Letter Re: More Observations on the Aftermath of Hurricane Dolly

Dear JWR and Memsahib,
On June 30, in a response to “Help with a Non-Preparedness Minded Spouse”, I shared the thoughts of like-minded men in a group meeting regularly with my husband to prepare for survival needs. Due to the lack of female companionship I was experiencing, and the frustration my husband’s buddies were experiencing, I offered to start a “Ladies Auxiliary” group to motivate the wives to see the value of preparing for emergency survival. Living near the coast of Texas provides us with the challenge of hurricanes each summer, so that became the topic for personal and immediate preparedness.

We had NOAA hurricane tracking maps, National Hurricane Center Weather Service information, hurricane terminology lists, emergency preparedness time lines, steps for a family plan, lists for emergency/bug out kits and first aid kits, what to do before, during and after the storm, links to pet plans, and how to secure your home, help for the elderly, online vulnerability awareness of communities, plans for escape routes, and the Contraflow Plan for one way traffic during evacuation, all in binders with appropriate tabs. At the back of each binder, I placed a print out from the well-known Red Cross web site which showed kits for general emergency equipment such as three day pack, AM/FM shortwave radios with flashlights, and cell phone chargers. There was an article on how to put together a 72 hour kit and another on clarifying and purifying water. The final article was on dangers in the world right now. (The Internet is an invaluable source of information.)

I sent out invitations, planned snacks, set out chairs, provided TV trays to set binders on for note taking, sent out my husband for hi-liters, then waited in hopes of an hour or so of introductions and preparedness discussion. About half of my ladies came and they stayed for four hours of in-depth planning!! The ladies who couldn’t come that day came the following week and also stayed for four hours, with the same results!

The short story is that three days after meeting with my latest group of ladies, the coast of Texas was visited by Hurricane Dolly. Like everyone else in the area, we were busy boarding up windows, filling the bathtub with water, bringing out the flashlights, batteries and radios. The lights went out and we were off the grid for about 22 hours. We got our generator to working for a window AC unit and refrigerator and were able to connect a neighbor’s fridge until the lights were back on. We lost one tree branch and developed a small ceiling leak. A neighbor came by and prayed with my husband for protection before the storm. We were spared from local flooding but have seen piles of branches all over town. Unfortunately, other towns have had serious flooding and property damage.

I was able to disperse additional booklets to half of my ladies to file in a front pocket of their binders before Dolly hit. The new booklets are sealed in waterproof Ziploc bags and have charts that I wish I had when I was first married. The charts provide space for valuable information on certificates for births, marriage, insurance, important phone numbers, emergency items, banking, safe deposit box, investments, medical info, property inventory, Social Security, military, adoptions, etc.

I have been able to speak to one of my ladies who couldn’t be thankful enough for the planning we did. She stockpiled water in her home and tried to spread the word in advance to everyone she knew. Unfortunately, she told me that some did not prepare and now have serious flooding problems, and have limited drinking water. Hurricane Dolly came upon us very quickly and those who did not prepare early are having serious problems. FEMA is waiting until cities can finish local evaluations before they move in for assistance.

So [ladies and] gentlemen, don’t give up if you or your friends have a “Non-preparedness Minded Spouse”! Consider the natural hazards your area is prone to experience, such as: earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, winter storms, volcanoes, landslides, fires, wildfires, hurricanes, thunderstorms and lightning, hazardous materials, etc. Begin collecting information addressing safety needs in your own locale and gently take your spouse and family on a fact sharing mission to prepare in a very real, practical way to protect your loved ones if a natural disaster should hit your area. From there you may be able to move on to even greater plans before something permanent hits the fan. Good Luck! – Charlotte R.

Four Letters Re: Questions from A Not-Quite Convinced Reader

Jim,

I was intrigued by Robert C.’s recent letter which questions why we should prepare. I think he has a great question there, and one which deserves further discussion.

I put together a personal ‘Top Five’ I’d like to share: Top Five Reasons To Be Preparedness Oriented:

5) It’s simply a natural extension of growing up — understanding and fulfilling our responsibilities. As babies we have all of our basic needs provided for us by our parents. As we mature, we all begin to take some responsibility for our own needs by doing things like getting an education; learning how to cook; learning a trade; working for money which we trade for food, shelter, and other needs; etc.

Lots of people stop in their development when they get to a point where their current personal activities interface with their current societal and cultural infrastructure in a way that meets their current needs. Part of this is their current revenue supports desired ‘quality of life’, but it’s really more than that. The problem is that current personal activities (including but not limited to career); the interface to society (including but not limited to economy, government, and society); and current needs (including but not limited to shelter, water and food) are all dynamic.

Some people experience a moment of insight during their development that says, “Hey, if xyz changes I’m going to be in trouble. I won’t be able to <fill-in-the-blank> so I had better be ready, just in case!” there this person realizes, “Wow, what else have I been taking for granted in a way that might adversely affect my ability to achieve my responsibilities?”

Preparedness living in this context is the realization that as adults, and in particular as heads of households, we must be able to provide for all the basic needs of our families without relying on preconceived assumptions about what others will provide for us.

4) Because we’re not mentally ill. We have uncontrolled wildfires at times that threaten life and property, right? Sometimes we have earthquakes, right? sometimes have tornados, right? Hurricanes? Flooding? Hard Winters? Crop failures? Food contamination? Do heavy winds sometimes knock-down power lines? Do heavy snows sometimes preclude me from driving into town to get a pizza? Do we ever have banking failures? Do we sometimes experience economic recession? Do some entire industries (like manufacturing) get ‘outsourced’ threatening job security? If I’m not mistaken we’ve had all these in the USA in just the last 10 years, right?

On a less frequent basis do cultures experience wars? Pandemics? Great Depressions? Government collapse/restructuring? Genocide? Haven’t all these happened on a world scale in the last 50 years?

To deny these things happen would be diagnostic of a mental illness. They do happen. Preparedness orientation is simply the acknowledgement of this truth, coupled with the will to act.

3) For the same reasons we wear seat belts when we drive our cars; have fire extinguishers in our kitchens; carry health insurance for ourselves and our families; and buy life insurance. It’s not that we want to be involved in motor vehicle accidents; experience kitchen fires; have medical problems; nor die young leaving a wife and children behind — we just recognize that such things are possible and seek to mitigate these dangers.

2) In the end, we will either be right — there was a need for preparedness and we were ready to face all challenges; or we will be pleasantly surprised — there was no need to prepare and live through a time of hardship. Either way, we win!

1) In obedience to God who tells us that all things will not continue as they have in the past; and that we should: Provide for our families. Arm ourselves. Not be destroyed for lack of wisdom. Keep oil in our lamps. – Keith C.

 

Jim,
Please refer the reader back to the link you and others have posted on the Internet over the past year to “Topsoil and Civilization” : “Civilized man has marched across the face of the earth and left a desert in his footprints.” What more documented evidence should he need after that? Here’s my Cliff-notes version of the problem
and solution (with some more useful links). – Thanks, – Chris

 

Hi Jim:
It seems an odd request from the poster today that he wants someone to convince him to prepare to take care of himself. He probably has never faced being unemployed? Never faced any family member of friend being unemployed? Too bad as that would have given him the understanding of how much on his own he can be. He likes to have his trash collected. In my community I have to pay the trash collection service to take away my trash. It doesn’t come for free. I have to pay for my water to come into my home. That water station uses energy and with energy costs rising — that water is going to cost more money.

Why prepare? Well, read what even the US government and the global governments are urging citizens to do to to help themselves. They are telling folks to prepare to help themselves. Hint: the government is not going to be their immediately on a white horse to bring you your groceries, haul away your trash, etc.

Any historic events to support a need for being prepared? Good grief! Has this person being residing in a cave all of his life? Where to begin — 1) The dot.com bust; 2) the current housing bust; 3) the financial bust globally in sub-primes; 4) the 1980s; 5) 1970s (stagflation); 6) WWII — goods were rationed and quality went down (read historic newspapers — you have to help educate yourself); 7) the Great Depression — shortages of food supplies (people hungry in some areas while farmers burned potatoes in other areas; droughts so bad that dust clouds rolled from Kansas all the way to Washington DC); 8) The Panic of 1907. Crawl out of under the rock and spend some time reading! – Cynthia W.

 

Dear Jim:
Reader Robert C. wrote: “There have been depressions before, and the fall of civilizations, but as far as I can tell, nothing on the scale of what you seem to talk about. Do you have any good historical examples I could look into?”

Well, we have been very fortunate in the US to have only experienced one “Great” Depression, and have kept all our recent wars overseas, but you don’t have to look too far abroad for examples of depressions and war that put the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse back in the saddle.

Just a few highlights:
Try living in Germany 1914 to 1945: war, famine, hyperinflation, depression, Nazi takeover, war, concentration camps, urban saturation bombing… The Russians’ 20th century looks even worse… war, Communist coup, farm “collectivization”, the forced starvation of millions, Stalin’s purges/mass murder, war, German invasion… China 1920 to 1970: civil war, Japanese invasion, Communist takeover, starvation, Mao’s purges/mass murder…

Legendary Wall Street investor Barton Biggs has a new book “Wealth, War and Wisdom” that reviews the horrific 20th Century and recommends that wealthy folks put perhaps 5% of their net worth in a self-sufficient farm, and stock up.

To quote “The trigger event could be a massive terrorist or nuclear attack that disrupts the economy for months and maybe for years. A power failure that lasted not a day but a month would paralyze a modern economy. Or it could be a plague, a massive SARS-like epidemic, in with hundreds of millions die, or an electronic explosion that cascades into a complete breakdown of the world’s financial accounting systems. Whatever happens, it most likely will be an event that is both unexpected and we will not be prepared for. The world is very good at locking the barn door after the horses have been stolen.”
Biggs left out EMP terrorist strikes! (By the way, read the e-novel “Lights Out“ for a very entertaining and educational portrayal an EMP strike on the US.)

Dr Gary North’s “favorite” TEOTWAWKI disaster would be an NBC attack on banking centers designed to bring down our inherently unstable fractional reserve banking system, which would then shutdown the payment system for the division of labor that keeps us all fed. (Of course the way things are going, the terrorists might just decide that this is not really necessary, now that our political and financial elites have done such a good job of wrecking the economy…)

What are the odds? For any individual scenario, low. But as Nassim Nicholas Taleb argues persuasively, low probability statistical outlier events – “Black Swans” – are a lot more common than we think, as we are prone just extrapolate current trends ad infinitum.

Put it this way – if you were going to jump out of an airplane with just one parachute – what kind of reliability odds do you want? Is a 1% chance of a catastrophic failure
Okay? How many jumps would you make with a 1% chance of having a non-functioning parachute? None, for me! Metaphorically that’s what we do every day. or every year, our parachute being the complicated, interdependent, and fragile systems that keep us alive… until an unforeseen Black Swan event comes up.

My intuition tells me the ongoing increase in government taxation and regulation, the decline of moral standards, educational standards, and the increasing complexity and interdependency of the economy makes it even more likely that a disaster would cascade into chaos. Even “just” a rerun of the Great Depression would be likely to turn into something much more horrible with our current society…. Noted investor Doug Casey forecasts what he calls a “Greater Depression”.

It’s seems very prudent to me to have some catastrophe insurance. Don’t spend your whole life, or all your money on it. But do get some, because our Black Swan event is out there – we just don’t know when it’s going to show up. Regards, – OSOM

Odds ‘n Sods:

I’m still predicting a dramatically weaker US Dollar in foreign exchange in the months to come. As I’ve mentioned before, you should watch the US Dollar Index (USDX) closely. If and when it dips decisively below 72, watch out. From there, we might see a precipitous drop! (Back in August of 2007, I first mentioned the “magic number ” 72. It is a sort of “line in the sand” number for currency traders in their assessment of the US Dollar. Anywhere south of 72 lies extreme peril–and below 55 perhaps the traders will start to question the very existence of the US Dollar as a viable currency unit. It is notable that the USDX has been bouncing off the new-found “floor” of 72 for the past three months. Continue to watch the USDX closely. It is an important barometer that may provide a brief warning of of a Dollar Collapse.

   o o o

Speaking of weaker currencies, Paul from Kentucky sent us this: Zimbabwe to remove [more] ‘zeros’ from currency.

   o o o

Jack B. mentioned this: Inflation dogs Russia’s booming economy. When inflation worsens, move even more of your assets to tangibles.

   o o o

Thanks to Cheryl N. for this article link: Costco to Raise Prices as much as 15%. If you haven’t done so already, it is time to implement an Alpha Strategy, in anticipation of mass inflation. The spiraling price of fuel, just by itself, is making significant inflation inevitable. If you need to exactly what to stock up on, see my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course. It is geared toward stocking up at “Big Box” stores such as Costco and Sam’s Club.

   o o o

It has been announced that Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (TSCC) will return to the small screen on September 8th. IMHO, it is the best quasi-survivalist show on television. (But I’m probably not the best judge of that, since I don’t get the chance to see much television. We don’t own a television set. The few shows that we do watch are either on DVD or via Internet streaming.) OBTW, this reminds me: One of the stars of TSCC is Summer Glau, who played River Tam in the outstanding television series Firefly, and in the subsequent Hollywood movie Serenity. A new Collector’s Edition of Serenity was recently released. Great stuff!

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

"One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who complain." – Thomas Sowell

Note from JWR:

I was quoted in a recent Alternet piece by Scott Thill: Massive Economic Disaster Seems Possible — Will Survivalists Get the Last Laugh? Some of my comments were taken slightly out of context and in one instance mischaracterized, so it might be better for you to read my entire set of responses to Mr. Thill’s interview questions. I should mention that if they were alive today, my great-great grandparents–that came out west via covered wagon in the 1850s–might be miffed to hear that they were branded as part of a “genocidal” movement. They didn’t come out west looking to slaughter Indians. In fact, some of their sons married into a tribe. I have some distant cousins that are bona fide (“tribally enrolled”) Native Americans.

Finding Your Land Rover in the Wild Kingdom of Banking

I grew up in the1960s glued to the television, like most other suburban kids. One of the shows that I enjoyed watching was Wild Kingdom, sponsored by Mutual of Omaha. The wise old narrator, Marlin Perkins, went way out in the hinterboonies of South America and Africa to film his documentaries. But I noticed that he was almost always a detached observer. It was usually his young, muscular assistants that were put in harm’s way, but not Perkins himself, who was safe and sound. He often made comments such as: “‘I’ll watch from the safety of the Land Rover, while Jim wrestles the massive Anaconda. Ouch! Be careful, Jim!”

The Wild Kingdom documentary television show makes a nice analogy for the current banking crisis. (And, coincidentally, it was Mutual of Omaha that last week came to the rescue of two failed banks.) The recent news of numerous bank failures makes it clear that it is now coming down to survival of the fittest, in the banking world. Welcome to another episode of Wild Kingdom, folks. There are a lot of banks that are unfit creatures. The pools of credit have dried up, and these creatures are dying of thirst, and starting to stagger. The vultures are beginning to circle. Its a dangerous world out there, and if you are wise, you won’t be in the thick of it, exposed to risk. Instead, you will find yourself a safe vantage point and simply observe, nod, sip a Mint Julep, and make sagacious comments like: “I told you so”, and “Those poor, deluded souls.”

So where will you find your safe vantage point, from which you can observe the dramatic unraveling of the banking system? What will be your “Land Rover” equivalent? I’ve said it many times before: tangibles. You should shelter the majority of your assets in either productive rural farming or ranching land (that can double as a retreat), or in tangible, easily barterable assets that will hold their value. For the latter, I prefer practical tools, rather than baubles. You can’t eat Krugerrands! In the real world, Beans, Bullets, and Band-aids are much more practical.

In the next few weeks, as the nascent wave of bank failures accelerates, you will likely be hearing a lot about the”Texas Ratio” of any given bank. This is the ratio of a bank’s assets and reserves to its non-performing loans, based upon its financial data. Conduct due diligence on your bank, and cover your assets! It is best to have accounts with several institutions rather than just one.

Start your research by reading this article: Calculating Your Bank’s Health. Also, don’t miss this piece by Mish Shedlock. Based on Mish’s warning, it is clear that you should not depend on Bankrate.com, since their evaluations are glaringly inaccurate. Instead, I recommended Weiss Ratings (now part of TheStreet.com) as a more objective judge of the the safety of banks and insurers. I have recommended Marty Weiss to my consulting clients for many years. Marty and his staff do excellent research and, unlike many of their competitors, they are truly independent and objective.

Letter Re: Advice on Food Storage and Preparation

Hi James:
Thanks for publishing my past essay and thanks again for what you do on your SurvivalBlog. Your web site and the consequent path I’ve traveled since I began reading here has put me in contact with many folks who are pursuing similar courses of action; to take personal action to be prepared, and when possible to discuss and work with others to secure a survivable future.

Please advise me on some of the best and up to date books you’ve found on food storage. Being new to this line of endeavor, I feel our family needs some better ideas on organizing food and storage methods.

My apologies if you’ve already covered this topic or already made such recommendations on your site. All Our Best, – Jon F. in New York

JWR Replies: Don’t worry about redundancy, Joe. The importance of food storage cannot be overemphasized. Most of what you’ll need to know about food storage is available in Alan T. Hagan’s Food Storage FAQ, which available for free download. I may be biased, but I also recommend my own “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course, available from Arbogast Publishing. It is geared toward stocking up with little more than what you can find at your local “Big Box” store or supermarket. It includes some extensive tables on the shelf lives of various foods.

One often overlooked aspect of food storage is how to cook and bake with the foods that you’ve stored. Three books on this subject that I strongly recommend buying are:

Cookin’ With Home Storage

and,

Making the Best of Basics. OBTW, if you use this link to Lehmans.com, we will get a credit from Lehman’s when you place an order for any of their products.

and,

The Encyclopedia of Country Living. (I’ve heard that the new 10th Edition of Carla Emery’s book has just been released. Reader Jeff F., mentioned that his local Costco (in Woodinville,Washington) had the latest edition on sale for $17.99. (The list price $29.95). So check your local Costco.

Letter Re: Cigarette Smoking and Preparedness

James,
My husband and I think you are smart and I was hoping for a few words about cigarette dependency (and perhaps alcohol as well).

We are fairly prepared and often strategize on making our plan better. I see cigarette smoking as a weak link. Just when I am going to need his help the most, he will be in the fetal position with withdrawals from the inability to smoke. Or perhaps I will have to deal with lung disease when there are no doctors available. A person can’t successfully hide while smoking. There is extra tension and confusion from quitting cold turkey and that will come when a clear head is most needed.

This is an addiction issue rather than an intellectual one, but if you have advice (either how to get him to quit, or how I can plan around it), I would be very appreciative. Thanks, – Anna

JWR Replies: Thanks for raising this issue! The expense and health issues are tremendous. But even more overwhelming–as you pointed out–is the prospect of going Cold Turkey, starting on TEOTWAWKI+1. In the event of a catastrophe, our stress levels will already be critical, and adding one more major stress could be enough to push some folks to the point of a nervous breakdown.

There are umpteen methods for quitting smoking. I recommend that my readers try as many of them as necessary until you finally quit the habit. Since I’ve never smoked, I’m hardly the one to opine about the “best” method to quit. Perhaps this article is a good starting place. The only advice that I can offer comes to you from my perspective as a Christian: I believe that prayer is very helpful in breaking the bonds of any addiction. Just ashamedly admit your bad habits as the sins that they are, and repentantly ask God to free you from them. Prayer works!

Odds ‘n Sods:

Reader Gary J. asks: “So, you say you don’t have any room to garden where you live? Maybe you actually have a lot! You might like to do a web search on “vertical gardens” and check out this site: GardensUp.com

   o o o

Several readers mentioned a recent blog entry by Charles Hugh Smith: Yes, There Will Be Armageddon: Government Goes Bankrupt

   o o o

I spotted this linked at Drudge: U.S. Foreclosures Double as House Prices Decline. I strongly recommend that anyone looking for a rural retreat property should studiously monitor the foreclosure listings, via a service such as Foreclosures.com. There will be some genuine bargains in the next few years.

   o o o

Reader Ken R. recommended a “must read” piece by James Turk, posted over at DollarCollapse.com: Last Plane Account. Ken notes: “This article clearly outlines that tangibles including a ranch or farm are the best investment of all when TEOTWAWKI arrives. Your thesis is correct!”

Note from JWR:

By now, most of you have read read that following the spectacular failure of IndyMac Bank, two (effectively, three) more US banks have failed. Clearly, the dominoes are staring to fall, just as I presaged.

The pace at which the wave of bank failures continues is difficult to predict. It depends on a lot of things including public sentiment, which is largely influenced by mass media spin. This could get very ugly, very quickly, so be ready. If you didn’t take my advice months ago, I most strongly suggest that you set aside a reserve of two months worth of greenback cash to cover your regular expenses, post haste! Your banks doors could soon be locked, ATMs shut down, and your online banking services “temporarily suspended.” OBTW, to keep track of subsequent bank failures, see this FDIC web page. And our friend Todd sent us a link to a web site that is already familiar to many SurvivalBlog readers: Implode-o-Meter. It lists all the US banks that have failed since 2006 and has a list of “ailing banks”.

Letter Re: Australian Bank Move Exposes the Magnitude of the Global Credit Collapse

James,
This afternoon, The National Australia Bank (biggest in Australia, by assets) let the cat out of the bag: They have decided to just fess up and mark down every US mortgage CDO, SIV, and so forth in their portfolio by 90%.

What that means is they are coming flat out and saying that all this re-bundled, repackaged, looks like a bond but it ain’t, US real estate paper that was being carried “Off Balance Sheet” and gumming up the works in banks around the world is worthless and they are making it official. (The loans that they represent will not, in their estimation, ever be repaid, hence, loan paper = worthless.)

The world has been tip-toeing around this for the better part of a year. (Off Balance Sheet is bank speak I believe for “It’s here, we paid for it/lent it out, but it’s not really here so don’t count it on our financial statement.” You try that with your friendly IRS guy! Ha! Funny, though, how they magically appeared when the Fed said they would take it as collateral for loans…) That means that all these “Write-downs” we’ve been seeing (i.e; saying that the paper certificate you bought at $10 is now worth $8, $7, $6, $5…etc) the banks have been slowly dribbling out have been understated.

I don’t know if Wall Street will simply ignore this and dish out spin, but I can bet you that the international banks holding large quantities of this stuff denominated in US dollars will not. I’d also bet that large entities overseas who don’t hold this stuff will take it as writing on the wall for other entities that do…and they’ll sell to save their own skins.

That could quite possibly touch off a selling-storm in US dollar denominated assets or firms they fell are at risk from either their own holdings or their vulnerability to downside economic risk come monday, at least in the Asia Pacific markets, if not before.

A wave of bank bankruptcies or “failed banks” could get thrown into the mix as well. This is because these paper “things” being declared more or less worthless effects the overall value of a bank–i.e. the ratio of it’s “Assets” against the amount of debt it is carrying. (leverage) Banks are already leveraged up to their eyeballs, way beyond what Joe citizen would be allowed to do. (which they’ve been trying to delay the inevitable news that this stuff is not an asset any longer.)

I do not know precisely what effect this will have, but I believe it could spark a sell off in US denominated securities and other assets, which will flood the market with US Dollar stuff and the dollar will be in very deep trouble as far as a piece of paper that has value.

Real things of value, like metal and other tangible goods (as opposed to imaginary IOU paper, which is what most securities are) will take on a whole new life. In addition to what I have already done, I am going to endeavor to get my hands on more, soonest. (Not like it will go down in price anyway, no matter what happens.)

I hope that whoever is in charge at the top can keep this under control. I’d say we’ll have a clearer picture by mid-next week where this may be going. – Jim D.

Letter Re: Advice for a Concerned Investor

Greetings, Jim,
I looked at your research list under “Investing”. I have read much of it, and it doesn’t help me in my immediate concern. The sites on this list are good either for big-time or experienced investors, or they deal with specifics such as buying gold.

Where can I get overall, what-to-do-immediately-today, type of advice for the small guy. Say someone has one or two small businesses with maybe $20,000 in checking and another $2,000 in Savings (all in a bank). What to do? Where to keep the money? Is offshore a possibility? Recommended? Anyplace where I can still get a couple of percentage points of interest? Or put 100% in gold? (then how do I eat?).

I’m looking for the quick ‘n dirty answer such as your one-liner: “…get your beans, bullets and band-aids organized before investing…”

I’m getting real nervous, Jim. Thanks, – A.N.

JWR Replies: Keeping in mind my proviso about getting your beans, bullets and band-aids organized before investing anything extra, you might consider
If you need interest income, put your available cash in a relatively safe, inflation-indexed investment vehicle such as US Treasury TIPS.

or,

If you don’t need to rely on interest income, your money is far safer in tangible silver bullion. (Such as pre-1965 mint date non-numismatic (“junk”) circulated US silver dimes, quarters, or half dollars. Readers in other countries should buy the equivalent (such as pre-1953 Australian silver coins, in Australia), or perhaps generic one-ounce .999 fine silver “rounds”.

The recent price correction in silver represents a great buying opportunity, before the bull market resumes its charge.

Odds ‘n Sods:

OSOM mentioned some advice that will be familiar to SurvivalBlog Blog readers, from the Von Mises Institute, in an audio clip: What To Do in the Depression

.   o o o

Thanks to KAF for sending this: Five Tick Diseases You Should Know About

   o o o

Cheryl N. flagged this: Investors Question Financial Sector Rebound. Here is a key quote: “…and several regional banks also posted losses Tuesday or said their profits fell.” But the author neglected to name those banks. Cheryl also found this gem: Death Spiral Financing at Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, WaMu...

   o o o

Eric spotted a Bloomberg article that quoted the Federal Reserve that all 12 of its regional bank districts reported “elevated or increasing” price pressures during June and July amid slower economic growth.

   o o o

Jack B. sent this link to an article at WorldNetDaily: Report: Surviving EMP to depend on preparation