Economics and Investing:

Kevin A. sent us the link to a video clip about Mandelbrot protege Nicholas Taleb, of “Black Swan” fame: The Risk Maverick: Present Economy Worse than Depression.

Mac F. recommend this basic, commonsense article: Money Shaky? 10 Ways to Get Your Financial Footing

Items from The Economatrix:

Fed President Says Inflation To Increase

GM Borrows Additional $4 Billion From Treasury Didn’t publicly disclose how it would use the money.

Fed Changes Rules to Benefit Government Carmakers

California Faces its Fiscal Day of Reckoning

Propane Suppliers Quietly Reduce Size of Refills Consumers unaware they are getting less for the same price

Recession Turns Malls Into Ghost Towns

Four Letters Re: Dealing with Uninvited Guests

Mr. Rawles,

I have read and enjoyed your blog for some time now and thank you for it daily.

Regarding the recent post on control of head lice, I have found simple light cooking oil to be startlingly effective. Massaged through the afflicted’s hair and scalp and left for a few hours the oil is meant to suffocate the lice and eggs. I have used this several times, once I needed to repeat the processes to be effective, but in most previous infestations, once was enough.
This treatment can be made apparently more effective by including some Tea Tree oil in the mix. Hope this helps, – Regards, JeMe.

 

Jim:

I keep getting such great info that I would not usually think of. Thank God that your readers are thinkers as well. Regarding, the letter dealing with uninvited guests I saw in my local Florida newspaper about using Listerine for lice. It reportedly works the first time. SurvivalBlog readers should do Internet searches on herbal or all natural cures for dealing with these uninvited guests, for the pets as well. Thank you for the web site. – Dawn

 

James,

With reference to “Dealing with Uninvited Guests”, there is an easy way to get rid of head lice. Using copious amounts of cheap hair conditioner on hair, then leaving it in, stops the nits from being able to cling on to the hair shaft. You must comb it through well to ensure every hair is coated. Once they drop off they don’t survive long without a host (a matter of hours). You need to treat the whole family otherwise it just passes on the problem. When my daughter was young, we spent a small fortune on head lice products and nit combs, until my local hairdresser told me about the conditioner trick.

To help prevent infestations, add a couple of drops of tea tree oil to a final hair rinse.
Blessings and prayers for your Memsahib, – Luddite Jean

 

JWR:

I have “been there, done that” with head lice and my daughter. Toxic concoctions like “Rid,” “Kwell,” etc are costly and worthless. When my daughter was 8 years old she would come home from school scratching her head. We finally figured out it was head lice. I went on internet and read up and decided that getting “Rid” or some Permethrin based solution would be best so we tried it. The lice would just swim around in the “killer” liquid on my daughter’s scalp. We tried another brand with Lindane and the same result. Be aware that many of the “Lice Information” web sites are fronts for a particular (useless) product. I went back to the internet where there were many “kook” solutions like suffocating the lice in olive oil – what a waste of olive oil. There were other “green” concoctions which were designed to suffocate or poison (naturally) the head lice. I concluded that all the kook remedies were worthless and were debunked on most of the mainstream web sites as worthless – good luck trying to suffocate the nits and adult lice. It really drove me mad to think of my beautiful daughter with her beautiful long hair having “bugs” crawling around on her head. I wanted them dead and I wanted them dead now. I was desperate. Then I read some where about merely using plain old hair conditioner – i.e. putting it on after a shower in copious amounts and leaving it in – and mechanically removing the noxious lice with a metal nit comb. I was tired of poisoning my daughter (read the labels – it is poison) and from what I read the prescription medication was way more toxic. So we tried it – we bought two quality metal nit combs and slathered on the hair conditioner and carefully followed the instructions that came with the nit combs. We mechanically removed the nits and the live adult head lice. You get a cup of hot water and dunk the nit comb and watch the “body count” of the adult lice add up. It is satisfying to physically remove them one by one. After two days there were no more adult lice to be found. The nits were another matter and for the next couple days we went through my daughter’s hair strand by strand and pulled out each nit with our finger nails as the nit combs were ineffective in removing all the nits. It took a total of three to four hours over the course of three or four days to remove the adult lice and all the nits. Victory – free at last. A few months later when we found the early stages of a new infestation we knocked it down quickly in just two days.

Another aspect of this is the extensive instructions on the web sites and written instructions about how to treat bedding etc. If you followed all the recommendations you would spend hours on decontamination and spray toxic poisons around the bed and house. Thankfully. head lice can only live in hair/scalp otherwise they die fairly quickly. We found that merely washing the pillow case and sheets was sufficient without spraying poison in the carpet and all over the place another bad toxic idea. I shudder when I remember one of the coaches of my daughter’s baseball team spraying lice “killer” in the batting helmets and when I asked it was because of widespread lice in the local school. Nice. My daughter had her own helmet and we told all the other kids it was only for my daughter to use. Notes: Where we went wrong – we took our daughter to her pediatrician early on to have her head checked out and we told that the nits were old and there was no current problem. Wrongo bongo. The full blown outbreak occurred days later. We called back to request the heavy duty prescription medication and were told to try the over the counter stuff as the prescription medication was really toxic and they only prescribe it when absolutely necessary. Lice have adapted and have developed immunity to the over the counter medication so aside from it being toxic it is worthless and expensive – I saw this with my own eyes. I tried it over and over – to the limits on the warning instructions. Also, when you go on the Internet you read a bunch of politically correct nonsense about how kids who spread head lice are not “dirty and unkempt” but some parent(s) at my daughter’s school were sending a kid(s) to school with head lice – It’s not the kid’s fault but I disagree, the parents were dirty, inconsiderate slobs in my opinion.

So, bottom line – get two or more quality nit combs, slather on the (non-toxic) hair conditioner, follow the combing instructions and remove the adult lice and as many nits as possible and then physically remove all the remaining nits one by one with your finger nails as those nits really glue themselves to the hair. Carefully dispose of the adult nits you remove – I treat them as if they were black plague contagions – and wash the bedding every day until you don’t find any more adult lice and have removed all the nits. Mechanical removal has several advantages – it is non-toxic, it uses common hair conditioner (easily stored), it is inexpensive, and most importantly it works. It may be the only method that actually works. In a true survival situation you could substitute olive oil or some other similar substance in place of the hair conditioner. Hopefully we will never have to deal with the problem again but all the dread is gone and we are equipped, once and for all to deal with this problem because we have lots of hair conditioner and three quality nit combs. Simple solution – the best solution – Keep is simple.

On another note, I just finished reading “Patriots”. It was a great read, and I could not put it down. Thank you – John M.in California

Economics and Investing:

From frequent content contributor KAF: Congressional Budgeters Predict 10.5 Percent Unemployment Rate Next Year

Also from KAF: The Inside Story of Bank United. (How all those Option ARM loans came back to bite them.)

Items from The Economatrix:

Three More Banks Closed This Week

Federal Reserve Cannot Account for $9 Trillion

The Economy is Down But The Cost of Living is Going Up (Most canned vegetables at Wal-Mart were 50 cents per can last summer, now they are 72-to-74 cents per can.)

US to lose AAA Rating?

Dollar Falls to Four-Month Low Against Euro

Stocks Hit ’09 Low on Ratings Fears; Stocks Dip

Geithner Vows to Cut US Deficit on Rating Concerns

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“Today, prayer is still a powerful force in America, and our faith in God is a mighty source of strength. Our Pledge of Allegiance states that we are ‘one nation under God,’ and our currency bears the motto, ‘In God we Trust.’ The morality and values such faith implies are deeply embedded in our national character. Our country embraces those principles by design, and we abandon them at our peril.” – President Ronald Wilson Reagan

Notes from JWR:

I laughed heartily, reading this Times of London online article about the mainstreaming of survivalism: Swine flu…recession…should we all be reading Neil Strauss to survive? It must be bad: survival manuals are racing up the book charts. Ordinary folks are preparing for the worst. The author started out describing the book “Emergency” by Neil Strauss, but then took a hard right turn and went on to spill copious ink–or should I say bits or pixels–about my novel.) The reviewer has a real gift for comic writing.

—

Today we present another entry for Round 22 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. A proviso: It is strongly opinionated and overtly political–so not everyone will agree with him–but despite our differences of opinion, I believe that it has some good food for thought.

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 foods, courtesy of Ready Made Resources.

Second Prize: A “grab bag” of preparedness gear and books from Jim’s Amazing Secret Bunker of Redundant Redundancy (JASBORR) with a retail value of $350.

Third Prize: A copy of my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course, from Arbogast Publishing.

Round 22 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.

Five Months Till Armageddon–A Dark View of the Future, by H.I.C.

I believe that America is facing a perfect storm…A rapidly cooling climate, a committed socialist president taking over during an economic crisis, and an unfinished war with fanatical murderous thugs. I am only 49 years old, but I think my Father’s generation faced a similar storm starting in 1929. I believe we could handle any one of these problems by itself, but maybe not all at once. I wish I could suggest that we have more time and perhaps our economy will recover before a second crisis event occurs. Since the banking crisis started in August of 2007, and recessions typically last 2 -to-3 years, it should right itself by late 2010 if our government does not do something stupid. However, they are stupid and I believe we only have five months left to prepare.

I believe the climate is turning much colder due to a drop in sunspot activity. The most recent climate data shows this even if Al Gore insists on a recount (apparently Al flunked both math and science). I mention this because during the last Little Ice Age (1300-1850) global temps dropped by 3ÀöC, the farmland north of where Interstate 80 now transits reverted back to frozen marshlands, the Pacific Ocean cooled, and the resulting drop in moisture caused a prolonged drought in the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau. Perhaps a change to the climate of the primary agricultural areas of the US may affect your personal survival planning.

The drop in sunspot activity will also decrease the Earth’s electromagnetic field (Van Allen Belts) and ozone layer so in addition to cooling the planet it also and makes us more susceptible to solar induced damage to our nationwide electrical grid. If you here warnings about Solar flares or Solar mass ejections, wear sun block and a hat, and unplug your sensitive electrical equipment. If you are using solar panels expect a reduced output and be prepared to unplug and protect them as well.

Recently-elected President Obama is an immature Pollyanna with disturbing Marxist/Socialist friends and tendencies. He is taking over as the economy is rapidly contracting due to the falling stock market and declining home values. This crisis was actually caused by 25 years of expansionist policies of the US Federal Reserve, the US Treasury Department, and the US Congress. The massive bailout bill will not stop this, but instead will continue to feed the debt-based economy and currency expansion that caused it. Federal nationalization of the commercial banking system is just the beginning. Obama is loading up his cabinet with the most partisan members of the Clinton Administration. While Government intervention into banks and businesses is already occurring, it is likely that they will also nationalize/regulate individual retirement accounts, taxable investments, and individual rights and choices of work, travel, and association. This is not what he tells us he plans to do, this is what socialists always do, this is the change you can not afford.

We have fought to contain the terrorists in the Middle East and are finally winning in Iraq. However, keeping them there will require a continual military presence. Obama has promised to pull back the US military from Iraq, perhaps worldwide, and may reduce the size of the regular Army to fund his civilian defense force. What we learned about terrorist is that any pull back in our military posture will encourage them to strike us again. The only way to win is to aggressively pursue them and the only way to loose is to pull back and let the extremists take over the Iraqi and Saudi oil fields.

The President and the people now running DHS, FEMA, the Justice Department, and Interior Departments believe in the power of the Federal Government like a prostate religion. While they would not think this far ahead, it is inescapable that when they meet with resistance from the people the will use the US patriot act against us. Since he will be so busy spying on the vast right wing conspiracy, I expect a terrorist attack on major US cities could again occur within 6 – 8 months of Obama taking the oath of office and turn the economic crisis into a full blown depression.

No matter what the trigger event, President Obama, and his Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, stated that they will use this crisis as an opportunity to turn the county socialist. Some of the conditions I have described have distinct warning signals, such as censorship of the internet and talk radio or onerous gun control laws, but some of them are naturally occurring and completely unpredictable. I don’t believe it much matters what the event is, I believe that the result will be the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Civil War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death).

Scenario 1: Collapse of the Banking System, Devaluation of the US Dollar, and Civil War.
The US credit market has already frozen up once (Oct 08) due to the failure of several investment banks and credit insurance companies. Without a systematic effort to draw down the risk exposure of these banks to bad home loans and derivatives it is nearly certain that many of the largest commercial banks will fail as well. The FDIC does not have the money to pay off account holders, so the US Congress will just print more money and effectively nationalize the banks.

I expect that the world economy will continue to slide into a multi-decade depression with the Dow dropping to 2,000 and unemployment reaching 20%. I expect this to cause rioting, starvation, and civil war occurring in every state and country. If we can not feed them, I expect that over one third of the world population could die due to starvation and disease.
The US may literally split politically between the urban dominated cities of the Northeastern states trying to tie themselves to Europe and the rest of the US dominated by the Midwest, Rocky Mountains, and Ohio Valley which will tie themselves to domestic agriculture and re-industrialization. Only the far western fringe will remained tied to trade with China and the Pacific Rim. There should be no expectation of receiving by Federal Retirement, Social Security, Medicare, or 401(k) money. In fact, I expect that the US Dollar will be abandoned by most folks long before it is officially replaced by silver coins. Before this time most folks will prefer to trade using storable food, ammo, and labor as the coin of the realm.

Scenario 2: Multi-City Terror Strike and Loss of Constitutional Rights.
It is also very possible for a deeply planted terrorist cell living in the US pull off a coordinated strike using conventional explosives to rapidly disperse a chemical or radioactive agent. They may attack the large cities, the critical Military bases, shipping channels, ports, and locks, and our remaining overseas Navy and Air Force Bases. These strikes will kill a few civilians, but mostly they will force the permanent evacuation of our major cities and ports.

They will cripple Washington DC, but will not kill off many of our politicians. The initial reaction from the Obama Administration looks like suspending the Constitution and our rights to gun ownership, private property, free association and travel. I believe they will quarantine the cities, suspend air travel, limit interstate travel by citizens, and turn the electronic eavesdropping ability of the NSA on the American people.

What is left of the economy will crash. Few people will have jobs and no one will be able to buy food and fuel on the open market. We will have to survive on what we have stored, what we can grow, trade, or what little the government can supply.

While rolling blackouts are inevitable, maintaining natural gas and at least the semblance of electrical power will be a priority. No doubt maintaining power in the remaining cities will come first. Most of the oil refineries will be affected and the gas and diesel that is refined will not be distributed evenly. Our system of intensive, almost industrial scale farming will collapse, and that year’s crop will fail due to the loss of irrigation. People will starve while crops rot in the fields.

Preparedness Measures

SurvivalBlog is full of detailed advise on preparing so I will only hit a few highlights.

Prepare yourself physically:
Every possible scenario will be physically and mentally stressful.

Have a Plan B:
Have a bug-out kit ready at all times, store fuel, and maintain your ride.
Have a hard copy of important papers, account and insurance numbers and phone numbers.
Have portable weapons and ammo ready to haul.

Logistics and Planning:
Route selection is very, very important.
What to drive, what to pack.
Avoid the swamps (the inner cities).

Long Term Considerations:
Build a survival retreat in a viable agricultural area.
Plan on needing a lot more supplies than you think you might.
Plan and decide how to deal with the Feds (hint: lie, lie, lie).
Plan and decide how to deal with unprepared people

Letter Re: Dealing with Uninvited Guests

Mr. Rawles
I have been a faithful reader for about a year now and would like to take this opportunity to thank you and your contributors for the wealth of information found on this site. I would also like to thank Anon T. for his article on quarantine procedures, though I’m wondering if it should be expanded to include “debugging”. I’m referring to head lice, body lice, crabs, bedbugs, mites, and fleas. Nobody wants to believe that it will happen to them. It doesn’t even have to be a WTSHTF scenario. In today’s economic environment many people are losing their homes and moving in with family or friends. With more and more people and their belongings under one roof, personal and residential cleanliness may begin to suffer. In a SHTF scenario, add to this stressful situation, not being able to properly bathe, wash hair, clothing, and bedding as often as they should, and the possibility of “unwanted house guests” rises.

About 8 years ago, my then two-year-old brought head lice home from day care. Before I realized it, I was also beset by lice. My mom said “getting lice isn’t a sin, keeping them is.” But getting rid of these little bugs was just short of impossible. As soon as you think they’re gone a nit that you missed hatches, and it starts all over.
Hopefully this won’t be a problem for most of your readers, but they should be prepared and informed.
|
Treatment products like “Rid” won’t be easily rotated before they expire, so it may be cost-prohibitive to stock it. are there any natural or more cost affective alternatives? I’m wondering how we will deal with this in the future when products like “Rid” might not be available. and maybe someone out there could explain identification and treatment for those readers who have never been through this. – J.C.M.

JWR Replies: I agree that it is wise to stock up on anti-parasiticals (pediculicides and scabicides ) The active ingredients in Rid and Lindane (“Kwell”) can be effective for several years. Most of the Rid variants are a 0.5% solution of Permethrin. The Lindane solutions (typically 1%) are sold under trade names such as BBH, Bio-Well, G-well, Kildane, Kwell, Kwildane, Scabene, and Thionex. Some traditional treatments for lice that were used in the 19th Century and early 20th Century might still be viable, but most of them are harsh an potentially toxic, so they should be considered only in absolute worst case disasters, when modern anti-parasiticals are unavailable. The 1996 article titled Control of Human Lice Infestations: Past and Present (in PDF) from American Entomologist provides some interesting history on lice control, including some lousy methods from the 19th Century. It might sound severe, but when modern anti-parisiticals can’t be found, head shaving is a good starting point. (But it will give you the Sinead O’Connor “I’ll never be accused of being infested” look.)

Economics and Investing:

Reader GG suggested: Uncle Sam’s ‘F’-rated bonds

GG also mentioned this piece by Mish Shedlock: FDIC to Open a Temporary East Coast Satellite Office. (Could they be expecting more bank failures or perhaps bank runs?

The MOAB keeps expanding: Feds give $50 Million in aid to towns hit by auto layoffs. (Thanks to Tony Y. for the link.)

Items from The Economatrix:

Here Comes the Option ARM Explosion

Russia Dumps US Dollar as Basic Reserve Currency

Fannie and Freddie in “Critical” Condition

Real Unemployment, GDP, Etc. Numbers

Britain’s AAA Rating Threatened by S&P’s Stark Warning

Conjuring Monster (The Mogambo Guru)

Odds ‘n Sods:

Eric wrote to mention that the Survivalist Groups Listing Page URL has changed.

   o o o

Chris–the editor of the LDS Preparedness manual that I recently mentioned–wrote to say: “Version 6.00 of the manual is almost complete and will be released in June.
But for now, you can get a printable PDF copy of the Preparedness Manual for LDS Members, Version 5.01 (Nov.1, 2008) There are also hard bound printed copes available–rather than downloading and printing 200+ pages. It can also be found on my homepage.”

   o o o

GG spotted this: Spam sales soar as buyers seek value.

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“Once each May, amid the quiet hills and rolling lanes and breeze-brushed trees of Arlington National Cemetery, far above the majestic Potomac and the monuments and memorials of our Nation’s Capital just beyond, the graves of America’s military dead are decorated with the beautiful flag that in life these brave souls followed and loved. This scene is repeated across our land and around the world, wherever our defenders rest. Let us hold it our sacred duty and our inestimable privilege on this day to decorate these graves ourselves — with a fervent prayer and a pledge of true allegiance to the cause of liberty, peace, and country for which America’s own have ever served and sacrificed. … Our pledge and our prayer this day are those of free men and free women who know that all we hold dear must constantly be built up, fostered, revered and guarded vigilantly from those in every age who seek its destruction. We know, as have our Nation’s defenders down through the years, that there can never be peace without its essential elements of liberty, justice and independence. Those true and only building blocks of peace were the lone and lasting cause and hope and prayer that lighted the way of those whom we honor and remember this Memorial Day. To keep faith with our hallowed dead, let us be sure, and very sure, today and every day of our lives, that we keep their cause, their hope, their prayer, forever our country’s own.” – President Ronald Wilson Reagan