...T-shirt 3 of 4

AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS T SHIRT 3

Okay, as I threatened, I’m going to take a sharp detour and go from how to not spend money to save money to invest money to get to the point you need a lot less money, to how the digital revolution was nothing more than a wealth grab from the elite.  I should have continued with the Save Money portion and then made this a new series, but let us not delude ourselves.  There are only so many times I can tell you the same money saving frugal tips.  Hopefully this will amuse and distract you better.  Amused and distracted you will look fondly in my direction and think of me as your aging demented Uncle you feel sorry for and continue to support me.

*

As we left yesterday’s article I stated that the Internet was the last infrastructure project we’ve seen since the Interstate Project, and you know that one was only built using taxpayers money to help out THE economic powerhouse of the day, the auto industry.  They sold it to the fawning public using the twin lies of fast troop movement and civil defense against the godless commies ( each ramp was supposed to have fallout shelters installed ), but only a fool looks at the dismantling of the rail system and fails to see who benefited ( just as you need to see who benefited from the taxpayer built rail in the first place.  Hint-who do you think elected another scumbag from Illinois? ).

*

Public infrastructure is never built for the benefit of the common people.  You are told it does.  But just like the excuses for war cover up the elites making more hooker and blow money, excuses for infrastructure obscure yet more profit seeking from the bloated and greedy.  Remember the ethanol fiasco?  We got doubled food prices and an acceleration of farmland degradation, and Turd World instability, and the BigAg folks got subsidies.  It was never about energy independence.  Doubling the Food Stamp rolls was never about feeding the poor, it was about lining JP Morgan’s pockets with transaction fees as well as  BigAg’s ( please try to keep that in mind as you echo the empty mocking calls against “The Free Crap Army”.  Just say what you mean.  You hate OtherColors and feeding them.  Nothing wrong with that-is is just xenophobic which is a tribal survival mechanism ).

*

What did the digital revolution entail?  Primarily, it robotized jobs.  What did the Internet do, primarily?  It created SkyNet that allowed the robots to communicate, dismantling more jobs.  It was a job killer, and all the useful idiots ( myself included, as I became a one man publisher, saving costs from previous jobs which were digitalized ) who were cheerleaders for the revolution voted themselves out of work.  I remind you all that primarily delude yourselves by reading conventional media, the true unemployment rate is 25-33% ( no, not by including part timers as unemployed.  By looking at the Labor Participation numbers ).

*

So, sorry, MAGA dudes, your boy Forrest Trump never built a wall to keep out the little brown people taking your jobs ( house construction and meat processing used to be Union.  Now they are illegal immigrant friendly and White Overpaid unfriendly.  I used to be a dumb ass and hate on Unions myself, having drank the Kool Aid of Uber Free Enterprise.  I finally decided I could not stay ignorant all my life if I wanted to actually write something worth thinking about ), and he is a lying liar from LiarsVille about the economy.  Yes, his hair is magnificent and he talks a really good game.  He is also a Yankee Rich Humper.  Sure, better than Shillary, but that is his only claim to greatness.

*

What is one of those things we crow about as far as the Internet?  How supposedly we are always connected and have the worlds library at our fingertips.  Always connected.  That is supposed to be a GOOD thing?  Idiots yapping nonstop into their cell phones 24/7 is bad enough, since they have absolutely zero of any importance to say.  You can bet their conversations are vapid enough, being a desperate attempt to make themselves sound important, as well as being their drama delivery system to fill in their empty days, but it also distracts them from things like walking and driving and working, which effects other people.

*

Yet, astonishingly, their online Always Connected world is an exponential step worse than their Phone World, as any cursory glance at any Facebook entry can prove.  Yes, your Little Joey is a flipping prince amongst men.  Congratulations.  You delivered sperm.  You are so different than anyone ever.  Barf.  As for all the information in the world, sure, that is a bit of a head rush.  A nice feature.  And the folks visiting Alexandria were pretty happy with their library, as well.  Too bad that centralized storehouse of knowledge was no match for a, well, a match.  Fire destroyed all the civilized worlds knowledge at one time, and soon when the fire of the carbon fuels is extinguished, there it all goes again. 

*

If Ben Franklin was alive today he would be trying to eat a bullet, as libraries hither and yon race to embrace the digital storage of information.  Ben was an advocate of free libraries to balance the playing field and allowing the poor a free education.  That was circumvented by mandatory accreditation, and soon to be accelerated by digitalization and then elimination.  Knowledge will soon be under the control of the elite again, as the Net goes dark.  Enjoying that digital revolution yet?  Hell, it is all our faults.  We should have known as soon as Bill Gates started shrilling for it that it was evil and needed to be destroyed.  First our jobs and then our knowledge.  Ted tried to tell us.  Now we just get the T-Shirt.

*

Okay, I feel bad.  I’ll return and hopefully conclude yesterday’s topic, tomorrow.

( .Y. )

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

*

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page ( or from www.bisonbulk.blogspot.com ). Or PayPal www.paypal.me/jimd303 

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or mail me some cash/check/money order or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle books, 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 ***E-Mail me if you want your name added to the weekly e-newsletter subscriber list.

*** 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

...T-shirt 2 of 4

AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS T SHIRT 2

Yesterday, with all due modesty, I related how even wasting about half of my working years as I was unfocused and sleepwalking I still managed to reach a nice 4% of my income in savings and assets.  Real savings, not some 401(k) that was available to the banks CEO as Hooker And Blow money ( wow!  Slept much through the ‘80’s?  Saving & Loans fraud ring a bell?  None of this crap is new nor should it be surprising ).  Real assets, tools needed to reduce your need for more money.  How many folks have that much to show for a life of working?  Or is the sum total of their efforts just in the ownership of the T-shirt?

*

It took me a dozen years to save all I have, out of 35 working.  In my defense, this includes a secondary source ( now primary ) of income, the building of a skill set AND doing so while under the burden of the child support payment for eight of those years.  So you should have no problem doing the same thing in far less time.  I don’t think two years would be unrealistic for anyone, to get out of debt, into rent free low tax land and shelter, with much better preps.  No, Spanky, you can’t keep your middle class lifestyle or prep Yuppie Scum Survivalist Style. 

*

Anyone can drop out of the Rat Race and prep really well, but nobody wants to because they want to stay Pampered Pretty Princess Pony Preppers.  They are weak.  Worthless and weak.  Girly Men.  You think you are a manly man, and yet need the soft comfort of a auto, the climate controlled cubicle, the expertly crafted Fake Food from the supermarket deli?  Dude!  Being prepped is learning to be poor, because that is all of our destinies.  If you think the Media And Government Industrial Complex is always lying to you about Political Correctness, History, Race, War, The Economy and everything else, you are correct.  Guess what else they are lying about.  The 200 Year Fracking Oil Revolution.

*

We may never completely run out of energy, but we are already running out of enough that is needed to continue our modern economy.  I’m going to get much poorer.  You are going to get much poorer.  Everyone but the 1% is going to get much poorer, and even some of them will be victims of economic cannibalism as the number of the elite shrink by necessity.  In short, if you cannot embrace being poor now, while you have the resources to choose Genteel Poverty over the Abject kind, you are double dog dingus dry humped.  Stick a fork in you, ‘cause you are done, bro.  And yet, as horrible as less money sounds to you, it also frees you ( at this point ).

*

Choosing to be poor now allows you to invest in needing far less money later.  That is your only option besides going down with the ship.  Sure, making more money will accelerate the process of retiring debt and investing in a less-money future.  But for the average bear, you are going to need to spend a lot less to free up the diminishing amount of money you do have.  I write for the average bear, not the rich humper like certain someone’s who is hoping to share in the wealth of the last person to see a shrinking pie.  Nut up and start giving up your luxuries, if you want a quick turnaround from paycheck to paycheck vulnerability to a less unstable future.

*

As a quick aside, I’m watching a video on one of the big box warehouse groceries, Sam’s Club, which epitomized dumb asses focusing on the rich for business, like aforementioned Yuppie Scum Survivalist Guru’s.  No matter what Sam’s was trying to do, every decision they made resulted in losing yet more money and market share.  The latest brainstorm from some idiot making millions a year in salary to steer another Titanic into the iceberg was to “focus on the upscale customer”.  This is Orwellian Speak for chasing the dwindling upper income segment because they can’t do anything to satisfy the shrinking income folks, which is most of us.  Just like Wal-Mart gave up being the Low Price Leader ( except in items few folks buy because everyone is busy eating out, such as $1.20 flour, $1.37 sugar and $2.98 shortening-prices won’t last long, stock up NOW ) trying to chase after the customers Target already had.  Jesus weeps.

*

Giving up luxuries is the simple formula for a quick escape from the golden handcuffs.  And you need quick, because lord knows how much longer we have prior to a quicker slide into the magical world of crap.  I know, everyone always says The End Is Nigh, and everyone is always wrong.  Yet, one day that will be right, and your chance to prep is gone.  Prepping is a resource dependent activity.  You can’t do it after.  If you look at the last six thousand years, the number of empires that rose to extreme riches and fell to depopulated and denuded landscapes is astonishing.  Some were wiped out so thoroughly no one remembered the first thing about them.  They ALL imploded, and every single one of them thought they were exceptional and were destined to beat the trend ( well, except the first one-duh! ).

*

‘Murican empire is already failing.  If nothing else had happened just invading Afghanistan would have cemented our demise ( you know-Graveyard Of Empires ).  But a lot more did happen, didn’t it?  Your window of opportunity is fading.  Act hastily.  Take not a scalpel to trim the fat, but a chainsaw.  Your home is too big.  At this point, anything over the size of a tent is too big.  Living in a tent now, or a tent size auto, is nicer with propane and solar panels will be than if you wait and are forced to live in a cardboard box with a Hobo Stove ( coffee can rocket stove )  and a candle.  If you can afford the candle.

*

Stop your pathetic sniveling.  You can later build a small Unibomber cabin to upgrade from a tent.  God!  What a baby!  You’ll be able to afford insulation which is more than Ted ever had.  You didn’t hear him crying.  And he was trying to help everyone.  I’ll bet everyone who is censored from the Internet wishes his bid to halt technology was more successful.  What did relying on the Web really get us in the end?  A busted and broken Post Office that we might have to return to using one day.  Who benefited more than big business who was able to save a lot of money through Just In Time Inventories, and the banking industry?  You should have known better, because it was the only infrastructure built since the Interstate System, and it wasn’t built to benefit Average Poor Joe.

*

If you are lucky, tomorrow I’ll cover more than just downgrading housing.  If you are unlucky I’ll cover how the Digital Revolution screwed us with few benefits.  Now there was a magical bus ride where you left with nothing but a T-shirt.

( .Y. )

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

*
note: free books.  Not sure about this one, it looks bizarre.  But he has a lot of other books so this might be gateway  https://amzn.to/2NChD6Q 
Normally the kind of book I'd pass on but the author was a ghetto cop so perhaps there is hope https://amzn.to/2LGozOc .  Meh, zombies https://amzn.to/2PO55KW .  
*

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page ( or from www.bisonbulk.blogspot.com ). Or PayPal www.paypal.me/jimd303 

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or mail me some cash/check/money order or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle books, 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 ***E-Mail me if you want your name added to the weekly e-newsletter subscriber list.

*** 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

and all I got was this T-shirt 1 of 4

AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS T SHIRT

Let’s take a short break from end ‘o da world doom and gloom.  Not that this isn’t a necessity anymore.  Because even if there is never any true collapse, you can bet the farm that the ‘Murican Empire is toast, as a very minimum in bad news.  And it won’t be a gentle exit into that good night but a spoiled child screaming in agony as we implode.  It is going to be a very violent break up.  As those smarter than myself say, it is Balkans times Rwanda.  Once again the media, nobodies friend but themselves and the elite, has distorted reality to convince everyone All Is Well, and when everyone isn’t delivered all the promised goodies very soon ( and I don’t just mean the Free Crap Army, but everyone used to Happy Motoring ), it is going to be Knock Out Game times John Brown.

*

Anyway, as important as this prepping stuff is, and if you don’t think it is Saving Your Life important you haven’t been paying attention and need to go back to buying FLIR scopes, sometimes we can take a short break and talk about related but less important subjects.  Today, I’d like to discuss “I worked all my life and all I got was this T-shirt”.  What do you have to show for all your labor?  And more importantly, how much of what is preparedness related?  Because I’d wager a high quality-say, Entenmann’s-jelly filled donut that you have at most 1% total of all your wages in assets and of that amount hardly any is in preps.

*

I don’t know why this popped into my head while walking the dog ( having your best ideas in the shower means you are wasting water.  If while jogging or biking it means you are about to be run over from lacking of awareness ), but I’m thinking back on my thirty five years working and I started thinking how little is actually in preps.  How little time I actually needed to work for all my super neat-o tools to embrace the apocalypse with a big offal eating grin.

*

My last eight or nine months working, it was generally recognized that if we didn’t go out of business it would be a miracle ( after I quit, a miracle happened and some damn fool donated a hundred grand to the place.  Management promptly started pissing it away rather than invest in reducing expenses ).  I started saving literally every spare penny.  From a take home pay of eight grand I saved about six.  This was the best thing I could ever have done since it showed me how little I needed to live on, it gave me, literally, a five year cushion of unemployment which gave me the peace of mind to go self-employment, and it made me sad and mad I hadn’t done this so much sooner.

*

Not that that I really could have.  I was barely a few years from the end of my near twenty years of child support payments that at times was 70% of my gross pay when added to taxes.  I don’t think I ever slacked off saving and investing while living ultra-frugal, ever since 2004 or so when I declared bankruptcy to get rid of credit cards ( which I had been using for a lot of bills as all money went to said child support-not a practice I recommend.  And I got lucky filing only a year prior to the law being changed regarding bankruptcy ).  So from 2004 to 2012, I had awoken to my dire predicament and knew I needed to get serious, deadly serious, on my writing and choice of lifestyle.

*

I was lucky, having done all the research previously.  I knew exactly what needed doing ( from 1994 to 2004, I didn’t know as much, nor did I have as many resources to do so.  And I was just plain ignorant.  A lost decade ).  In 2005 I started buying land ( I didn’t know where the best place to live was, and at $300-$500 a lot, I could afford to spend like a drunken sailor and figure it out later ).  I started buying precious metals.  I doubled and tripled my arsenal.  I forced myself to write every day, and actually wrote my first honest to goodness book.  It was a time to stop dreaming and start doing.  I can’t even say it was all that hard, because I finally decided to crap or get off the pot.

*

So, I worked from 1983 to 2017 ( I worked two jobs at a time  from 1992 to 2017, so I feel justified in rounding out my salaried career from 34 years to 35 ).  For the first nine years I spent all my money on beer and doing as little as possible, pre-marriage/children.  The ten years after that was wallowing in poverty and feeling sorry for myself, writing but never seriously enough to make a career out of it ( I think I was also feeling sorry for myself since I gave up drinking ).  I was one of those pathetic visitation dads living a sad sack life, doing nothing concrete to start digging out of the hole the ex had thrown me in.

*

The only thing I can think of that lit a fire under my ass was moving back West.  Back home.  Away from the deafening crowds that never allowed you to think.  Away from the constant danger of the nearest ghetto, away from the claustrophobia.  Looking back, goodbye about $300,000.  The next dozen years, I made about $200,000 ( gotta love inflation! ).  After taxes and child support and rent and living expenses, I think I walked away with about $20k in assets.  All land, PM’s and cash savings and preps.  35 years of working, making a half million, and I’m sitting on $20k.  4% of my lifetime earnings.  And I think I’m doing better than most people.  Once awoken to the true danger of NOT bailing the Rat Race, I did save/invest 10% of my gross, and that was WITH a fifty percent tax withholding, but the total average falls because of my wasted youth.

*

Note that while I prepped rather well, the whole point of the exercise was to free me from ever repeating the experience of extreme poverty from the rapine of divorce.  I needed to lessen my susceptibility to economic vulnerability.  Survivalism and prepping were secondary.  Always important, and that importance ramped up significantly as the housing bust started, but you can never sufficiently prep until you are financial less vulnerable.  I knew long term money will be meaningless, but short term I needed to resolve the issues.  I’ll continue and conclude this tomorrow.  I’d like to cover how to help you get to that 5-10% ( as opposed to the normal, if lucky, 1% ) gross career savings/investment in very little time.  Mostly already covered in my book “6 months escape & prep” ( contained in BBBno4 ), but it has been awhile so it is almost a fresh subject.

( .Y. )

( today's related link https://amzn.to/2obqe5c )

*
note: a minions book effort.  My highest recommendation.  When I checked, it was free click here 
*

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page ( or from www.bisonbulk.blogspot.com ). Or PayPal www.paypal.me/jimd303 

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or mail me some cash/check/money order or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle books, 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 ***E-Mail me if you want your name added to the weekly e-newsletter subscriber list.

*** 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

weekend prepper 2 of 2

WEEKEND PREPPER 2

Yesterday we talked about how almost all advise about prepping is based on half century old conditions that haven’t existed for almost as long.  Preppers who like history scoff and point quivering fingers of hatred and disappointment at the idiots who fought WWI as if Napoleon was still on God’s side, using tactics outdated since at least the Crimean War, and yet they prepare for the apocalypse like it is 1958.  These are probably the same folks who groan and Tweet all their FLIR mounted AR packing buddies that I’m spouting off about Peak Oil again and they should all run over to any site that features Fracking Fags Forever, instead.  I won’t be eating your dead body the first day of the die-off, as it was formed off of Pespsi, Pringles and MRE’s, and hence will be disease ridden, but I will kick your corpse and spit on it for the sin of being obtuse.

*

Sorry, back to the subject you thought was at hand, the weekend activities as a prepper, to really get you ready.  It isn’t turning a one time turning off your electricity and other utilities, to test your equipment on hand.  That only teaches you to buy more alternatives.  Gasoline for the generator and propane for the grill are NOT what is going to help you survive long term.  The same preppers that claim you must buy a quarter million dollar rural retreat, so as to have food from a garden because “eventually it will run out”, are the same folks that prep for everything else, using items that will quickly run out.  Gasoline and oil for chainsaws.  Motor vehicles.  Propane for the cook stove. 

*

You need to spend the weekend living without hoarded Carbon Age fuels.  No gasoline, propane, coal, kerosene, paraffin candles and etcetera.  Now, granted, you cannot use everything that is renewable.  You can’t expect to adequately guard your home with a flintlock rifle ( well, maybe you can-I just don’t think the average prepper will ).  If you have enough rechargeable AAA batteries to keep LED lanterns running for twenty years, it would be silly to not use them.  I trust you see my point that you are testing the more robust and long term items.  Not very quickly depleted carbon fuels and not the Forever Items from the Stone Age but somewhere in between those two.

*

You cannot plan of surviving with modern camping equipment, but with Old Timey items and skills.  Far better to make yourself a solar oven and learn to cook in that ( not rocket science.  Start early in the day to compensate for failed efforts so as to be able to add time to the endeavor.  It can be pretty hard to actually burn and ruin the food ), rather than pulling out the propane stove.  Need coffee first thing in the morning before the sun comes out?  A mud rocket stove is easy to make and a few twigs will boil water ( and friggin DUH, have some way of storing fuel within reach if you are bugging in, not exposing yourself to danger by going out to collect it ). 

*

The solar oven obviously used modern material.  This isn’t a purist pursuit.  The point is to have the tools that are used to make things without modern consumables.  The tools themselves are going to be modern.  You do understand that this weekend role playing serves multiple purposes, right?  It isn’t just about a hypothetical civilization collapse and die-off.  That solar oven can be used in times after imported fuel is choked off and your electric use goes from 15cents a kilowatt hour to $1.  That bicycle you use to go anywhere on the weekend is great for upcoming gas shortages as our JIT system breaks down even more.

*

On the weekend, only use the Solar Cloths Dryer ( they used to call it a rope and some clothespins ).  The next time the $1500 clothes dryer breaks, you’ll already know how easy and smart it is to use a clothesline instead of an energy pig machine.  When the sudden gasoline shortages materialize, there won’t be one new or used bicycle to be had nationally, but you already have one AND you are fit enough to use one, a kind of important detail.  This is what the Weekend Prepping is all about.  Getting you used to the tools you’ll need to use not just for the collapse but also for the decline. 

*

Did I mention this was an every weekend kind of thing?  It doesn’t do much good otherwise.  You won’t give up suburbia, or on-grid living, so at least you can get the needed practice part time ( rather than None At All ).  Hell, it doesn’t even have to be the full weekend.  I’m sure a lot of you will refuse to miss your Sunday Football & Beer.  Start Friday night and go through Sunday morning.  The point is to practice using a wide range of off-grid tools, because you cannot use them effectively without practice.

*

No running water lets you practice living off of the rain catchments system.  Any moron can pour from a jug rather than turn on the tap, the practice comes in the form of learning to bath in less, cook with less, and a bit harder than it sounds, wash dishes and clothes with less.  No TV lets you learn what board games or card games the whole family enjoys using.  You need the practice not having the Internet ( such as, do you have sufficient paper reference books? ).  You need to know what kind of non-electric entertainment fills your day between manual chores.  How about a manual reel mower?  Get in practice now ( it doesn’t save you much money over a gas motor mower, you just need practice pushing that bitch in the heat ).

*

You need practice learning how little light the LED’s give you at night.  You need practice using a manual drill and screwdriver and saw, again.  You don’t have to return to a more primitive life.  You can just practice living it a little each week.  It is better than permanently moving to the boonies ( I don’t agree, but I understand how you are thinking ), right?  But far better than just storing off grid non carbon fuel tools and assuming you can use them after things go dark permanently.  Sure, you could do that.  It will work after a fashion.  But look at it this way.  Your world just ended ( even if it is just the electric price skyrocketing, the end of hair driers and deep fryers IS the end of some folks world ).  You are so stressed you are practically crapping blood.  If you are already practiced on your new tools, your stress level is reduced instead of elevated.

( .Y. )

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

*
note: free book.  PA road trip https://amzn.to/2wrWB3e .  
*

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page ( or from www.bisonbulk.blogspot.com ). Or PayPal www.paypal.me/jimd303 

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or mail me some cash/check/money order or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle books, 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 ***E-Mail me if you want your name added to the weekly e-newsletter subscriber list.

*** 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

weekend prepper 1 of 2

WEEKEND PREPPER

Handed down through the ages from the birth of the splitting of the atom, wisdom was enshrined in the practice of “turn off the power to your house over a weekend and see if you are actually as prepared as you think you are”.  All well and good, way back during the Leave It To Beaver era of a strong gold backed economy ( thanks, rest of the world douches, for sending 90% of all your gold here in exchange for industrial goods, or even just food,  during the war ) and the world leading producer of steel and oil and a rather homogenous culture ( this being prior to a few twats desperately trying to buy an elixir for immortality since they were about 123 years old and having served fifty terms in Congress, selling out their race and culture and opening the floodgates to Other Colors ).

*

You see, back then during the pre-Vietnam Cold War, the government teaching the citizens to hunker down in bunkers for a month and then reemerging to rebuild after a nuclear exchange wasn’t as stupid as it sounds now.  Just like the closely guarded secret now is that Chemotherapy will kill you more often than save you ( not that I blame anyone for rolling the dice-I just hate they lie to you then profit off of you, dead or alive ), back then the dangers of radiation were downplayed.  In that context, given our semi-abundant resources ( which we busily burned off during Vietnam in the last effort to goose the old Industrial Economy-the war made perfect sense in that economic situation.  As do our Tiny Wars since then ), recovery was feasible even if you didn’t have as carefree of a health risk personally as you thought.

*

You weren’t preparing for the implosion of the nation, country, empire or economy, as you are now.  A minimum amount of fallout protection and stockpiling was actually realistic.  All you had to do was make sure you could survive the initial disruption, and things actually WOULD return to normal.  The infrastructure was in place for that.  Back then, rebuilding New Orleans would have been No Problem, Barely An Inconvenience.

*

It used to be that to con the rubes, you generally focused on the poor or the religious ( generally the same folks ).  Number one, there were a lot of them to pick from and number two, despair and longing and faith could be the base a good confidence artist could build upon.  I don’t mean that religious people are susceptible to wishful thinking or that they have a history of abandoning logic or science.  ALL people are like that.  Even scientists are as superstitious and blind to their own irrational thoughts as anyone else.  Look no further than Gore Warming and political correctness.  The preparedness industry, on the contrary, takes middle class workers as the rubes that get conned.

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The poor might fall for buying a $5 lotto ticket ( losing your ass at the casino, your odds are still much better than state lotteries ), but the adequately salaried ( one hesitates to use the term middle class today, since it is mostly the 1% Supreme Overlords, the 9% House Negro’s and the 90% Working Poor or Benefits Poor-but back when, the preppers were actually middle class ) are conned into buying FLIR scopes, AR’s ( they will do in a pinch but really do have as many issues as they have reasons for ownership ), and $85 cases of MRE’s.  $85 for a week and a half of food with a free case of constipation thrown in.  You will also see a runaway appetite as the body is craving the fresh foods it isn’t getting. 

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Those seeking salvation from doomsday are the best folks to con, from Grandma sending in half her Social Security check to the fire and brimstone preacher on the radio to the guy stacking gold to the dweebs down at the gunshop looking through bulletproof vests and best colored tipped 5.56.  The con artists have been selling the old outdated civil defense advice that presupposes the old economic and resource conditions of 55 years ago.  And the rubes line up at the door for more, the sure sign of a great con, when the victims argue the loudest that the fleecing must continue.

*

In short, my fine feathered minions, turning off the electricity to the suburban castle for the weekend teaches you Jack Sprat Crap.  Because collapse is no longer a short term event.  There won’t be a quick turnaround fix.  Being without power is great practice for exactly the kind of thing we face more and more often, an overloaded grid unable to handle more and more immigrants overloading our infrastructure, but that won’t work outside the context of the Just In Time system remaining intact to supply the equipment needed to fill in for the grid as it is down for a short period only.  These folks that brag, well, MY electric was off for THREE weeks, not your paltry one and a half, and I did just fine.

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They are bragging that they bought finite resources to temporarily fix the interruption of other temporary resources and they are counting on the first set of resources to resume delivery to replace the emergency measure resources.  It is only swapping one set of dwindling resources for another.  Now, don’t get me wrong, that is still needed.  You still need to go to work to pay the mortgage and save the meat in the freezer.  But that is not prepping for any collapse.  That is prepping to pay your mortgage regardless of natural disasters.  And if you think that is the worse that will ever happen, congratulations, you are a mark in the con by the Prepper Industry shrills, selling you half century outdated advise. 

*

It might not be a waste, because sure as God made little green apples, the power is going to go out more and more often and more and more items won’t replenish in time at the groceries.  But it is so incomplete it is still dangerous.  You need to prepare for when there is no more replacements of modern luxuries.  Having a generator is great, until the gasoline is no longer delivered.  Having propane is great, until the fracking field go dry.  Bottled water is great, until even the taps don’t work anymore.  Having a mighty and righteous AR is great, until you spray through all the ammo ( I just threw that one in, but it doesn’t pertain to today.  I couldn’t help myself ).

*

A weekend without power still relies 100% on the grid being up.  You are just filling the downtime gaps.  Our weekend test needs to be teaching more than how to go back shopping at Wal-Mart when the grid comes back up.  Continued tomorrow.

( .Y. )

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*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or mail me some cash/check/money order or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle books, 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 ***E-Mail me if you want your name added to the weekly e-newsletter subscriber list.

*** 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
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crap clay

CRAP CLAY

A long time back I covered how the archeological evidence from Britain tracked the fall of the Roman Empire.  I don’t remember too many details, but essentially pottery went from centralized factories down to local poorly manufactured substandard substitutes.  If anyone cares you might find the original article, but good luck with that.  What I’d like to do today is not re-argue that Rome went from centralization to localization.  I don’t believe that is necessary.  We all know the aftermath of empire was decentralized and poor, a Dark Age where without trade you have very few options living in anything other than squalor. 

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Of course, you would do well to remember this.  Just look at how local farmers had such a limited diet prior to the potato being introduced ( not that they are now more varied, just that potatoes are healthier and higher calories than previous choices.  The point is, trade is always advantageous ).  I don’t think most folks grok how necessary even shorter range trade is to have any kind of quality of life.  I’m only about three hundred miles away from wheat, yet my area is worthless for most anything other than grazing animals ( a bit too cold for cows, without imported fuel and imported winter feed-sheep and goats do better ) and without trade a local would be seriously carb deficient. 

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Even indigenous populations had to go serious distances to gather materials not available locally.  Something as vital as a bow stave, for instance, or the adobe dwellers needing roof rafters.  Without trade you can be in serious trouble, if you are confined to your area militarily.  Yet that is exactly what happened with the fall of Rome.  Everything contracted, and that was mostly due to soil infertility following overpopulation combined with a treasury denuded by luxury trade and military defeats leading to lack of grain imports.

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Trade matters.  You’ll eventually find yourself fighting to keep trade open or fighting to keep from being denied trade access ( or just fighting to survive, even or especially after the die-off ).  But you can’t always win that fight, and then you are stuck in your area with only what resources your area can offer.  In Britain, the pottery industry was highly reliant on trade.  Fuel of the proper type, as well as the proper type of clay were just as important if not more so than the craftsmen and managers, the transportation network and the infrastructure supplying slave labor.  They needed to be shipped in.

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When the military necessary to keep trade open all through the island ( well, up to the Picts border anyway ) was withdrawn, and other infrastructure collapsed, pottery went from modern to primitive.  That, however true, did unfortunately conjure up images of lice scratching savages rudely flinging wet clay into a steaming pile and calling it good.  The pottery was a talented craft item but by necessity it wasn’t a factory product, either.  It wasn’t paper thin and fancy, or refined.  It was a cottage rather than a factory product.

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And of course, this misconception rather riles up Alexander Langlands, the lad who worked on a lot of those BBC reality shows based on farms ( Victorian Farms, Edwardian Farms, Wartime Farm-look on YouTube for them ).  I checked out his book “Craef” from the library and it had a lot of interesting information.  I don’t know if I’d recommend you buy it, as it has little application as an instructional guide.  It is more inspirational.  But an interesting read as long as you skip the long, windy too philosophical introduction.  Here is his explanation on why the pottery was seemingly so primitive.

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Local clays may be inferior to others outside the area.  They might lack plasticity.  Not all clays are the same.  What might work great in a waddle and daub wall ( a basket weave wall with clay surfaces, somewhat too simplified ) didn’t work as well with pottery.  You must add a tempering agent to inferior clay.  Usually grass, chaff and-yummy!-dung.  This also acted as a thermal shock reducer when the only choice due to lack of surplus/substandard fuel was to use low firing temperatures.  That accounts for the reduction of quality in the pottery, the fact that folks had little choice but to work with what was on hand.  If the nearest iron ore deposits are five hundred miles away, and you lack coal, the post-apocalypse survivors will be salvaging iron and steel locally, no mater how inferior its quality turns out to be.

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The pottery was no different.  It wasn’t because factory managers were needed where there were none, nor even the fact there was no factory, as I had assumed ( I think I had assumed that.  Really, the original article was WAY too long ago ), but because trade was restricted ( not just no trade to send out pottery, but no materials going in to make it in the first place ).  And this isn’t just proof that the Roman Empire not only collapsed and did so completely and spectacularly, but also a good life lesson on how vital trade is.  And how primitive your life shall be without it. 

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And keep in mind that trade is predicated on certain items.  You must have the surplus food to have enough military that they are offensive, not just defensive ( I make a big deal about the evils of how the American Empire is a dangerous grasping greedy bastard, but I also know without that we would be living much, much poorer-this is just the nature of a monopoly on force needed for trade.  The necessity I do not question, just the hypocrisy, denial and hubris ).  You need extra food, extra farmers, extra manpower.  You need surplus.  You must create an entire conquering colossus, to ensure trade. 

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Trade isn’t as simple as a farmers market for barter.  The routes to the market must be safe, and that is just the beginning.  Monopoly on force might leave a sour taste, but anarchy is the alternative, and despite the propaganda by LibertarianTards, that is NOT a good thing.  It sounds great philosophically, and I don’t disagree with it.  But reality is what biology is, not what you dream it to be.  There will ALWAYS be a band willing to conquer by force, and individuals pledged to peace and cooperation never stand up against that onslaught.  Be the monopoly, or be ruled by them.  And be ready to make some really crappy clay vessels.

( .Y. )

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Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page (or from www.bisonbulk.blogspot.com ). Or PayPal www.paypal.me/jimd303 

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or mail me some cash/check/money order or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle books, 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 ***E-Mail me if you want your name added to the weekly e-newsletter subscriber list.

*** 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

short haul long pork

SHORT HAUL LONG PORK

Post-apocalypse fiction is a brutal genre for a reader.  Not only is there huge steaming piles of pure unadulterated complete lack of talent, now the bitches have gotten involved and slap a PA label on their vampire werewolf alien mind control Gaia revenge romance stories.  As if zombies were not enough to deal with.  Note to every swinging cheese dingus out there thinking a word processor makes you a writer, the reason the Walking Dead became popular was because compared to a lot of other TV out there, it was an actual good story with characterization.  It has nothing to do with zombies, really ( and yes, smart asses, I know I started out with a word processor and zero talent, but at least I was trying for original content ).

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So, I’m slogging through yet another PA story that wasn’t going to go anywhere, but at least it had some really good “ah-yah! I wouldn’t have thought of that” moments at the beginning.  Food for thought.  Specifically, cannibal food.  Using cannibalism to good effect.  It was really the  best idea I’ve come across in a long while.  Your typical group of Evil Gang Dudes were escaping from the inland urban area to get to the coast ( I can’t remember why.  A batch of library books distracted me from the Kindle and I lost track of this one ).  Their problem is lack of transportation.  What to do? 

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Well, duh, slaves of course.  Every society large and in charge prior to the carbon fuel age had slaves.  But because 99% of the ignorant rabble of ‘Muricans were purposely taught to the lowest standard possible ( as in most things public school, you only succeed DESPITE the teaching, not because of it.  And you just know unless you are a snowflake with the no vacancy sign lit, that is on purpose to control us ), they think that only evil White dudes in the Confederacy had slaves.  So being a gang and having slaves?  Totally NOT the historical norm, in the pea brains of most.  Evil incarnate!

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Well, they certainly weren’t very nice, because they didn’t JUST have slaves.  They had slaves eating each other.  To me, and I apologize if I seem crass and insensitive, this just seemed like logistics brilliance.  There is no working vehicles.  You must escape to another area.  You can only find a small amount of food on the way, as this is a populated area.  So how do you carry everything you need for the trip?  Your canned foods, your winter clothing, ammunition.  Even your officers of the army.  Slaves, obviously, because every day you get more of them as you steal what little you find. 

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But there isn’t enough food for the slaves, and since muscle power runs everything now, slaves need calories.  Bodies cannot cannibalize themselves during famine and get any kind of optimal work performance, not after just a few days.  You still need calories.  So every day the slaves that were disciplined or were sick or for whatever reason they were not needed ( used up sex slaves-whatever ) ended up feeding the other slaves.  This hasn’t really been covered before in fiction, to the best of my recollection.  Cannibals are standard fare in PA fiction, but they are usually as evil as slave owners.

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In Lucifer’s Hammer, a non fan favorite as the mind numbing detail  overwhelms most readers, but my forever number one because I’m not your average bear ( whether good or bad is a discussion for another day ), the Cannibal Army used human flesh as a recruiting, bonding, initiation ritual, and not as their primary source of calories except in dire circumstances.  In the book Cannibal Reign, evil surface dwellers ate flesh through no other choice, and were still not excused for their dietary choices ( because, it is inferred, prepper dudes stock enough MRE’s so anyone not a cool survivalist ninja chooses to be evil ).

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The difference here is that even the evil gang dudes know that cannibalism is gross and very unhealthy.  They know better than to eat that nasty crap.  And all the slaves are totally innocent, just poor soccer moms who a few weeks previously was taking little Johnny to karate class so he could stand up to bullies who knew he was a rectal ranger.  Sure, you could choose to NOT eat dinner.  In which case you were immediately slaughtered and fed to everyone else.  It wasn’t even like you had the option of starvation.  Almost anyone would choose the long pork luau. 

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And the author didn’t gloss over how sick this made them.  The Donner Party might have gotten away with it, but people are a lot sicker today with malnourishment.  A lifetime of GMO foods, half in the form of corn syrup cola, do few folks any favors.  You are eating cancer and mutation if you go cannibal.  Back in Old Timey Days, you ate fresh raised foods made locally, and the worst food preservative was salt.  So these slaves were just used and abused.  They were a completely disposable product, just like the gasoline they were replacing. 

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Can you think of a more brilliant way to move supplies long distance without carbon fuels and without surplus food?  I can’t ( this was a military outfit comprised of criminals, not an uncommon historical occurrence-think of the Vikings-and so no, Francis, there was no ethanol engines or wood steam engines or whatever the hell your nerd brain is sitting on waiting to hatch.  Technology is a byproduct of surplus energy, it isn’t a source of energy.  By definition there is no surplus energy in the apocalypse ). 

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I just had to write on this, I was that impressed.  To be sure, like dealing with human waste this is NOT a cocktail dinner conversation.  But the apocalypse will be full of these awkward topics ( to be clear, there was a LOT of gear being schlepped by the slaves, and even the leaders sitting in a dead car being pulled/pushed so they didn’t have to walk.  Car loads of gear with no cars.  Simple solutions like bicycles or horses were not viable.  In the apocalypse, you get to use what you brought to the party, anyway ).

( .Y. )

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Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page ( or from www.bisonbulk.blogspot.com ). Or PayPal www.paypal.me/jimd303 

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or mail me some cash/check/money order or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle books, 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 ***E-Mail me if you want your name added to the weekly e-newsletter subscriber list.

*** 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