Economics and Investing:

G.G. sent this: End of the Dollar?

Some severe gloomage, over at Zero Hedge: The Dollar Will Collapse Within 3-4 Months

Dr. R. highlighted this item: Connecting the Dots … Grain Shortages & Food Inflation Quietly Accelerating Due to Perfect Storm

Greg C. flagged this: Fears rise that Japan could sell off U.S. debt

Items from The Economatrix:

Of particular interest to SurvivalBlog readers in the hinterboonies: Postal Service to Cut 7,500 Jobs, Close Offices  

Asian Shares Higher After Wall Street Closes  

US Experiencing Uneven Job Growth Across States  

Oil Hits Highest Levels Since Recession  

Private Corporation Official Admits Impending US Bankruptcy  

US Consumer Confidence In US Falls More Than Forecast On Rising Fuel Prices  

When Silver Investors Finally Wise Up

Odds ‘n Sods:

Steve S. liked this piece by Patrice Lewis: Tangible investments … that lick your hand

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F.G. sent this: The emergency internet bunkers. “Nik Rawlinson investigates the impregnable underground bunkers that will keep the net running during wartime…”

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Dave B. write to mention that Texas is one step closer to legal open carry.

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Chad S. pointed me to a great site written from a Christian perspective: StockingUp.net

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

"The house of every one is to him as his castle and fortress, as well for his defence against injury and violence, as for his repose." – Sir Edward Coke, English Jurist

Note from JWR:

Today we present another three entries for Round 33 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize: A.) A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be 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, and B.) Two cases of Alpine Aire freeze dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $400 value.) C.) A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com (a $275 value), D.) A 250 round case of 12 Gauge Hornady TAP FPD 2-3/4″ OO buckshot ammo, courtesy of Sunflower Ammo (a $240 value), and E.) An M17 medical kit from JRH Enterprises (a $179.95 value).

Second Prize: A.) A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol. It is a $439 value courtesy of Next Level Training. B.) A “grab bag” of preparedness gear and books from Jim’s Amazing Secret Bunker of Redundant Redundancy (JASBORR) with a retail value of at least $300, C.) A $250 gift card from Emergency Essentials, and D.) two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value).

Third Prize: A.) A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21. (This filter system is a $275 value.) , and B.) Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy. This is a $185 retail value.

Round 33 ends on March 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that articles that relate practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

The Struggle for Meat After TEOTWAWKI, by N.N.R.

Every day most of us in the U.S. have access to whatever we desire to eat whenever we want to eat it. We eat eggs for breakfast, chicken at any meal, and beef or pork as our dinner, nightly. There is no work or sacrifice in ordering a burger or chicken fingers. It would be very different after TEOTWAWKI.

One of the hardest things to do in a homesteading situation will be getting enough protein. We live in a meat eating society. Do the math on your daily intake of meat.  We eat two eggs and bacon or ham for breakfast, a grilled chicken breast for lunch, hamburger steak for dinner. Now multiply that for six months (180 days). How are you going to get 360 eggs, 180 chicken breasts, and 180 beef patties? It is daunting to consider. The logistics of raising different livestock would be a full time job. How to process and preserve them? How to feed and protect them? Between this and the time needed to garden, every daylight hour would be spent working.

On my small homestead are a variety of livestock.  I raise Dexter cattle, hair sheep, rabbits, ducks, chickens, honey bees and catfish. Of the 29 acres I have about seven acres fenced.  I have a small orchard of 63 apple and pear trees, and being in the Deep South, a pecan orchard. I have been working hard on my place for 10 years. It takes time to build a homestead and lots of work and money. Do not think otherwise, it is not easy.

I am trying to be self sufficient. I supply my own beef and eggs from home. I also butcher 2-3 sheep a year. I have had no luck with getting anyone to agree to eat rabbit or duck, but keep them around because of their reproductive prowess and quick growth. The catfish are not my favorite fish (I like tuna in a can). The fish are a last resort for me. I think it would take all of the above to come close to the level of protein we get from our modern diet.

The modern chicken is an amazing creature. A hen will produce 250 eggs a year if kept laying. This is an amazing feat and lot of food. Four to six hens laying will give you a thousand eggs a season. That is 1,000 eggs x 90 calories each. (90,000 calories) Every day will be an egg day. You will have to use these eggs quickly with no electricity for refrigeration WTSHTF.  The only way I know to preserve eggs without refrigeration is to pickle them. Yuck! Salt and vinegar are going to be used a lot in preserving everything if the SHTF, so stock up now!   Vinegar is easy to get now at any grocery store. I recently got an 80 lb bag of non-iodized salt from a restaurant supply for $11.50. These hens will also raise your replacement stock. You’ll need roosters for chicks. You don’t want all the hens to go broody and quit laying, so you may have to separate one and let her set on a clutch of eggs. All the incubators will be useless without electricity. The hens will last about two years laying, and then be eaten. 

You could raise your own birds for meat. I have never raised commercial broilers that mature in six weeks and if TSHTF they won’t be available anyway. It will take a lot of effort to raise replacement hens and have birds to butcher. It’s would be hard to store enough layer mash for the chickens. One may have to get a few hundred pounds of feed corn and crack it in a grain mill. Even then, I would only use it sparingly.  I think chickens will have to be allowed to fend for themselves WTSHTF. They are perfectly capable of feeding themselves. I have seen my birds eat everything under the sun.  Maybe they could be let out in the morning and coaxed back in the evening with a little cracked corn.  One person may have to be with the chickens when out to deter predators. I have lost chickens to owls hawks and dogs (domestic and wild).It’s the only plausible solution I can come up with. If you were to eat a chicken only once a week, think 52 birds, at least 24 weeks old including incubation time.  That’s six months to grow one chicken dinner. I have figured and charted and drawn diagrams trying to figure what I would need to supply this one chicken a week if TSHTF. I am still  skeptical of my ability to produce 52 chicken dinners a year without pre collapse resources available to me. (Resources such as grower crumbles, layer pellets, incubator, hatcheries that send chicks through the mail) I think the best use of my resources is to produce eggs in abundance and  replacement birds. Maybe a few chicken dinners, but the eggs would give you the most bang for buck. This is not meant to be skeptical, but to be realistic. I am not giving up on raising them for meat, but my experience tells me it would be very difficult.

The Dexter cattle are one of the most pleasurable additions I have made to the homestead. They are a naturally small (750-1,000 pound) and a docile breed. They produce good beef and small amounts of milk. I keep 2 cows and 1 bull. With the bull (Justice) left in permanently with the cows, (Hannah and Hershey) they have calves about every 18 months. When calves are born one of the previous born 18 months ago is butchered. There’s always one growing out and two pregnant. I keep the number of cows down because I want to balance the grass and the animals.  This is closer to sustainable. They eat grass eight months of the year and are easy keepers. A salt and mineral block is kept in with them. Besides that they just graze. During December, January, February and March I have to feed hay. This would be a hard problem to fix in a collapse. I think I would have to stockpile round bale hay to make it. Eight to 10 bales would get the cows and the sheep through a winter. These need to be kept at all times. We just don’t know when the SHTF.  If there was no fuel available to power the tractor I would have to hand feed them several times a day. The problem with this is the distance and amount of hay that can be moved by hand.  The rest of the next year I would have to scythe and haystack everything I could find outside the pasture. It would be very tough. I think they would be worth the trouble though.

I get a couple hundred pounds of meat from each cow butchered. In TEOWAWKI I would have to butcher the animal in winter myself. The meat would have to be preserved immediately. No electricity or refrigeration would mean the meat had to be cubed, cooked and canned. This is something that needs to be practiced ahead of time. The jars, lids, salt and spices need to be stockpiled. Two hundred plus pounds of cubed beef in quart jars would take at least 75 to 100 jars. That could be a good number of meals for a three person household. I would try to get at least a meal per pound, for my three person family group. A pound of lean beef has 1,000 calories. That’s 200,000 calories in meat.  

The Dexter cows are a dual purpose breed that also can be milked. I originally planned to milk Hannah, but haven’t done so yet.  She’s a good and friendly cow but I can’t seem to pull the trigger on milking. I don’t think she would give allot of milk. If she gave only a quart a day to us that would be close to 2 gallons a week. That’s nothing to sneeze at. Milk has around 150 calories and 8 grams of protein per cup. There’s 16 cups per gallon. That is 2400 calories and 128 grams of protein per gallons x 2 is 4800 calories a week. I think If TSHTF me and Hannah will have to come to terms on the milking. We will need the 650+ calories a day from her milk. Butter made by shaking a jar would be a luxury.

The sheep that I raise are hair sheep. There is no shearing of wool. They were developed to live in warmer climates but thrive anywhere. They are a meat breed. They are kept in the same pastures as the cows. Sometimes together, sometimes in rotation behind the cows. The thing about the sheep that would be beneficial in a collapse is there size and reproduction rate. The average size of an adult is 80 to 100 lbs for a ewe and 100 to 150 for a ram. Khatadhin sheep have the short gestation rate of five months. They produce twins most of the time and these lambs are 60 to 80 lbs in 5 months. They breed anytime of the year. Three ewes and a ram will produce a lot of meat. The best thing in a SHTF situation would be that you could butcher one at a time. They would be grazing till needed. Their size is more manageable, but still yields a lot of meat.  I have 3 in the freezer now. You will get about 35 lbs of meat from a 70 lb sheep. At approximately 650 calories per pound that is another 22,750 calories per lamb. You could have 3 to 6 animals to butcher a year with 3 ewes and a ram. That’s a lot of meat. One problem with sheep is parasites. It would be wise to stock up on at least 2 kinds of wormer. I have fewer problems with worms at my place since adding the cows and geese to my rotational grazing. This must have changed the parasite-host dynamic. I still worm occasionally, but not as much. I advise that when you do have to worm, don’t skimp on the amount of wormer used. You need to kill the parasite not promote resistance. Use the full amount and then a little extra. I also like to worm three successive times at seven day intervals.

Since I haven’t eaten any of my rabbits or ducks I have no info on their ability to supply meat on your homestead. I do know that you can be overrun with rabbits pretty quickly. A rabbits gestation period is very short (31 Days!) and the litter size is from 4 to 9. You can scrounge up grass and greenery year round to feed them. Six litters a year is a lot of rabbits. The ducks I have had are Khaki Campbells. They are a medium sized bird that lays as well as a chicken. They can easily lay 200 eggs a year. They can be imprinted very easily and will think you’re the mother duck if you feed and handle them when small. This would be helpful in getting them in at night. The thing I liked about these ducks is that they mature faster than chicks. This could be a lot of meat and eggs if managed well. If things were really grim, I would eat the catfish.

One of the most important things in a collapse would be the safety and security of your livestock. I was awakened at 4 a.m. last week to the sound of my last goose raising an alarm. I ran out to the pasture and found 6 wild dogs in the paddocks with my sheep and cows. They had run all of the sheep until they had collapsed then killed two ewes that were due to lamb. All alive sheep were being bitten while down. The sheep were covered with blood and my prize ram had one ear nearly tore off. These sheep represent 10 years of breeding and culling and cannot be easily replaced. They killed my last goose (geese are wonderful alarms). They were harassing the cows and scattered when I shone the truck lights on them. Thankfully I don’t have any baby cows now or it could have been worse. I got one with the rifle and have been working to get the rest. If I had to rely on these animals as the only source of meat for me it would have been disastrous. Predators are a big problem. If TSHTF I will likely have to shelter my animals every night for protection. The thing that would be difficult about this is getting the animals to respond without sweet feed as an encouragement. I think to make it with the livestock I would have to stock up on feed corn. I would probably need 5 or 6-50 gallon drums full. I have stored it in drums by the pasture before for the animals. It could be fed cracked or un-cracked to the chickens, cows, and sheep. This is the one thing that all livestock respond to. It would simplify raising the chickens. It would allow me to coax the cows and sheep where I needed them. I have gotten it at the grain elevator many times and it is not expensive by the bushel. You would also need to have your winter hay stockpiled. If things go bad it would be ready. You don’t want to chance your cows going hungry. A hungry cow is hard to contain. They will walk right through a fence. I have started using a solar powered fence charger. It will contain them.

Putting meat on the table will be difficult in the future but I think it is doable. If you gain the experience now you will be well ahead of the game. There will have to be multiple sources to supply you with enough protein. I believe raising chickens for the eggs will be the most efficient use of feed and bird. The larger livestock will produce stockpiles of meat for you if you learn how to preserve it by canning, drying, pickling, curing or smoking. The stockpiled corn for the animals will give you the ability to move the animals as needed for their protection. The hay will be your insurance for winter. The resources we position in preparation will allow us the time to grow the corn, wheat, or oats that will make the livestock sustainable. This along with our food storage program will give us a chance if TSHTF.

Your First Step into Gardening with Raised Beds, by H.R.

Up until last year, I had never had a garden or even worked in one for that matter.  I decided to start one because of the rising problems with chemicals and pesticide risks that are being put on vegetables, not to mention how much the cost going up.  We started off small with one raised garden box. (The soil is harsh here).  What I mean by small is that we started with a 4 ft x 8 ft x 14 in. deep bed.  By going 14 inches deep we could ensure that we would have plenty of good soil to be rotated around.  We started by simply planting broccoli and carrots.  We have two 50 gal. rain barrels feeding a soaker hose that is snaked throughout the garden.  The garden started producing results before the times suggested on the seed packs.  By starting with the raised boxes it allowed us to start out with a good soil base and not have to build upon the horrible ground.

Materials:
20x bags of Topsoil
5x bags of cow manure
1x bag of Peat Moss (3cu.ft.)
1x bag of Miracle Grow garden soil
12x 4x4s 8ft. long – cedar or redwood
2x 2x4s 8ft. long – cedar or redwood
1x Roll of 4ft. wide Weed screen
1x Roll 4ft. wide Aluminum screen door screen
1x 25ft. Soaker hose
4x ¾ inch Outdoor electrical conduit 10 ft. long (gray plastic)
18x ¾ inch Conduit clamps
10x Plastic tent stakes (if you space everything out in 2ft. sections)
String
2x 50 gal. Rain barrel
¾ inch Water certified PVC tubing
1x cup of earthworms

Building:
Step 1:  Layout – Place the bottom layer of 4×4’s down in a box pattern to get the right spacing for your side supporting stakes.  I just took 4 of the 4×4’s and cut them in half for the short sides (4ft. wide).  They were placed on the inside of the 8ft. long 4×4’s.

Step 2:  Place the weed screen edges under the bottom layer of 4×4’s that you have laid out.  On top of that, place the screen door screen.  The screen door screen will stop the moles from digging up into you food source and the weed screen is self-explanatory.

Step 3:  Cut your 2×4’s into 8 pieces 3ft. long.  They will be places 8 inches from each end of your sides and only leaving 14 inches above ground level.  The reason for 14 inches?  The 4×4 boards are actually 3-1/2 inches square not 4 inches.  So, 4 boards stacked 3-1/2 inches each equals 14 inches (just for those that have not dealt a lot with wood).  You could leave an inch or so more above ground and use a reciprocating saw (saws all) and trim off the excess when you have finished.

Side note:  Being a Machinist turned Tool and Die Maker for 10 years turned Mechanical Engineer now for the past 8 years I am a little bit on the anal side when it comes to building something for myself.  I have the philosophy of “Most things can not be over built or over engineered so, build it right the first time and you will never have to worry about again!”

Step 4:  Start with your 8ft. long boards first.  Place a level on top of one to ensure your box will be level when finished.  If your ground is not level, go to the highest end and screw it into the 2×4 that you have staked into the ground.  Now raise the lower end up until it is level and screw it to the next 2×4 on the same side.  If there is a fairly significant difference, you can place dirt or rocks under the boards to make it up.  If this is the case, you must ensure that the screen and the weed screen are affixed to the bottom of the boards and that you back fill under your base!

Step 5:  After you have Step 4 complete, add on a short side making sure that you keep it level and at the same height as the first 4×4.  Attach both ends to the 2×4’s that you have for that end and continue on around each side doing the same.

Step 6:  Continue stacking the boards on top of the other until you are done.

Step 7:  I dumped half of the bags of topsoil into the box and then added the earthworms.  I have read on many web sites that earthworms add a good supply of fertilizer back into your box.  I then made sure that they were covered good with topsoil and then added the Peat Moss, a couple more bags of topsoil and then all of the manure, a little more topsoil and then to finish it off with the Miracle Grow garden soil.  I mixed it up pretty good with a pitchfork after everything was added.

Step 8:  Measure out the spacing that you will need for your plants/seeds and insert the tent stakes into the dirt as close to the sides as you can.  Run the string from stake to stake to section off each growing area so that you know to look in the center of the square if you have planted seeds to check progress.  Not to mention that it makes planning out your garden much easier before you plant or transplant.

Step 9:  I ran 2 raised rows down the length of the box with a valley on each side that was 1 to 1-1/2 inches lower than the depth of what I planted on the ridge.  In the valleys, I snaked the soaker hose through.  The hose was running down each side of the ridge.  I then covered the hose with dirt so that it was the 1 to 1-1/2 inches below the depth of the seeds.  I then added some Miracle Grow plant food shake on top of the dirt in the valleys’.  This would allow for a slow release of the nutrients to be added to the dirt and the seeds.  Be sure that you start your soaker hose in the center of one of your short sides.

Step 10:  This is where the electrical conduit comes in.  Space the conduit out evenly along the 8ft. length and roughly 2 inches from the ground screw in a conduit clamp.  Before you tighten the clamp down, be sure to insert the conduit first.  Also clamp it down a couple of inches from the top.  NOTE: One end is flared out 2 inches from the end.  Used a simple pipe cutter or hacksaw, wood hand saw (you get the idea) and cut that portion off.  Bend the conduit over to the other side of the garden box and screw in the clamps the same way as the previous side.  These are now the braces for your cover.

Step 11:  After you have your rain barrel in place comes the hardest part, digging in the water lines.  I wouldn’t really worry about digging them in below the freeze line unless you are going to try and grow something that can withstand frosts.  Run your tubing from your rain barrel to your box and up and over the top board.  Add a spigot and attach you soaker hose.  NOTE: Use pipe glue in the joints that is certified for water flow!

That’s it!  This is a simple task that can be built in 1 short day.  If you started this project on a Saturday morning to acquire the materials, you can easily be finished before supper.  One thing that you could do is to add a liner inside the sides of the garden box to ensure that the wood would last longer.  I used a 6 mil thickness plastic and stapled it 2 inches below the top edge of the box and made sure that the soil covered over it.  Plastic will reflect the sun and add unwanted heat to your soil drying it out.

With the great results of the first one, we have stepped up and added three more boxes of the same size and are producing lots of foods for normal eating and for canning.  One box is dedicated to just strawberries for jellies, jams and just for the fact that we love them right off of the bush.  We have even talked about adding a couple more because of the fact that the current ones are producing so well that we could start selling some of the foods for added money to purchase more sliver before there is no more to be bought amongst other things like Beans, Bullets, and Band-Aids

I hope that this helps so of you out there and saves you some time.  I wish you all happy gardening and God bless.

Inner Strength: The Psychology of Survival, by J.S.F.

What I would like to discuss today is the amazing power of the brain and our ability to live inwardly. What we do with information and external stimuli, and how that relates to our outlook on life, liberty and our pursuit of happiness. The ability to discover how we perceive the world, and how that controls our actions is crucial to our well being now, and when or if the Schumer hits the fan. (God forbid.) If we are truly serious about surviving I believe this (much ignored) topic of survival psychology to be most beneficial in this time of imminent disaster globally.
I am going to try to break these paragraphs of into bite size contemplations, although it may get thick at times, just bear with me: it is just the nature of the beast…

The power of perception
No matter how far we come as the human race we still can’t get passed this limiting problem, we cannot be introduced to new ideas or information without unintentionally and automatically viewing this information through a lens of our old paradigm. This paradigm being, how we see the world, what kind of education we have, how much we have traveled, what we have experienced, our relationships and many of our human interactions until this ‘new information event.’ As this new information is received into our brain we automatically collect the data, organize it-by categorizing it, and then catalog it for retrieval. This is not as straight forward as it sounds, though.

Philosopher Andy Clark explains that perception, although it occurs quickly, is not simply a bottom-up process (where minute details are put together to form larger wholes). Instead, our brains use what he calls predictive coding. It starts with very broad constraints and expectations for the state of the world, and as expectations are met, it makes more detailed predictions (errors lead to new predictions, or learning processes). Clark says this research has various implications; not only can there be no completely “unbiased, unfiltered” perception, but this means that there is a great deal of feedback between perception and expectation (perceptual experiences often shape our beliefs, but those perceptions were based on existing beliefs).
-(Wikipedia keyword:“Perception”)

Something like looking at things through a positive or a negative lens can have an enormous affect on life when this information is taken into account, especially in an overwhelmingly negative situation.

Positive Versus Negative
While receiving new information such as a death, destruction of a city, destruction of a country or any other end of the world scenario, our ability to recognize a few key things about the way we handle situations is crucial for our sustained psychological well being, now, and in the future-when the Schumer hits the fan! We need to honestly and realistically look at how we face situations taking into account whether we point out negative things or positive things. We need to look at how we assign the weightiness of information, Do we describe persons, or events as overwhelmingly negative, or positive? Do we allow our view to invade reality and create an unrealistic perception?

Fiction and Faction
First off let me define two terms and then I will elaborate on them a bit.

  1. Subjective reality is the belief in the world around us filtered through our perception.
  2. Objective reality is the concrete evidence of the world around us, it is truly reality, not just how we see or perceive it to be.

When we change our beliefs we can literally alter our reality! To elaborate and explain this a different way this objective reality I speak of is: how things exist, not how we believe them to be. The goal here is to understand ourselves and how we relate to the world to be sure that we are not living in a fictitious subjective environment. If we find that to be the case  then we need to correct and chart a course towards a more objective reality leaving no room for factions of self deceit within.

As calamity befalls us as humans our natural tendency is to become irrational, emotional, and grief stricken. Armed with this knowledge about yourself you can battle this potentially devastating tendency-as this applies to all of us, assuming you’re human and reading this…

Battling feelings-arriving at reality
Another factor in our perception and beliefs that shape our subjective reality is our feelings. A coarse mixture of illogical emotions, sentiments, desires, experiences and biological chemical processes flow together to create what we call emotion. Controlling these emotions, or feelings, is another important factor in balancing the equation of (personal) subjective versus (holistic) objective reality.

 

Coping methods
There are three main types of coping skills that you need to know about that can help you stay sane in a crazy ‘end of the world as we know it’ situation! Each of which can be either positive or negative.

  1. Action-based Coping
  2. Emotion-based Coping
  3. Harmful Coping

When a person is completely overtaken by emotion in a stressful situation it is easy to fall prey to harmful coping mechanisms.

Action-based coping is just that, taking action. If you lose your job, you cope by going out and getting a different job. It is planning, confrontation, self control, restraint, studying, and suppression of competing activities. If you are stressed you can use action-based coping to control the situation and yourself. Obviously you want to keep yourself in check and make sure you are looking positively at your surroundings.

Emotion-based coping is the ability to calm down the stress through release of emotion. These calming emotions can be either negative or positive and include: denial, repression, distraction, humor, wishful thinking, rationalization, relaxation, and discussing the stress with a friend.

Harmful coping methods include drugs, alcohol, skin biting, hair pulling, nail biting, smoking, and promiscuity. These all can skew one’s perception or subjective reality even farther out from the objective reality of the current situation.

Being aware of the practice of these coping techniques is key. Many men and women are completely unaware of themselves and their responses to stress or other stimuli. A large part of survival is the ability to keep cool under intense stress or pressure. Using positive coping methods and even (I dare say) developing them now-within yourself is going to benefit you now, and in the long run!

Being Prepared for the new reality (end of the world as we know it)
The ability to understand ourselves and be aware of how our mind processes things is the key to staying sane under immense pressure.

  1. Looking objectively at ourselves as we take into account our perceptional process will help keep us in check and move us toward a greater objective reality. We all have ideals and values so our perception of how or why things happen will always be a little skewed from the objective reality, but that shouldn’t deter us from trying and striving for a realistic paradigm. Honest self assessment is needed.
  2. Stay positive, but not too positive-don’t put on rose colored glasses! Staying positive is a key to staying sane. A positive person will always out perform a negative one. Remember, a positive person will have a “How can we do it?”  attitude versus a negative person having a “We can’t do it!” attitude. The goal in survival and life is be as creative as possible. If you have a shut down attitude- I submit, that you will not last long in an end of the world as we know it situation.
  3. We must know the difference between the subjective reality that our perceptions create, and the objective reality of the world around us and our circumstances. Stepping outside the subjective reality box once in a while, exercising objectivity and honesty will help us immensely.
  4. Keep your emotions in check! Life is full of hardship, pressure, and stress. Whether or not the “big event” or end of the world actually does come in our lifetime, it is/will be always wisdom to have the ability to control one’s emotions. Emotions cloud our judgment and in the case of a TEOTWAWKI this process could be fatal!
  5. Develop honest and healthy coping methods! The use of these throughout ones life can only be beneficial. Whether you are a “go it alone” type or have a “significant other” even the simple act of taking a walk when you get upset can be beneficial on many levels. There is actually a biological process that happens in the brain that balances your emotions as you use both sides of your brain (i.e. walking, running, or punching (get a punching bag if you are that type)). Take advantage of this knowledge!  

Inner Peace
The ability to stay cool under intense stress, the ability to have peace of mind, serenity, calmness and control is what this is all about: Surviving psychologically in an uncertain future throughout the trials and triumphs.

Letter Re: Upcoming Berkey Water Filter Price Increases

Captain Rawles,  
I recently purchased my Berkey filtration system and when I completed this process I was informed that on April 15, 2011, Berkey will be raising the prices of their systems approximately 25-30% across the board.  They are also going to prohibit their Authorized Dealers from giving away the freebies that they advertise now.  Ever since Hurricane Katrina they have been running about 5-7 days out before they ship, but with the issue in Japan they can be running a month out.  This is because they cannot keep up with demand.  Their stainless steel systems are manufactured in India (who actually has one of the highest qualities of steel available today) and shipped in huge quantities to the US, but they are almost always spoken for when they arrive.  

Because my families believe in being charitable, we even ordered enough of the Black Berkey water filters to make several more filters using two FDA approved 5 gallon buckets.  There are sights out there that can show you how to do this like this one. About a quarter of the way down the page it shows how to do this.  Using the rule of threes: three minutes without air, three days without water, and three weeks without food.   Dirty water is what helped spread disease in Haiti so easily.   

Please share this information with your readers, so that if they can get one before the price increase, they might be able to save some money.  Even the filters will be going up.  

I’m not affiliated with an of the vendors. Thank you, – Brad M.

JWR Replies: I posted my instructions for a similar DIY gravity filter in SurvivalBlog, back in 2008. That design uses standard Berkey filter elements. I strongly recommend buying water filters soon, before inflation makes them unaffordable. There are at least seven SurvivalBlog advertisers that sell both complete gravity water filter systems, and filter elements by themselves for do-it-yourselfers. These include: Best Prices Storable Foods, Camping Survival, Directive 21, Emergency Essentials, JRH Enterprises, Ready Made Resources, and Safecastle. Do some comparison pricing, and please give our advertisers your business, first!

Letter Re: Stockpiling Nickels

Dear James Wesley,
I have been wanting to get to a bank to make arrangements to buy nickels and pennies, but my normal workday and duties prevent me.  Today I was finally able to do so.

I was told that the pennies came in “boxes” of $25 and the nickels in “boxes” of $100.  The banker said he had to check on a recent fee hike. He came back with an a $0.20 per roll delivery fee.

But then he offered a “free” alternative.  Their coin counting machine bags [loose] pennies with $50 in a full bag and $200 of nickels in a full bag.  He thought that they filled the nickels bag 3-4 times per month at that branch.  He asked me to leave my name an d number, and would call me when a bag was filled.  He also suggested that if I don’t get a call for a week or so from them that I call and they check the current bag status.  Even if the bag is not full, they would take what they had and “zero” the machine out with a new bag. 

As I was leaving I asked, “can we check the current status?” and he said sure.  He came back with one bag each of pennies and nickels.  I bought them both.

We know why I bought the nickels, but why did I buy the pennies?  I found online the manufacturer of a machine that sorts the “good” old [copper] pennies from the “bad” newer [copper-plated zinc] ones.  The banker (with a smile) said that I should return the pennies that I didn’t want to a different branch.  I’ll let you know how the machine works in a future e-mail.

Cheers, – Chris G. in Wisconsin

Economics and Investing:

John Rubino: Commercial Real Estate on Borrowed Time?

John R. suggested this piece by Bob Chapman: The Road of Inflation Will Only End in Tears

G.G. flagged this: Moody’s Warns Britain Over Triple-A Credit Rating

Also from G.G.: Unsustainable budget threatens nation.

Items from The Economatrix:

$105 Oil:  It’s The Perfect Storm

Central Banks Shedding Dollars, Buying Gold  

Silver Surges Over $37.25 on Way to Record $50, Gold to $5,000 in 3 To 4 Years?

Sprott Putting Clients in Gold and Silver Ahead of Prolonged Global Uncertainty  

Gold Rises To Record; Copper Rallies Metals Stocks “Instead of looking for a reason to buy gold, no one can find a reason not to buy gold….” 

Odds ‘n Sods:

I was disappointed to hear that Matt Savinar shut down his Life After the Oil Crash (LATOC) web site after apparently deciding that astrology was more important to him. Somehow, this reminds me of Boston T. Party recounting (in his much-recommended book Boston’s Gun Bible) about how he once bought a nearly new AR-15 at a gun show. When he asked the seller his motivation, the man replied that he needed the cash to buy a Jet-Ski.

Reader Nancy T. reports that many of the people who were involved with the LATOC Forums have moved to the Silent Country Forums. Nancy says: “It is a good site and I recommend it for talk about survival and other related issues. Many of the people on the forum have been preparing for hard times for years and have good insight about what is to come and how to prepare.”

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Reader “Old Dog ” mentioned a New York Times movie review that shows TEOTWAWKI from an Irish perspective: One Hundred Mornings.

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Dirk W. was the first of several readers to send this: ‘Superbug’ spreading to Southern California hospitals

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SHTF Versus TEOTWAWKI?

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God:

Not of works, lest any man should boast.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” – Ephesians 2:8-10 (KJV)

Note from JWR:

Today we present another two entries for Round 33 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize: A.) A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be 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, and B.) Two cases of Alpine Aire freeze dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $400 value.) C.) A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com (a $275 value), D.) A 250 round case of 12 Gauge Hornady TAP FPD 2-3/4″ OO buckshot ammo, courtesy of Sunflower Ammo (a $240 value), and E.) An M17 medical kit from JRH Enterprises (a $179.95 value).

Second Prize: A.) A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol. It is a $439 value courtesy of Next Level Training. B.) A “grab bag” of preparedness gear and books from Jim’s Amazing Secret Bunker of Redundant Redundancy (JASBORR) with a retail value of at least $300, C.) A $250 gift card from Emergency Essentials, and D.) two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value).

Third Prize: A.) A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21. (This filter system is a $275 value.) , and B.) Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy. This is a $185 retail value.

Round 33 ends on March 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that articles that relate practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

My Ten Year Caching Experiment, by Joe C.

Metal work has always appealed to me, so I weld as a hobby and a creative release and it brings in extra income. In so doing over the years I have welded various projects for any number of people, known and unknown. Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, I was referred by a friend in a nearby city to a small group of people looking for some anonymous welding. These people struck me right off as ‘survivalists’ who took OPSEC fairly seriously, so I accepted their geo-caching explanation without questioning and proceeded to cut and weld various pipe and plate to spec, creating a dozen or so rifle length 8” tubes with bolt on flanges as lids. The customers paid and left never to be seen or heard from again.

The experience got me thinking that I wanted to try it for myself. I decided to try a relatively long term (10 year) test. What follows is my experience.
Involving my then college aged daughter we undertook the task as a combination time capsule/cache. In almost all of my welding I end up with most of the scrap material, so using materials on hand I assembled a relatively small steel box with a slip fit lid. The final box dimensions were about 6” square x 16” tall all welded up from 1/8” x 6” flat steel. The slip fit lid was made of the same material which allowed a huge 6” overlap. I was undecided as to the best method of sealing the cache, so I first sealed all the weld joints with silicon and then improvised a rubber seal in the slip fit lid to be secured with 2 large stainless steel hose clamps compressing the rubber seal. It turned out to be fairly heavy stout steel box.

We filled our small cache with a small bag of desiccant, several pictures, a folded up local newspaper, my daughter’s old charm bracelet, a rap music CD, some silver eagles, some pre 64 silver coins, water proof matches, a new Bic lighter, an old small .25 automatic pistol I had purchased in the mid 70’s and rarely used with a box of ammo, toothbrushes, floss, mirror, combs, flint and steel, scissors, tweezers, 50’ of para cord, a Buck folding Hunter, Gerber Multi-tool, sharpening stone, a box knife with several spare blades and a few 9 hr candles. It was fairly full with the newspaper taking up most of the excess space. (Note, I didn’t originally make an inventory, this list comes from after cache retrieval.)

Once our cache was assembled with the slip fit lid clamped down I was still a bit worried if the cache was sealed. Being my typical overkill self, I finally hit on using candle wax. Luckily we had a large supply on hand due to our largely forgotten candle making hobby. Using a slightly oversized cardboard box, I poured about a half inch of hot wax into the bottom of a duct tape sealed cardboard box, After the wax had hardened I set the steel cache in the box and filled the annulus with hot wax until the steel cache was covered by approximately a half inch of wax and then let it harden.

We decided to bury the cache in the backyard and worked out a ‘foolproof’ system for the ideal location.  We walked straight out the back door following the edge of the house directly to the block fence and marked our spot at the base of the fence. It was the north side of the fence, so not only were we working mostly in the shade; the cache would remain in the shade for the duration of the test.

Living in the southwest we are blessed (cursed?) with an over abundance of caliche “soil”. Caliche is actually a type of sedimentary rock that passes for dirt here in the southwest. Digging our cache hole and its subsequent recovery involved specialized digging tools which some may be familiar with but I will attempt to describe them for those who aren’t. When digging holes in caliche many times we use a tool we call a ‘wonder wand’. A wonder wand usually consists of a 3’ (or longer) ½” galvanized pipe nipple coupled into a tee fitting with 6” pipe nipples on either side. One 6” nipple is capped off and the other side is fitted with a garden hose bib. Then you flatten the free end of the 3’ nipple with a hammer, which creates several small openings that work like high pressure cutting jets once a hose is connected and the water pressure is applied. Once water pressure is applied, you hold the two 6” nipples in your hands and place the flattened jets against the ground. With slight hand pressure while rotating the wand the water jets easily cut through the toughest ground. Once you get to your desired depth, you usually pull back and let the hole dry up for a day or so and the rest is relatively easy digging. It’s also useful for finding septic tanks and in general probing the ground. Messy but very useful!

Using our wonder wand, we sank our hole near the base of the fence. I sank the wonder wand the full three foot as I wanted our cache buried deep to preclude accidental discovery. The next day I dug the hole out and buried our cache with the top a full 18” below grade. At the time I wasn’t really too concerned with OPSEC, but our backyard is fairly secluded so it wasn’t really an issue.

Well that all took place in the latter part of 2001, so here it is 2011 and not quite a full ten years. I often thought about it, but had no fixed date when to dig it up. So a few weekends back my 7 year old granddaughter was visiting for the weekend and after playing every video game available and flipping through 300+ cable channels she declared herself bored.  Figuring now was as good a time as any other I broached the idea of a treasure hunt; she of course was totally unaware of the proceedings 10 years before and was quite eager!

So playing the game I broke off a ‘divining rod’ from a tree and proceeded to direct us to a ‘likely’ treasure spot, which was of course my ‘foolproof’ cache location. She, being a smart child was pretty skeptical of the whole ‘divining rod’ until I broke out the same old wonder wand and during my initial ground probe I promptly hit a hard solid object about 18” deep into the ground. I honestly thought I had found my cache in its foolproof location, which just proves there no fool like an old fool! So Papa looked more than a little foolish after digging for 20 minutes and only recovered a large rock. I made probably three more such probings and dug up three more rocks. Granddaughter was again getting bored, and Papa was confused and frustrated, scratching his head and getting fairly muddy. At that point I seriously doubted my fool proof location and was beginning to suspect my cache had been compromised. Repeated probing brought little satisfaction. Finally I decided to excavate the whole muddy mess. Twenty minutes or so later I finally found the cache. At that point I had about a 3’ diameter mud pit, and a 6” square box 18” deep is ridiculously easy to miss! It took another 10 minutes or so to extract the cache from the muck. There was nothing to grasp, it was heavy and slippery and I ended up mostly prying it out of the hole. Hindsight being 20-20, I wished I had added a handle.

We hauled our booty to the patio and hosed all the mud off, and then using a box cutter and a masonry chisel it took about 30 minutes to remove all the wax and cardboard. The steel cache was perfectly intact and exhibited no rust. The hose clamps were intact and were still functioning perfectly if a bit gummy from the wax. We used a small hammer to tap off the slip fit lid, the rubber seal still intact. My granddaughter was beside herself as we dumped our booty on the patio. She couldn’t believe we had actually found treasure! Worried that my deception may ruin her for life I confessed that her Mother and I had buried it many years before. My confession didn’t lessen her excitement at all. While I quickly secured the pistol and knives, my granddaughter pawed at all the other ‘treasure’. She proudly wore her Mother’s old charm bracelet from the booty for the rest of the weekend. And she had a great [heavily redacted] tale to share at school the next week.

Lessons Learned

I never made a real map of my cache as it seemed ridiculous at the time, but I spent quite a bit of time finding my cache in my own backyard! And while it was all fine and worked out for a time capsule, as a cache that your life may depend on, a map is better than your memory ten years later! I’m sure a metal detector would have helped but you might not be able to count on having one come SHTF. I can’t imagine trying to find a cache out in the boonies in only a slightly familiar location. A map is a must. Coordinates would be nice, but you can’t necessarily count on a GPS in SHTF. I also spent an inordinate amount of time actually opening my cache after retrieval. Not acceptable if your life is in jeopardy. And definitely some decent digging tools will be required!
a
I definitely should have welded/attached a handle to the top of my cache; it would have been so much easier to extract from its hole!
Next time I will attach some light cables to the handle and spread them about laterally in the hole, once you find a cable you could quickly locate your cache.
An inventory would have been nice and should probably be mandatory. I had only the vaguest idea of what I put in the cache all those years ago. I was pleasantly surprised by a US Mint container of 20 silver eagles that I had totally forgotten that I had even purchased let alone cached. An extra 20 ounces of silver at today prices is a nice surprise indeed. [JWR Adds: You did well, and your timing couldn’t have been better. From March 2001 to March 2011, spot silver has increased almost nine times!

In examining the cached items, a few lessons learned. One, the new Bic lighter didn’t work. It would spark, but it was totally empty of gas. I’m fairly sure I would have tested it before I added it to the cache. I assume something must have been jamming the lever when I buried the cache. There was no off odor in the container, and I’m not sure there would be after 10 years. Second, the hot wax I used to seal the cache while totally effective as a seal also softened and deformed the 9 hour candles. They were still usable but barely. Third, it occurred to me that all that sealing wax could be very useful in a true SHTF situation. Fourth, the cached pistol and ammo functioned perfectly later at the range, though the pistol seemed very dry and stiff, in spite of my cleaning and oiling it before caching. I’m not sure of the long term viability of caching gun oil, but it might be worth a try or at least some research. Of course you could use cosmoline, but that would preclude immediate use of the firearm as well.

Lastly, if you are caching in the southwest, find something other than caliche in which to bury your cache. You almost need power tools to get it out later.

Three Lessons from Russian History, by R.M.B. in Tennessee

I returned to the United States in 1999 after spending an extended period of time in Russia. The country has a deep, fascinating and sometimes terrible history. However, of moment to this submission are three events that, in my opinion, are very beneficial for each of us to consider and contemplate as we go about our business of preparing. These three events are so significant because I believe that these events are illustrative of what may occur in a SHTF or TEOTWAWKI scenario. By examining what actually transpired in a modern first world civilization during times of SHTF/TEOTWAWKI we can divine–to some extent–what would transpire in our own culture/geographic locations under similar circumstances. Thus, an evaluation of these three events can provide us with data for practical application as we prepare ourselves, our families and our communities.  These three events are also important to consider in my opinion because they are illustrative of what–again, in my opinion–are the most likely scenarios of SHTF/TEOTWAWKI. 

The three events are, in chronological order: the siege of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), the financial crisis of 1998, and the war in Kosovo.  I lived in Russia during the last two of these three events, and I know individuals who lived through the first. I will address each of these events below.

Lesson #1: The Siege of Leningrad

During World War II, the capture of Leningrad was one of the three primary goals of the Nazi forces on the Eastern Front. The city held political, strategic and emotional importance as it was the former capital of the Russian Empire, the seat of the baltic fleet and home to numerous munitions factories, and the Russian bastion of the arts and sciences.  Hitler was so fixated on the capture of this city that he actually had pre-printed invitations to the victory celebration to be held in one of the great hotels of the city. 

The Nazi forces–at least 350,000 strong–approached the city of approximately 2.5 million souls during the summer of 1941.  At the approach of the Nazi forces, 1.4 million individuals were evacuated from the city. Those who remained–men, women as well as children–were soon to be subjected to a long and brutal two and a half years. The Nazi advance was stymied through the resistance efforts of both soldiers and civilians, and the Nazis had yet to reach the city boundaries by the fall of 1941. However, by September 1941 the Nazi forces had successfully surrounded the city, although they were unable to break through the outer defenses.  Nevertheless, the Russians could not claim victory.  For a period of 872 days the Nazi forces laid siege to the city, bombarding its citizens with shelling and machine gun fire. I have personally strode past the signs that stand as monument to this day that declare “During shelling periods, stand on this side of the street to avoid death.” I have personally visited on many occasions the cemetery where over 500,000 victims of the siege rest interned. The 500,000 figure may seem high, but it is estimated that over 650,000 souls perished during the siege. During January and February of 1942 alone, between 7,000–10,000 died per day of starvation. 

So, you may be asking yourself, what’s the point of this history lesson? Here it is.

During the time of the siege, the government seized control of the food sources. Rations were handed out–to those who could reach the supply tents, as many died on the way to the supply tents from cold and starvation—that consisted of 125 grams of bread mixed with sawdust. Those who were lucky killed and ate pigeons. Many resorted to cannibalizing the dead (this is a documented truth; there are much more sinister rumors, however, that there were groups who would actively kill in order to cannibalize). Although we may not ever face a military siege of the type described above, a prolonged food shortage would result in the same effects as seen by those in Leningrad during the siege. Such a prolonged food shortage could arrive in this country–or any other for that matter–by means of many things. A natural disaster such as a major earthquake or tsunami; a shortage of fuel to transport our food; a collapse of the fiat currency system; a famine; choose your own peril. The practical lesson for me to take away here is that any number of events could cut off our food supply. If that happens, then people will die and resort to otherwise unthinkable acts. So, the lesson to us is to stock our larders deep and tall, and prepare to produce our own food supplies to the extent we can. 

In summary, Lesson #1 is: food supplies for entire populations are fragile. Once that supply is disrupted the unprepared will die and/or live in unimaginably horrible circumstances. Thinking that the government or the goodwill of others will sustain you is folly, as seen by what transpired in Leningrad. Stock up on food and water, and prepare to produce your own food to the extent you can.

Lesson #2: The Financial Crisis of 1998

The causes of the Russian financial crisis of 1998 are complex and varied. I do not purport to understand all of these factors fully, and the factors that I do understand I will not attempt to explain in detail. I will, however, attempt to summarize the causes of the crisis before describing the aftereffects. The Russian economy was being driven primarily by selling commodities on the foreign market, as well as borrowing on the foreign market. However, when the Asian crisis occurred and commodities prices were decimated, Russia had difficulty paying the interest on its debts. Does the thought of a market segment collapsing, leaving said market in a spot where it is hard pressed to pay the interest on its debt, sound familiar at all to anyone? Anyone? In any event, the Russian stock, bond, and currency markets collapsed in the early fall of 1998 as a result of investor fears that the government would devalue its currency, default on domestic debt, or both. Again, sound familiar to anyone? (QE?) Markets tumbled, as well as the value of the ruble, and banks closed as there was a run on the banks as people tried to withdraw their money to buy tangibles before prices and inflation decimated the value of their fiat currency. Literally in the span of one month the value of the ruble as compared to the dollar had decreased by 2/3.  Therefore, when people were finally able to access their money, it would only buy 1/3 of what it would once buy. Can you imagine having $100 in the bank today, only to go tomorrow to try and withdraw it and find that the bank was closed, and when you do manage to finally withdraw your money, it is only worth $33? That is devastating. 

Again, you may be asking “Okay, but what does this boring history lesson have to do with anything?” Here is is.

When (not if) fiat currency loses its “value,” those holding said fiat currency to the exclusion of tangibles lose. And lose big. 

I recall that many of the folks who had cash on hand foolishly went out and spent it on things like watches, televisions, and other electronics. They foolishly thought that the government would provide the necessities like food and water for them. So, they figured, they could buy “nice things” and the government would take care of them. What they saw literally two days later would turn their world upside down. Within days of the collapse there were–without hyperbole–guards with machine guns guarding the food in grocery stores. The food had been piled up in the middle of the floor and the guards encircled it. You had to show your cash to even be admitted entrance to the grocery store. People began to starve. Fights in the streets began to break out over bread and sugar. Long lines were created if there was even so much as a whiff that a store had cooking oil. People began foraging in the woods for mushrooms and berries. A barter economy started up on the streets. 

That is what post financial collapse Russia looked like. And it looked that way for several months. No food. People spending the overwhelming majority of their fiat currency to buy meager morsels of bread. So, what’s the lesson here? I suppose there are a few. First, fiat currency systems are fragile and subject to systemic failures. Second, and as stressed above, stack your larders deep and tall. Third, if you do have cash on hand, don’t buy stupid things. Fourth, don’t be fooled: folks will fight for food. In Russia they do not have an armed populace; we in the USA do. The fists I saw flying in Russia over a bag of mushrooms could easily be bullets here in the USA flying over a box of Uncle Ben’s Rice. Stay off the streets, practice OPSEC, and  be prepared for violence because it will happen. Finally, a financial collapse can happen suddenly and quickly and have ruinous effects in almost no time at all. 

In summary, Lesson #2 is: fiat currency systems are fragile. In the event of a financial collapse, the only safe haven is in tangibles. Stock up on beans, bullets and Band-Aids, and avoid the madness because madness will happen. 

Lesson #3: The Kosovo War (1998–1999)

As many readers will recall, in the mid-1990’s there was escalating violence and tension between the ethnicities and religions in Yugoslavia (for you younger readers, Yugoslavia used to be a country in Eastern Europe). During 1997 and 1998 there was a full blown war between different groups vying for power, and reports of genocide.  Due to various reasons, NATO refused to sit by and let this fighting and slaughter continue, and NATO began a sustained bombing campaign in spring and summer 1999. As a combination of the ground war between the various ethnicities, and the bombing campaign of NATO, over 1 million souls were displaced, and fled the region, becoming migrant refugees. 

During that time period I was living in a Russian city that was close to the border. Tens of thousands of refugees from this region found their way into the city and the outlying region. As you might expect, they were not welcomed with entirely open arms. As you will recall, Russia was still recovering from the financial crisis. It did not have money to spare. These refugees took up shelter in apartment buildings and other edifices that had been abandoned and condemned. I saw families living in concrete blocks where the foundation had sunk into the earth, resulting in the concrete floor having a strange tilt to it such that a marble would roll from one side of the room to another. There was no running water or plumbing or heat in these edifices. The families huddled under blankets to keep warm, and cooked over open fires, often made with discarded tires. Deplorable living conditions. And yet, they had shelter. There were many more who bedded down in the fields around the cities. As these refugees would wander the city looking for food and work, they were turned away on more then one occasion by the force of fist or boot. 

So, again you ask, what’s the point? Well, here it is.

The golden horde is a reality, and they will descend like locusts. This particular horde was unarmed, but I do not imagine that that would be the case in the USA. The golden horde in the USA would –I imagine–also take up residence in any edifice they could. Look for whatever food they could. Fight for whatever food they could. So, the practical lesson here is, I believe, the golden horde will come, and it is to be avoided. It will be massive. They will work together as they are in the same boat. They will be after resources such as shelter, food and fuel. So, practice OPSEC. Better yet, G.O.O.D.. 

Summary of lesson #3: in times of crisis, the Golden Horde will materialize. It will be massive. It will descend upon wherever it assumes there are resources. Stay out of its way to the extent you can G.O.O.D. Practice OPSEC. Be prepared for their violence. Stay safe.

Finally, it cannot go without saying that during any of these times of crisis people look to God. While that is wise, it is wiser to look to God before such a crisis. If he warns you to build an ark, then guess what? You should build an ark. 

Overall, these are three modern lessons of SHTF/TEOTWAWKI scenarios that actually happened. They all actually happened in a First World country. They are all things that could easily be repeated. Practical lesson: prepare accordingly.