Odds ‘n Sods:

Eric mentioned this article: Windowsill herb growing

   o o o

Susan Z. flagged this one: ECB council member foresees ‘tri-polar’ currency system

   o o o

From our Economic Editor: Dow Up 413 On Signs Of Recovering Credit Market — Momentum Builds For New Package To Boost The Economy — Merrill Lynch To Cut Thousands Of Jobs — Bush Advisor Says “Parts of U.S.” Are In Recession —Turmoil May Make Americans Savers, Worsening ‘Nasty’ Recession — Options Pointing To $50 Per Barrel Oil — Banks Braced For Lehman Bros. Insurer’s Deadline — US Highly Inflationary Monetary Growth Will Lead To Dollar Implosion — China’s Growth Rate Falls As Economic Gloom Spreads East — South Korea’s $130 Billion Guarantee May Not Be Enough — Do Our Rulers Know Enough To Avoid 1930s Replay? — Baby Boomers Go Bust As Retirement Savings Tank — Gobbled Up By The Derivatives Monster (The Mogambo Guru) — Is The Catharsis Yet To Come?

Note from JWR:

In today’s first article, I digress from the usual fare in SurvivalBlog to discuss American politics. You may have noticed that I generally refrain from politics in SurvivalBlog. I only make exceptions for political issues that have a direct bearing on the preparedness and/or liberty of a good portion of the SurvivalBlog readership. Our overseas readers might want to skip reading this article. But be forewarned that in the nascent Second Great Depression, you might be faced with similar situations in your own countries.

Letter Re: Advice on Concealing Storage Food

Hi Jim,
I’ve researched the net in vain trying to find a solution to this problem, which I suspect I share with a great many people now prepping. I’m hoping you can help. The challenge: Where to hide my food stores?

My situation: I live 10 miles from a city of 80,000 in a residential neighborhood. I live at the foot of a small mountain—the area behind my house is woods. I don’t own all of this wooded property, but I’ve never seen the owner. I have significant stores of canned goods, dried oats and beans, flour, sugar, etc.

I am not a craftsperson, so cannot build a false wall, and my husband, who already thinks I’m a loon, would not help me do so. So—where to hide these provisions? The solution needs to be simple enough for a non-carpenter to implement.

I’ve considered burying the food in the woods, and marking these spots (surreptitiously, of course). This is a time- and labor-intensive solution, but perhaps the best one available to me.

If you agree, how to prepare the food to be buried? Oats, flour, etc. in mylar bags, then put into plastic tubes, which are then placed into 2-3 contractor’s refuse bags? Would that be enough protection? Also, does it matter if canned goods freeze?

If you do not agree, do you have any suggestions as to where I might hide it in the house?
I’m hoping you will be kind enough to reply. Even a brief response would be most helpful, and perhaps not only to me. It’s fine to post this email on your blog—just don’t reveal my information. Thank you in advance, and God bless you and yours. – Julia

JWR Replies: I do not recommend burying your food on someone else’s property–at least not the majority of it. Unless you buy very heavy duty containers with watertight seals, there is too much risk of moisture intrusion, or destruction by vermin. There are also, of course, the moral and legal issues of using another’s property.

Many canned foods do fairly well with freezing. The biggest risk comes from repeated freezing and thawing cycles.

If the bulk of your storage food is fairly small, here are a few alternative solutions that I can recommend, only one of which requires the assistance of an amateur carpenter:

Buy a used queen-size “hide-a-bed” couch. Remove and discard the entire bed frame internals and mattress. Build a framework of 2x2s and cut a piece of 3/4″ plywood to support the seat cushions.

You can hide a single row of canned foods (small cans, such as soup and tuna cans) behind books, on bookshelves.

Yet another solution is to buy a few used four-drawer vertical file cabinets. Burglars usually bypass these. Put innocuous-sounding labels in the label holders in bold printing, such as “2007 Tax records” and “2005 Invoices”. If you pack them efficiently, file cabinets can hold a remarkable quantity of canned goods and retort package “bricks”. They are also mouse proof if you place them on a smooth and level floor.

One outdoor solution is to find a used, “out-of-commission” chest freezer. (Usually available free for the asking.) Cut off the power cord. Cover any internal vents with sheet metal. Paint the exterior with flat brown enamel spray paint. Cut (or buy) a cord of firewood and stack it around and on top of the chest freezer. BTW, the same technique can be used if if you have a hay barn–with either hay or straw bales. Or you could buy few hundred used bricks, and make it look like just a pile of used bricks. (And you would of course paint the chest freezer, in flat green, flat tan, or flat brick red, respectively.)

Another outdoor solution is to buy an older, used “pop-up” camping trailer. For some reason, residential burglars ignore these, whereas they will often break in to traditional “hard wall” camping trailers. Pop-up trailers have a remarkable amount of room inside, especially if you remove the seat cushions and mattress pads.If you pay very little for the trailer, you can even go “whole hog” and rip out the interior cabinets, sink, et cetera.

If you have a basement or storage room, you can also use Hide in Plain Sight (HIPS) techniques. One of my favorites is to obtain a lot of used, sturdy cardboard boxes with slip-top lids–such as the type used to ship reams of copier paper. Label them with prominent magic marker labels with things like “Baby Clothes”, “Infant Toys”, “National Geographic Magazines”, “Romance Paperback Books”, “2006 Tax Records”, and so forth. Fill those boxes with your storage foods (in vermin-proof containers). Pile all of those boxes up against a wall. Then add a layer of “camouflage” boxes, containing actual worthless junk. If a burglar opens one of these, he will most likely not dig down to the successive layers of boxes.

Use your imagination. Craig’s List and Freecycle can probably provide you all the storage space and camouflaging that you need, for very little money. Many of the items that you’ll need can be found “free for the hauling.”

When planning you concealment strategies, keep in mind that a burglar is a man in a hurry. In most cases, he won’t take the time to go through everything.

Odds ‘n Sods:

Matt in Texas recommended a piece by Sam Mathid posted over at 321Gold.com as a “must read”: It is Time

   o o o

Writing in a recent issue of The Rude Awakening, economic commentator Joel Bowman notes: “From October 10 through October 17, the Dow [Jones Industrial Average (DJIA)] swung a total of 2,225 points at five separate closes. Put another way, that’s an average daily swing, at the close, of 455 points. This is territory of a tumult as yet not encountered in the history of the market. Measured by the volatility index [VIX], otherwise known as Wall Street’s “Fear Gauge,” we saw this week a reading of 81. The record previous to this monumental number, achieved during the year 1998, was a comparatively modest 47.”

   o o o

Ed suggested this commentary over at Gold-Eagle: 1927-1933 Chart of Pompous Prognosticators

   o o o

Cheryl sent us these economic tidbits: Dutch Gov’t Injects $13 Billion into ING Financial Group — Mortgage Firm Arranged Stealth Campaign — Wall Street Eyes Earnings, Looks For Bottom — Markets Hold Breath As $360 Billion Lehman [Derivative] Swaps Unwind — From Barron’s: It Isn’t Over

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“…While every bank tries to pass the toxic parcel on to somebody else, the system has to find the money. So will compensation for the near valueless contracts and thus now uninsured debt ultimately be made – and by whom? And because nobody knows – not the regulators, banks or governments – who owns the swaps and whether they are credit-worthy, nobody can answer the question. Maybe holders of insurance policies will get the cash due to them, but will that weaken somebody else? The result – panic.

This is the ultra-dangerous downward vortex in which the system is locked. It is why share prices are plummeting. As recession deepens, there will be defaults on securitised bonds and the potential collapse of more banks outside the G7 ring-fence. Nobody knows what proportion of the $55 trillion of credit default contracts that have actually been written will be honoured and who might bear losses running into trillions of dollars. Buying new contracts to insure against default has become prohibitively expensive. Securitisation, and insuring against risk, has effectively ceased. And because the markets don’t know where the losses will fall, banks cannot borrow from each other except overnight or from their central bank. Credit flows are at a standstill. Property prices are plummeting. A famous economist, Hyman Minsky, foretold that unregulated finance capitalism inevitably ends in a meltdown and slump. The world is facing a Minsky moment.” – Will Hutton, commentary in The Observer

Notes from JWR:

We are pleased to welcome a couple of new advertisers: UR-2B-Prepared.com (distributors of the very useful Hydrion fuel test strips), and EM Gear (sellers of a broad line of preparedness and outdoor gear.) You may recall that EM Gear was previously a SurvivalBlog advertiser. They are back on board, now with an even larger inventory!

Today’s first letter comes from Mr. Yankee, whom you may remember from the SurvivalBlog Retreat Owner Profiles.

Letter Re: 11th Hour Preparations: It is Not Too Late to Start

Jim:
It is not too late to prepare for the hard times that are coming. But time is short, so I am going to be brutally blunt. Prices are going up. If you don’t already expect double digit inflation, you haven’t been paying attention. If you are just realizing that you need to prepare for the future, forget buying barter goods. Forget precious metals to swap for what others may be willing to sell.

The idea of buying things so that you can swap them for other goods or services later is bad policy. That’s right. I’m advocating that you buy no precious metals and no barter goods. Instead- you need to prioritize purchases of things that you need right now. Sitting on a pile of sewing needles, can openers, or thousands of dollars of face value in gold or silver is not going to stop you from starving to death, freezing to death, or dying gasping in your own fluids.

This is not a slam on Mr. Rawles’ excellent advice to invest in tangibles. It is not even a criticism of his recent post on barter items to acquire, or of his advice to invest in precious metals. JWR is a voice of reason in a world gone mad. This letter is a reminder that all those things are good advice only after you have squared away your personal needs. Only after you have duplicate sources of potable water, shelter, a substantial food supply, a deep medicine chest, and ample supplies of sturdy clothing and footwear should you invest in barter goods or precious metals.

Here are your priorities:

You need breathable air to live. Most of us expect that to be available for free. Your next priority for sustaining life is shelter from extreme elements (your home and a way to heat it during winter), then potable water. Let me make this explicitly clear. Unless you have clean water to drink, you will die in a matter of days. It is not the government’s job to make sure that you stay alive. It is your responsibility to care for yourself and your dependants. You are responsible to ensure that you have access to clean drinking water or a method to filter, boil, or collect it. If you have no method to do so, go get one. At the very least, plan on a way to boil water over an outside fire.

After air, shelter, and water – you need food. Come what may, you and those who you love will need to eat. Buy food. The cheapest food that you can get will keep you alive, but my advice is to buy extra of what you already eat. Oatmeal, grits, rice, pasta and potatoes are all relatively affordable and life sustaining. Potatoes will store for months. The others will store for years if properly packaged. Yes these alone would make a very bland diet. Use them to stretch your regular grocery meals while the other supplies last.

What next? Get over-the-counter medicines. Diarrhea will kill you. The stomach flu will kill you. Pneumonia will kill you. Allergic reactions will kill you. There may not be any 911 to send help. There may not be an emergency room to flee to as a last resort. There may not be a pharmacy with inventory to sell at 3 a.m.. Buy vital medicines now. Look in your medicine cabinet. If you do not have the medicines to treat an allergic reaction, stomach flu, and a chest cold; go buy them today. $10 spent on medicine could save your child’s life. It won’t if you can’t give it to them. Go buy it before you go to sleep tonight.

If you can avoid getting sick that’s even better than treating illness. Hygiene is critical to health. Buy toilet paper and tissues. You will need them, why don’t you already have them?

You should have sturdy warm clothes and footwear for each member of your family.

And yes, you should also have a means of defense and forage. A simple shotgun and shells for it will let you defend your doorway and harvest birds and bunnies if need be. If you are contemplating buying your first firearm then I strongly recommend that you take an NRA-sponsored firearms safety course as soon as possible. Firearms are a vital tool, but whether you ever need to defend you home, you will need to drink, sleep in a dry place, eat, and stay healthy. God has given you the resources and wisdom to prepare, the rest is up to you. Now pray for wisdom and go take action. – Mr. Yankee.

Letter Re: Advice on Driveway Alarms for Retreat Security

Mr. Rawles,
Thanks for the perimeter defense blog today. Can you please give me your opinion on driveway alarms? There are some cool units I found at drivewayalarmdepot.com. They have units that are wireless and reach out to 3,000 feet. I think they also have a unit that reaches out a mile. Are these infrared units suitable to serious perimeter defense?
Thanks, – RP

JWR Replies: By all means do comparison pricing, but you should beware of the driveway alarms that are made in China. From most reports they are shoddy and unreliable. (Most of them are not truly weatherproof.) The best non-Chinese brand of wireless IR driveway alarm on the market is the Dakota Alert. These are American-made and have long-term reliability. The wireless models use MURS band frequencies, which is a plus. (You can get MURS walkie-talkies tuned to the same frequency, so you can have a portable alerting device right on your belt, that doubles as a voice walkie-talkie.) OBTW, our advertiser MURS Radios sells both discount-priced Dakota Alert system components and MURS band transceivers. They can program the latter for you to match your Dakota Alert frequency. Tres cool.

Infrared alarms can indeed be effective for perimeter security, if properly emplaced on likely avenues of approach. With Dakota Alerts, you can emplace multiple alarm transmitters, each with a distinctive audible alert. (So that you’ll know which approach has an intruder–such as “Alert, Zone Two.”)

Odds ‘n Sods:

I spotted a link for a brief video introduction to Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS). Note that the map of near-surface geothermal heating potential coincides with a lot of my recommended retreat areas.

   o o o

Courtesy of Cheryl, our dose of Gloomage d’ jour: Lehman Tries To Unwind Derivatives Trade — Bush Plans To Host World Summit To Discuss Financial Crisis Response — NYT: Probe Of Lehman Collapse Escalates — Bleak Economic Outlook For Spain — Mervyn’s To Close 149 Locations — Linen ‘n Things Closing All Remaining Stores — Ron Paul: Our Current Monetary System Is Ending — Hedge Fund Manager Thanks “Stupid Traders” For Riches — Crisis May Make 1929 Look Like a Walk in the Park — Is Switzerland The Next Iceland? — Week In Which Global Catastrophe Was Averted — Banks Hoard Cash As Credit Card Defaults Rise — Russia Taps Sovereign Fund To Save Markets — Top Wall Street Bankers To Get $70 Billion Pay Deals

   o o o

FerFAL (Our correspondent in Argentina) recommended this documentary: What a real financial collapse looks like. (In Spanish, with English subtitles.)

Notes from JWR:

The high bid in the current SurvivalBlog Benefit Auction is now at $350. This auction is for a mixed lot that includes:

1.) A huge lot of DVDs, CD-ROMs and hard copy nuclear survival/self-sufficiency references (a $300+ value) donated by Richard Fleetwood of www.SurvivalCD.com

2.) A custom-made, fully-stocked EMS Medic Bag from Cajun Safety and Survival (a $212 retail value)

3.) A NukAlert radiation detector donated by at KI4U.com (a $160 retail value)

4.) A case (6 cans) of Mountain House freeze dried foods in #10 (96 ounce) cans donated by Ready Made Resources (a $160 value)

5.) An autographed copy of “Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse” ($24, retail)

See the SurvivalBlog Benefit Auction page for complete details on these items. This auction ends on November 15th. The opening bid is just $50. Please e-mail us your bid.

Today we present another entry for Round 19 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The contest prizes include:

First Prize: The writer of the best contributed article will be awarded two transferable Front Sight  “Gray” Four Day Training Course Certificates. This is an up to $4,000 value!
Second Prize: A three day course certificate from OnPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses.
Third Prize: A copy of my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course, from Arbogast Publishing

Round 19 ends on November 30th, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that articles that relate practical “how to” skills for survival will have an advantage in the judging.

Good Compsec Practices for Preppers, by T.

Compsec is a subset of OPSEC that is concerned with computer security. It can not be ignored if you plan to use computers now and after a SHTF situation.
The personal computer is a powerful tool to help cope with any disaster or survival situation. The capacity for enormous data storage in a very small footprint makes it a valuable resource when the grid and net go down. You will have all the information you need at your finger tips; first aid and medical info, maps and topography, equipment and firearms manuals, personal records and pictures, and the list goes on and on. Just be sure you have back ups of your data on hard drives and DVDs and a spare system or two stowed away in an EMP-shielded cabinet. Laptops make sense as spares due to their transportability and lower power consumption.[JWR Adds: Like all of you other spare small electronics, any spare laptops should be stored in 40mm ammo cans, for EMP protection.] Make sure you have spare batteries and chargers, hard drives, etc. Consider having the rugged laptops that are shock, water and dust resistant. Here are some examples:

Dell Ruggedized Laptop
Panasonic Toughbook Laptop

See the recent article on how to power your PC with solar energy in Computer Power User magazine’s November, 2008 issue. The article is titled: “Get Off The Grid”.
Solar Laptop chargers are available from:
Basegear
Ready Depot
[JWR Adds: Compact photovoltaic power systems are also available from Ready Made Resources, a loyal SurvivalBlog advertiser.]

Here are some sites with useful information that you might want to stow away before TSHTF:
USGS Topography Resources
KI4U Library
First Aid References
EquippedToSurvive (PDF)
NIH Medline
eBooks
There are many other treasure troves of information on the Internet. Look around and gather those free files now[, and make backups on CD-ROM].

You don’t have to spend a fortune on software; if you leave Microsoft behind and enter the world of Open Source software where you will find a plethora of great software ranging from the LINUX operating system to office automation, databases, and hundreds of useful programs. Consider that most viruses and malware are written for Microsoft products, so open source is generally more secure for that reason alone. Check out these web sites for some alternative ways to go:
Ubuntu
Red Hat
SourceForge
Tucows
If you prefer to stick with the tried and true Microsoft, do indeed follow their security recommendations and make sure you get all the updates installed as soon as they come out. I recommend using the automatic updates for the operating system and software packages as well as virus and spyware scanners.

Scott McNealy, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems once said, “You have no privacy [in the Internet era]. Get over it.” That is definitely a true statement. There are gigantic databases all over the world with data on any minutiae that may have been recorded from many diverse sources which can then be correlated by high power computers to produce a pretty good picture of you as an individual should someone wish to. Some of the data is obtained legally from public records and news sources; some is obtained illicitly through hacking or purchasing outright what should be private information. The data may also come from spybots and Trojan horses right on your very own personal computer.

Anything that is stored on a computer that is connected to the internet is susceptible to data harvesting. Anything you posted to an on-line message board, or an email you sent, or a form you filled out, may well still exist somewhere on the internet even after it seemingly is gone. In the unthinkably large database of Google it may live a long, long time or on a back up tape in some obscure data center somewhere. It may even attain near immortality in the “Wayback Machine”, a database that archives web pages.

Even though using the internet can be hazardous, there are ways to make your surfing safer. By all means install anti-virus and anti-spyware software and update it frequently. Another essential is to have a firewall. Most operating systems now come with firewalls so make sure it is enabled. It can be made even more secure if you do the homework.It’s not a good idea to leave your computer running on-line 24/7 unless you have a specific reason to do so. It gives the hackers a lot of time to work on cracking your system and once cracked hackers can use your PC in their zombie army to launch more attacks and collect more data, all in the dead of night while you sleep. You won’t notice the hard drive and network activity.

Use strong passwords, it’s a pain, but weak passwords are easily cracked and once that is done, you have absolutely no security at all. Change passwords regularly because even a strong password can eventually be cracked by brute force cracking which simply tries random character patterns until it finds the one that works. If you use words that can be found in a dictionary or even words slightly modified, be aware that these are much faster to be cracked.
You can learn about strong passwords here:
Microsoft Password Checker
LINUX Password Checker
Free Ultra-Secure Password Generator from Gibson Research
Pay attention to security settings on your web browser. I use the Firefox browser because it has better security features [than others like Microsoft Internet Explorer], such as clearing of private data when exiting, the ability to manage individual cookies, and the ability to disable the “HTTP referrer” information that tells the next web site you visit where you just came from.

Whatever browser and operating system you use, make sure that it is as secure as it can be and still be functional for your needs. The basic philosophy of system hardening is to close all the open doors, install locks, and only open up those that you absolutely must in order to operate. There are many open doors and loosely guarded doors in an unsecured system which comes right from the manufacturer that way. You need to look into all the setting and options that are available with what ever hardware and software you have, and then start tightening up as much as possible.

Another problem with most PCs running a Microsoft OS is that they become laden with junk over time. As you install new software and hardware your registry grows to a huge size and you accumulate startup programs that start up when you logon and run even if you may not need them. They make the login slower and slower as they accumulate and some of them may even be spybots reporting back to home base of your activities. I’m willing to bet that most PC users are running software for programs they never even use anymore.

Here are a few sites to learn about how to clean your PC of these start-up parasites:
Info on start-up programs
This a database of good, bad and optional programs that might be running on your PC.
Microsoft registry cleaner. There are other commercial products available, be careful to select the option to make backups before you clean up the registry. The cleaners occasionally clean too much and break a program that you need.
Here is a cleaner I have used successfully.

Visit these web sites to give yourself some good security check-outs:
Tons of good compsec information.
Free Tools and Utilities.
The Junkbusters site will tell you if your browser is giving out too much information.
Gibson Research. Click on the services tab and select Shields Up! to give your system a security check up. Check out all their other good security info.
This page will tell you about your Internet “persona” and check out other good information.

Surf anonymously. This will help keep those who do not have a need to know, out of your affairs. Just remember that ‘somebody’ will know what your internet IP addresses is, and that ‘somebody’ is the anonymity provider or proxy server. It can be traced to your PC.
Here are two free anonymizers:
CEXX.org
ComputerBytesMan

One note of caution about encrypted files and web sites that your browser accesses: The browser will copy it to cache and it will be in clear text allowing anybody to read it or a Trojan to copy the page back to its home base server. The solution is to clear browser cache immediately after accessing encrypted pages.

Using a search engine link will provide the web site you visit with all the search terms you used to make the search. Instead, copy and paste the link into the browser navigation bar for a little extra anonymity. If you have a Google account and have logged in to check your Gmail then it is possible for Google to link your login to your searches thus reducing your anonymity even more. [JWR Adds: I recommend that SurvivalBlog readers go a step further and use the Scroogle Scraper intermediary portal to do any Google searches.]

I hope this information has been helpful for those preparing for those tough times ahead that lay ahead. I do believe the personal computer can be a powerful survival tool if, or should I say when, the TSHTF. Visit Set2Survive.com for more information, links and resources.

Letter Re: Suddenly Homeless on the Potomac–Some Preparedness Lessons Learned

Jim & Company,
I thought that I would communicate an interesting story for your web blog. As I write this, I’m holed up in campground/RV park near the District of Columbia (DC) Metropolitan area. How I got here was totally unexpected. My roommate is female, a former army buddy and suffers from chronic depression—maybe bi polar disorder. We maintained a platonic cohabitation for two months until she swore a Temporary Peace Order against me because she felt “threatened”. In the liberal pest hole of Maryland, that’s all it takes. No battery, assault or actual threats—I just yelled at her to clean up after her dog (perhaps the 20th time she didn’t do this) and, in the span of 24 hours the deputies came, gave me 10 minutes to get some things, then escorted me out of the property that I co-rented. That means I was instantly homeless and without the time to assemble my preps.

Fortunately it was payday and I had money for a hotel, an attorney, and what not. But the unbearable part was having my Bug Out Bag and supplies in a residence that I could not approach or enter under court order which gave me a very sickening feeling of what a fast and unplanned for emergency can produce. My preps are centered around an emergency that is slow coming with warning. Save for my camping/bug-out gear, most of my preps cannot be moved rapidly (like 5 gallon buckets). Further, my emergency plan calls for me to hunker down at my place of residence until things stop moving and I have time and latitude to maneuver and get to my bug-out site for the longer duration. Being under the supervision of two sheriff’s deputies put a damper on grabbing my survival gear.

Grabbing my emergency cash, which is well-concealed (Go MI!) was problematic.

Through my attorney, I was able to pick up much of my camping/bugout gear from the former residence. Tell ‘ya what, having a good set of quality camping and survival gear that can be hastily put together is a real boon. I purchase good gear and 20+ years (and counting) in the military has given real appreciation for quality equipment.
Not that an urban campground is primitive: hot and cold water, wireless Internet and a laundry make it a perfect spot for temporary emergency stays and at $40/night, much cheaper than a hotel room (in the DC Area, plan on $100 per night minimum for a single room with a military discount). It sucks that I only have a tent to come home to, but it beats living out of my Jeep Cherokee or in a box (or with the Housemate from H*ll)

Yes, I was homeless that fast and a week of hotel living would have cost me over $1,000. But having ready camping gear, for both camping and survival, insured that I had a home of some sort and was able to take care of myself. No homeless shelter is going to put up a white collar professional.

Because my emergency required a lot of communications between me, my attorney and the landlords of future domiciles I needed Internet access and voice comms. My cell phone is unlocked and uses a pre-paid SIM card and can access almost any cellular network. From Vermont to North Carolina I have cellular voice communications. A GSM smartphone is in my future as it can provide a secondary e-mail channel (PACE). A laptop with Wi-Fi is almost a necessity in urban environments. In slow rolling “grid down” situations, or a Balkans-like future for America (which is probable)—communications infrastructure will be available, albeit intermittently. Without my survival preps, I would have lasted two weeks in a hotel room until I ran out of money. But now I can live virtually anywhere as a homeless white collar professional. All of the trouble aside, it took me a week to adjust from living in townhouse with all the amenities of modern life, to living without many of those amenities.

Being a survivalist, I took this as a learning experience to test both my material and mental preparations. I forgot things when I had to vacate my premise, like a can opener, but I did remember I placed several P38 [compact military folding key ring] can openers throughout my gear and truck sometime ago—just sprinkled them around. That was real relief. An additional relief came from the box of matches I keep in the emergency box in my truck—believe me, after I left my old digs, I was inventorying everything I had in the truck—another prep was the $500 in cash that I keep to get me to my Bug Out Location.

Preparedness pays immense dividends that are not fully appreciated until you need them. – Mark in Maryland

Odds ‘n Sods:

A not-so-subtle indicator of future events?: Baltic Dry Index Collapsing. The article begins with this quote: “Nothing is moving because the trader doesn’t want to take the risk of putting cargo on the boat and finding that nobody can pay.”

   o o o

Here is some news and commentary from our Economic editor: Stocks Turn Higher As Credit Markets Show Signs Of Easing — Citi Group’s $13 Billion Writedown Raises Fears of a Crisis Beyond Wall Street — US Worsening Economic Outlook — Hedge Fund 42% Drop, Brink Of Collapse — Dow Gold Ratio Sinks To 14-Year Low — European Markets Tumble As Confidence Collapse — Gold Price Crash On Hedge Funds Forced Selling — Banks Borrow Record $435.7 Billion Per Day From Fed — Recession Looms Despite Global Interventions — JP Morgan And Goldman Sachs Responsible For Destruction of US Economy — Will Bailouts Risk Hyperinflation? — Moscow Supermarket Shelves Increasingly Empty

   o o o

I found a link over at Total Survivalist Libertarian Rantfest (one of my almost daily reads) to an insightful piece over at Sharon Astyk’s blog: Thinking Ahead: Predicting the Depression

   o o o

Reader “Roo” suggested this site: FromTheWilderness.com

   o o o

Camping Survival recently added hand-made fire pistons from Jeff Wagner to their product line. These are the ones that wilderness survival guru Les Stroud uses and recommends.