Economics and Investing:

The latest Friday Follies–Four More US Banks Bite the Dust: Midwest Bank & Trust Company, Elmwood Park, Illinois; Southwest Community Bank, Springfield, Missouri; New Liberty Bank, Plymouth, Michigan;
Satilla Community Bank, St. Marys, Georgia.

Banks seized a record 92,000 homes last month. (Thank to Brian B. for the link.)

Axel Merk explains what is behind the gold and global credit market shakeup: Europe’s Bazooka

Clive Maund has some interesting observations on the gold and silver markets.

Reader “T556” liked this commentary by Dave DeGraw: High Frequency Financial Terrorism, Wall Street Bankster’s Maintain Death Grip on United States

Items from The Economatrix:

Housing Optimists Are “Not Paying Attention” Says Dean Baker

Stocks Recover From Recent Slide Over Debt Fears

Senate Passes Curb on Bank Card Fees

Spain Faces Unrest as New Austerity Plan is Announced

Germans Face Big Budget Cuts as Cost of EU Bailouts

IMF Predicts More Pain for Greece

US Banks “May Have Misled” Rating Agencies

Euro at Lowest Level Since Lehman Collapse

US Retail Sales, Industrial Output Rise

Wall Street Spooked by Bank Probe and Greece Blast

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“I believe that the physical gold rush we have seen in Europe is proof that the bailout was an epic failure. Of course propaganda will be used all over the place from the emotionally captured mainstream media to the stock market, which as I have said for over a year now is largely used as a political weapon because the uneducated masses actually believe the stock market going up means things are getting better. All we have to do is look at the stellar performance of the Zimbabwean stock market during the hyperinflation to know this is complete nonsense.” – Michael Krieger, as quoted by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge

Note from JWR:

Today we present another entry for Round 28 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round will 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 between $500 and $600, and B.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees, in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $392 value.) C.) A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com. (A $275 value.), and D.) A 500 round case of Federal 5.56mm XM193 55 Grain FMJ ammo, courtesy of Sunflower Ammo. This is a $199 value, and includes free UPS shipping.

Second Prize: A.) 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 $400, and B.) two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value).

Third Prize: A.) A copy of my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course, from Arbogast Publishing, and B.) a Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21. (This filter system is a $275 value.)

Round 28 ends on May 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.

Self-Storage Spaces as Caches, by Ryan in British Columbia

Many self-storage caching ideas have been put forward by readers of SurvivalBlog. Generally, most people in the preparedness community do not approve of using a self-storage unit as a cache, but I think it has some great advantages. As with anything, you must properly plan and weigh your options. There are many considerations you must make, but if you find a self-storage place under the right conditions, it can be very helpful.  A main concern is that it should be walking distance from your home. Also make sure the place has rodent and insect control. Some pros and cons are listed below:

Pros:

  • It is located away from your home (your eggs not “all in one basket”.)
  • It is very secure while the grid is up. Semi-secure during grid-down.
  • Almost nobody stores food there, so raiders will mostly be looking for tools, clothing and things to burn [for fuel] like boxes, paper and furniture (won’t be immediately raided.)
  • If your wife / family / roommates are not on board, it’s private.
  • If you are low on space at home (apartment), it’s great for reducing clutter.
  • Nobody gets suspicious when you move 20 large containers in and out whenever you want.
  • Fire is of little concern as four-hour firewalls are common in these places, and most new storage buildings are constructed out of concrete.

Cons:

  • Expensive rental fees.
  • Will eventually be raided for equipment and burnable materials.
  • May not be located close enough to your home.
  • In Canada, you cannot store firearms in these facilities, as they must be in your home.
  • These storage businesses usually have a clause in their rental contracts saying you can’t store food or flammable goods. Just make sure the boxes aren’t labeled as food, ammo, etc.
  • If you are caught breaking the contract before a collapse, you may be liable for damage or injuries.
  • Storing fuel is a BIG “no-no” in these places, so be careful. At best you’ll get one warning, and then be kicked out.

Security:
Of course you want security, but not too much security. In a grid-down collapse, you want to be able to get inside the property with some bolt-cutters and access your goods. Most of these places have chain-link fences with barbed-wire. This is perfect, because in a pinch, you can easily cut a hole in the fence. Also make sure you can access your storage unit from outside. In some of these places, you have to walk into a warehouse and go up an elevator. In a grid-down collapse, these units will be unavailable because the exterior doors to the warehouse will be locked. These places are pretty secure so good luck getting through those heavy metal doors.

While it may be nice to have a heated indoor storage unit for your cache, lack of access is simply too big a risk. Get a unit with direct access from outside, preferably heated for food and water storage. You don’t want your food and water going through many freeze-thaw cycles.

Get a good lock! You are going to be spending $1,000 to $4,000 a year on rental fees anyway, so you might as well buy the thickest, highest quality padlock you can afford. Often, these storage places provide you with a padlock of their own. Do not use it! They have their own master key, and it will be a cheap lock that they bought in bulk. A raider could easily cut those locks.

It is my opinion that these facilities won’t be raided immediately in a TEOTWAWKI event. Grocery stores, restaurants, hotels, and food storage warehouses will be first. Apartment buildings will be second, then suburban homes, and lastly rural homesteads. In my opinion, storage places won’t be picked clean until all the food, water and fuel has been secured by whoever is in charge at the time.

Camouflage:
If possible, store your goods among a pile of the worthless things that nobody would steal. Namely, make sure it can’t be traded, worn, eaten, or burned [as fuel]. Scrap metal is one idea. It is heavy, and has no immediate value in terms of day-to-day survival. Who is going to steal a rusted 200-pound boat anchor? Nobody will, at least not at first. 

I am currently working on a self-storage cache and have been collecting scrap metal. Among the dirty, rusted heap of garbage I plan to put together, I’ll have a couple very large boxes with large labels such as “House Furnace, 1986”. Inside these boxes will be my cached items. These boxes will be at the back of the storage unit, and thieves will have to walk over piles of twisted metal and rusty nails just have a peek in the dusty old beat up boxes. Hopefully raiders will simply move on before that. Well actually, I hope I’ve emptied the cache before they raid the place!

What you should store has been constantly discussed on SurvivalBlog so I won’t go into much detail. We all know what to put into a cache… Beans, Bullets and Band-Aids!

I’ll also include tents, propane, camp stove, clothing, blankets, stabilized gas, some water, batteries, flashlights, candles, a water filter, rope, knives, chlorine powder, lighters, and a radio. I’ve also been considering whiskey for barter if space and weight don’t make it prohibitive.

A Word About Water:

It is difficult to cache enough water to survive for long, so keep more at home, along with a water filter. People can’t carry much water very far, so I will have a minimal amount of water in my caches. Without access to a replenishing water source [and a water filter, if needed], we will not survive for long, but we all know that already–thanks to Jim. Try to have access to a replenishing water source, or buy a hand-cranked reverse osmosis filter if on the coast, as I did. This avoids so much work if the SHTF, and you can concentrate on food, shelter and security.

Letter Re: Spring Location Web Page

JWR:
I came upon the Find A Spring web site the other day, thought it might be interesting.

Water being one of the most important assets in a great time of need, just maybe it is closer and better than your tap. Look up the closest natural spring to your location at Find A Spring. Bring all your water carrying gear and try it out to see how it tastes. Some of these springs mention sulphur or other tastes. You might find that it is the best water you have ever tried, best of all it is natural and typically free. In a TSHTF scenario, this could be life saving to everyone in the area and would be profitable and make it easy to take care of that most pressing of needs; clean, healthy water available from nature. If you are traveling to a safe place, it might be that you could plan your route to hit these springs along the way, saving you the hassle of carrying large amounts of water or the worry of not finding water. Best of luck, – Steve O.

Letter Re: Lessons from the Anasazi Societal Collapse

Dear James:
I recently stumbled across a book with surprising relevance to survivalists: David E. Stuart’s Anasazi America. Stuart is a professor of anthropology at the University of New Mexico, and Anasazi America is an overview of seventeen centuries of New Mexico prehistory, focusing on the Anasazi, builders of the Chacoan civilization, and their descendants, the Pueblo.

At their peak in the eleventh century, the Chaco Anasazi were an extremely successful society, larger than any European state of the time, having built extensive road and trade networks and huge “great houses” that were used as food distribution and ritual centres. But over a period of a few decades, they underwent what qualifies as TEOTWAWKI by anybody’s standards; increasing disparity between the ruling class and the poor, several years drought leading to famine, failure of the ruling elites to recognize and respond to the exigencies of their situation, and a multigenerational collapse which saw a rise in warfare and a sharp decline in population. Although the book was published in 2000, Stuart attempts to draw parallels between the situation of the Chaco Anasazi and what he perceives as disturbingly analogous trends in American society at the time.

While most SurvivalBlog readers won’t find much of interest in the first five chapters unless they’re amateur archaeologists, and many of them might not agree with Stuart’s prescriptions for modern-day America, I suspect that they might find the remainder of the book of interest; it’s an interesting study of collapse, and one that supports a lot of current survivalist thinking; while the ruling Chaco Anasazi elites attempted to deal with the crisis by repeating old formulas that no longer worked, the smart Anasazi bugged out to the hinterboonies early and took up more self-sufficient lifestyles as opposed to staying dependent on the centralized food storage and distribution system, followed later by a Golden Horde of sorts. Several generations of warfare and population decline ensued. Unlike many other pre-contact societies in the Americas that underwent collapses, however, the Chaco Anasazi eventually managed to rebuild a more stable and successful society.

It’s not your average survivalist read, and rather academic, but it’s still worth a read for its big-picture perspective on a well-studied case of a complex society collapsing.

Best Regards, – E.D.R. (A moderately-well prepared Canadian)

Economics and Investing:

Jonathan C. sent us this: Don’t Tell Zimbabwe: Argentina Belongs to 25% Inflation Club.

G.G. recommended this: Central banks are losing credibility.

Also from G.G.: Report: 11.2 Million U.S. Properties with Negative Equity in First Quarter.

World Health Organization Moving Ahead on Billions in Internet and Other Taxes

Items from The Economatrix:

US Plans Law to Prevent Banks from Betting Against Clients

SEC Eyes “Circuit Breakers” to Stop Repeat of Dow Plunge

The Big Short: How Wall Street Destroyed Main Street

Trade Deficit Increases to $40.4 Billion in March

Was The Euro Saved By a Call From Barack Obama?

 

Odds ‘n Sods:

Several readers mentioned this: 20 Things You Will Need to Survive When the Economy Collapses and the Next Great Depression Begins. The writer is a bit naive, but seems to be well-intentioned.

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Details emerge about the new Supreme Court nominee: Clinton staff: “We are taking the law and bending it as far as we can to capture a whole new class of guns.” Kagan wrote the Clinton ban on gun imports.

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Ian sent us a news story link that illustrates how paper currency privacy (and ease of transport) is slipping away: Organised crime fears cause ban on 500 euro note sales. Look for the truth behind the headlines, folks. Think about the face value of what you can fit in a money belt today, and what options will exist in a few years. Here in North America, $500 Canadian dollar notes are now available only on the collector’s market. (But thankfully, they are still legal tender.) And anything larger than a $100 USD bill would not be available without paying a large collector’s premium, and presumably even then wouldn’t be accepted as legal tender in the U.S. or abroad.

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that ‘individuality’ is the key to success.” – Robert Orben

Note from JWR:

Today we present another entry for Round 28 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round will 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 between $500 and $600, and B.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees, in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $392 value.) C.) A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com. (A $275 value.), and D.) A 500 round case of Federal 5.56mm XM193 55 Grain FMJ ammo, courtesy of Sunflower Ammo. This is a $199 value, and includes free UPS shipping.

Second Prize: A.) 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 $400, and B.) two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value).

Third Prize: A.) A copy of my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course, from Arbogast Publishing, and B.) a Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21. (This filter system is a $275 value.)

Round 28 ends on May 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.

Some Tips and Tricks on Raising Meat Rabbits, by Christine W.

Food production is the most important skill in survival. Without sufficient food you’re sunk. You won’t have the energy to protect yourself or your supplies, you won’t be able to get firewood to keep warm, or water to stay hydrated. So yes, you can live for weeks without food, but only if other people are there to take care of you and they have enough food! And meat is one of the best energy foods. Unfortunately most meat production is a high feed/time endeavor. It takes a lot of feed and time to get that cow to butcher size. Two years from birth to butcher if you’re looking at optimum growth. Plus a cow standing out in a field is going to draw attention, even if you live in the boonies. That’s why rabbits are such a good survival idea. They are very low profile, quiet, easy to raise, healthy, easy to feed, reproduce quickly, and reach butcher size in 10 to 12 weeks. No other livestock animal has a better feed to weight ratio. Meaning it takes less feed to get your rabbits to butcher size than any other meat animal. There are some great rabbit raising books out there with the standard information, but some info is only learned by experience. These are tricks about rabbit raising that we had to learn the hard way through trial and error, or was passed on to us by other rabbit raisers. So if you are a rabbit raiser or just starting a rabbit journey I hope this helps!

Health
Do not use straw in rabbit cages. If mice have been in the straw their feces and urine can carry infections that will spread to your rabbits. We had this happen! Old newspapers, clean grass hay, or dry wood shavings are the safest.

Wood Shavings as litter: I would only recommend putting litter like wood shavings, clean grass hay, or newspaper in cages for pregnant females for their nesting box. But wood shavings have a drawback. The dust can get in the babies eyes causing eye problems. We had this happen too! Mother rabbits should make their nest out of fur they pull off themselves, more on that later.

Clean litter trays frequently, at least once a week. Rabbit urine is high in ammonia and can cause health problems for your rabbits if left to accumulate. Keep your rabbits in a well-ventilated area. Rabbit droppings make excellent compost!

Give your rabbit a piece of natural wood to chew; they really like apple wood branches. This helps keep their teeth from growing too long.
Always put an untreated piece of board in the cage for your rabbit to sit on. Meat breeds are heavy and the pressure can cause sores called hutch sores to form on the bottoms of the feet.
If hutch sores occur build an outside run for your rabbit. Cover on the top with wire or wood but not the bottom. Let the rabbit run on ground until the sores are healed. Letting the problem go can cause feet problems or even death!

We use wire stackable cages with wire bottoms with trays underneath each rabbit to catch the urine and feces. We use wood shavings in the trays to absorb the urine and keep the smell down. It works much better than newspaper or straw. Stackable cages take up less space, are easy to clean, and make rabbit chores go faster. They are also easier to keep in a secure location like a garage or basement. Worth the price in my opinion.
Empty aluminum soda pop cans are fun and safe toys for rabbits to play with. Rabbits get bored too and can start destructive behavior! But be careful, a few rabbits will actually bite through the metal. If you have one of these then take the can out and try something else.
Always provide a mineral salt lick for rabbit health. Make sure its “mineral” not plain salt. And stock up, they are cheap right now, but may be unavailable later.
Keep rabbit food secure from mice. They carry diseases!
Give pregnant and nursing females oats (about ¼ cup per day), they love it and it helps build up fat stores for good baby production. Also give to babies to fatten them up for dinner!

Kindling/Baby Problems
This is the most problematic aspect of rabbits. You will devote more time to kindling (rabbit birth and newborn babies) than anything else in rabbit care. While rabbits are easier to breed and raise than chickens in my opinion, that is only true with a good experienced doe (female rabbit). If you have good mom, baby care on your part is non-existent. Here are some hard learned tricks to problems.
Do not use wood shavings in kindling (birth) box! Give the doe newspaper or clean grass hay if it seems like she is not pulling fur good enough. Putting grass hay and newspaper in may also stimulate her to start building a nest. Do this about a week before kindling (birth).

First Time Mothers
Almost everyone you talk to and every book you read will say that first time mothers will always loose the first litter of babies. And frankly this is pretty true. But I have noticed that it is usually due to the mother not making a good enough nest and the babies getting chilled as they are born furless. Also the mother almost never gives the first really good feeding that is necessary after birth, causing the kits to be weak. Put those two together and you have dead babies! So here are ways I have solved this problem. Works in other situations too.
Chilled babies: So you go out and find babies chilled and close to death. Or maybe you think they are dead. Hold on! Unless the baby is actually frozen to the wire they may be just barely still alive. Get them inside and if they are hardly moving submerge them up to their neck in warm (not hot!) water. Be careful to not get the head wet. I have had babies that were so still it took this measure to show me they were alive. And like a miracle they came back. Now after they are moving pretty well take them out and gently rub them with a warm dry cloth, being careful of the umbilical cord area. Once dry put them in a box with a heating pad covered with a folded towel or hot water bottles to keep them nice and warm.

Weakness due to lack of milk
If momma didn’t feed them right after birth your going to have weak babies who will be unable to nurse the next time, or if momma rejected them and you need to put them on a surrogate mother (more on surrogates later) the babies will need enough energy to nurse once put back with a mom. Here is what I do and it usually works. Make a warm sugar water solution 2 parts water to 1 part table sugar. Put in an eyedropper and put in warmed babies mouth. Do not give to a chilled baby! Wait until you warm it up. Give only one drop of sugar water at a time; it is horribly easy to drown these babies! After two drops stop. With any more you risk drowning the baby. You should see them swallowing while feeding, don’t force it. You will see these babies start moving around making noises and looking for food as energy increases. Now you know they are ready to be given back to mom or surrogate mom. If you fear it’s too cold outside bring mom to the babies inside to feed them. Mother rabbits only feed babies once a day. Some moms won’t feed under these conditions and then your going to have to try taking babies out to mom twice a day and bringing them inside until they get fur. Or to solve this problem keep your rabbits in a rabbit barn with heat available, or only breed in warm weather.
Insufficient Nest: Mother rabbits should pull out their fur to make a nice warm nest, but first timers almost always do a bad job. If this happens you’ll have to do it for her. After birth (if you do this while mom is still pregnant you can kill the babies inside her due to her struggling) take mom out and gently pull fur from her tummy and sides. It will come out easy due to hormones and reveal her nipples to babies. Shove all this fur into a nice nest shape and make a hollow with your fist. Put babies in and cover with fur. Now put mom in and watch closely. If she tries to reject them you will know because they will start screaming as she hurts them. Get them out! Now you have a problem. Hopefully you can find a surrogate mom.

Surrogate moms: I always breed more than one rabbit at the same time, that way if one mom rejects or has too many babies to support you can give them to another mom. Most rabbits can only support about 8 to ten babies at one time. And if you are breeding meat rabbits your going to have big litters. If different litters are born too far apart it is harder to get the surrogate to accept them. So breed together. Here is how to get a surrogate to accept different babies. In the morning (not night) take the babies and put them in the new nest. Cover well with moms fur so they will smell like the other babies, you can also rub vanilla extract on moms nose to help mask the scent. Now watch mom closely, if she rejects you will know. Check the babies a few times first day, trying not to upset mom. The more you mess with a new mom the more likely she is to kill her babies.

As I have said meat rabbits have big litters so your other moms may not have room to take more babies. What then? Well, you can keep another smaller breed of rabbit just for surrogating. The smaller lops make excellent moms. We always bred our pet Holland at the same time as the meat rabbits. Smaller rabbits generally have smaller litters, but can still support up to eight babies. Our Holland was a rock! She accepted anything and always took great care of her litters. Also bonus, you can tell whose babies are who’s. This is important for future breeding purposes. If all babies look alike then you will not be able to tell which babies came from which moms for future breeding.

Buck Problems
Most bucks (male rabbits) have no problems except one. Due to living in a small cage they have very little staying power when it comes to breeding. So when you are trying to breed a male to a female he gets tired very quickly. The solution is to give your buck an open space or rabbit run to live on. His muscles will be stronger and he will breed better as a result. Just make sure it is secure from dogs and predators!
Predator problems – Animal and Human
Rabbits are a prey animal for pretty much anything bigger than a squirrel. So securing your rabbits is a major concern. The biggest predators Pre-SHTF are neighborhood dogs. They get really excited when they see a rabbit and kill mode kicks in! Even a Yorkie could kill your rabbits simply by jumping at them and barking. Rabbits aren’t the cleverest of creatures and panic easily. When they get really scared they will run circles in their cages and jump up sometimes breaking their own backs! Any rabbit not in a secure cage is a sitting duck for owls, dogs, cats, hawks, raccoons, skunks, badgers, possums, and mean kids! And that is just in town! So my advice is put your rabbits in a rabbit barn. This can be a humble shed, garage, or basement. This will become even more important in a SHTF situation. You will not want people [outside your family] knowing that you have meat available.

Heat – The Silent Rabbit Killer
The most tragic thing to come home to is a barn full of heatstroke-killed rabbits. Rabbits can die of heat stroke in 80 degree Fahrenheit weather. That’s it! They are covered in nice warm fur, which is great in cold weather, but not in the heat. Here are the ways to avoid heat death:
1. Shade! Never, ever, put your rabbit hutch in direct sun in warm weather, or they will die! Put your hutches or cages in the shade of a building or tree.
2. Always provide frozen water bottles for your rabbit to lie on in the heat. I like big 2 liter ones for our meat rabbits because they last most of the day. Keep one in the cage while the other one is in the freezer refreezing.
2. Always provide lots of water in the heat. Use water bottle feeders so the rabbits can’t defecate in them or spill them.
3. In really hot weather 90 or above soak the hutch roof and sides in water from a hose several times a day to cool it down.
4. If you notice your rabbits panting take action immediately, your rabbits are in heat stroke! Mist your rabbits with the hose and put frozen water or pop bottles in the cage with them. Monitor to make sure they are cooling down.
5. If a rabbit is laying still in the cage and won’t wake or is sluggish but still breathing it is now in a coma from heat. Get it out and submerge in a bucket of cold water up to the neck. It should revive if not too far gone.

Conclusion
Rabbits are an easy animal to raise once you get the cages and feeders, and much of that you can make yourself. They are also perfect for kids to care for, as they are small, cute, and generally non-aggressive. The worst you will get from a rabbit is a bad scratch. A cow or a pig however, could easily kill or injure your eight to ten-year-old child.

If you had 5 to 10 does breeding every two months you would have a good meat supply for the year. Another major advantage is that you can butcher for daily needs. If you butcher a hog or cow you have to process, pickle, salt, or freeze hundreds of pounds of meat all at once. It’s a tricky business to do safely. With rabbits you have no possibility of spoilage and a nice pelt of fur to turn into clothing. We have seen interest in our rabbits triple in the past months. So much so that I have run out of breeders to sell. This is something that has never happened to me before! People are waking up and looking for ways to ensure food safety. If you are looking to buy breeding stock then make sure they are young (under a year of age) or proven to be fertile, and buy from a good breeder who knows about proper care and feeding. Good Luck!

Two Letters Re: The Skeptical Spouse

Mr Rawles,
I have shared the experiences of many with skeptical spouses. My solution has been a very gradual (and low-key) process of preparing and building up a basic supply of items/food in combination with education and hints of what was going on around us (local crime issues, Hurricane Katrina experiences, etc.). Again, she wasn’t too happy with my weapon and ammo purchases, but accepted it grudgingly. She began warming to the issue of “being prepared” with some of the bad weather in 2008, when she realized that as new home owners, we now had to solve our own problems. We also began to expand our larder from the perspective of “her convenience.” I then installed the safe to protect “her valuables” as well as my guns. However, “Snowmagedon” in January this year was her wake-up call, and I was far away overseas at the time. Every time she needed something (our young clueless neighbors as well) she went into the basement (my bunker-of-redundant-redundancies) and found what she needed. Granted, she was often surprised by what she found (when did you get that!?), but she ultimately needed it and was very thankful. She may still call me Burt Gummer and accuse me of preparing for the “Zombie Apocalypse,” but it is said in a much more affectionate tone of voice now .- J. in Conn.

Sir;
In my case getting my truly skeptical spouse of 13 years on board was easy: I gave her “Patriots” to read. She asked me many great, probing questions as she read it, often about terminology and the like. She was clearly deep into the story and the material. She is now fully on-board with had previously been my solo efforts at preparedness. I’ll spare you the details but it has been a truly amazing thing to watch and has brought us even closer than before, something I did not think possible. So I guess you could say your book can now be considered a “relationship strengthener”!

Economics and Investing:

Several readers sent this news item to file under “I told you so”: Gold hits all-time high as investors seek haven

Arnaud de Borchgrave: Stock Market Time Bomb?

Reader Rich in Montana notes that recently “two minutes of honesty slipped out”, on the David Letterman Show: Hmmmm…. A Crack In The Dam?

Bill Downey sent me his essay “Brother Can You Spare a Trillion?” Since SurvivalBlog is intentionally light on graphics (in deference to our readers that use mobile devices), I’m pointing you to the essay (with charts) which is already posted at the excellent Zero Hedge blog. The charts and text that Downey presents are alarming!

A press release from the National Inflation Association: The World’s Fiat Currency System Risks Collapse

Unions warn of Greek-style riots in Britain against public sector cuts after court victory over capping of redundancies. (A hat tip to Brian B. for the link.)

Items from The Economatrix:

Roubini: We Will Have Even More Crises in the Future

Germany Might Have to Pay Entire Euro Aid Bill!

Unions Warn of Greek-Style Riots in Britain

Stock Market Crash Exposes World of Electronic Trading

Ron Paul: How the Euro Bailout Will Lead to Currency Collapse

US Exposure to EU Bailout is $50 Billion

Schwarzenegger Preps “Terrible Cuts” to Close Deficit

Odds ‘n Sods:

Jonathan H. suggested this article: The Failure of the Unfree Market. Jonathan’s comment: “Big changes are coming soon – the 72 year rule predicts the downfall of Social Security in 2012. It doesn’t necessarily mean a societal collapse, but definitely fundamental changes are coming, as you have been warning.”

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Arab World Grapples with Food Shortage. (A hat tip to Bob G. for the link.)

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The folks at Centerfire Antennas (one of our former advertisers) has an incentive deal for newly-licensed Hams. If you contact them with your new call sign that was issued between 4/1/2010 and 8/31/2010 then you’ll
receive $25 credit towards their antennas and co-ax.

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Looking for some .30-06 armor piercing (AP) ammo? The DoD’s Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) just got a batch that they are offering for sale. This was mentioned this in their latest newsletter: “The .30-06 AP ammo that we now have available includes headstamps: AYR, SL, TW, and LC. Dates of manufacture vary from the 1940s to the 1950s. Most of the ammo is corrosive, but some may be non-corrosive. The ammo is packaged in 8 round M1 Garand en bloc clips, in bandoleers, in spam cans. Purchases of multiple cans will be shipped in what appear to be the original wooden crates (two spam cans per crate). Cans and crates will be selected luck of the draw as to the head stamp. 4C3006U202-192P. Single spam can (192 rounds). $60.00. S&H at $8.95 per can.” (State and local restrictions may apply!)

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." – Winston Churchill