Bison Prepper: September 2015

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

deflating expectations 2

DEFLATING EXPECTATIONS 2

After some time of decreased costs which was probably a surprise to most experts, especially after gold went from $1900 to $1,000 so quickly ( which should have proved to everyone that the big bank players controlled the entire Western civilization [ the Russians for now aligning with the Eastern bloc ] economy and manipulated it electronically, because the demand for gold was going up as supply fell ), a few folks begrudgingly admitted that inflation was not our only future. Henceforth and forever more, they proudly triumphed with the same fervor once reserved for warnings of hyperinflation, basic needs would see inflation and luxuries would see deflation. There! Problem solved with those pesky crashing prices questions. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I was firmly in the hyperinflation camp. Just as I was in the Immediate Crash With Peak Oil Camp. And I had no problem with the Insane Food Inflation idea. I’ll readily admit it. But I think I have a good excuse. I tend to over-panic. I’m a bit of a Cassandra. I think assuming the worse is a prudent sound strategy ( since Timing The Collapse is a fools game, I preach the Prep Yesterday In Case The Crash Is Tomorrow point of view ). But I have to say now, just because I absolutely loath the idea of running with the pack, any pack, damn herbivore sum-bitches, just to be different and play the Devil’s Advocate, I’m kind of liking the new idea of Rollercoaster Prices For Everything.

Remember how the Doomer Peak Oilers, myself included, assumed that scarcity would bring high prices? Yet instead what happened was that as one price hike decimated demand and industry participants, the price crashed down. Then repeated. Despite less oil ( total BTU‘s delivered, not total barrel count ), being available, scarcity did not always get higher and higher prices. After oil went over X amount, companies went bankrupt, driving down demand, workarounds were found at the surviving companies to decrease demand, consumers finding they lost half their household income cut back, etc., and that demand never reappeared when prices went back down due to demand destruction. When a company is wiped out or a consumer loses employment, even if the oil price falls in half or to a third, there is one less customer with ANY money to buy at the cheaper price. And I submit to you, my loyal minions, that the exact same thing is going to happen to essentials such as food. There is SOOOO much Value Added price elasticity to food that consumers can keep downgrading and bankrupt food supply companies, causing the remainder to drop prices in a panic as they are one loan payment away from insolvency. People don’t just buy wheat and potatoes and raw meat, but pizza and specialty loaves of bread and French fries and pre-cooked deli items and eat out meals. Consumers can keep downgrading price-wise as they back away from luxury foods. And each food company panic to profit will cause a drop in prices prior to the next surge as the next wave of shortages hit ( caused by the next drought, the next animal disease, etc. ). Next article, I’ll cover other Inflation Forever items such as rent and college and cars.

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Tuesday, September 29, 2015

deflating expectations 1

DEFLATING EXPECTATIONS
For most of my adult life ( and probably prior to that, at least subconsciously ) inflation expectations were a given, written in stone, right up there with “nothing is as important as getting laid”, “I can’t get laid, what a bunch of bitches and ho’s” and “I need some ho’s, ‘cause the wife ain’t putting out even after I give her all my paycheck”. You could count on prices going up steadily, but not too bad except real estate ( I never seriously entertained going to college so I viewed the insane inflation there as a Darwin tax, each semester attracting bigger and bigger idiots until one day anyone who wanted to go to college on debt was removed from the gene pool after they couldn’t afford kids ). Even medical costs didn’t go insane until about ten years ago, where prior any position above entry level offered very affordable coverage. Of course wages never kept up, but I’ve never had a job that paid well so I’m used to the slow drip Chinese water torture of losing ground on purchasing power yearly ( Wal-Mart somewhat arrested that from roughly mid-nineties to mid Oughts, covering my most vulnerable years of child support, plus I was able to continuously move down the food chain shelter wise so losing buying power was manageable ). So, while inflation was bad, it was never really bad ( in thirty years, minimum wage and a trailer lot rent plus food went from half take home to three quarters. Severe in retrospect but manageable on a day to day ). We had inflation, but it was mild and certainly not earth shattering ( the inflation from 2005 to 2015 was a different animal entirely, mostly dethroning the middle class as a viable socioeconomic unit ).

Now, if you looked at the last ten years, inflation was very much alive and well. Of course, it was supply and demand inflation, not monetary creation inflation, as energy became scarce insofar as cost per BTU. The government granted monopoly Federal Reserve might have been creating money by the gigabyte computer drive load, but that went to mainly three things. Suppressing the danger of the derivatives market, by buying up all the toxic assets from 2008 that were counted as collateral, reducing the probability Too Big To Fail banks would do just that. Making the rich much richer. And whatever else needed to be done to keep the system paying the bankers. In short, added money kept the rich getting richer as the middle class were stripped of assets. Now it is the lower class’ turn to pay ( first payment plain, mandatory health insurance. Second, wildly increasing rents ). Inflation would have been worse but the extra bucks all went to the casino players and owners. Joe Blow one paycheck from a cardboard box under the freeway mostly paid extra for scarcity ( most ownership units turned into rentals, ethanol to fuel drastically raising food costs, flooding the hospitals with newly insured poor people rationing health care causing rising prices ). So, is inflation baked into the cake, or is deflation the new normal as failing economies produce a glut of goods, even in a resource contraction? More next article.

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Monday, September 28, 2015

reviews 1 yr after & mad max

REVIEWS:ONE YEAR AFTER & MAD MAX

Please read the ammended and revised notice:

We all know and love all to pieces the book “One Second After” by William R. Forstchen. It is in the Top Ten Of All Time Bestest Post-Apocalypse Books. Not only was it a kick ass PA book, Bill is one heck of an author so that anything he writes about is good. I’ve read some of his stuff with, I believe, Gingrich and other stand alone books of his and I’ve never been disappointed. The last two days, I came darn close. “One Year After” was just released and is book two of the trilogy, started with One Second After. Needless to say, I won’t be buying the third book. “Year”, while just as well written as any of Bill’s other books, disappoints on the subject front. This is NOT post-apocalypse by any stretch of the imagination. Other than an all too brief mention of nitrous gas used in dentistry ( along with a foot powered drill ), the entire book is nothing but militia porn. Now, I know Bill won’t be reading this review, but in case you are new to the field of survivalism, let me recount the definitions. A post-Apocalypse world is where the old social structure and infrastructure collapses and the survivors must overcome the resource implosion die-off and adjust to a new paradigm. A militia porn tale is about morally upright super patriots battling the evil federal government. And 99% of the time there are little in the way of shortages. Death by cool AR-15 mega-poodle plastic carbines rather than starvation. Sorry, Bill, but at $17, I want my novel to be about survivalism, not civil war.

“Mad Max: Fury Road” was a rather kick ass action movie. I mean, the action barely stopped. And it was cinematically brilliant, not just some stupid Hong Kong chop suey kick boxing crap with an occasional full automatic burst followed by the obligatory naked bosom. The world you were drawn into was compelling and believable. An apocalypse movie? Not so much. Okay, the world was a bit more fleshed out than Mad Max 2 ( Road Warrior ), with more attention being given to a believable anthropologic logic. Certainly the logistics were more solid than Beyond Thunder dome ( which isn’t saying much, obviously ) and the cultural development more real than a bunch of kids worshiping an airplane captain. The warrior tribe was incredible. I enjoyed the extra thought that went into the back story. And, despite all the fuss made about too much politically correct Fem Lib Girl Power propaganda, I never picked up that vibe. Oh, there was an uncomfortable moment when the main gals long lost tribe reunited. It almost felt like all the geriatric lesbians were going to pop out their dentures and start licking carpet. But that quickly passed. However, all that being said, the whole movie was little more than racing from point A to point B and then back to A. Incredible race, even better than I had expected, but just a race with lots of guns and explosions. I never picked up the feeling of this being a post-apocalypse world. Certainly not compared to Road Warrior. Heck, even the first Terminator had a more apocalyptic feel to it. Enjoy the kick ass action movie, but don’t expect to add it to your PA movie collection.

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Friday, September 25, 2015

means to an end 2

MEANS TO AN END 2

Let’s say you make $9,999.99 a year gross income. Congratulations. After a tax return giving you back your Federal tax, all you pay is about ten percent withholding consisting of your half of the Social Security ( the other half was paid by your employer and that is wages you never saw ) and a few trifles such as unemployment insurance and workman’s comp or whatever. When you make $10,000.01 a year gross your taxes just doubled since the new tax is called a health care mandate non-participation fee. Could you make it on $10k a year gross, $8k net, which just coincidentally is $666 a month ( proving that Obammy is in fact a minor demon sent from Lucifer, his eternal punishment being slammed in the ass every night by his “wife”, one former football player formally known as Michael and now know as a Chick With A Dick )? So don’t think the government is all really that concerned with your financial plight. Old bitches can just roommate up or move in with their kids. In the 80’s, when Reagan ( who I normally love but even I have to admit he slammed me Michele Obammy style on this one ) jacked up Social Security withholding just in time as I was joining the workforce, the excuse was poor dear little old people were starving and eating canned cat food and oh how utterly dramatic was the gnashing of teeth with politicians the very picture of concern and benevolence. And even with some COLA payments, the net gain by the politicians had to have been wonderful.

Well, guess what Granny Gertrude. The government is now so broke that pretty soon they won’t be able to borrow all that much more, even at near zero percent interest. Once they have to borrow more for the operating budget, when it approaches the point they are borrowing to pay the interest ( as tax receipts go down each year because good God in a vat of gravy we can’t expect corporations to pay any taxes, now can we? ) then you are in a race to see who dies first-you or Uncle Sam. Not to mention if the Petro-Dollar takes a big squishy dump. I would not be betting my last stool softener that Social Security can be saved again. Or, look at Food Stamps. That might be one of the last things to go, given the propensity of welfare recipients of a pigmented variety to burn and loot at the first sign of benefits interruption ( as much as I fear them, I do admire the balls they display going up against The Man mostly unarmed. More balls than Casper the AR-15 toting suburbanite whining about how by golly he promises to rebel REALLLLY soon ). But somehow they will screw you on that one too. But the point is to look at how one goes about getting that benny. You have almost any assets beyond a clunker car, you don’t qualify. You are forced to own nothing and rent everything plus earn very little if you want to get any Food Stamps. Do you think means testing for SS on the Food Stamp model is very far behind?

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Thursday, September 24, 2015

means to an end

MEANS TO AN END 1 of 2

Means Testing is a fancy term for being screwed out of your retirement. You are being Tested to see if you have the Means to provide for yourself. As much as I make fun of Q-Tips, laughing at them as they sit on a phone book to see over the dashboard, their Depends giving them either an extra inch or three depending if the thing is full or not, moving to Arizona or Florida to get warm, then blasting their AC to cool down to the point of wearing a sweater inside, giving them no sympathy since they paid one third the withholding tax I did and are getting huge Social Security checks while I’ll pay for 47 years and get nothing, and yet even then I kind of feel bad about how some of them are going to get screwed. By Means Testing. As I’ve pointed out before, waaaaay back in the 1950’s, just a few years after we were forced into FDR’s crappy retirement Ponzi scheme and the system was doing fabulous financially, the Supreme Court ( the same douche bags who keep questioning the Constitutional validity of the Constitution ) wasting no time in declaring that Social Security was in fact an entitlement program and retirees actually had no right to it. The FedGov could declare it null and void on a whim. The reason they haven’t done so is because they have always acted as if the withholdings for the program was indeed an entitlement to themselves. As long as the government got more in than it paid out, it didn’t give Two Flying Humps if the program had any stability. So make no mistake, as soon as paying Grandma and Grandpa to freeze in Florida next to a golf course becomes just a wee bit burdensome to the asswhores, the first step before outright cancellation will be means testing to drastically cut down the number of recipients.

Got another government retirement check? You don’t need Social Security. Got savings in the bank? Whatever the amount is, it is divided by your potential monthly stipend and you are denied a check for that many months ( at the end of that time, you must apply again, and good luck now that you have no savings ). Receiving any other government service? The full market value of that is added to your assets/income. Own your own home? The fair market value of its rental is potential income, with Section Eight housing counted as your rental cost ( where you stay while renting your house ), the difference being counted against you ( example: 1200 sq. feet rental is $1200. Section 8 apartments for two, 500 sq ft is $50 based on your present income. Your potential income, whether anyone can afford to rent your home without any jobs in the area, is $1150 and considered an asset. You don’t need a government check if you can make $1150 a month ). More next article.

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* The Old Bison Blog: Over five years of work and nearly two million words of pure brilliance: available as a free e-book, but not cleaned up or organized, at Lulu.

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

camping through the apocalypse

CAMPING THROUGH THE APOCALYPSE

We’ve talked before about looking at junk land living as simply camping. You move out there, easy as can be, no need for Fear Of The Unknown, as if it were just going camping. As time goes on, you improve luxuries to keep everyone’s sanity ( the mistake I made with the last wife was never improving conditions until four years in, moving down into the B-POD. I was so fearful of losing the land to unemployment I delayed starting to dig, and in the end losing the wife to Too Primitive Conditions With No End In Sight ). If you wait for conditions to be perfect ( 20 acres, babbling brook, pasture for horses, Earthship home ) you’ll never move there and all the talk is just that. But today I want to talk about Apocalypse Camping not as a tactic but as a fantasy. I’m talking about what most preppers do, minimizing money and time and sacrifice by erecting an edifice of Potemkin greatness. They have all the tactical gear for their AR, with several boxes of MRE’s, a generator and a bug-out bag. They might even have a pimping ride to escape with. But they are not exactly prepping for the End Times, are they? They are prepping to camp through the Apocalypse.

Look at what they are doing. They have Super Camping gear packed and ready to go. If they get to their camping spot ( even if it is just their own living room ), they will rely on 99% high tech storage goods to get them through their stay with no discomfort ( the 1% might be the magnifying glass used to start a fire ). Hell, how many have modern artificial fiber clothing rather than wool and leather? Nothing is replaceable by nature, just by Wal-Mart. Not that camping can’t be a viable strategy ( easy-peasy if supplies cached, baring bear attack or poison ivy on the testicles ), just that luxury camping is what most preppers do and why none of them can handle the idea of anything past a Katrina event lasting a few weeks. Even the Rawles Rangers in the redoubt are guilty of the same, just with bigger budgets they can make the luxuries last years rather than weeks. But in the end all their modern luxuries and toys start breaking down ( for want of a Chinese replacement part, the kingdom was lost. Or for that matter, I imagine, a nail imported from China ). You can’t eliminate all modern goods, such as firearms ( I understand some folks have black powder guns, but we talk here of the majority ) or LED lights because the alternative is worse ( fighting carbine shooters with a bow and arrow, trying to afford a barrel of kerosene fuel ), but you need to focus on longevity and ease of repair rather than luxury, convenience, “force multipliers” or other unsustainable tools. It is only your life in the end, right?

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* The Old Bison Blog: Over five years of work and nearly two million words of pure brilliance: available as a free e-book, but not cleaned up or organized, at Lulu.

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

prepping without permission 3

PREPPING WITHOUT PERMISSION 3
*
Note: If you have Netflix, Walking Dead season 5 is added September 27th. I'm pretty excited as this saves me $20 to $30 on buying the DVD's. Which I really don't have right now, just having finally recovered from the rimfire and 303 ammo orgy I indulged in a few months ago. The DVD is at $30 right now but if they follow last years practice it will be offered at a reduced price as the new TV season starts ( while Wal-Mart, the former "low price leader", keeps it at the same jacked up price all year long ). Also, if you like well made but relatively plot-less movies, check out Wyrmwood. Also on Netflix, a Down Under zombie flick.

I like to think I can look at the harsh light of reality without blinking as much as most people, study a problem and eventually later rather than sooner since I’d rather be right than quick, come up with a simple solution. And while you might be expecting me to rehash the same old crap as everyone else ( couponing to save money for preps, cancel the cable to save money for preps, don’t drink coffee at Starbucks to save money on preps, etc. ), I have an even simpler solution for you when it comes time to budget for preps. You are alone, as the best spouses don’t try to control you and will work with you indulging your fantasies about playing Team America after the Apocalypse, allowing you half of the disposable income. You can’t expect to convince the spouse to join you, hence doubling the prep budget. Only a fraction of one percent of the population will actively prep for a true collapse ( as opposed to playing the safe Camping Through The Apocalypse version ), and odds are very good your spouse has no inclination to join you over at The Dark Side. This is a normal situation, evolutionary-biology wise. Only a few mutants survive as the old period suddenly ceases to exist. Mankind relying on culture and custom for most of his survival needs, it would follow that not following conventional wisdom is our only form of survival, whereas following the prevailing custom was the old survival skills soon to be deadly. You CANNOT, and let me repeat this in case you were busy watching the Jerry’s Kids marathon, CANNOT change peoples survival customs. If someone isn’t already inclined to the mutation, your efforts are for not. Those not mutated are poser preppers and spouses merely appeasing the mate.

Here is the simple secret for prepping without permission. You have to really want it. That’s it. I’ve already given you all the information you need as far as prepping as frugally as possible ( if you don’t have the $1,000 per person for the family to survive on junk land with food stocks, spend about $10 printing out all the info on wilderness survival/Stone Age living you can from the Web. Not a life I’d wish, but the only way to do it without money, just skill ). Now you just need the willpower to truly sacrifice. Like selling all your cool toys while there is a market for them. Selling your vehicle if it is paid off ( I wouldn’t recommend nuking the credit score with a repo if your wife would object ) for a true budget booster ( when you get in better shape from biking, the wife will appreciate a hard body replacing the marshmallow man you used to be, and respond accordingly-in a good relationship. If your wife is divorce fodder, she won’t want your junk touching her no matter what, even if you were Arnold with a gold member ) will get most of the families preps squared away. I can’t give you specifics, as I don’t know your situation. But once you actually make up your mind real prepping is less of a sacrifice than real worries, truly honestly get a better attitude, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish.

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* The Old Bison Blog: Over five years of work and nearly two million words of pure brilliance: available as a free e-book, but not cleaned up or organized, at Lulu.

Monday, September 21, 2015

prepping without permission 2

PREPPING WITHOUT PERMISSION 2

As you might have remembered from my previous writing, I’m a big fan of divorce. You would think as often as I’ve been screwed over by fems that I would stay a bachelor rather than continuing to Play House with each new relationship ( especially now that I’ve passed over to the Golden Age where most gals are falling apart at an exponential rate and all those good looks that allowed them to play males and screw them using the weapon of sex is now close to useless and I can start being picky and choosey ) but even if this new relationship doesn’t work out like I assume it will, there is just something that compels me to keep trying for long term relationships. I enjoy sharing my life with someone, not just getting a Boodie Call on a regular basis. Which usually means you have to accept all those entangling economic issues, which upon severe disagreement and relationship collapse, a divorce is necessary. And with today’s Independent Women, divorce is of about zero problem for them, as long as it pays. So why should guys be hanging on stubbornly to the old school “until death do us part”? Divorce sucks, and I’d like to see a return to not nearly so easy separation laws, but for now you take every advantage you can get. And sometimes leaving the bitch, and of course paying a separation tax, is far more economically feasible than staying in harms way with the wife. If she refuses to prep, and you have zero economic say, and you are thus tied firmly to the train tracks with the collapse locomotive barreling down towards you, far better to sacrifice a limb than your life. Pay the price to get out.

But a curious thing happened after I wrote the book on Survival Divorce. I actually, for the first time in my life, met a decent kind women that is not out to use me. Let me admit, the sensation is novel and bizarre. So now I can get my head around having a far less confrontational problem solving solution about prepping issues. Who knew there are gals out there who want to make relationships work ( note to you young bucks out there. Let this be a lesson for you. One my son learned at twenty and one that took me fifty years to learn. If you are needy, you will be used by a woman. If you have a genuine Don’t Give A Crap If It’s You Or Another Gal attitude, you will attract a far better mate ). Now, we all talked about this before, myself and other minions. Not a lot new here. It just wasn’t a subject I was comfortable writing about, being used to far deadlier combat between the sexes with a more scorched earth solution. And the only reason I’m really even covering this is that there seems to be a general sense of heightened fear out there right now. I don’t know how many more years I’ll be writing about prepping, because soon enough none of us will have the economic means to do so. If our economy unravels, who has a job? Or who can ship goods hither and yon for you to purchase? The time to prep is yesterday, and you must prep alone. Those who deny reality now will deny until the very end. Stop trying to convince them and just take care of this yourself. Quickly.

More next article

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* The Old Bison Blog: Over five years of work and nearly two million words of pure brilliance: available as a free e-book, but not cleaned up or organized, at Lulu.