Some Alternatives to Health Insurance for Americans

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There are huge obstacles to President DJT’s Swamp Draining Attempt in Washington, DC.  One of the biggest fights revolves around replacing the Affordable Care Act (ACA). This is commonly known as Obamacare. There seems to be a log jam in Congress. This was in part instigated by the left wing of the Republican Party. (That’s is the majority of Republicans in both the House and Senate.) So, despite their rhetoric, it seems like they don’t want to do away with socialized medicine.  This is because the status quo concentrates both power and the flow of wealth through Washington, DC. For now, no real change seems capable of moving through the Swamp-Mired Congress. In this essay, I’ll be addressing making a change of our own. We can do so without waiting for Congressional action: Medical Cost Sharing.

How will this  be resolved by the Congresscritters?  Probably not anytime soon. Consequently, I expect to see health insurance premiums keep ratcheting upward. The “alternative plans” now being developed by the divided Congress probably won’t be much better than the current ACA.  And what about the recently-touted “Obamacare Light” program?  It doesn’t offer much hope of reduced costs for typical American families.

Continue reading“Some Alternatives to Health Insurance for Americans”

Letter: Sealing a #10 Can

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Hugh,

A friend recently acquired the capability to seal #10 cans. He’s bought a supply of new cans and is still playing around with the concept. He offered me the opportunity to do a few cans of my own. The concept has intrigued me. What would you pack in a #10 can if you could choose the contents?

My preliminary thoughts

My thoughts are a #10 can would be good for stuff that must stay one or more of these:

  1. Oxygen free
  2. Dry
  3. Sterile
  4. Clean

Continue reading“Letter: Sealing a #10 Can”

The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods:

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SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods— a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from “HJL”. There is an interesting article on the failed state of South Sudan and lessons the KRI can learn today.

Charlottesville

Reader H.L. sent in the link to an interesting video that shows the media is once again lying along with this commentary:

“Short video shows that for the most part, those who asked for and received permit to march (the so-called Alt-Right came armed to protect themselves) were walking and the Left leaning group consisting of Antifa/Black Lives Matter and others came with signs and heavy sticks prepared to cause trouble. The Left also had cans filled with cement and someone had tear gas. There is some narrative and pointing out that one needs sometimes to watch as many videos and angles of such marches to see the truth. Those guiding the left want to tear down our form of government and replace it with Socialism and are well on their way to so doing! Thanks for government run schools and universities that are almost completely Socialistic/Communistic.

“Too many Americans do not realize they are PAWNS in the Globalist Game of Chess to destroy America and hollow out completely our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Only by reading, viewing and searching out the truth and making your own decision will you have the possibility of learning the truth! Americans have the right to think what they want, but they do not have the right to attack other Americans who are living peacefully. This goes for both sides. When people have not learned how to peacefully discuss their philosophies, they resort to violence. Violence tears nations apart and the government steps in and takes over! Economic freedom cannot thrive where there is such violence. Freedom for all is then lost! Remember How Hitler rose to power? History is one of the most important subjects to study. History usually repeats itself.”

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Lifetime Disaster Assessment, by M.B.

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Coming To Grips With a Life Changing Event

If you live long enough, you will undoubtedly face a life changing event. These events are not easy to plan for. And even if you know one is on the horizon, they always seem to catch you by surprise. I refer to these life changing events as sentinel events, because once they happen your life will be forever changed.

While I’ve practiced and taught strategic planning and business development in several different industries, including pharmaceutical sales and hospice/rehab/long-term care senior healthcare, I have survived several sentinel events in my own life. I generally feel as if I have come through them stronger and smarter because of my struggles. However, “no” that wasn’t a ringing endorsement of wanting to experience anymore of these type of events.

Losing your spouse, a child, your parents, or your career are all typical sentinel events that most people have to endure at some point in their lives. I once worked with a woman who had lost both her parents in a car crash as a teenager. She then went on to lose two of her three sons in the middle-eastern conflict Desert Storm in the early 90’s. I can’t even imagine how difficult and how emotionally devastating those sentinel events were for that dear lady. She had to be a strong  person  in order to survive and continue on.Continue reading“Lifetime Disaster Assessment, by M.B.”

Letter: Violence in Charlottesville

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HJL, JWR, Readers of SurvivalBlog,

My current hometown of Charlottesville, VA suddenly found itself thrust into the headlines. My home is less than three miles from the site where the events occurred. From my 4th floor apartment balcony I watched the state police helicopter hover for hours. It eventually disappeared from view as some unknown event caused it to crash.

Readers of SurvivalBlog are well informed; I will not rehash the events of the weekend of August 12, 2017 in Charlottesville. But I will add that all parties involved in this “rally” came prepared for a fight. What you probably won’t see in clips on the evening news is BOTH sides of the confrontation were heavily armed with clubs, bats, handguns, and rifles, and by the grace of God no shots were fired. It is my belief that, due to either a completely unhinged individual or actions of a group seeking to accelerate conflict, shots will one day ring out and a second civil war will erupt in this country.

The rhetoric from leaders in Washington over the past eight years, and some may argue the past eight months, has only served to foment severe hatred among the fringe elements of both parties, spawning the most dangerous of enemies: Extreme Ideology. Throughout the ages, we have witnessed extreme ideology in many parts of the world that often leads to outright genocide. Extremism knows no boundaries when committing atrocities, even within its own race, skin color or geographic location. I pray this never happens in our country, but after this weekend’s events, I urge you to continue to prepare, train, and plan. I believe we will only see more of this violence in the months ahead.

Economics & Investing For Preppers

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Here are the latest items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. We also cover hedges, derivatives, and obscura. And it bears mention that most of these items are from the “tangibles heavy” contrarian perspective of JWR. (SurvivalBlog’s Founder and Senior Editor.) Today’s focus is on investing in firearms magazines. (See the Tangibles section, near the end of this column.)

Precious Metals:

Jack Chan: Silver Price Update

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Gold Forecast for the Week of August 14, 2017, Technical Analysis

Stocks:

Top Four Gold Stocks as of August 2017

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Do You Own Those Three Recession-Proof Stocks?

 

Commodities

Next, over at Knoema: Nickel Price Long Term Forecast (to 2030)

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How the Commodities Bounce Could Finish Noble

Continue reading“Economics & Investing For Preppers”

JWR’s Recommendations of the Week

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Here are JWR‘s Recommendations of the Week for various media and tools of interest to SurvivalBlog readers.  This week the focus is on the new documentary film Lies Of Omission.  (See the Movies section.)

Books:

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

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The Keto Diet: The Complete Guide to a High-Fat Diet, with More Than 125 Delectable Recipes and 5 Meal Plans to Shed Weight, Heal Your Body, and Regain Confidence

 

Music:

Stevie Ray Vaughan – Original Album Classics

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The Last Of The Mohicans: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

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Preparedness Notes for Tuesday – August 15, 2017

On August 15, 1961, two days after sealing off free passage between East and West Berlin with barbed wire, East German authorities began building a wall–the Berlin Wall–to permanently close off access to the West. For the next 28 years, the heavily fortified Berlin Wall stood as the most tangible symbol of the Cold War–a literal “iron curtain” dividing Europe. The wall has now been torn down for longer than it stood, but the scars in memory are still there.

If It Works Well, It Is Ours, by Old Bobbert

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I’m so glad you asked about dealing with these non-preppers. This is a great topic. As a general rule, a non-prepper, most of the time and in most circumstances, simply does not see a need for “our” quality, variety, and/or style of preparing for some potentially serious problem that will, in turn, have an unexpected negative influence in their personal lives. It’s all just vague to them. Or to put it another way, they have heard that sermon before and they ain’t buying it, not then, not now, and not tomorrow.

They are honest, generous, sincerely caring for others, like the ideal fellow prepper, with every aspect of good character and tremendous integrity. They are the great unwashed unprepared majority. Does their preparedness message radiate from every smile and twitch of their inquisitive observant eye and even their body language radiate their preparedness message to us? No! No! And again no. But they will be polite and courteous. If that is your only topic, please go away. And that’s true about most of the good ones– the nice folks.

A Tale: Something “Good” Became “Nothing”

Before we get any deeper into the topic, allow me to share a personal true tale about the very good people in our very small community of about 200 homes and a population of just over 500 hearty souls. Right about 12 years ago, we formed a terrific CERT (community emergency response team). It was well done by the book. I should know, the books and training materials are on the book shelves in my den. Then about five years ago, we had to admit to ourselves that the CERT team actually did not exist at that time. We asked ourselves what had caused the team and the town to no longer care. Did we do something wrong? No. We did our leadership parts quite well. We did almost everything and did it well indeed. It was determined that the collapse was caused by nothing.

Continue reading“If It Works Well, It Is Ours, by Old Bobbert”

SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt

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Here is SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt. This weekly column features news stories and event announcements from around the American Redoubt region. We also mention companies of interest to preppers that are located in the region. The emphasis this week is on Idaho bladesmith Robert Martin, the proprietor of Tears of The Sword.

Idaho (Tears of The Sword)

I’ve mentioned bladesmith Robert Martin once before in SurvivalBlog. His Tears of the Sword / Shadow Mountain Forge operation is located in Idaho Falls, Idaho. I recently met him again at a Redoubt gun show. His metallurgy and craftsmanship have progressed in recent years. He now makes some exceptionally nice pattern forge welded Damascus steel. His heat treating process is par excellance. In addition to producing complete knives and swords of his own, he also makes some great blanks for hobbyists to complete. He has two smelting forges for creating custom steel blends in up to 20 pound batches. He often starts with A-2, D-2, O-1, CPM 10V, CPM 3V, L-6, 15N20, 52-100, 51-60, and 51-50 carbon steels. Stainless steels such as CPM S30V, CPM S60V, CPM S90V, CPM 154, CPM 440C, and ATS-34 (or custom blends thereof) are also be worked by Martin.

o o o

There is now less than one week until the big solar eclipse event. A few travelers are already arriving, for vacations that will span the eclipse day. The traffic in some of the small towns in Idaho and Oregon in the path of totality will be tremendous. (The roads simply are designed to handle that much traffic.) Get there early. Be sure to carry plenty of extra food, water, and fuel if you are heading into the Totality Strip.  There might be a two-day traffic jam!

Continue reading“SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt”

The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods:

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SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods— a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from “HJL”. As the war drum beats louder, many preppers are starting to focus on their nuclear fears. Much of it is just unfounded fear, but it is good to understand it.

Poison Ivy

Reader HL sent in this article on dealing with poison ivy. It lists eight things you should know including what it looks like, recognizing the rash, and treating the symptoms, even with homemade remedies. I would also add that poison ivy isn’t as common as TV would have you believe. If you are one of those who has allergic reactions to the oil in the plant, you should know all you can about it. However, only about 25% of the population is actually affected by it. It’s also worth noting that even if you are not affected by the plant, if you get it on yourself or your clothes, you can transfer it to someone who is affected.

The Plague

A couple of Arizona counties are warning that fleas from the region have tested positive for the plague. This would be the same plague that wiped out a third of the population of Europe in the Middle Ages. Granted that things are different now. We have better hygiene, better medicine, better access to that medicine (despite Obamacare), and better knowledge. However, it would be wise to take precautions to reduce the risk of exposure. If you are going to be out and about in areas where fleas are known to inhabit, you should be wearing protective clothing and possibly insect repellent.

Continue reading“The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods:”