Saturday, June 23, 2018

barter items 1 of 2


BARTER ITEMS
*
note: if you are considering flexible solar panels, here is a warning click here
*
note: well, how darn cool is this?  The Druid Dude mirror site, all years click here
*
note: free book.  PA boat trip https://amzn.to/2MkBmGL . 
*
I think it is way past time to talk about what items should be bartered and which should not.  This comes up after a couple of comments on the inadvisability of bartering ammunition.  Gott Bless the comments section!  My answer to the question of Should You Barter Ammunition is both yes and no.  As we all know, the Devil is in the details.  As you all act otherwise, however, being in a hurry to get to work and likewise waste your time, is as if you want simple answers to everything and for me to just hurry up and get to the point.  It is almost as if you are a new minion and don’t know me at all.

*

I glory in discussing all those details the devils reside in ( notice how clever religion is in turning us into compliant farmer citizens?  Always with the central controlling figure, such as The king or The god or The devil.  Hierarchal societies had hierarchal religions, which is why the old pagan god[S] as in plural had to be verboten ).  The more information you have the better able you are to understand any issue.  Simplicity is desirable as philosophy, not as the basis for deciding on the philosophy.  Binary choices are good for tactics, not for strategy, if that makes more sense.  The simple answer for survival barter is that you barter nothing from the Industrial Age.

*

If you have any plans on trading for anything using ANY Industrial Age item ( outside of your tribe ), you are wrong.  It isn’t JUST ammunition, and it isn’t for the reason you think.  The conventional view on barter was “whatever is most desirable”.   So old school ( twenty year old teachings ) advice was to stockpile the crap out of everything cheap.  Rimfire ammunition, sewing needles, reading eyeglasses, and etcetera.  I’m sure I even gave the same advice on non-ammunition items.  The later advice gave the caveat “don’t barter ammunition as it can be used against you”.

*

You know who had plenty of ammunition but still lost the war against the traders who sold them that ammo?  The American Indians.  This is a paradigm that many survivalists suffer from, which is a decentralized micro view.  They focus on their particular homestead and leave out most of what surrounds them.  They ignore the macro view.  It is like ONLY balancing your checkbook and adding to a 401k without paying any attention to the economy, fiat currencies, central banks, peak oil and the like.  On a squad ( there won’t be many larger formations for some time during the Dark Ages ) level, the ammunition the enemy has is important.  Above that level it really does not.

*

Does the federal government REALLY care that you own a AR-15?  Why should it?  Perhaps the members in a squad of FLEA’s ( federal law enforcement agency ) care, because they are the ones getting shot, but the government as a whole doesn’t really give two craps.  They control your job and they control your money, your food and transportation, a military full of heavy weapons that can decimate your position from outside the range of your small arms, as well as controlling the culture of the people surrounding you who do NOT wish to support you in a guerrilla war because they know the government feeds them.  And your puny souped up rimfire plastic poodle shooter is a concern, how?

*

The American Indians were killed by eastern manufacturing and an industrial age navy protecting the sea lanes for ships full of immigrants to replace any White casualties on a 100 to 1 basis.  It didn’t matter how many guns and how much ammunition the indigenous foot soldiers could carry.  And so too goes your battle against outsiders.  Factors other than squad infantry tactics will decide the conflict.  Birth rates, cultural training, geography, and other macro issues.  Concern over your neighbor having ammunition looks at life through the lens of the holler the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s lived in, and ignoring the outside world.

*

As a survivalist you must take both the micro and macro view.  That is why I cover both.  That is why evolutionary biology is so fascinating to me.  It sees how individual suffering is species friendly.  It gets you out of your own skin and into a birds eye view.  What is bad for the individual is beneficial to the species as a whole.  Those dirty hippies going on and on about how War, What It Be Good Fo, Yo?, are focused on themselves and fail to see the big picture.  Not that there is anything wrong with looking out after yourself ( after all, what else is survivalism? ).  It is just that you need to focus on the larger view to understand how others will interact with you.

*

Bartering for ammunition isn’t bad because you could get shot at by your customer, tactics, it is bad because you have strategically compromised yourself.  You must treat all industrial age items as irreplaceable and an asset that will give you a military advantage ( in the macro sense, as in strengthening your economy and logistics ).  If you are bartering Industrial items for other Industrial items, or far worse Industrial items for sustainable items ( meaning replaceable organic items-food or flesh, wood or labor ), you are doing things wrong.  You must trade sustainable items for industrial items, period.

*

Look at, say, the city yonder.  You, as a nomadic herder, trade meat and leather for ammunition.  The city is under no fears from your tribe.  You cannot defeat their mass army.  You only fight in your territory, not theirs.  They need the meat more than you, even if they don’t want to give away the ammunition.  They have the food surplus to trade for that, from groups that don’t hold the monopoly on food production as they do.  In effect, they could use black powder armies, who would still beat your dumb ass even if you were armed with AR’s if you were silly enough to challenge them, and trade you with smokeless ammo for your meat surplus to power their soldiers with superior food.  The ammo they got from grain surplus.

*

The losers are the group that had to trade DOWN, rather than up.  Don’t be one of those losers.  Trade sustainable for non-sustainable, not the other way around.  You can always raise more beef on grass.  You can’t gather a surplus of energy to create plate glass ( let alone safety glass ).  The cities might, as they trade grain for coal ( or salt, or whatever ).  True, farming depletes the soil.  But you can, somewhat, mitigate that by better planning and better soil husbandry.  Mineral mining isn’t going to last as long.  So, long term, coal for grain is a losing proposition.  That is what I mean by trading down.  You are using diminishing resources.  Continued tomorrow.

END ( today's related link https://amzn.to/2tbriZI )
 

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page ( or from www.bisonbulk.blogspot.com ).

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle, send me the money and I'll e-mail it to you in a PDF file.  If you donated, you may request books no charge.   My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184
*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.*** junk land under a grand *  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *** Wal-Mart wheat***Amazon Author Page
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

 

24 comments:

  1. Excellent Jim, press on. I sometimes use a lateral trade tactic to aquire my perception of an improved grade of hard goods. Example: traded a small subcompact handgun and pump shotgun combined for a 308 battle rifle the owner wanted to "get out of" (cost to shoot/recoil) this was the occaisonal win-win transaction that occurs. As long as basic security practiced and your person is like minded it is not a bad idea to keep eyes and ears open for opportunities as such. When commerce-stores closed it is all going to be street dealing so the experience-practice now is a necessary skill set.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As long as the trading remains in the tribe. That is covered tomorrow. I can't believe some dumbass traded the recoil of a 12g for that of a semi 308. Where's the difference? And ammo is only twice as much new, although there are those mags. Still. Crackhead?

      Delete
    2. Nope, young/inexperienced. It was a hk91 clone/ now a safe mate for my other girls. Some times wants and needs cross up with buyers remorse or initial unwise purchases. Using current functioning society-peace time, commerce functioning to round out preps and gear before the drain plug is pulled.

      Delete
    3. Aren't we all the world's biggest dumbass when young.

      Delete
    4. I just bought a single barrel 12g. It's a Greener GP (martini action) take down barrel in immaculate condition. 1950's (ish) I've yet to date it accuratetly. The video on youtube by iraqveteran8888 is the same one. Only mine is operated by someone not hording as many calories around his belly (not saying I'm not fat because i'm not a liar by nature)

      Got it from my LGS who I noted all of a sudden had 9 martini action rifles for sale.

      Please Don't hate me

      Delete
    5. Hey, if it works for you it works for me

      Delete
  2. Trading anything right after a main event is a bad idea. It shows you have a surplus of something and if it is worth trading for, someone will want to try to steal it.
    My theory is wait a while until local markets open up and even then, wait to see what happens to to first ones using it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. “I can't believe some dumbass traded the recoil of a 12g for that of a semi 308.”


    My own experience Jim, has been that the recoil from a 12ga isn’t really all that bad, unless it’s a single shot (I’m excluding loads such as the 3” or 3.5” magnum here). If the gun is ported, it’s even less. And even some of the single shots have a steel counterweight in the rear stock, to offset some of the recoil.

    One time, I fired one of those old style rifled slugs (500 grains) through my single shot. It was rather painful, and I never did it again. Though I doubt that there would be any beast in north America still standing after hitting it with one of those.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Last time I fired a 12g I was in my early thirties and so skinny my military BDU's still fit ( the waist has expanded a bit since then ). And I perfered the Enfield recoil to it. But, yes, as you say, it was a single shot.

      Delete
    2. Old skool stance with a 12ga was to stand slightly toward the rear of the shooting hand. Now, you should stand straight forward. If using a pump, use the recoil to jack the next round into the chamber. Feels a little awkward at first but after a couple hundred rounds it's reflex and anything else feels weerd. Install a relex sight on top and that 12ga has now become a formidable weapon. I likes my 870 marine magnum.

      Delete
    3. I just accept my suckage on shotgun.

      Delete
  4. The whole bartering after the fact thing never set well with me and I never stocked accordingly. I stock what I use, cause after the fact there ain't gonna be no more and I don't wanna hafta go beggin'.

    That plastic poodle gun scenario is fake and you should know it. Of course no AR15 is gonna take out a howitzer. But guess what, those howitzer people gotta come out at some point and thats when that plastic poodle will do what it does best. Strategy and tactics all in one fell swoop. Besides, us combat engineers were taught how to make hasty demolitions with household ingredients. A coffee can full of cheap magnesium firestarters can burn all the way thru a track tread leaving it half immobile, all it can do is go in a circle. After they surrender you get the occupants to fix it (with a spare link) then you shoot em in the head. Now YOU have a howitzer too!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was making fun of the widely held believe system that the AR makes you a super soldier. All these "pry my AR out of my cold dead fingers" types, specifically. And that IS what infantry is for, to protect the tank boys. And an M16 or M4 works just fine there, as they aren't depending JUST on them, unlike your guerrilla. This point is made rather well here:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tdtwN4SuF0
      A Vietnam war vet, the fragility of the M16, the waste of ammo and full auto, when the AR is and isn't appropriate.

      Delete
    2. If it's army anything it doesn't carry much weight with me, especially infantry stuff. Seems the infantry is where they put all the people that can't do much else.

      Delete
    3. As we keep stressing, a survivalist isn't the military. Nonetheless, several valid points. Both for and against. I meant it to be some food for thought. What grabbed me was here was a combat vets, jarheads, and the fear still dictated ammo consumption on a wide scale. You can't be smarter than your brain chemistry. Nowadays, they are trying to get smarter guys as groundpounders, but that goes along with the higher tech they use. But historically, you wanted those who would be better cannon fodder. Although as the instances of fragging demonstrate, perhaps they didn't pick as wisely as they imagined ( yes, I understand you need to be more vicious than smart, but it did take Street Smarts, and anyone having those I would hesitate to call stupid ).

      Delete
  5. During downward slide, W.R.O.L. then trade halts. It is nice if a minion has a bunker in a Idaho neighbor hood with "nice schools" stocked with five years of every-thing. Oh yeah, pet unicorns in the barn. Once dust settles, people will want and need trading a.s.a.p. Don't wait in spider hole until your ribs are showing and are weak from starvation and disease to re join humanity. Every one on the internet before the collapse said it will be too scary out there for the first 30 or 40 years afterwards. Something will run out or a need comes up that has to be a "go to get", unless u.p.s. trucks still deliver post appocalypse.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Trade halts for a reason-without ROL, you can't safely trade. Deluding yourself about this places you in danger.

      Delete
    2. Rule of law comes in different sized packages. Global/continental/national/regional/state/county and town. Each step down our collapse weakens another level down from global (is the UN 'peacekeeping' force even a joke anymore?- the 1990s was the last time I heard of it getting any attention or involvement in anything internationally newsworthy - that was the end of global law) Continental law is already subsiding in Africa and the Middle East and now Europe, nations are begining to put their interest first even as their own hold within their borders gets shaky).When the final drop to total WROL happens it will be the local community last to lose its local law enforcement and first to gain it back- how far back rule of law develops is in question and depends on resources, including population, that is available after the collapse. It might be generations until we are in less than a state level rule of law. Or it might never get below state level- the states were established after all during the age of sail power or steam power.

      Delete
    3. The last Dark Ages saw ROL get down to the village level and stay that way for some time. Then it slowly moved back up in scale. There has to be a surplus somewhere to allow both goods and highway patrol.

      Delete
  6. Knocked it out of the park again with this one.

    I copy & pasted some lines for my text document I keep with important tidbits

    "The simple answer for survival barter is that you barter nothing from the Industrial Age. If you have any plans on trading for anything using ANY Industrial Age item ( outside of your tribe ), you are wrong.

    You must treat all industrial age items as irreplaceable and an asset that will give you a military advantage ( in the macro sense, as in strengthening your economy and logistics ). If you are bartering Industrial items for other Industrial items, or far worse Industrial items for sustainable items ( meaning replaceable organic items-food or flesh, wood or labor ), you are doing things wrong. You must trade sustainable items for industrial items, period."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I thought I had a darn good point :) A bit biased of course.

      Delete
    2. If you can make more, barter it away, if you can't then barter for more of it.

      Delete
    3. Well put, good sir. Better than I did.

      Delete

COMMENTS HAVE BEEN CLOSED