Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“It’s a good thing Syria has gun control; otherwise the citizen-slaughtering troops could get hurt.” – From a collection of reader comments to the East Valley Tribune, Arizona. (This quote comes to us courtesy of Alphecca.com)

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“In order for this economy to become balanced again would require consumer debt to be reduced by $3 to $4 trillion and the savings rate to double from 5% to 10%. This will never happen voluntarily. Americans are still delusional. They are actually increasing their debt as credit card debt sits at $790 billion, student loan debt at $1 trillion, auto loans at $600 billion, and mortgage debt at $13.8 trillion. The debt will not decline until an economic Depression wipes out banks and consumers alike. America will go down with a bang, not a whimper.” – Jim Quinn, writing in The Burning Platform blog

Note from JWR:

Today we present another entry for Round 35 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 gift certificate from Sunflower Ammo , 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 35 ends on July 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.

Lessons For a Novice Gardener, by D.M.

I don’t have much money to spend on prepping this year as some poor financial decisions in my past are still haunting me.  However, I did decide that I would put forth as much effort as I could to learning the skills needed to survive the nearing collapse.  I already have a few days of fishing in this year and going with experienced fisherman has taught me a lot.  I have also applied for all licenses that I could in hopes to enhance my already solid skills with hunting, and I have been learning all I can about trapping as that only increases your chances at catching game.  Although most of my goals with improving skills around feeding my family protein won’t happen until September 1st, I have decided to really get serious around learning how to garden. 

Turn back the clock and as a child I was raised with a garden in the family growing up in Massachusetts.   It was about a quarter acre and it provided us with most of our vegetables for the year.  Last year, I dabbled with the garden, growing a few tomato plants, herbs, chilies, and broccoli.  This year, I ripped out the large flower garden from the previous owner and am going full force.  I used a Sonnylight indoor grow light to get my seeds started while it was still snowing out.  Started Cantaloupe, Zucchini, broccoli, chilies, basil, cilantro, and butternut squash inside where the temperatures are warm.  Just about every pod that I planted had a sprout.
 
Next thing I did was prepare the soil. The flowers were thick and it was hard work getting them, the grass and all of the unneeded wood chips out.  My friend raises alpacas and their dung is great for fertilizer.  I got a load from her and dug it into the garden.  Finally, I noticed that I had an ant hill about 3 feet across in the middle of where I wanted my chilies to go.  It took a few tries but I eventually got rid of them.  I tried a dry product that you just sprinkle on the ant hill and that failed, next I tried two different sprays.  The first one was contained in its own spray bottle that failed.  The second one hooked up to the hose and provided a spray/water mix and that finally did it. 

I spent two weekends clearing out the garden, removing everything that wasn’t food and preparing the soil.  I also spent some time making some adjustments to my sprinkler system so I could water effectively.   At this point, I was feeling great, all of my indoor plants were thriving and my garden was solid with good soil and plenty of water.  This is where the easy part stops. The next few weeks would be many lessons learned. 

Lesson 1:  Read the seeds – Workable ground does not mean after last freeze and I could have had most of what I planted in the ground a month earlier than I did.  Not a hard lesson but nonetheless a good lesson.  With the short growing season in Colorado, it will mean the difference of not having a 2nd or 3rd harvest this year.

Lesson 2:  Look before you dig.  While planting my seed, I used a sharp metal rod to poke the soil to get a seed in the ground.  Well, one bad strike and the next thing I know, I am digging up the pipe to my sprinkler system as there is was a nice hole.  In the end, now I know how to repair a sprinkler system but a headache that I did not need.  Look before you dig.

Lesson 3:  Hardening my plants.  Start slow with hardening your indoor plants.  I had a great first two days with full sun and my plants getting the exposure they needed only to get a little irrigation on the third day.  Went out fishing with the kids, and then stopped at a friend’s for dinner only to come home to dried out crispy plants.  My chilies were okay as they are use to drier conditions but everything else suffered losses.  I got water on the plants immediately and about 50% came back to life however, I lost 8 weeks’ worth of work on the plants that didn’t make it.
 
Lesson 4: Consider your water source.  My sprinkler system is fed from my local reservoir and is not treated with chemicals however, my inside water for drinking is treated.  Plants do not grow as well with town water as they do with rain or a natural water source.  I am doing a test now just to see how much of a difference and I tell you, with only a few weeks in, the plants watered with the water from my sprinkler system are much greener than the other. 

Lesson 5: TBD – Last year I bought a few books with a gift certificate I had on the topic of gardening. I thought by reading through them and having them as a reference that I would have success with my garden but that is not the case.  I am still only a few weeks into the growing season and already I have had so much pain.  I can only imagine what I will learn in the future.  I plan on still trying to get two harvests out of a few types of plants this year and I plan on canning and preserving my harvest.  I plan on root cellaring and practicing seed saving.  I can only imagine what mistakes I will make there as it will be my first time will all of that as well.

I know I have much to learn and have some dependencies that make it obvious that I am not self sufficient.  The water source for my property comes from a reservoir that is more than 15 miles away.  It gets to my house through a series of ditches and pipe systems.  It crosses roads and could easily be sabotaged to where I have no water.  It hasn’t rained here in more than two weeks now and that would effectively kill anything I have going.  Some 55 gallon drums and a way to catch water from my roof would be my first option in saving water.  Buying the drums is on my list and I hope to have them soon but I would not install it until I needed too. 

Another dependency is soil and keeping my soil full of nutrients that keep my garden ideal for growing.  I need to pick out an area in my yard suitable for a compost pile.  Just today I found an article about 99 things that you can compost. I had no idea all the things that can be used to keep my garden soil healthy each year.  Items like paper, pencil shavings, chewing gum and even toe nail clippings can be used according to that article.  We had a compost pile growing up and it consisted of four fence posts with chicken wire wrapped on the outside to hold everything in.  The one thing that I remember most was digging into it in the winter and feeling how hot it was inside.  Nature at work.

The last thing that I would like to add to my house is a greenhouse.  With that addition, I could extend my growing season over a month on each end of the season.  That is one thing about Colorado that is so unpredictable is the weather.  We have been here for over 10 years and each one has been different.  We have had Thanksgivings with 65 degree temperatures and snow in June; you just can’t depend on what is going to happen.   I would want my greenhouse to have a good drip system and some type of fan system for regulating the temperature.   I feel that with these few things, it will be very effective. 

Overall, you can have all the knowledge you want on your bookshelf and you can plan for how you will feed your family in the looming collapse. You can have all the survival seeds you can store, soil test kits, and fertilizer as well.  The truth is, as many others on this site have stated, experience is king and without it, it could mean the difference of living or dying.  I am very fortunate to live in the area that I do more than 180 miles from the nearest city.  I am very comfortable outdoors, am in decent shape, and have many friends that share my same values.  I still have much to learn.  I have two small children and they will be dependent on me for survival.  My hunting and gathering can improve, my retreat could use some improvements, and I could really use a few more years to learn to garden effectively.   The good news in all of this is that the grocery store down the street is still open and has a wonderful produce section and the farmers markets are in full swing.  As much as I want to rely on my garden, my backup plan is still there.  I can only imagine how much these mistakes would be amplified if it no longer existed.

Thank you Mr. Rawles from the bottom of my heart for a great blog site and for your passion to helping the many of us that are willing to learn.  Please keep up the outstanding work and God Bless. 

Letter Re: Military Surplus Generators and Concertina Wire

Jim:
I have found some good advice in SurvivalBlog over the years.  For example your referenced GovLiquidation.com site some years back.  Fort Polk, Louisiana is a two hour drive from my retreat.  I bought a $10,000 MEP-002A 5 KW diesel generator with only three hours clocked on it at auction for $1,500. I was somewhat concerned that it might not work or have problems with it but I decided to chance it.    

Picked it up, brought it home, hooked up two batteries and it cranked right up.  Runs like a top.  Amazing that the government is selling  stuff for what it sells it for but it does. I have had it for nine months and run it every two weeks and have not had any problems with it.     

About every six months they have a batch of about 20 or so generators up for auction.  I will probably buy another.  Can’t beat the price and the generators are built like a tank.   

I also got a batch of  70 rolls of concertina wire for $400. They were in very good shape.   These are the long rolls that sell for about $75 to $100 a piece, new.  I stored them in the very back field at my “farm”. – Carl D.

Three Letters Re: Hunter-Gatherer Mobile Survival

JWR:
I just read Blue Sun’s comments and feel I too must comment.

I believe that he has the beginnings of what I envision as a End of the World scenario, inasmuch as the ‘friend’ from yesterday is the enemy of today.

But we part company when he is suggesting that deep woods is the location for survival.

I see no room for the weak or infirm nor women and children.

I see only a Jeremiah Johnson-style survival thing for a lone male that is young and in good health and very good shape.

How long one expects to be in that shape is directly connected to ones age and present shape.

And if you actually believe you can doctor and dentist yourself at all time, then please show me that person as I have not met Superman yet.

I see all the problems of trying to hunker down and survive, But that is preferable to being on the run and trying to live “of the land” as that is not healthy .Either in a physical or mental way.

The “lone survivor” is a romantic thought and we [ most real men ] that saw Robert Redford as Jeremiah Johnson for the most part thought I thought that was so cool.

As I saw that over 30 years ago, I did grow and get older and matured. Enough to see that lifestyle, if possible then not preferable for so many reasons.

We are a society of sociable people, meaning most normal people want interaction and a friendly face and voice to know.

I imagine it might be possible to survive under ‘the Lone Ranger’ woods walker existence. But after a few years of cold and hunger,the “survivor” might find themselves looking for a few books to read and a friendly voice to hear. Or might think of eating his gun barrel .

I am of the opinion that I will survive, and if I must then it could be alone. But to prefer that and to try for that is beyond this old timers ken! – Regards, – Lobo

 

JWR,
I’ve often wondered as well, as to just how bad things could get in TEOTWAWKI situation.  Reading Blue Sun’s post encouraging hiking out and taking on the hunter-gatherer lifestyle I had a few thoughts.

First, I don’t know how many of your readers have read Octavia Butler’s novel Parable of the Sower.  It’s a TEOTWAWKI story written from the perspective of a teenage girl living in California several years after Peak Oil has crumbled our economy.  TEOTWAWKI happens over several years in the book, unlike the nuclear/EMP disaster of “One Second After“, but many of the same themes and ideas are there.  For instance, the problem of the newly homeless and looters.  After a few years of dwindling resources and a crumbling/no longer existent government, many will be leaving their homes, likely on foot, to scavenge to food and resources.  Some will eventually band together, many will follow the major streams of human traffic, from one town to the next (they will likely follow major routes first since those are the paths of least resistance and then move to smaller roads and towns), scrounging for resources and likely causing fires along the way (think Los Angeles riots).  With limited or non existent services such as police and fire departments, fires are likely to get way out of hand fast.  At first, this is likely to only effect the towns being looted, but eventually, these fires are likely to find their way into the forests, unchecked.  So how do the retreaters and the backpackers deal with this threat and how likely are they to survive it?

With a retreat, one can always remove brush and trees from the immediate area around their retreat, though this makes the retreat more noticeable, it reduces the chance of fire getting close to home.  Large cisterns can be used to store water which can help put out fires, though that also reduces your available drinking water (a problem if the fires hit during a dry season or drought).  Buildings can be built of less flammable materials such as cob, rammed earth, metal, stone or concrete, but there’s still the problem of air quality when a fire gets too close.  Gardens could easily be destroyed (but are replaceable), and orchards would be in danger if the trees were still young.  Livestock are likely to bolt, or worse, suffer and die from smoke inhalation.  A BOB would allow the retreater a quick exit if the worst happened and they were unable to keep the flames under control and away from their retreat.  Though the retreater would potentially take significant losses in a wild fire, those prepared would likely survive.

Backpackers would likely have a more difficult time dealing with forest fires.  For one, they’re in the mild of the fuel, which leaves them strongly at the mercy of the wind currents and how quickly and to which direction they push the flames.  Secondly, they are very restricted on just what they can carry and how quickly they can pack up camp.  If a fire came up on them in the night, they may not have a lot of time to get moving to safety.  Since they have so few resources, the lose of any resources could make life much more difficult, whether it be a sleeping bag, fire arm, knife, etc.  Smoke inhalation would be a much more significant danger.  Being in the forest would make determining the source(s) of the fire more difficult than being in a clearing near the forest. 

Now, all that being said, I can definitely understand and promote the need to be prepared to rough it and backpack in the wild as suggested in the post.  For one, we can never assume that we are completely safe in our retreat.  Much as the characters in Parable of the Sower discover, eventually the walls fall, or you get the negative attention of the wrong people… and when that happens you either stay and face whatever that may entail (death, rape, slavery, etc?) or you bug out for safety again. 

Personally, I hope to have a retreat setup for my family as backpacking with small children long term is likely an even harder task, but I will continue to keep my BOB ready and waiting, caches available with resources, just in case, long after TEOTWAWKI has happened.  And hopefully, my retreat will remain safe, at least until my daughter is old enough to walk and understand the need to remain quiet. – D. Momma

 

James:
Given some modern medicine you can drastically reduce the infant mortality rate. So hunter-gatherers don’t necessarily have a short life span. Most people intending to hunter-gatherers after TEOTWAWKI have already reached maturity and are bringing modern amenities. If you’re referring to looters and criminals shortening their lifespan – then I also beg to differ. Statistically speaking any parcel of land you buy can be usurped by a far more remote parcel of land that can’t be bought, that is reachable only by hiking or far more difficult [terrain or water] obstacles.

JWR Replies: As I’ve mentioned before in SurvivalBlog, the greatest drawback to any mobile retreating scheme is that it doesn’t provide a stored supply of food to fall back upon. Whether you gather fish, game and plants or if raise your own, you cannot be sure of a bountiful harvest each and every year. Without a stored reserve, too much is left up to chance. A deep larder is your best insurance policy.

Economics and Investing:

D.S. spotted this: Greeks Turn Savings to Gold and Perth Mint Silver Coin Sales Surge to Record on Haven Demand

Cody J. sent us this: Default America: Influence & Impasse

Flat line: Fed Leaves Rates Unchanged, Offers Dim View of Economy (Thanks to Steven M. for the link.)

Also from Steven M.: Moody’s: Commercial Real Estate Prices declined 3.7% in April, Prices at new Post-Bubble Low. (Thanks to Steven M. for the link.)

Items from The Economatrix:

The Bitter Medicine for the United States

Jim Rogers:  Obama Should Resign Before Inflation Sparks Unrest

Gerald Celente:  Everything is Not All Right, and Things are Going to Get Worse

How An Economy Collapses

US Warned Again That it is About to Lose Top Credit Rating

Large US Hedge Funds Fear Worse is Yet to Come

New Jersey Lawmakers Approve Benefits Rollback for Workforce

Odds ‘n Sods:

New Study: Fluoride Can Damage the Brain – Avoid Use in Children. (Thank to K.E.R. for the link.)

   o o o

Monumental ignorance of history and logical inversion: “Chicago’s new top cop says the accessibility to firearms in America is an extension ‘of government-sponsored racism’ that goes back to the days of slavery and Jim Crow.” If this idiot knew anything about history, then he would know that gun restrictions were used by southern legislatures during Reconstruction to repress the voting rights of recently-freed slaves. He has his history absolutely inverted!

   o o o

Alan W. flagged this: Power grid change may disrupt clocks.

   o o o

Don in Oregon sent this item: Swiss Renew Push for Bomb Shelters. Don notes: “I didn’t know that the Swiss have 300,000 nuclear shelters with capacity for 8.6 million people (more than their population), and the government stockpiles 4.5 months’ of fuel and food for the entire country.”

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“But those things, which God before had shewed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled.

Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord;

And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you:

Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.” – Acts 3:18-21 (KJV)

Note from JWR:

Today we present another entry for Round 35 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 gift certificate from Sunflower Ammo , 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 35 ends on July 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 Case For Silver Spoons, by F.J.B.

1

Most folks today would agree that we live in troubled times. At any moment, a single event could change the balance of our society for the worse, taking us back to what some might call the dark ages. Predicted solar flares, EMPs, earthquakes, or  even terrorist activity today could lead to a complete infrastructure failure that would affect every aspect of our future. During such a grim event, our personal health would be a great concern. Without refrigeration, many medicines would spoil. Without power, pharmaceutical plants shut down. The few hospitals that have back-up power will soon run out and close if they are not overrun by the masses first. Most modern medical practices would become useless. What is common surgery today, will become a thing of the past. Without the power grid, virtually all that goes into modern medical practices for the common man simply goes away.

Everyday tasks that we would have engaged in without concern before such an event could now pose a health risk that leads to infections or sickness and could even lead to death. Running a barbed wire fence, turning a wrench on your truck, or cutting fire wood will require extra care so as to not get hurt or injured. In fact, just sitting down to a meal could lead to your demise. Aside from the main course, what are you ingesting from the plates and utensils themselves? Like it or not, without automatic dishwashers, we will all be taking a greater interest in washing the dishes and being certain that they are clean, which is why we all should now be looking at silver spoons.

Silver spoons may be the very reason some family lines have continued through the ages while others have been completely lost. Perhaps this, too, is why the general population holds a negative bias towards those who were “born with a silver spoon“.  While the lower class ate their meals with dirty hands and wooden spoons, the elite would eat with dirty hands and silver spoons.   

At this time, I feel compelled to make full disclosure in that I was, indeed, silver-spoon-fed Gerber baby food by my mom who always tried to keep my hands clean.  While on her honeymoon in the Appalachians, Mom bought a souvenir silver (baby) spoon that would be a hand-me-down silver spoon from my older sister to me. It was soon lost by me to my younger sibling who in turn lost it to our still youngest sibling who saw the silver spoon retired. The silver spoon came out of retirement some twenty-five years later to assist my wife in feeding our son. At that time I marveled that I hadn’t starved to death as a child for the tiny size of the silver spoon.

Further, while growing up at home with my family, we were sometimes allowed to dine with Mom’s silverware on extra special occasions such as every third Christmas dinner or every seventh Easter Sunday meal.

So you see, while I am no stranger to silver spoons, I am clearly not an elitist that would have had his own silver baby spoon and dined daily with the family silverware. And Mom was no elitist either! She was just a young and sentimental nurse who knew of silver’s benefits and wanted to protect her children.

Big industry has learned what smart moms, and elitists all over the world, knew all along. Silver fights germs because silver is poison to germs!

A Swiss botanist from the 1880s is credited with coining  the phrase oligodynamic effect which, simply put, means that silver is toxic to bacteria, viruses, molds, fungi, spores and other unpopular micro-organisms! In other words, a spoon made of silver would naturally fight bacteria, viruses, and other micro bad things that might want to hang-out or live on your spoon. Some test results suggest that in as little as 6 minutes a silver spoon will have killed all the bad stuff on it.

A silver spoon self-sanitizes as it sits in your drawer waiting to be used.  This property is shared by other heavy metals as well, but silver is the most affordable, and safest, heavy metal that won’t cause other adverse effects on us (such as lead does). Scientists, doctors, and nurses have been aware of this for years, but modern medicine went in another direction. Only today are we hearing about the wonders of silver in medicine and industry.

Today, fabric manufacturers are adding silver particles to socks and other clothing to control odors caused by bacteria. Silver-coated polyester fabric is used in heart valve replacement surgery. Silver is used in mattresses and bedding for both its antimicrobial effect and its heat dissipation qualities. Silver is used in fabrics that in turn are used in RF Shielding and protecting electronics from EMPs. Silver is used in the fabric mesh of radiation protective suits. Silver is now being used in bandages and first-aid materials. Kitchen sponges are available with the benefits of silver. Colloidal silver (a liquid suspension of silver) is being used almost anywhere you can think of that germs are growing. It is being sprayed into HVAC vents to kill germs and bacteria. It is used as an antibacterial burn treatment. It has been shown that colloidal silver, taken internally, is effective against E. Coli  and over 650 disease-causing organisms. The use of silver in industry continues to grow and we may never see an end to its possibilities.  It is also of note that American pioneers would drop a silver dollar into a jug of milk to keep it fresh from spoilage. What else did they know that has been forgotten by modern man?

Knowing what silver can do, and owning pure silver (.999 fine), you can actually make colloidal silver at home for dipping your socks into or even treating cancer. There are many internet posts on how to make colloidal silver at home and the uses of colloidal silver. It is fairly easy to make and can be done with a few 9-volt batteries, silver wire or two silver bullion coins (.999), a quart canning jar, two alligator clips and some distilled water.

The process involves creating an electrical current that runs through the two clips suspending the silver in the distilled water. As the electricity flows through the silver and into/through the water, silver ionized particles are left behind suspended in the water. Once made, it should be stored covered and away from sunlight. Use it as a topical antibacterial for cuts, scrapes  and burns. After a societal-changing event where there is no doctor or hospital, you can take sterile bandages and dip them into the colloidal silver solution for use as an antibacterial bandage.

It is not recommended that you use a sterling silver spoon to make colloidal silver.  Sterling silver is .925 pure, having some copper in it. We do not want to ingest the copper so it is recommended that you use .999 pure silver as is found in silver bullion.  It is also of note that early silver spoons were nearly pure silver. It was later that they were alloyed to make the spoon stronger and harder to keep it from bending. Today, “Sterling silver” is .925 pure silver.

Another age-old benefit of silver spoons dates to the Tang Dynasty (618 – 907) China.  Silver chop sticks would turn black or tarnish quickly when the silver reacted with popular poisons of the era. A silver spoon (or chop stick) will tarnish on contact with sulfur, and therefore any arsenic sulfides, making it a handy arsenic-poisoning detector and a lot easier to keep around than a chef or a peasant for random taste tests.

All said, everyone should have a silver spoon in their kit. It should be widely used by all in family survival kitchens, BOBs, and even carried by each individual to be used when eating out (you’ll always know whose mouth it last touched).  It will also be in the ready should you need to barter or buy something while on the road. After all, it is silver and just like cash. Maybe you should have several with you.

I would support a universal distribution of silver spoons to every man, woman, and child in these United States as an alternative health care plan.   In essence, the silver spoon is a pocket health care plan!

Remember what Mom always said: Wash your hands, eat well, be healthy, use your silver spoon and stay away from hard ice cream to prevent bent spoons.

Buy some silver spoons and you just might be continuing your family line.

Letter Re: Just How Bad Can it Get?

JWR,
I will preface by saying that I have a much different opinion on the aftermath of a significant long-term or permanent collapse of the economy and the power grid leading to a collapse of the social structure.   I have read numerous studies that indicated that, in any long-term absence of modern technology, the sort of defended retreat with family and friends, not to mention the exposure you will get bartering and dispensing charity with third parties, will be only the initial phase of a total breakdown of a functioning society.  Some say the further degradation of what we now hold as essential human standards of morality and ethics will result in everybody not in your nuclear family being reduced to predators, suppressing any capacity for compassion, morality, community, and even basic identification with or empathy toward others.  In effect, they will inevitably adopt most of the characteristics of a classical psychopath, willing to commit the most brutal acts to protect their immediate nuclear family (spouse and minor children) and to maximize their and their family’s ability to continue to survive.  The person you barter with one day may well be your deadly enemy a week later, determined to destroy your family and loot all of your carefully accumulated survival resources.  Your book envisions that, in a total collapse, you can hunker down in a retreat that is well hidden and well defended long enough for the chaos to dissipate, at which time you basically live a pioneer-style life, planting your own crops and raising your own livestock.   

From my readings, many experts in social interaction, psychology, sociology, and other fields seem to accept the view that, should governments and economies collapse, the period of chaos is expected to last at least a century and to get worse, not better, over ours and our children’s lifetimes.   In fact, the very act of planting gardens and raising livestock will be a public tell to roving gangs living off of plunder, some of which will virtually be small armies heavily armed by looting National Guard armories and other sources of combat-designed weaponry.  Even the best equipped retreat can end up being a box canyon, and even the people living within the retreat can end up turning on each other as supplies wane.

William Forstchen, who co-authors (and, I suspect, completely ghost writes) Newt Gingrich’s books has a thought-provoking new fiction book on his own, called “One Second After.”  It begins with the protagonist losing his electricity.  At first, he thinks that this is an ordinary power outage and power will soon be restored.  Then he begins to notice that battery-operated devices, like his watch, and all of the cars on the nearby freeway, have also stopped working.  It turns out that some unknown enemy has attacked the United States by setting off three nuclear explosions high in the stratosphere and created a massive EMP that fried just about all of the country’s electric systems (only a few older cars still work).  He and his neighbors all join forces to share their resources and also to provide security against looter gangs.  Soon they are under growing assaults by significantly large bands of military-style criminals and extremists, while, at the same time, some of the people on the block are turning against each other as they begin to realize that equal sharing of resources will benefit some at the expense of others.  Personal survival increasingly trumps any remaining vestiges of human and humane values.  It is a fascinating read.

There are extreme survival strategies that not only require dispensing with almost all of the preparations we would make to create and defend a retreat, but are dependent on us having developed skills that allow us to “live off the land,” possibly for the remainder of our lives, using only the equipment we can carry in a backpack (expect 50 to 60 lbs max for a young, in-shape male, and proportionally less for spouse and young children).  It is, in effect, a return to the hunter-gatherer life (with certain modern tools that I would consider essentials in my backpack and will cover in future posts). 

One advantage of developing these skills augmented by the most useful tools that can be backpacked and depend solely on sweat equity, shanks mares, and solar power is that, while hunkering down in an urban retreat is okay for a case where the services are down for a few days, and creating the fully-functional well-stocked retreat, capable of being defended (given relatively small numbers of bad guys in a looting pack and not escalating daily assaults) over a somewhat longer period, but still not suited to the more extreme breakdown scenarios that are very possible, the ability to live off the land, either alone or with your family, covers all levels of breakdown. 

It might not be nearly as ‘comfortable’ as a well-stocked retreat, but it is a successful strategy for surviving anything from a temporary loss of the grid to a total meltdown of the world economy and world governments.  Given that very few people, even among serious survivalists, have the skills and knowledge to maximize their ability to survive in the most remote environments, the ability to survive reasonably comfortably in extreme wilderness means that you are very unlikely to cross paths with a potential ‘bad guy.’  Certainly no bands of roving looters are going to make it a practice of combing extreme wilderness on the unlikely possibility they will find a single backpacker with only tools and resources that facilitate backpacking – in a risk/reward or cost/benefit analysis, it would be self-defeating for a group of people not trained in wilderness survival to spend perhaps hundreds of man-hours on the off-chance of finding one person who is not carrying anything that would contribute to the gang’s survival.

In future posts, I intend to talk about some of my own experiences living off the land (remote backpacking was merely a form of recreation when I first started doing it in my teens, but I have now been doing regularly for over 45 years, with increasing concentration on being totally self-sufficient).  I will also cover some of the equipment I have been using on multi-month solo backpacking trips in mountain and forest wilderness that permits me to maintain worldwide communication and carry literally tens of thousands of books on every conceivable subject.  Almost all are inexpensive, and all are massive ‘force multipliers’ of both knowledge and communications. – Blue Sun

JWR Replies: Given the historic short life expectancy of hunter-gatherers, I’ve opted for a well-defended Deep Larder approach. Your mileage may vary.

Letter Re: SlideFire Stocks and OPSEC

Mr. Rawles,         
First, I’d like to thank you once again for doing what you do, helping many, many people in the preparedness movement.   

I’d like to to share my experience with the SSAR-15 SlideFire stock. I saw a video of the product in action on YouTube a month prior to the SurvivalBlog post concerning the SSAR. I couldn’t resist ordering one myself. A very interesting and functional product. And fun too!

But where I shoot is private plantation pine land with a dozen houses within a mile. Rifle fire is a unmistakable sound even over mile in a rural area with cotton and peanut fields. A couple hundred rounds of rifle fire on a calm Saturday afternoon sounding nearly identical to full auto. Less than a week later neighbors and the small town gun shop crowd was talking about me being in possession of a full auto weapon. Definitely not the kind of rumors about you that you want flying around. Thieves, ATF agents, etc, are not the guys you want knocking on your door. (Or knocking in your door for that matter.) This was a OPSEC breach on my part, but not from me talking, but my rifle talking and people hearing.    

The SSAR-15 stock would make a prudent addition to an individual’s AR but should be fitted and fired with OPSEC in mind. I thought you may find my experience with this item somewhat interesting to SurvivalBlog readers. Once again thank you for what you do. Keep your powder dry, my friend. – G.T.

Economics and Investing:

From The Daily Bell: Greece – Salvation by Politicians

Ron Paul: The Worst Thing You Can Do For A People Is Purposely Devalue The Dollar

Greenspan: Greek Default Will Trigger Another U.S. Recession

Items from The Economatrix:

The Latest FDIC Friday Follies: Regulators Shut Down Small Banks in Georgia, Florida; Makes 47 Bank Failures This Year

Fed Dims Outlook for Jobs and Growth for 2011

Oil Dives to Four-Month Loss as Emergency Stocks Unleashed

Fed Acknowledges Economy is Growing More Slowly

The End of the Trend is Near

Layoffs, Housing Data Point to Chronic Problems

Odds ‘n Sods:

Steve McC. mentioned: Earth Must Be Ready for Next Big Solar Storm

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Anyone who places over $150 with Ready Made Resources in the month of July will get a free copy of the excellent Urban Danger DVD. This is a great tool for people to wake others up to the dangers we face and solutions available.

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Steven M. mentioned a different approach to bike tire protection: Seat Belt Bike Tire Hack

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K.A.F. sent this: A rural life is better: Living in a concrete jungle is stressful and make you vulnerable to depression. “Previous findings have shown that the risk for anxiety disorders is 21 per cent higher for people from the city, who also have a 39 per cent increase for mood disorders. ‘In addition, the incidence of schizophrenia is almost doubled for individuals born and brought up in cities. These values are a cause for concern.’”

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Invictus mentioned a new oral rehydration product called Oral I.V.