Economics & Investing For Preppers

Here are the latest news items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. In this column, JWR also covers hedges, derivatives, and various obscura. This column emphasizes JWR’s “tangibles heavy” investing strategy and contrarian perspective. Today, a look at pre-1965 “junk” silver coins. (See the Precious Metals section.)

Precious Metals:

The recent dip in the spot silver price to below $30 USD per Troy ounce signals a good opportunity to do some buying and stacking. I believe that this dip will be brief, so take advantage of it. Buy physical silver and stack it deep! – JWR

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An excellent video primer: Buying Junk Silver for Beginners. Note from JWR: Unless you are already quite familiar with pre-1965 “junk” silver, then you should probably watch this video twice.

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At the UK Globe & Mail: Silver’s Bright Future: Green Energy Fuels Demand Surge.

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Gold is getting harder to find as miners struggle to excavate more, World Gold Council says.

Economy & Finance:

Reader D.S.V. spotted this: 63 US “Problem Banks” Are Nearly Insolvent, But You Can’t Know Which Ones.

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Biden’s team asks CEOs how to further boost the economy while Trump says business is on his side.

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Global economy will slow for a third straight year in 2024, World Bank predicts.

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At the Whatfinger.com news aggregation site: U.S. Job Market Sees Supposed Strong Growth Amid Rising Unemployment: Economic Indicators Point to Mixed Signals.

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Why Is Xi Not Fixing China’s Economy?

Continue reading“Economics & Investing For Preppers”

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“The right of self-defense never ceases. It is among the most sacred, and alike necessary to nations and to individuals.” – James Monroe, Second annual message to Congress, November 16, 1818

Preparedness Notes for Thursday — June 13, 2024

On June 13, 1777, Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette landed in the fledgling United States.

June 13, 1889: Two feet of snow accumulated in Rawlins, Wyoming.

On June 13, 1966, the US Supreme Court issued the Miranda v. Arizona decision, mandating that suspects must be informed of their rights.

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SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present another entry for Round 113 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC  are providing a store-wide 10% off coupon. Depending on the model chosen, this could be worth more than $2,000.
  2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any of their one, two, or three-day course (a $1,095 value),
  3. A Peak Refuel “Wasatch Pack” variety of 60 servings of premium freeze-dried breakfasts and dinners in individual meal pouches — a whopping 21,970 calories, all made and packaged in the USA — courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $359 value),
  4. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.
  5. Two sets of The Civil Defense Manual, (in two volumes) — a $193 value — kindly donated by the author, Jack Lawson.

Second Prize:

  1. A SIRT STIC AR-15/M4 Laser Training Package, courtesy of Next Level Training, that has a combined retail value of $679
  2. 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).
  3. A $200 credit from Military Surplus LLC that can be applied to purchase and/or shipping costs for any of their in-stock merchandise, including full mil-spec ammo cans, Rothco clothing and field gear, backpacks, optics, compact solar panels, first aid kits, and more.
  4. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC.
  5. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun. There is no paperwork required for delivery of pre-1899 guns into most states, making them the last bastion of firearms purchasing privacy!

Third Prize:

  1. A Berkey Light water filter, courtesy of USA Berkey Filters (a $305 value),
  2. A $300 gift certificate from Good2Goco.com, good for any of their products: Home freeze dryers, pressure canners, Country Living grain mills, Emergency Essentials foods, and much more.
  3. Three sets each of made-in-USA regular and wide-mouth reusable canning lids. (This is a total of 300 lids and 600 gaskets.) This prize is courtesy of Harvest Guard (a $270 value)
  4. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun.

—

More than $900,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. In 2023, we polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic. Round 113 ends on July 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.

The War On Human Life – Part 2, by J.B.H.

(Continued from Part 1.)

Drug Addiction and Homelessness

To this point, I have talked about the attack on babies to prevent their existence or to terminate them after they come into existence. How about adults?

In many major US cities there is an epidemic of drug addiction and resulting homelessness. The news frequently covers the resulting tent cities, crime, filth, etc. But the toll on the addicts themselves is enormous.
I recently heard that at the height of the 1960s drug culture, there were approximately 6,000-8,000 drug overdose deaths a year. It is estimated that 100,000+ people died of drug overdoses last year.

I don’t remember the 1960s other than riding my bicycle and playing baseball. But I do remember the 1970s and drugs were rampant anywhere you cared to look. Drug addiction is nothing new in this country or the world for that matter. I personally know a fair number of people who have taken a pretty large amount of recreational drugs over the years and survived. I don’t know if more people are addicted or the drugs are more potent (Fentanyl likely is) or what is happening but death is visiting the addict more and more all the time. And our leadership is encouraging this by safe injection sites, decriminalizing possession, allowing tent/RV cities, refusing to jail users, turning a blind eye to low-level property crime and pushers, and refusing to even somewhat slow the wave of people crossing the southern border with hard drugs.Continue reading“The War On Human Life – Part 2, by J.B.H.”

The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods

SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods. This column is a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from JWR. Our goal is to educate our readers, to help them to recognize emerging threats, and to be better prepared for both disasters and negative societal trends. You can’t mitigate a risk if you haven’t first identified a risk. In today’s column, an examination of the rising number of feral pigs.

The Wild Hog Invasion

Over at the Whatfinger.com news aggregation site: Wild Hog Invasion: Threats, Fatalities, and Control Measures in America.

In Texas: Apocalypse Sow

As reportted in Texas Monthly: Apocalypse Sow: Can Anything Stop the Feral Hog Invasion? An excerpt:

“Like giant, pungent bedbugs, wild pigs provide little value to the ecosystem. Though they have been in North America since the sixteenth century, the population began compounding itself in recent decades and reached a tipping point, rendering the limited control efforts—including trapping, fencing, and hunting—cartoonishly insufficient. A 2003 publication by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department estimated that there were 1.5 million wild pigs in Texas. In 2012 a group of scientists estimated that the population had swelled to between 1.8 and 3.4 million”

Where Canada’s ‘Super Pigs’ are Most Likely to Invade the US

Reader C.B. sent this:  Where Canada’s ‘super pigs’ are most likely to invade the US — and potentially cause millions of dollars in damage.

Continue reading“The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods”

Preparedness Notes for Wednesday — June 12, 2024

June 12, 1859: The Comstock Silver Lode in Nevada was discovered. This was the first major silver discovery in the US.

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On June 12, 1987, during a visit to the divided German city of Berlin, President Ronald Reagan publicly challenged Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”

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SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present another entry for Round 113 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC  are providing a store-wide 10% off coupon. Depending on the model chosen, this could be worth more than $2,000.
  2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any of their one, two, or three-day course (a $1,095 value),
  3. A Peak Refuel “Wasatch Pack” variety of 60 servings of premium freeze-dried breakfasts and dinners in individual meal pouches — a whopping 21,970 calories, all made and packaged in the USA — courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $359 value),
  4. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.
  5. Two sets of The Civil Defense Manual, (in two volumes) — a $193 value — kindly donated by the author, Jack Lawson.

Second Prize:

  1. A SIRT STIC AR-15/M4 Laser Training Package, courtesy of Next Level Training, that has a combined retail value of $679
  2. 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).
  3. A $200 credit from Military Surplus LLC that can be applied to purchase and/or shipping costs for any of their in-stock merchandise, including full mil-spec ammo cans, Rothco clothing and field gear, backpacks, optics, compact solar panels, first aid kits, and more.
  4. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC.
  5. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun. There is no paperwork required for delivery of pre-1899 guns into most states, making them the last bastion of firearms purchasing privacy!

Third Prize:

  1. A Berkey Light water filter, courtesy of USA Berkey Filters (a $305 value),
  2. A $300 gift certificate from Good2Goco.com, good for any of their products: Home freeze dryers, pressure canners, Country Living grain mills, Emergency Essentials foods, and much more.
  3. Three sets each of made-in-USA regular and wide-mouth reusable canning lids. (This is a total of 300 lids and 600 gaskets.) This prize is courtesy of Harvest Guard (a $270 value)
  4. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun.

—

More than $900,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. In 2023, we polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic. Round 113 ends on July 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.

The War On Human Life – Part 1, by J.B.H.

This essay expresses some thoughts that rattle around in my head pretty much every day, lately. There is likely little in it that SurvivalBlog readers are not familiar with in a certain way. However, I would like to express what I feel and perhaps fear is a central theme in virtually all the topics we discuss and the events we witness in today’s world.

As a warning upfront, it is entirely possible that I am taking disjointed, some might say random trends of our time and desperately attempting to make sense of the nonsense by packaging them in one neat box. That might be true or not. I will let the reader decide on that matter as quite frankly I am not sure myself.

As another warning, I am an unapologetic Christian. I view all these issues through lens of Christianity and believe these things can only be solved through Christian principles.

What is the point of this essay? My purpose is to encourage people to be continuously focused on what I believe is the central theme of so many of the trends we are currently witnessing. That theme is a concerted attack on biological human life.

Before I get in very deep, I would also add that this theme is not new to man’s history. It waxes and wanes but never leaves. To those who say our present situation is unprecedented I would say to read history. To those who would say there really is nothing wrong or unusual going on, I would also say read history. I personally believe we are in an age of where bad trends are converging, the old attack on life is waxing and we need to stop it.Continue reading“The War On Human Life – Part 1, by J.B.H.”

SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets

This weekly Snippets column is a collection of short items: responses to posted articles, practical self-sufficiency items, how-tos, lessons learned, tips and tricks, and news items — both from readers and from SurvivalBlog’s editors. Note that we may select some long e-mails for posting as separate letters.

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We’ll start off with a video showing some Old School toolmaking craftsmanship by Timothy Dyck, in Canada: Why I bought this train rail.

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Giant, Venomous, Flying Spiders Coming to U.S. Northeast. (Thanks to reader C.B., for the link.)

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Reader S.H. wrote:

“The recent article about the importance of carrying cash was interesting. I have another angle on this story. Not too long ago, my family and I went to the big city of Bozeangeles (Bozeman). While there, on downtown Main Street, members of my family wanted a coffee drink. We wandered into Treeline Coffee at the Lark, they ordered, and I tried to give the girl cash to pay. ‘We don’t accept cash,’ she told me. ‘Sorry?’ I asked, thinking I must have misheard her. ‘We do not take cash. Cards only.’ I was boondoggled. She looked at me as if I was crazy to be carrying cash. To add insult to injury, the exact same thing happened to me the next morning at my hotel: I tried to pay for breakfast with cash, and they would not let me. ‘Cards only.’ My feelings at that point were a wide mixture of annoyance, frustration, disbelief, and sincere concern about the direction the world is going.”

Continue reading“SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets”

Preparedness Notes for Tuesday — June 11, 2024

On June 11, 1488, in the Battle of Sauchieburn, in a rebellion against the Scottish crown, King James III was killed.

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On June 11, 1742, Benjamin Franklin invents his now famous Franklin stove.

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June 11, 1864: The Battle of Trevilian Station, the bloodiest and largest all-cavalry battle of the American Civil War, begins in Louisa County, Virginia.

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John Wayne, the iconic American film actor, died on June 11th, 1979.

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SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present another entry for Round 113 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC  are providing a store-wide 10% off coupon. Depending on the model chosen, this could be worth more than $2,000.
  2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any of their one, two, or three-day course (a $1,095 value),
  3. A Peak Refuel “Wasatch Pack” variety of 60 servings of premium freeze-dried breakfasts and dinners in individual meal pouches — a whopping 21,970 calories, all made and packaged in the USA — courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $359 value),
  4. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.
  5. Two sets of The Civil Defense Manual, (in two volumes) — a $193 value — kindly donated by the author, Jack Lawson.

Second Prize:

  1. A SIRT STIC AR-15/M4 Laser Training Package, courtesy of Next Level Training, that has a combined retail value of $679
  2. 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).
  3. A $200 credit from Military Surplus LLC that can be applied to purchase and/or shipping costs for any of their in-stock merchandise, including full mil-spec ammo cans, Rothco clothing and field gear, backpacks, optics, compact solar panels, first aid kits, and more.
  4. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC.
  5. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun. There is no paperwork required for delivery of pre-1899 guns into most states, making them the last bastion of firearms purchasing privacy!

Third Prize:

  1. A Berkey Light water filter, courtesy of USA Berkey Filters (a $305 value),
  2. A $300 gift certificate from Good2Goco.com, good for any of their products: Home freeze dryers, pressure canners, Country Living grain mills, Emergency Essentials foods, and much more.
  3. Three sets each of made-in-USA regular and wide-mouth reusable canning lids. (This is a total of 300 lids and 600 gaskets.) This prize is courtesy of Harvest Guard (a $270 value)
  4. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun.

—

More than $900,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. In 2023, we polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic. Round 113 ends on July 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.

Designing a 7.62×39 Handload, by Tunnel Rabbit

At this moment I am anticipating the arrival of an antique Mauser rifle that has been fitted with a new barrel chambered in 7.62×39. By the grace of God, I was able to obtain an antique custom rifle in the ubiquitous 7.62×39 from Elk Creek Company. This will be a scoped rifle that might use the same ammunition that I already stock for my semi-automatic rifles that use 7.62×39 ammunition with bullet diameters of .310 inches.

An Expectant Father Waits for the Arrival

As I wait for it to arrive via UPS, I am writing this article and thinking ahead and designing a load for it. And I am already shopping for reloading dies at the lowest price available that come with both .308 and .311 neck expander and bushings. It might have a .308 barrel instead of a .310 barrel so I may need to load for this using .308 bullets from my inventory, or order a more suitable .310 bullet. The load could closely duplicate .30-30 performance and could surpass .30-30 performance past 100 yards because it will use a spitzer bullets with a better ballistic coefficient instead round nosed or flat point .30-30 bullets that have very low ballistic coefficients. Here is my thought process as I design a practical hunting load for this rifle.Continue reading“Designing a 7.62×39 Handload, by Tunnel Rabbit”

SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt

This weekly column features news stories and event announcements from around the American Redoubt region. (Idaho, Montana, eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, and Wyoming.) Much of the region is also more commonly known as The Inland Northwest. We also mention companies located in the American Redoubt region that are of interest to preppers and survivalists. Today, news of a wayward bull at a central Oregon rodeo. (See the Central & Eastern Oregon section.)

Idaho

Idaho Bar Explodes In Popularity For Celebrating ‘Straight Pride Month’.

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Wild horses and burros up for adoption at BLM Off-Range Corral.

Continue reading“SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt”

Preparedness Notes for Monday — June 10, 2024

Some sad news: Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders, who captured ‘Earthrise,’ killed in plane crash.

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On June 10, 1898, US Marines landed in Cuba during the Spanish–American War. Roosevelt’s Rough Riders (The 1st  US Volunteer Cavalry) landed later in June.  The famed Battle Of San Juan Hill was not until July 1st.

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On June 10, 1967, the Six-Day War ended as Israel and Syria agreed to observe a United Nations-mediated cease-fire.

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Today’s feature article is a review by SurvivalBlog Field Gear Editor Tom Christianson.