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.

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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

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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

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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.

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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

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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)

Notes for Saturday – January 09, 2016

On this day in 1776, writer Thomas Paine published his pamphlet “Common Sense,” setting forth his arguments in favor of American independence. Although little used today, pamphlets were an important medium for the spread of ideas in the 16th through 19th centuries.

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Today, we present another entry for Round 62 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The nearly $12,000 worth of prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. A Tactical Self-Contained 2-Series Solar Power Generator system from Always Empowered. This compact starter power system is packaged in a wheeled O.D. green EMP-shielded Pelican hard case (a $1,700 value),
  2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate that is good for any one, two, or three day course (a $1,195 value),
  3. A course certificate from onPoint Tactical for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses, excluding those restricted for military or government teams. Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795,
  4. DRD Tactical is providing a 5.56 NATO QD Billet upper with a hammer forged, chromlined barrel and a hard case to go with your own AR lower. It will allow any standard AR type rifle to have quick change barrel, which can be assembled in less than one minute without the use of any tools and a compact carry capability in a hard case or 3-day pack (an $1,100 value),
  5. Gun Mag Warehouse is providing 20 Magpul PMAG 30-rd Magazines (a value of $300) and a Gun Mag Warehouse T-Shirt; (an equivalent prize will be awarded for residents in states with magazine restrictions),
  6. Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  7. The Ark Institute is donating a non-GMO, non-hybrid vegetable seed package (enough for two families of four) plus seed storage materials, a CD-ROM of Geri Guidetti’s book “Build Your Ark! How to Prepare for Self Reliance in Uncertain Times”, and two bottles of Potassium Iodate (a $325 retail value),
  8. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
  9. KellyKettleUSA.com is donating both an AquaBrick water filtration kit and a Stainless Medium Scout Kelly Kettle Complete Kit with a combined retail value of $304, and
  10. Two cases of meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value).

Second Prize:

  1. A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training, which have a combined retail value of $589,
  2. A FloJak EarthStraw Code Red 100-foot well pump system (a $500 value), courtesy of FloJak.com,
  3. A transferable certificate for a two-day Ultimate Bug Out Course from Florida Firearms Training (a $400 value),
  4. A Model 175 Series Solar Generator provided by Quantum Harvest LLC (a $439 value),
  5. A Trekker IV™ Four-Person Emergency Kit from Emergency Essentials (a $250 value),
  6. A $200 gift certificate good towards any books published by PrepperPress.com,
  7. A pre-selected assortment of military surplus gear from CJL Enterprize (a $300 value),
  8. RepackBox is providing a $300 gift certificate to their site, and
  9. Safecastle is providing a package of 10 LifeStraws (a $200 value)

Third Prize:

  1. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
  2. A $245 gift certificate from custom knifemaker Jon Kelly Designs, of Eureka, Montana,
  3. A large handmade clothes drying rack, a washboard, and a Homesteading for Beginners DVD, all courtesy of The Homestead Store, with a combined value of $206,
  4. Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy (a $185 retail value),
  5. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
  6. Mayflower Trading is donating a $200 gift certificate for homesteading appliances,
  7. APEX Gun Parts is donating a $250 purchase credit,
  8. Montie Gear is donating a Precision Rest (a $249 value), and
  9. Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value).

Round 62 ends on January 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

What’s For Dinner?- Part 2, by J.R.

Sugars

The recommended storage amount for sugars is 60 pounds per person per year. Most people in the developed world at this time consume far more than 60 pounds annually. It is definitely far more than we should and what is best for our health. However, if you choose to store less for your family, be sure to increase the amounts of other foods you store to compensate for the loss in calories.

To give you a bit of perspective on sugar demand, here are some historical figures on per person sugar consumption in the developed world. In 1700, sugar consumption was about four pounds per year. In 1800, this amount had risen to 18 pounds per year. By 1900, it was 60 pounds per year. We now consume over 100 pounds of sugar per year.

The 60 pounds of sugar per person is what is used for baking and cooking. It does not include what you would use for preserving foods such as by canning or making jam. If you are including food preservation in your plan, you need to increase the amount of sugar you store accordingly.

Sugar is one of the easiest items to store. Because it does not deteriorate in quality or nutritional value, it is one of those items that does not need to be rotated and is not temperature sensitive. It does, however, still need to be protected from pests and from absorbing odors from nearby items.

There are several different forms of sugar to store. Personal preference is your guide here.

Sugar

We store only pure cane sugar, as opposed to beet sugar. If sugar is pure cane, it will be stated as such on the label. Otherwise, you may be sure that it is beet sugar. Those desiring to avoid GMO products may wish to know that 96% of the sugar beets raised in the U.S. is GMO. We also make sure that our brown sugar and powdered sugar are pure cane as well. It is best not to substitute powdered sugar for granulated in canning. Powdered sugar contains some cornstarch, and this will result in a cloudy product that some mistake for spoilage. Because of the high moisture content, brown sugar does not store well. Putting a slice of bread in an airtight container with the hard brown sugar will soften it in a few days.

Honey

Much has been written about adulterated honey being sold in this country, so I won’t go into that here. Be sure you are buying real honey for your family. Real honey will start to crystallize within a year or so of purchase; the adulterated stuff will not–ever. To liquefy solid honey, place the container in a pot of simmering water. Honey will store indefinitely. It also has trace minerals important to the body.

Other Sugars

Other forms of sugar you may wish to include in your storage to add variety to your diet include molasses, maple syrup, and corn syrup. (Karo syrup has no HFCS, last I checked; most of the other brands do have it.)

Sugar is easily stored in plastic buckets. It does not need an oxygen absorber. In fact, oxygen absorbers should never be added to sugar, or it will turn into a rock hard mess. Be aware that sugar is very heavy, and for ease in handling it should be stored in smaller buckets, probably nothing larger than 4-gallon buckets.

The best way to acquire your sugar supply is through loss leader sales at the grocery stores. The LDS Home Storage Center is usually a more expensive option, and you can’t be sure whether it is beet sugar or cane sugar.

Oils

Oils are an essential component of food storage, because this is where your fats come from. Fat is essential to life. It is critical to brain function. A diet low in fat will dumb you down pretty quickly.

The recommended storage amount is 20 pounds or 20 pints of oil per person per year. There are no set recommendations on what kinds of oils to store. That is entirely personal preference. All oils must be kept as cool as possible. Oils stored in glass or metal will have a longer shelf life than those stored in plastic. When I lived in the Midwest, where concern for earthquakes was non-existent, I stored all our oils in glass. Now that I live in an earthquake-prone area, I still choose to store most of my oils in glass. Most oils—vegetable, corn, canola, and peanut—have preservatives added to prevent rancidity. Olive oil and coconut oil usually do not have these preservatives.

Vegetable, Corn, and Canola Oils

Vegetable oil is soybean oil. Soybeans are almost entirely GMO, as are corn and canola. When I learned about this many years ago, I could not immediately replace all the less expensive vegetable oil in storage for our large family with higher quality oils. I kept the vegetable oils and slowly built up our supply of other oils. The now very old vegetable oil can be used to make oil candles or soap when that need arises.

Peanut oil is what I store for most of my baking and frying. It has preservatives, which I would rather avoid in my foods, but I have not as yet been able to find a peanut oil that does not.

Olive oil is another oil I store for some of my frying and for salad dressings.

Shortening is hydrogenated soybean oil, which I still want to avoid. I only keep one can in the house for making buttercream frosting for cookies and cakes.

Butter

Some just have to have it. Red Feather butter, though it has a great reputation for taste, is a pretty expensive option for many families. Ghee is also up there is price. There are several companies that offer freeze-dried butter. It doesn’t reconstitute perfectly, but the taste is acceptable. It just doesn’t have the right texture. The option oft promoted in prep circles is home canning of butter. Everyone acknowledges that the USDA cautions against such and warns of the risk of botulism, but they also say our grandmothers did it and nobody died. I have canned butter for my family– several dozen pints. In my experience, there is a rather substantial failure rate for the seals. But even when seals did not fail, many of the jars had an off smell and tasted kind of moldy. I decided the risks just weren’t worth it.

However, for some of us, life may not be worth living without butter. So what to do? Is there a palatable long term storage option?

Yes! Coconut oil is second in importance in this house only to peanut oil. Coconut oil has a melting point of 76 degrees Fahrenheit, so it feels “right” in your mouth. It passes for butter in every application, except for on popcorn. And even then it isn’t bad; it’s just that it lacks the buttery flavor. However, even that can be adjusted for. We have found that mixing freeze-dried butter powder into the coconut oil works perfectly—perfect taste and perfect texture. We keep a supply of butter in the freezer for short-term storage, but coconut oil and butter powder are our solution for long term.

Expanding the Basics

Peanut Butter

Because it is so high in fat, it is classed with the fats rather than with beans, and it is a great storage food. However, it really shouldn’t be calculated with the rest of the oils as part of your oil storage. It’s pretty hard to fry foods in it.

Mayonnaise

We make all our own mayonnaise here, using the following simple recipe: 2 tablespoons vinegar, 1 teaspoon dry mustard, 1 very fresh large egg, and 1 teaspoon salt. Blend these well in a blender or food processor. In a very thin stream, slowly add 1 cup oil. (We prefer peanut oil. Olive oil tends to be a little strong in flavor.) After all the oil has been added, continue blending for another minute or so. (Make sure to store sufficient additional oil to meet your needs for mayonnaise, and remember that mayonnaise is used in salad dressings and dips as well as on sandwiches.) Store in the refrigerator for up to three weeks.

Bacon Grease

Save all your bacon grease. If you accumulate more than you can currently incorporate in your diet, pressure can the excess in canning jars for long-term storage. Follow the directions for canning meat. Use vinegar on a paper towel to eliminate any grease on the rim of the jar.

Lard

Of course, you can buy lard in the grocery store, with all the added preservatives included. Or you can very easily render your own. (See the link at the end of the article for instructions.) Lard is the very best stuff for making biscuits and flaky pie crusts. It is hard to imagine today, but our forebears raised pigs as much for their fat as for their meat. If you have friends who raise their own pork, see if you can get some of the kidney fat for rendering your own. You definitely won’t regret it.

We store far beyond the minimums for oil here. Frying in oil can make almost any food more palatable. While those with dairy animals and pigs can produce butter and lard, everything else is much more difficult to DIY.

Salt

Salt is the easiest of the basics to gather and store immediately. You can pick up a year’s supply for a family of four for less than $20 on your way home from work. The minimum storage amounts range between eight and ten pounds per person per year. Now this may seem like an awful lot of salt. You may think that there is no way that you use that much table salt in a year. In normal circumstances you would be 100% correct. However, when you are cooking everything from scratch, you use substantially more salt. Err on the side of caution and store ten pounds per person.

Most people leave salt in its cardboard packaging. Most of the time this works just fine. However, we are preparing for emergencies and other extreme situations. In humid areas, even salt with anti-caking agents added can become hard. And in all areas, cardboard cartons do not protect salt from water damage.

So what is the best way to store salt? Store it in a two-gallon plastic bucket. Put as many salt cartons in the bucket as it will hold. Pour loose salt from other cartons to maximize the storage capacity of the bucket. Do not store salt in metal cans, as it will rust out the metal. Also bear in mind that salt is very heavy—a #10 can of wheat weighs about 5.8 lbs, while the same volume of salt weighs 9.6 lbs. You definitely do not want to store salt in anything larger than a two-gallon bucket. Salt does not ever go bad, unless contaminated by water. Accordingly, it does not need to be vacuum-packed or stored in mylar bags with oxygen absorbers, unless this is to protect it from water.

When it comes down to deciding what kind of salt to store, bear in mind that all salts are not created equal. Half of the salt in your storage should be iodized salt. Infants and small children require iodine for proper brain development. Iodine deficiency leads to cretinism in children and is the leading preventable cause of mental retardation. Iodine deficiency is also linked to hypothyroidism and goiter in adults. Salt is essential to proper nerve and muscle function and in the regulation of water in the body. Bear in mind that raw sea salt and rock salts lack sufficient iodine to prevent iodine deficiency diseases. Also, kosher salt is not iodized either.

With all this in mind, one may wonder why anyone would buy anything but iodized salt. But plain (or table) salt also has an important place in your home storage plan. Iodine retards the action of yeast in bread, and so plain salt is desired for bread-making. While the inhibition is not substantial, when it comes to making bread we sometimes need all the help we can get. Canning salt, which lacks the anti-caking agents found in plain and iodized salts, is preferred for canning.

Salt can be purchased in bulk bags at restaurant supply stores, but the savings is minimal and may not be worth the extra effort of storing in buckets. Because salt does not deteriorate, and because its nutritional value is not affected by heat or cold, it can be stored anywhere that is dry. Of course, it does not need to be rotated.

Ten pounds is the minimum amount to store for one year. However, if you are drying, curing, brining, or canning meats and vegetables, you should double the amount to twenty pounds per person. (Historical note: During the Utah War, the Mormon pioneers defended themselves admirably and severely delayed General Albert Sidney Johnston [later to die in the Civil War serving the south] and his army from entering the Salt Lake Valley. The pioneers harassed the army in the Wasatch Mountains, and in the process destroyed the army’s salt. The army then paid the Indians $5 per pound for salt.)

Letter: Law Enforcement Officers

Sirs,

When did “Peace Officers” become “Law Enforcement Officers”? Is not the purpose of police to keep the peace? Are laws merely meant to be the tools to enforce the peace? Why not call police “Baton, Pepper Spray, Taser Enforcement Officers”? If I spent a little time at it, I could probably come up with a list of peace keeping tools that would make a snappy acronym to rival “LEO”. I encourage people, particularly police, to read the principles of policing developed by Sir Robert Peel:

Principle 1 – “The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.”

Principle 2 – “The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of police actions.”

Principle 3 – “Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observance of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.”

Principle 4 – “The degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force.”

Principle 5 – “Police seek and preserve public favour not by catering to the public opinion but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.”

Principle 6 – “Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient.”

Principle 7 – “Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.”

Principle 8 – “Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.”

Principle 9 – “The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.”

My point is that rather than enforcing the goals of maximal individual liberty throughout society by viewing themselves as Peace Officers, police may potentially become nothing more than tools of those in power who write the laws and those who influence (corrupt?) them. They will become instruments of tyranny rather than freedom. As citizens, we should pay particular attention to Principles 7 and 9 lest we enable tyranny through inattention to our duties as free citizens. – K.

Economics and Investing:

Items from Mr. Econocobas:

Dow Tumbles Nearly 400 Points on China Worries- Dow and S&P Off to Worse Start Ever – I would expect a relief rally very soon, otherwise I don’t see how we don’t get a serious intervention by world central banks.

Silver Seen Beating Gold as Ratio Rises to Near Historical Peaks– And we are not even talking about the historical average of around 16:1.

Most Americans are One Paycheck Away from the Street

Items from Professor Preponomics:

US News

Watchdog Says Government Agencies Ignore Billions in Savings (Taxpayers for Common Sense) Excerpt: “Agencies have a “too cavalier” attitude about findings by the government’s watchdog…”

Alcoa Plans to Close Largest US Aluminum Smelter Amid Tumbling Prices (Reuters) Excerpt: “…will permanently close its 269,000 tonne-per-year Warrick Operations smelter in Evansville, Indiana, by the end of first quarter, the latest in a string of U.S. smelter curtailments as producers struggle with tumbling prices.”

International News

Saudi Economy Implodes: Fascinating Solution Emerges. (Zero Hedge) Will this be the Saudi’s version of a Hail Mary? Excerpt: “Because reading between the lines, what this announcement really means is that Saudi Arabia is scrambling: for it to resort to partial privatization of its crown jewel, which is what selling stake in an IPO would mean, it suggests two things: the government is desperate to obtain liquidity at any price, and it means that if successful, the Saudi regime will be able to continue its strategy of crushing its high production cost competition for a long time thanks to the new funds.”

Will Saudi Aramco Go Public? (Business Insider) Excerpt: “There are any number of reasons why Aramco would go public, which range from encouraging investment in the Saudi stock market to bringing some limited transparency to a notoriously opaque company. But the biggest reason just might be revenue generation.”

Heavy Canadian Crude Falls to $19.81 per Barrel (Contra Corner) Excerpt: “A deepening oil market slump is adding fresh pain for producers of the world’s cheapest crude, raising the prospect that more production will be curtailed.”

Gloom Hangs Over China’s Economy Amid Market Turmoil (Wall Street Journal) Excerpt: “Everyone thinks this will be a very troubled year…”

Here’s How China’s Yuan Drives the Global Sell-Off (Market Watch) Excerpt: “The yuan is China’s currency, but it’s the world’s problem.”

Personal Economics and Household Finance

Why You Should Limit Car Loans to 42 Months (Clark Howard) Suggestion… Own your car. Maintain it properly. Drive it for as close to forever as you can! Spoiler Alert: “If your payments per month are too high to knock out the loan in 42 months, you’re buying more car than you can afford. Forget about those 60 month and 72 month loans that people love to do.”