savings account may be an asset for you, or the mortgage balance you owe to the bank is your liability, for the bank it’s actually reversed.

Your savings account balance is actually money that they OWE you.

So while your savings is an asset for you, for the bank it’s a liability.

Similarly, your loan balance might be your liability.

But for banks, the loans they make to customers are actually assets because they’re on the receiving end of the loan payments.

For a bank, net worth (known as a bank’s “capital”) is a massively important indication of its financial health.

Think about it– if a bank has a negative net worth, this means that it doesn’t have enough assets to repay its customer deposits.

This is how banking crises start. It’s precisely why Lehman Brothers (and a whole lot of other banks) went bust in 2008/2009. The banks’ liabilities exceeded their assets.

Conservative banks hold vast amounts of capital, i.e. have substantial net worth where the value of their assets drastically exceeds liabilities and customer deposits.

One way of looking at this is by measuring a bank’s capital as a percentage of its total assets. (Conservative banks have a high percentage.)

Let’s say a bank has $1000 in assets like cash and loans, and $200 in liabilities (customer deposits).

This means that the bank has $800 in capital, which constitutes 80% of its total assets.

In other words, the value of the bank’s assets can fall by 80%, and the bank would still be able to repay its depositors.

This is a huge margin of safety that is unfortunately almost unheard of in banking.

Right before the crisis, in fact, Lehman Brother’s capital was just 3% of its total assets.

And that leads me to central banks.

Just like regular banks and businesses, central banks also have assets and liabilities.

In the U.S., the Federal Reserve’s assets total $4.486 trillion, including more than $2 TRILLION in U.S. government debt.

The Fed also has total capital (i.e. net worth) of $39.5 billion.

That sounds like a lot. Until you realize that it constitutes just 0.88% of its total assets. Not even 1%!

This is a tiny, almost nonexistent level of capital at the Federal Reserve.

Put another way, the issuer of the United States dollar, the most widely used currency on the planet, and the central bank of the largest economy in the world, has almost no margin of safety.

This puts the entire global financial system at a tremendous level of risk.

Central banks can and do go bankrupt. It happened most notably in Iceland back in 2008, causing an epic currency crisis in that country.

So running the Fed’s balance sheet down to the nub like this is not exactly a consequence-free course of action.

But what’s really astonishing about all of this is how quickly the Fed’s balance sheet deteriorated. And why.

Just two weeks ago, the Fed’s total capital was nearly $59 billion. And even that wasn’t very much given the size of its balance sheet.

Today it’s $39.5. This is an incredible 33% drop in just two weeks!

Imagine your net worth collapsing by 33% in two weeks; it would probably be a huge personal crisis. Yet the Fed seems completely cool about it.

I did some digging and found out why this happened.

It turns out that Congress and the President passed a law last month called the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act.

We’ve talked about this one before– the FAST Act is supposed to provide funding for America’s highway system.

But one of the provisions is that a U.S. citizen can have his passport revoked if the government believes in its sole discretion that he owes too much tax. Crazy.

And, buried deep within the nearly 500 pages of legislation is a neat little section demanding that Federal Reserve bank surpluses above a certain amount must be turned over to the United States Department of Treasury.

In other words, the U.S. government is so broke that they’re now confiscating assets from the Fed, putting the entire global financial system at even more risk.

It’s genius!

You just can’t make this stuff up. It’s so absurd it would be comical if it weren’t true.

So, yes, it should be completely obvious by now that there is a tremendous amount of risk in the system.

Governments are completely bankrupt. And even central banks now are being pushed into insolvency by the bankrupt governments they support.

This is not a story that has a happy ending. And whether the consequences arise today, tomorrow, or five years from now is irrelevant.

This is a major risk. And for any thinking, rational person paying attention, it’s imperative to have a Plan B.

Our goal is simple: To help you achieve personal liberty and financial prosperity no matter what happens.

Multiple times every week, we help over 100,000 Sovereign Man subscribers who are taking their family’s liberty and prosperity into their own hands with our free publication, Notes From The Field.

Activate your free subscription today, and get fresh intelligence delivered securely to your inbox as we travel the world discovering the biggest opportunities available to smart, enterprising individuals like you.

This article was published on The Sovereignman on January 8, 2016. Reposted with permission.

Letter Re: Hickok45

Google is a publicly traded company, acting in their own interests. Perhaps it is time to remind folks that there are alternatives to their search engine and e-mail service that are more respectful to your privacy:

  • Startpage.com for searches.
  • Startmail.com for e-mail.

For video content providers, consider running your own website and only mirror select videos onto social media, thereby minimizing your losses if and when they do decide to exercise their vast arbitrary powers. This is the strategy employed by other popular channels, such as the Corbett Report. –ER

Update: It appears that Hickock45’s channel is back up today. It may be a concerted effort by a few users to “report” him thus shutting the channel down, but at the least, it shows that left leaning Google is not your friend and many other Vloggers are scrambling for alternatives because they understand they may be at risk over someone else’s whim as well.

Economics and Investing:

46 Months Of Accelerating Deflation Mean Beijing Is Now Trapped – JFJ

o o o

Apple has dumped $100B in market value in past month – RBS

o o o

Items from Mr. Econocobas:

Study Finds Higher Minimum Wage Hurting Youth Employment – Not sure why they needed a study to realize this….

Puerto Rico Defaults on Debt Payments – Not sure how, but this news seemed largely ignored probably due to such market volatility

Items from Professor Preponomics:

US News

End Injustices Now, Not Later (Mises Institute) Excerpt: “We’ve been robbing from Peter to pay Paul, and Paul’s taken out a mortgage based on income from the theft. You don’t want Paul to lose his house, do you?”

If You Think Oil is Cheap in Dollars, It’s Even Cheaper in Gold (Market Watch) Excerpt: “Things could get worse before they get better, of course, and there is historical precedence for a longish spell before things get back to normal. On the flip side, that precedent was a public mania for stocks akin to the Roaring 20s. We don’t seem to have that level of enthusiasm at the moment.”

Rail Shipments Point to a Recession (Business Insider) Excerpt: “…the big ones got crushed: carloads of coal, the largest category – done in by the low price of U.S. natural gas emanating from the collapsing natural gas industry – plunged 27.9%; metallic ores, the second-largest category, plunged 39.1%; and petroleum and petroleum products, the third largest category, plunged 20.5%. The commodities rout is tearing into railroads with a vengeance!”

International News

World Could Faces Months of Chinese Market Aftershocks (Associated Press) Excerpt: “The latest trigger was currency jitters, but Thursday’s plunge in Chinese stocks was just one in a series of aftershocks from last year’s boom and bust that could shake markets for months to come.”

Brazil’s Economic and Financial Meltdown (National Review) Excerpt: “We shouldn’t be surprised by the collapse of Brazil. For years now the government has been growing faster than economic growth, which is a formula for disaster. And we shouldn’t be surprised that a country that models its labor laws on those of Mussolini’s Italy ends up in trouble.”

Iran to Receive Major Economic Windfall as Nuclear Deal Begins (Washington Free Beacon) Excerpt: “Kerry might as well have wired the money directly into the Revolutionary Guards’ bank accounts…”

Personal Economics and Household Finance

How You Can Save Your Family $6,700 This Year (Clark Howard) Excerpt: “…the real problem is that Americans are racking up so much credit card debt that they can’t make the payments fast enough to keep interest costs down – and that’s costing families a whole lot of money.”

Odds ‘n Sods:

The Islamic State’s suspected inroads into America. A map showing where Federal prosecutors have charged people with crimes in connection with the Islamic State. – G.P.

o o o

From our friends over at the Thoughts from Frank and Fern blog: On the Brink

o o o

Mike Williamson, SurvivalBlog’s Editor At Large wrote in: Why did they make them look like daleks? Crime-Fighting Robots Hitting The Streets In California. I can see legitimate observation and recon uses for this in reducing crime, as moving security cameras with interactive capability for victims. My concern is that someone will decide to equip them first with stun weapons, then with more lethal gear, initially remote, but eventually with on-board control.

o o o

SurvivalBlog reader RBS sent this in: Chinese Immigrant Turned Citizen Defies Obama Gun Grab: “I Will Never Be A Slave Again”

o o o

The Federal government is spending millions to arm agencies that don’t need guns. Why?! EPA, FDA stocking up on body armor during President Obama’s watch – G.P.

Hugh’s Quote of the Day:

“And when he was departed thence, he went into their synagogue: and, behold, there was a man which had his hand withered. And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days? that they might accuse him. And he said unto them, What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out? How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days. Then saith he to the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth; and it was restored whole, like as the other.” – Matthew 12:9-13 (KJV)