opportunity cost 2 of 2

OPPORTUNITY COSTS 2

What have you given up to be a prepper?  Don’t count your buckets of wheat or rounds of ammunition and come up with a dollar figure.  That makes this question moot because all of us have hobbies or allowed luxuries that are probably in the same percentage of spending in relation to income.  If you CAN answer this question by performing the above, you have no opportunity costs.  You are just a Prepper Lite, one of the posers that has a few weeks camping gear/food and some extra ammunition.  A Survivalist, on the other hand, has quite a list of things he’ll never achieve because he chose to look through decades of spending choices lenses as someone trying to survive actual civilization collapse ( as opposed to mere disaster survival ).  A prepper lite lives in the big city to work at a well paying job and puts aside a few tools, a few cases of MRE’s and has a potted tomato plant.  The survivalist has decades of lost income from moving away from the city.  As an example of an opportunity cost. 

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Another example would be a food stockpile and arsenal taking the place of a college education.  You gave up the chance to earn more, since your cost/benefits analyses judged that a room full of tangibles beat the probability of a job being available or money retaining value.  Not staying in the military because you view an overseas station too high of a risk given the possibility of imperial blowback, with the no longer realized pension, is an opportunity cost for a survivalist ( I refused to stay in the military because I don’t take direction well from morons-but that indirectly benefited me as I would have seen Panama, then the Gulf War I with its troop poisoning, then a stop loss extension in Iraq just as I was about to retire ).  Leaving a less-stressful job and an affordable housing area because crime might increase ( in Florida, it isn’t very fun living next to a ghetto, but at the time they were one of the better states to carry concealed and protect your castle in ), you’ve given up a better job and the chance to retire in a nice climate.   I moved to a higher cost of living area to get away from such high population densities, but the 50% wage hike didn’t make the 5x housing cost a very good trade off.

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 As a matter of fact, if I had stayed in Florida after taking on a VA mortgage, I could have cashed out during the bubble and had a much nicer retreat here paid for in cash.  That was an opportunity cost ( although I did move out just in time to avoid the record breaking hurricanes, so I call it a wash, financially.  I have great luck deciding to do something for another reason and then being rewarded for it in other ways.  Avoiding war because I hate being micro-managed.  Avoiding the housing crash because I was moving every few years from multiple marriages and with wanderlust.  Avoiding the new harder to qualify for bankruptcy because the ex had my tax return seized for arrears [ that I had never missed a payment on ] and in desperation I filed a year prior to the law changing.  Avoiding the financial collapse as a renter because I finally decided to move after rent kept going up 10% a year and I didn’t have much time before I couldn’t afford it anymore.  Avoiding price increases not because I had foreseen inflation due to resource depletion but because I’ve thought the world would end for decades now-in other words I was paranoid about the wrong thing but still benefited  ). 

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But some things are a lot harder to justify away as the smarter move.  I’ve always thought the perfect investment would have been a travel trailer park.  Minimal investment or maintenance, or liability, with rents as your income and a free place to live for yourself.  I had that plan in the mid ‘80’s after living in my first park in an RV.  Did I do anything about it?  Of course not.  I was too busy trying to get laid and worrying about the end of the world ( and worrying about not getting laid enough ).  Now, I look at my age and the job market and can’t help but wonder if I made a mistake.  I mean, obviously I’m beyond certain that the End Is Nigh.  I keep doubling down on that.  I just look at the opportunity costs sometimes and ponder.  Pondering isn’t losing your nerve or changing your mind, it is just mental masturbation.  I can’t help doing that a lot.  I can’t help but wonder what I could have accomplished by saving money rather than buying the wrong pieces of real estate.  Or, rather than double and triple all my minor preps, if I had built a house ( a 400 square foot one, not a McMansion ).  Then I might still be living in the boonies rather than paying rent ( of course, that is still questionable feasibility wise.  The New Old Lady might still have elected to stay in town, even if I had offered all amenities ).

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If I was an economic collapse prepper ( as in, New Great Depression ) rather than a civilization collapse survivalist, I could have already been living in east Texas, retired and fishing every day.  Rather than busting my hump working for chump change here.  So, the more paranoid you are, your opportunity costs are far higher.  That is an additional price we pay, above and beyond stockpile equipment costs.  Being extra worried is cheap enough.  Ten years of wheat is only a thousand bucks ( excluding container costs.  But then, your $1,000 semi-auto rifle excludes the cost of mags and ammo, so I can still safely compare a decade of food to one plastic carbine ).  Junk land is a grand or three.  Peanuts compared to rent.  Rather, it is those opportunity costs that can really make things far more expensive.  Most normal people won’t forgo possible lost income-that is why they are normal rather than bat crap crazy survivalists.  And we can all tell ourselves we’ll get the last laugh, but at our age I wonder if that is even true.  The damn collapse really better hurry up and get here!

END

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opportunity cost 1 of 2

OPPORTUNITY COST

Have you ever considered the opportunity cost of prepping?  Not from the standard of cost.  We are all pretty focused on cost of preps.  As in, how to minimize cost and maximize return.  That seems to be about the only argument out there.  Gatekeeper of the 10% says you must have twenty acres in the boonies with babbling brook and pasture and woods and fields of swaying grain, pallets of ammunition for large arsenals of semi-auto’s and if you don’t you are unworthy of survival ( a standard line going back to the movement in the ‘70’s, one guru after another parroting the official line “the poor need not apply”.  With the exception of Kurt Saxon who published his own books to be heard, may he be blessed for eternity ).  In the Fifties when everyone made Union wages and yet strangely houses were affordable even with higher labor costs, you could easily build a fallout shelter in your basement.  It was affordable by all, which was a good thing since the FedGov ( who started the Cold War by positioning the Soviet Union as a foil to continue the wartime armaments production in fear of an economic contraction-thank you Uncle Sugar for endangering humanity so your defense industry companies could stay profitable ) whipped up the Russians and then stopped building or stocking civilian fallout shelters.  The Congress-critters were of course protected, but Joe Average had to fend for himself.  Not a bad thing, really, given the strategic advance of decentralization, and the natural propensity of citizens to value their own hide far more than our loving benevolent Big Daddy government would.

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So, really, prior to the Seventies, survivalism wasn’t really just a rich mans game.  Rather, it was a working mans.  My theory is that after the poor rose up in righteous indignation in the ‘60’s and rebelled against being cannon fodder for imperial adventures, the rich had to bribe them off.  That worked of course, but as a natural human nature response, the rich now hated the poor with a much brighter intensity.  Before, during the Great Depression, the rich had to make some concessions to the poor or face open armed rebellion ( with a LOT of trained combat vets willing to get involved.  The mobsters doing drive-bys wasn’t the only reason gun control started-the ingrate poor were not going to lay down and starve gratefully ).  The government went socialist only to the extent it needed to quell rebellion.  And of course they ended up on the right end of the stick ( the wrong end of the stick was the sponge part used to wipe your ass in Roman public toilets, in case you didn’t know the origins of the saying ) by making that work for themselves.  Prior to this, the poor were cannon fodder and machinery bait, but then they became a real threat for the first time.

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Let me tell you, the rich hate giving anyone their money just as much as the poor do.  So of course there is going to be resentment.  Just as a White American resents spending a trifle to keep the Indians alive after we stole all their land.  Just as we resent giving Arabs money for oil when we should get it for free ( see, you thought I hated rich bitches with extreme prejudice.  Of course I do-but I’m not fond of hypocritical poor, either ).  We are so brainwashed today that we hate Union members as if they were communists.  Which, yes, they are, but without Unions we work in unsafe conditions for starvation wages.  Which would you rather have?  Socialist working conditions or fascist ones ( such as in Germany and the workers are involuntary Jews )?  Just remember, voting Republican votes for the party that colonized the South and sent all the jobs overseas ( and voting Democrat votes for global imperial occupation AND gun control-so just don’t vote ).

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If the poor were resented for taking money to NOT rebel against starvation, once they engaged in actual open rebellion in the Flower Power decade, now they were hated and feared.  Not just simple resentment but actual Mau-Mau Rebellion filling your pants fright, loathing and hatred.  It wasn’t bad enough the poor had to rebel, now the Poor Blacks did?  What was a pasty rich boy to do?  One answer was to demonize the poor so as to eventually have the broad consent of the electorate to ignore and penalize them ( even, ironically, most poor people ).  The Mises Institute, and all of such ilk were one subsidized method.  The Reagan Revolution another ( I’m a big fan of Ron, regardless of his evils which I explain away as the fault of Bush Sr. ruling behind the throne after Ronald and Nancy entered dementia city.  I also know I’m excusing one tool of the elites even as I demonize others ).  In a very short time, the rich ( or more accurately, the aspiring rich-which I call the 10% ) were our hero’s ( think Michael Douglas’ character in “Wall Street” ) and the poor were criminals and racists.  Or criminal racists which was allowed if you were Black-but NOT if you were White.  Think of Political Correctness as having an added advantage of fueling racism on both sides ( as well as sexism and other “ism’s” ) to understand its appeal to the elite.

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So now you have all the slightly better off’s turned against the working poor.  Class warfare to the advantage of the .01%.  Have the 10% hate on the 90%, and the 90% resentful of the target they can see.  This has permeated every level of our culture, so why should it be a surprise to any of us that the elites Butt Boys bark for a treat and are given one to continue the propaganda that the rich deserve to survive the apocalypse the elites will cause ( increased populations help the rich-always have.  More cannon fodder and more peasants in the field.  The propaganda that the poor procreate for their version of Social Security might be true, but is classical misdirection )  and the poor are scumbag jag off’s?  If you are one of the Pullers Of Levers, someone that owns more assets than the GDP’s of several European countries combined, social engineering is a very affordable hobby.  Why would that have stopped at Rockefeller?  Anyway, that’s enough of hating rich humpers.  Tomorrow, more on opportunity costs for preppers-and this time moving past the above described “the poor deserve to die” paradigm.  We’ll talk about what it cost in missed opportunities to prep.

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Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page.  IF YOU DON’T SEE THE AD, DISABLE AD BLOCK ( go to the Ad Blocker while on my page and scroll down the menu to “disable this site” ). You can purchase anything, not just the linked item. Enter Amazon through my item link and then go to whatever other item you desire. As long as you don’t leave Amazon until after the order is placed, I get credit for your purchase.  For those that can’t get the ads because they are blocked by your software, just PayPal me occasionally or buy me something from my Amazon Wish List once a year.  Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for mere Book Money, so do your part.*** 
*Contact Information*  Links To Other Blogs *  Land In Elko*  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com           *wal-mart wheat
*Link To All My Published Books
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

old time trade 2 of 2

OLD TIME TRADE 2

From this two part article, take away this.  Do not practice less modern skills because you will earn much of anything before or after you need them, but because besides the familiarization you begin to divorce yourself from consumerism and idleness.  What has been sold to survivalists is the idea that because they heeded the On High Advice Pontificated By The Gurus and studied and practiced an old time skill/trade ( I’ve been guilty of this myself, although in my defense I believe I was more concerned with investing money before it became worthless than the reward in the post-apocalypse.  Or not.  Who remembers these pesky details? ) their future security is assured in one way or another.  Here I am saying that local trade won’t be reestablished, not for quite awhile.  Everyone will be so poor that tasks will be tribal and equitable rather than hierarchical and wealth generating.  So don’t go learning a skill because it is supposed to be lucrative in a Dark Age future.  Without trade, most skills however desirable will be hobbyist rather than a monopoly that generates wealth.

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Let’s start with an obvious duet.  Gun making and a cobbler.  These are not skills one associates with the home cottage industry.  Well, as for cobbler, there were homemade moccasins and the Low Countries disposable wooden lower clogs that should have been easily home crafted.  So perhaps that isn’t a great example even if we currently don’t associate making shoes as something just anyone can do.  But guns, while easily compiled from parts ( the home owner crafted the stock, the barrel had to be store bought ), isn’t a cottage industry per se.  Yet I have grave doubts that will ever arise as an issue.  Kurt Saxon, the only survival guru NOT spoiled by affluence as a lifestyle until after his writing was done ( not that he was ever very prolific ), and even then I’m sure he was never drifting far from his roots, was fixated on a return to the 19^th century as the post-apocalypse future.  At the time this was quite feasible, the country far from overcrowded, the family farm still a viable concern, the founding culture still vibrant even if fraying.  Soil was still fertile, the aquifers still full.  Metals were still abundant, as was energy of all types even if insufficient to continue ‘60‘s economic growth levels.  Yes, you could have recreated the coal and railroad economy with what was available. 

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Not now, not by a long shot.  I would go so far as to stipulate that rather than stepping down a century, we have more like a millennium to go.  When the last thirty years resources extraction has been strip mining microscopic ores with Texas size machinery and energy application, and those are running out ( fracking/tar sand is the oil equivalent of this kind of ore extraction ), the only logical conclusion is that the globe has used up its resources for good.  If that is indeed the case, ipso facto, what could possibly be left for manual labor with a lack of energy to procure?  Lack of fertile soil means a nitrogen shortage, hence a propellant supply issue, and lack of low tech mining ores means no gun making.  I would imagine it is gun components salvage only, then down to salvage for archery ( crossbows being the higher tech [metal] but easier to use version of bowery ) followed by a return to natural organic archery only.  The question isn’t how we will make guns, the question will be how long can you stay better armed than your opponents during the devolution away from chemically propelled weapons.

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As salvage only is the only feasible answer to a energy-less resource depletion future, rather than extraction and manufacture, then all men are equal in cottage industry fabrication and trades become as scarce as hens teeth.  No tradable currency ( how many people do you know that have actual precious metals?  The stuff is rare by choice now rather than scarcity and we share return to a historical norm of the peasant class having zero coinage ), no trade into the future.  Forget money for the post-collapse.  Don’t learn a ( old timey ) skill on the expectation of a paying job.  Rather, embrace whatever hobby interests you and learn it for its own sake.  For instance, with a food scarce future, I know that my skills as a writer are worthless.  Even a secondary position of librarian is not worth the wheat needed to keep me alive.  Leather working is an every-man occupation ( I’m slowly collecting the tools, going minimalist at first, as discretionary funds permit.  Past sheaths and pouches for my kit, I only foresee Christmas gifts as any of my output.  This is so minimalist of a hobby it would make other leather workers embarrassed for me.  I’m doing it mainly to get out of my head, where I live all day thinking on this prepper crap.  I need a diverse hobby ).

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So, I’m definitely not worrying about acquiring old timey skills.  Defense and offense will be a quick and brutal on the job training I either graduate or not.  Not being because I’m dead.  Past that, any of the skills I envision being needed will take on the old school method of car repair.  The guys get together and teach each other.  It isn’t a trade, it is mutual survival and training for such.  A true group effort, not a mercenary activity.  Are 19^th century skills and trades a worthless endeavor?  Of course not.  Heck, nobody can assure the future we have.  Reference books and tools and practice are not wasted, even if the skill is never needed.  I’ll never own a swamp cooler, but my last job where I learned to work on them was a good learning experience.  It got me started pursuing mechanical tasks I had previously been completely ignorant of.  It was surprising how transferable it was ( RV and car repair ).  It gave me the confidence and training to try new skills.  It is never a waste to learn something new.  The guys who used to repair TV’s and vacuum tube using machines easily went to other fields of repair with that starting foundation, even if the specific skill is obsolete.  Just look at it as a training hobby, and not as a paying trade.  And it beats sitting in front of the TV for too long, or paying someone else to perform basic tasks for you.  It isn’t your fault-society rewired all of us and how we get through life.

END

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*Contact Information*  Links To Other Blogs *  Land In Elko*  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com           *wal-mart wheat
*Link To All My Published Books
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

old time trade 1 of 2

OLD TIME TRADE

Much ado is made of learning Old Timey Skills to provide for yourself during the post oil dark ages ( which will probably be far longer than the last one of 500 years.  Once an areas soil is revitalized after being denuded-which is only an inch a century or thereabouts if Mother Nature does it all on her own [ I would recommend you read Darwin on this if you want a public domain book-he was about a lot more than just confusing simple minded peasants taking doctrine from organized religion at face value as they sent their sons to choir practice with the Papists ] -a future centralized state can get enough of a surplus together to start kicking the neighbors asses and the next empire is on the way to fame and fortune before the whole cycle repeats itself.  After Rome fell, it took this long for any decentralized entity to get a sufficient surplus through agriculture to start a lasting conquest.  This time around, the entire globe’s soil is simultaneously being mined and so in the future there won’t be a neighboring area which is ripe for the picking such as the New World was for European colonists.  Oh, it will happen.  Eventually all areas will recover, with the exception of downwind areas from nuclear power plants.  But since no area will be virgin soil or mineral rich, unexploited, the next empire will have a much harder row to hoe.  The surpluses will be far less ).

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The main problem with all the fuss being made is that everyone is looking through the lens of trade.  I will try to debase you of any notion that whatever skill you possess is going to be worth much to anyone.  We have talked about this before-all skills in this here Oil Age will NOT translate over into post-apocalypse.  You know, small details like a doctor has no power for his tools or antibiotics or plastics for all his disposables, etc.  A soldier is trained in tactics which consume massive amounts of ammunition, not to speak of the support arms he depends on.  And etcetera.  But even old time skills are going to be problematic.  Not because they won’t be useful.  They will.  But because you can forget about trade of any kind for quite a long time.  Centralized states, with a surplus of energy, can afford to reward needed trades and skills.  Usually of course that is military trades and skills.  But regardless of how valuable a superior military is to any group, you must have some surplus energy to acquire the infrastructure to support it.  Without surplus, you cannot wish upon a star and get a magical fairy to grant you your dreams.  As just one example, even with salvaged material for weapons, if you don’t have extra food you can’t properly train and condition your soldiers/warriors.  Well, trade works the same way.  You can WANT to trade, you can HAVE trade goods, but without the surplus to protect a trade agreement, a monopoly on violence, you WON’T be trading.

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 And what about local, in-tribe trade?  As all trades and skills devolve back to charcoal and salvaged metal levels of technology, the bottleneck is NOT going to be knowledge or skill but in material and energy shortages.  Everyone is going to pretty much have the same jobs and training and as there is no trade there will not be specialists you need to make your tools.  You’ll just pretty much be your own bowyer, fletcher, blacksmith and etcetera.  None of them are difficult, and none are worth silver or barter which nobody has.  The default devolution will be towards group efforts and activities and mutual support.  NOT a money economy.  You might even see much more of a gift economy, as when the custom was to share the kill amongst all ( with the expectation that when you failed on the hunt you still ate from anothers kill.  Hell, all hunts and similar efforts such as wood gathering or charcoal processing or metal salvaging might even be completely communal ).

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All of this being an explanation for the basic point that any post-apocalypse skill or tools you own are NOT going to be your new job, nor your families security, wealth and happiness.  They are just going to be part of a multifaceted tool kit you’ll need to possess.  Learning and equipping yourself now just makes things easier that they will be otherwise.  A good example of what I am trying to convey would be marksmanship.  Nobody is going to reward you for practicing to be a better shot.  That is just expected of the future militia/warriors.  It isn’t a paying proposition to acquire that skill.  You pay to get it, then the group benefits as well as you ( more folks don’t get shot, more ammunition is saved, etc. ).  Or, how about the example of shoe shining.  Anyone in the military ( or, at least they used to as I have no idea if black polished boots are even worn anymore ) quickly learned how to polish leather footwear ( I tried to forget as quickly as possible and took to spray painting mine with glossy black paint which was good for weeks of shine with just one crease chipping the paint off habitually.  The paint did nothing to decrease its life span and I never polished after Basic ).  Nobody needed to pay for a polish, it was a skill everyone had naturally.

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It is only recently that everything has become commercialized.  Almost everyone used to be their own mechanic.  Your buddy came over with a six pack of beer and you taught him to do all the work on his own.  It wasn’t a commercial transaction, but a tribal skill everyone learned and nobody profited from.  Barbers were for bachelors who didn’t have a wife or sister to cut theirs ( or, for the occasional luxury of a soothing hot shave-but that just highlights the sparse, luxury orientated services that were once offered.  NOT basic skills.  Not everything being commercialized and everybody so highly specialized they became incapable of the very basics such as cooking for themselves or cleaning their own clothes.  Everything went from household economics where women where invaluable to a ultra specialized economy where no one had any skills to save money but rather one skill that hopefully didn’t become obsolete or shipped over to China ).  Continued tomorrow.

END

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page.  IF YOU DON’T SEE THE AD, DISABLE AD BLOCK ( go to the Ad Blocker while on my page and scroll down the menu to “disable this site” ). You can purchase anything, not just the linked item. Enter Amazon through my item link and then go to whatever other item you desire. As long as you don’t leave Amazon until after the order is placed, I get credit for your purchase.  For those that can’t get the ads because they are blocked by your software, just PayPal me occasionally or buy me something from my Amazon Wish List once a year.  Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for mere Book Money, so do your part.*** 
*Contact Information*  Links To Other Blogs *  Land In Elko*  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com           *wal-mart wheat
*Link To All My Published Books
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

tribal uniforms

TRIBAL UNIFORMS

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note: this is an insanely funny video, an ad for "Poo-Pourri".  Far funnier than the unicorn crapper.
poo-pourri dinner party ad
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Well, there I was minding my own business reading Doomstead Diner’s article on our glorious leaders dressing for success and the whole squalid Peacock Feather Fiasco ( which was a darn good article, as are most of the Doomstead Diner Dude’s these days.  No longer is it just a compilation of guest articles, much to the gain of lurkers such as myself.  Especially recommended is the post-apoc fiction series ), and I made the mistake of opening my mouth and commenting that DDD had omitted the entire Uniform As Tribal Marker aspect of clothing.  So of course he advised me to write up such an article and here we are, taking a break from Frugal Survivalism and other topics designed to make me look smarter than I first appear.  At first blush it might seem this has nothing to do with survivalism.  But as with many such meanderings ( you try not going off topic a time or two after a decade of week-daily postings ) it is pertinent in an indirect fashion.  Clothing isn’t just shelter or a stockpile item, but also an identifier.  Tribes and tribal identity are very survivalist related.

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As we all know, nation states are energy surplus entities, and a lack of energy means we devolve back towards tribalism ( Uncle Sam’s PC coated Army has yet to get the message and is busy fighting tribes as if they were supposed to be armed agents of a fellow country, evidently refusing to believe fifty thousand deaths in Vietnam important enough to warrant a serious investigation into forth generation warfare-not that they ever will as that line of thought is anti-job security.  Poole’s books are helpful here, as are Lind’s to a smaller extent as he is far less prolific ).  Tribal culture is important to understand.  Don’t be a bureaucrat refusing to see past his blinders.  Uniforms and dress codes are merely tribal markers.  Even in the most heavily centralized top heavy military, tribalism is alive and well.  Service rivalries, regimental, occupational.  Everyone is looking for a ribbon, metal, badge or piping to distinguish them, the Only Worthy Ones, from all the other Unworthy.  This is Tribal centric.  Officers are royalty, enlisted are peasants.  But officers of the Navy are better than those Neanderthals in the Army, and Ship Officers are superior to Land Officers.  But not all ships are equal and sub captains are better than most.  Etcetera.

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To understand uniforms as tribal markers, look no further than Teenagers or Sports Teams.  Teens of course are the dumbest boxes of rocks ever.  You can’t imagine how the human race as a species could even survive, given the behavior of teenagers.  Not that it is their fault, what with the near lethal levels of hormones their brains are floating in ( at this level of hormones, the brain serves to keep your body running and to attempting to procreate, and nothing more like higher cognitive functions ).  But that makes them perfect specimens for this range of behavior.  They act instinctively, without thought, parroting our hunter gatherer ancestors.  They need to join a tribe and given our consumer culture today, buying clothing to go tribal is the perfect fit.  The Jocks, Dweebs, Sluts, Goths, Rappers, whatever, all have an agreed upon uniform of identification.  This of course is all a phase and not long lasting, ending after the hormonal tsunami recedes past flooding stage, and usually makes absolutely no impact on the rest of their lives ( unless they enlisted to wear a much better uniform, with the usually unspoken promise of being able to legally kill something, as an added bonus, unfulfilled ).

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But they do go on to assume a new tribal identity as adults.  A lot of them lead dull and boring lives, office cubicle drones who dare not venture too far outside the accepted Corporate Culture even on their off time and hence adapt the safe and acceptable tribal identity of their local sports team ( the real rebels identify with a team NOT in their geographical location! ).  Others use more subtle means of tribal identity.  Hair styles, to some extent, level of clothing cost ( attempts are made, even if in vain, to dress to a certain economic class ), headgear, piercing and tattoos ( as mush as Kuntsler derides these two markers, they serve their purposes ).  To be sure, a large amount of these costume creations are ill suited for tribal identity.  In a diluting manner individualism cuts into the effectiveness of uniforms.  Since our culture no longer has any cohesion, nobody adheres as tightly to uniform standards of dress outside High School anymore.  But notwithstanding its effectiveness, the attempts point towards tribal identification.

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Peacock Feathering is always a factor, inside and outside a tribe.  Clothing was a very effective class identifier, and still is to a much smaller degree.  But clothing is just as powerful of a tribal marker.  There is a lot of truth to “clothing makes the man”.  When you dress in a certain way, you do act differently.  When a cop puts on his uniform, his mindset becomes different.  He has donned an authority identifier.  Soldiers kitting up become more aggressive and enabled ( as do sports uniforms to a degree.  Putting on that hockey helmet before hitting the ice isn’t just giving you a sense of cranial protection but placing you in a team identity-you confer greater ability ).  And acting differently just by looking different, however juvenile it seems at first blush, is beneficial to both the individual and the tribe.  It is a shortcut on many different levels.  Not just as a way of differencing on the battlefield, or identifying cultural actions prior to performance, but as a unifying tool.  Knowing an effect is psychological intellectually is no defense against the effects emotionally.  It works.  Do not discount its effects against you, nor the effects for your tribe. 

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Notice the effects of a bagpipe playing?  The effects of riot police stomp/dragging as their batons hit their shields ( done properly, this is unifying/enabling for the police as well as worrying to the intended victims.  Unfortunately the usual practice of overweight donut eaters lackadaisically shuffling into position only leaves a slight fear of a beating, without the underlining psychological impact )?  Uniforms work on the same principles.  Pay attention.

END 

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page.  IF YOU DON’T SEE THE AD, DISABLE AD BLOCK ( go to the Ad Blocker while on my page and scroll down the menu to “disable this site” ). You can purchase anything, not just the linked item. Enter Amazon through my item link and then go to whatever other item you desire. As long as you don’t leave Amazon until after the order is placed, I get credit for your purchase.  For those that can’t get the ads because they are blocked by your software, just PayPal me occasionally or buy me something from my Amazon Wish List once a year.  Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for mere Book Money, so do your part.*** 
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finances for collapse book 6

FINANCES FOR COLLAPSE 6

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note: you all know my unabridged hatred towards Christmas, which has degenerated into nothing more than pure blinded greedy panic.  Not just greed for gifts and profit, but worse-an almost herd panic and bolting which is embarrassing and ensnared me in its grasp.  Yet, this year has seen a slight decrease in the increase in the worst effects, so I am grateful and hereby feeling slightly relieved and so magnanimous.  And will gladly wish you all a Merry Christmas.  And Happy Festivus, of course.
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COFFEE AND CABLE

Of the many, many, uncountable near infinity number of reasons that Yuppie Scum Survivalists chap my ass to the point of dangerous blood loss and infection, one of the biggest pet peeves, sources of irritation and reasons for Going Postal levels of hate is that the holy brethren are taught that they can indeed have their cake and eat it too.  Don’t worry, rich dude that can afford to wall off the rats carrying plague as the rest of the cities inhabitants die horrible deaths puking bloody liquefied internal organs down their chins, just pay a reasonable remittance, an “indulgence”, and your foul sins that delivered your wealth will be officially forgotten by the Church leaders.  You can sin and face no consequences other than that vapid hollow feeling in the pit of your testicles when you only have ONE room filled with gold rather than two.  To the worthy, and the worthy are judged by the thickness of their wallets ( just as their wives judge them ), no deprivation  is necessary in their lives past the point of human sacrifices on the alter of Mammon.  Once that is accomplished, nary a worry wrinkle shall crease your fine face as your wealth assures your earthly heaven is at hand.

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For the rest of us, the peasants, sacrifice and the inability to satisfy our every whim without hesitation are just normal parts of life.  It used to be called “building character” prior to the mass commercialization of everything which made consumption by debt normal for the 10% who had some mistaken notion that The American Dream included them.  Now we have a couple of generations of Marshmallow Men masquerading as productive citizens.  Not productive as in earning a paycheck but as in justifying the air they breath.  You poor dear, the thought of going without Starbucks ( I don’t care if it is a triple decaf latte or a plain cup of drip, they are pure unbridled unnecessary luxurious indulgence where peacocks and peahens strut and display their superiority ) or 300 channels of cable TV are unbearable to you.  This is their idea of sacrifice?

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All the gurus tell their charges to finance their prepping activities by bravely skipping their retail coffee and cutting the cable.  This windfall of two grand a year supposedly will allow you to buy years of freeze dried foods for the family, finance the purchase of dozens of semi-automatic weapons with corresponding crates of ammunition and move out to a McMansion in the country.  All it does is give these poor clueless bastards the illusion they can sacrifice and persevere through hardship.  After all, they bravely switched to K-Cups coffee and three streaming channels and have now pocketed the difference of-WOW!-a grand a year.  That should buy one third of a mandatory Tactical Tommy Super Ninja FLIR scope. 

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Now, let me explain the last paragraphs.  Yes, I want YOU to feel bad if this described your efforts.  If your idea of prepping is to have extra shells for your shotgun for looters and extra cases of canned goods for a three week power outage, you don’t exactly need to sacrifice all that much to feel prepared.  You can get by with this crap.  If you really think the ass is going to fall out of civilization, not only do you need to actually make a substantial monetary sacrifice, you also need to stop acting like a big pussy and make the mandatory mental transition from pampered prince to prepared peasant.  Sacrificing luxuries ain’t going to cut the mustard.  You need to get rid of the huge expenses, not the petty ones.  Yes, watching every penny will save dollars, but you don’t start out small at the bottom and expect to work your way UP.  You need to start at the top and bottom simultaneously.  For me, getting rid of rent and a car was the way to live so frugally I could prep on almost nothing.  I also never stepped foot in Starbucks ( a fine enough establishment in its own right-they were some of the first to donate to the Food Bank way before it became a profit center to replace lost sales-but it is the epitome of all that is wrong in our culture ) or watched anything other than over the air broadcast TV. 

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I know a lot of you will argue with me about the car part, and that is okay as you have valid points.  I’ve spent my entire life since puberty trying to avoid owning a motor vehicle and have largely done so.  I can avoid the damn things and hence live frugally as a matter of course.  Most of you just got introduced to the concept after a lifetime of hugging and squeezing and making them yours forever and ever ( Bugs Bunny reference ) and your living arrangements reflect that.  The thing about a car, though, is that even if you can’t shake the habit, you can at least downgrade your reliance.  You can buy a clunker and do your own work, use one as a business expense, live out of one, work towards NOT needing one, whatever.  But the rent part?  That is pretty much non-negotiable if you need to drastically cut expenses.  With a car, most of us can start walking if need be.  But if you pay rent, not only is that half your income, it is your worst vulnerability.  If you become unemployed you become homeless.

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Even if you can’t stop paying rent, you can do better than most with just a bit of sacrifice.  Paying rent for a trailer spot is half, if not a third, of an apartment.  Then you have the trailer to move out to your junk land.  Everyone’s situation differs, and one size does not fit all, but the main point is you do NOT fiddle-hump around with tiny savings.  You attack your largest bills and smallest, all across the board, simultaneously.  You sacrifice comfort for savings.  Root up in your vagina and try to find your pair of testicles you’ve been hiding.  If you can’t move into a smaller residence, what makes you think you can handle the lack of central heat after the Apocalypse, along with no refrigeration or 24/7 entertainment?  Practice not being a pussy.

END

 

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page.  IF YOU DON’T SEE THE AD, DISABLE AD BLOCK ( go to the Ad Blocker while on my page and scroll down the menu to “disable this site” ). You can purchase anything, not just the linked item. Enter Amazon through my item link and then go to whatever other item you desire. As long as you don’t leave Amazon until after the order is placed, I get credit for your purchase.  For those that can’t get the ads because they are blocked by your software, just PayPal me occasionally or buy me something from my Amazon Wish List once a year.  Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for mere Book Money, so do your part.*** 
*Contact Information*  Links To Other Blogs *  Land In Elko*  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com           *wal-mart wheat
*Link To All My Published Books
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

 

 

elite lemonade 4 of 4

ELITE LEMONADE 4

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note: a hearty thanks to Rob in FL and Gary in TN for the thoughtful Christmas cards.  Gary, yours cracked me up!
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From the previous articles, I’ve tried to make the point that our elites are some fickle bastards.  They draft us to expand the empire, then when it becomes too expensive they suddenly decide they don’t need it anymore.  Sorry, all you over half a million dudes rotting in graves and those of you we jailed, we’ve changed our minds.  Once they decided that a compulsory educated population was just the thing to build up an economic empire, warping many generations of minds and impoverishing untold millions with higher property taxes to pay for that, then they decide to sell the factories to overseas companies that employ foreigners.  Sorry, no more employment for you-but by all means take on the equivalent cost of a mortgage to re-train yourself in a job we’ve already outsourced to India.  Suckers.  We’ve locked up people for life for smoking marijuana, shorter sentencing includes a free dose of AIDS for you as a bonus so it might as well be a death sentence, but now it is getting a bit costly to go after every pot smoker and besides we need more taxes so we’ll just nod and wink and semi-legalize it.  And we used to think it was a good idea to make the currency you were forced to use backed by something tangible but now we are just going to destroy the money so our only remaining economic sector, retail, will last long enough to allow our leaders enough time to strip the copper wiring out of the walls prior to setting the house on fire and moving elsewhere.

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And so too shall it be with future secessionists.  We will not see a repeat of Lincoln’s Colonial War ( obviously studied by King Leopold for use in the Congo ) in which an Industrial Powerhouse defeated a agricultural nation ( pretty much the definition of colonialism in case you keep wondering why I call the Yankees colonialists ).  Our industrial powerhouse, as unimposing as it is now, is nothing without the 60% imported oil we buy with worthless bonds.  Soon to be back up to 70% as the fracking fields implode.  Ask the British or Germans how easy it is to run an empire on imported oil.  We don’t have the infrastructure or the resources to win another conventional war as we did in 1861 or 1898 ( I believe the date with Spain ), 1917 or 1941, 1951 or ‘61.  Our industrial war model lasted 100 years and that was it.  In the next civil war, as long as the secessionists stick to forth generational warfare until they further erode Federal resources ( along the Viet Cong/North Vietnam model ), the federal government cannot bring its resources or men ( girly men and Girl Power troops as I have difficulty believing the majority of patriotic American troops will stay and fight for too long-most of the officer corps are political pussies, but not the ranks ) to bear as in the past.

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Herein lies the wonderfulness of the fighting in the sandbox ( with apologies to those that actually fought and bled, I’m speaking here geopolitically ).  The fighting was never about the oil supply as much as it was about the PetroDollar ( we had much better luck punishing Kaddafi for his flirtation with the gold Dinar ).  Libya and Iraq are not pikers when it comes to oil production, but their far better years are far behind them.  Iraq oil production never justified two wars and twenty-five years of occupation ( Kuwait’s production was worth the one war our allies paid for ), but keeping everybody on the Dollar was.  Without the PetroDollar, we can’t import oil for debt and it is basically as simple as that.  However, as worthy as that goal was, and I know every Volvo driving Birkenstock wearing greasy hair Hippie out there agrees with me even as they plaster a peace sign of the back window because if they didn’t they wouldn’t drive, the long war has drawn down the military as usual.  Manpower and equipment is depleted ( our Treasury was depleted long ago-see the above on the PetroDollar ).  The difference this time is that if our projected timing is right, they won’t ever get a chance to rebuild.

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Without veering off into that tangent ( see my article a few weeks ago on the projected several years only to industrial civilization crash ), you can see where even with all of our military sent home ( if we even do that-a quick enough imported oil cutback could leave many stranded-if local commanders don’t commandeer planes I could see a “equipment first” policy put into place as a sort of triage ) they would not be as potent of a suppressing force as our Dear Leaders believe.  Being an insurgent would be a very dangerous game.  At first.  But it wouldn’t be all that long before sections of territory are abandoned by the feds.  They are fickle that way, remember?  No amount of resources are too much to implement their will into law, until suddenly the cost benefit analyses changes and then any resources are too much and they conceded defeat on that particular front.  Now, don’t get me wrong, all of the examples given are further influenced by our imperial arch.  At one time, we had resources to spare and so certain projects that never would have been attempted were implemented on the whim of a minor politician ( or with less resistance from the major ones ).  But that doesn’t change the fact that our country has always been run as a business.

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One of the principle keys to winning this guerrilla conflict is bankrupting the invader.  Never expect reason or logic to prevail-but if the ledger books don’t balance you can expect swift action.  In most countries,  that isn’t the primary consideration.  But it is with us.  Don’t slaughter Sacred Cows ( their aren’t any anymore ), but go after the God Mammon and you’ll see serious reactions.  American’s elite will be quicker than most to give ground that isn’t profitable.  At first, they will attempt the old game of “incapable of change, resist fiercely”.  Until they change their fickle minds.  This is one of the reasons thinking One World Socialism is the guiding principle behind our leaders is such a serious mistake.  Our leaders are NOT motivated by ideology.  Money is their only source of concern.  Act accordingly.

END

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page.  IF YOU DON’T SEE THE AD, DISABLE AD BLOCK ( go to the Ad Blocker while on my page and scroll down the menu to “disable this site” ). You can purchase anything, not just the linked item. Enter Amazon through my item link and then go to whatever other item you desire. As long as you don’t leave Amazon until after the order is placed, I get credit for your purchase.  For those that can’t get the ads because they are blocked by your software, just PayPal me occasionally or buy me something from my Amazon Wish List once a year.  Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for mere Book Money, so do your part.*** 
*Contact Information*  Links To Other Blogs *  Land In Elko*  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com           *wal-mart wheat
*Link To All My Published Books
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there