Monday, March 23, 2015

consuming to invest 7


CONSUMING TO INVEST 7

Reference Books

You don’t have to be in love with books, or read voraciously like I do, to need reference books.  Everyone needs them because we need to get back to a time where we start doing things for ourselves rather than let Chinese peasants do it for us.  Oh, they do it much cheaper.  But they can easily be our enemy next week, just as they are our friend now.  And, no, not because they are communists.  Bewaring communists is so old school Cold War.  It was an easy control button our leaders both created ( if we really hated and wanted the commies gone we merely had to withhold Lend-Lease from the Soviets and the odds would have been good the Nazi’s could have defeated them.  Later, if we just used the Russians to defeat Germany, we could have nuked them before we “accidentally” let them get hold of Bomb.  No, we needed the commies to control our own citizens.  Now we use terrorists, which work better than drug dealers ) and exploited to the fullest.  The Chinese communists make better capitalists than we do.  This isn’t ideology, this is Imperial warfare and resource control.  You need to secure the knowledge of how to move backwards towards self-sufficiency rather than wallowing in the present of microchip and petroleum dependency.  The oil can easily be cut off from overseas as we allow our navy to degrade ( and, much easier than that, by usurping the PetroDollar, our contenders can make that oil unaffordable ) and most of our computing power is made overseas. 

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Do not rely on the power grid ( which uses imported fuel, imported parts and imported chips ) or imported computer components which make up electric book readers.  Buy paper books.  Now, e-books are fine for ease of reference or for getting them cheap enough so you can judge whether the book is even worth getting a paper version ( I still save money even when I buy both electronic and paper versions because nine times out of ten I don’t go paper-believe it or not, a lot of authors and publishers only want to make money, and they care less about 100% accuracy or even readability.  A lot of “free” books out there are not worth their price.  You can buy the e-versions, discard all the crap, then buy the few choice paper versions on many occasions.  Other times, if both are expensive, you’ll just have to make a judgment call if you want to gamble the money.  If that is the case, always default to paper first ).  I won’t specify too many titles.  You are looking for old time skills, those that are cottage industry rather than heavy, petroleum industries only achieved on an imperial/colonial scale.  The Foxfire books #1-6 are pretty darn invaluable, but do keep in mind a lot of things in there might be regional specific.  The books by Seymour.  If you go shopping on Amazon, just go to the Foxfire books and then follow the recommendations they generate.  After that, figure out one or two specific skills you want ( part two of this book ) to focus on and get a lot of reference books on those.  Those books are relatively expensive, $20 to $50 each, but they are invaluable.  Think of the years apprentices had to trade labor for skills, and compare that to a book that costs you three hours of minimum wage salary.  Now, obviously, a book on a shelf does not make you a craftsman.  But those specialized books that are the only place long forgotten skills can be taught will show you how to practice to achieve mastery.  Selling books is such a competitive business that you can find some very refined skills being taught on anything and everything.  Take advantage of that now.

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7 comments:

  1. I totally agree about the utility of e-books vs paper. I buy probably dozens of dollars of per month on e-books for entertainment and knowledge. Of those books probably only 3 or 4 a year are worth purchasing in paper format. But paper books, once preserved and treated right have a much better staying power than e-books, even if the e-reader and power is still up in 50 years, you probably wouldn't be able to find the e-book you bought you had bought yesterday due to it simply being buried under mounds of other data.

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    1. I agree with the "mounds" part, but of course most of our e-books are "BTN" ( better than nothing ). Also, I find, reading the same thing e or paper, my mind adsorbs paper differantly. Could just be me.

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    2. You know, now that you mention it, that happens to me too, especially in terms of recall. If I read something on the computer, I frequently just remember that I read it on the computer. If I read it in a paper book, I can usually remember exactly which book it was (and sometimes even have an idea around which page it was).

      Of course, your writing is a bit of an exception to the e-book rule; your writing is so unique I never forget when it's something you wrote; still, not a clue when it comes to specific e-books.

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  2. One word of caution for those who would acquire free PDFs and print them out: ink-jet printed pages + water = field of gray
    laser printed pages + heat = pages stuck together which, when forced open, have bits letters go randomly to one page or the other

    Yes, this is talking from painful experience.

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    Replies
    1. Damn, sounds like you really had to work on that one! :)

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  3. "Now we use terrorists, which work better than drug dealers ) and exploited to the fullest."

    That's pretty much it James. The Muslims are the new "Boogie Man".

    Recall the cold war era, and all the movies, media reports, etc, portrayed the Commies in the same light. (The East Germans seemed to be a popular choice at the time).

    So of course it only makes sense that of the 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, that the western media, which is owned by 6 corporations, will only report the worst of the worst.

    Oddly enough, despite the claim from our "honest" government of them all wanting to storm our shores and "kill us or convert us", our borders are left wide open and unprotected?

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