see the light

SEE THE LIGHT

As nice as room lighting is, sometimes it isn’t the best choice.  I talk a lot about solar panels, all agog at how insanely low the price is even compared to just three years ago.  But, really, are they any good for AFTER the collapse?  They are great for living off grid.  In fact, being so cheap, you’d be a damn fool to not enjoy them.  At a mere 4 watts, you can comfortably light up an entire room, going through a long ass storm of no solar output, during the winter when you need light eight hours a day, OVER two weeks before the battery is even drained half way.  No reason to resort to weak lanterns or weaker candles, holding flashlights or chaffing the skin on your forehead wearing a headlamp all the time. 

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But a 12v off-grid system is also resource intensive, with the short life batteries ( don’t you DARE say Edison Batteries!  Don’t Do It!  Rich Bitch Prepper Item Only ) and the outdoor electronics that eventually fail.  It is all well and good to have a replacement battery waiting for you down at Wal-Mart, it is quite another to have them in storage where you’ll also need a generator to give the dry battery with added acid its initial high power charge.  12v Marine batteries are a cheap solution for off grid living but don’t last long enough after the collapse.  And the much higher cost alternatives are a very high price to pay for electronic goodies.

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You can buy very inexpensive batteries for each e-device, and the cost effective ones aren’t going to last long enough to matter.  Okay, right now for, say, a laptop replacement battery, you spend $20.  Or, you just run it directly off a solar panel ( probably through an inverter, or another method, to prevent damaging surges ).  Then print off all your e-books and stop farting around with a laptop altogether.  So, as of this writing, batteries are cheap.  Oversupply due to reduced employment and worldwide economic contraction.  But WHY?

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Why do you need most of these devices?  Music player?  Why?  How do you stay alert for danger, listening to music?  Why do you need a computer after the collapse?  For your stupid ass spreadsheet?  Buy an armload of notebooks every back to school sale, brand name pencils ( NEVER generic, they are utter crap ) and an old school manual rotary sharpener and use the old method of writing out crap.  You want to spend hundreds of dollars to maintain an electronic infrastructure to keep a spreadsheet going?  If you have that much extra cash to waste, I trust you are sending some my way.

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After the collapse, you can run certain items directly off panels ( say, a pair of hair clippers, or a drill ) and the rest are not needed at night ( I assume you aren’t all high tech security devices and are manually on alert ) except for illumination.  And for that you just need AA rechargeable batteries.  They might not get the maximum charges a 12v battery would, but they are pretty close.  And they cost a mere two to three times what a disposable AA battery would.  Or, the same, if you are buying high cost retail brands.  As low as a buck each.  Or, spend three times that for twice the performance.

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I’d buy a few dozen of the $1 each and a dozen of the $3 ones.  The cheaper can be charged a thousand times.  Have two compact solar chargers and one or two that run off the big solar panel.  Electronics are simply not built to last all that long, even though they are cheap enough now so it doesn’t matter.  Until after the collapse.  So have more than one back-up.  If you have enough AA batteries, and enough middlin price LED lighting devices, your children or perhaps even grandchildren can postpone the need for beeswax or tallow candles for light.  So don’t go hog wild using up enough lights to duplicate on grid living-conserve.

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Always stockpile more $1 garden lights.  They are enough to see what you are doing.  Back in the ‘80’s I had a buddy who lived off grid.  To go to the bathroom at night you felt your way down the hall to the toilet tank, found the box of matches by touch and lit a candle to urinate ( I imagine the gals could do it without light ).  With a garden light, you have a steady light most of the night to replace that nonsense.  He also had propane lights for the kitchen and living room, but those are also problematic to say the least.  Now, just use a LED lantern.  Don’t get one so insanely bright it drains the batteries in two hours, or so weak you can’t do anything by the light.

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You want a group activity like a board or card game, I would wager you need several lanterns at a minimum 60 lumens each.  You could all wear headlamps, and they are useful for many things, but I hate wearing them too long.  If you are reading, duh, a clip on book light.  Those four lights, plus the odd flashlight, should cover most needs.  Don’t rush down to Wal-Mart, as they get to choose the brand and quality ( other than the garden lights ).  Go to Amazon, type in your item, then go to the left of the page and type in price, lumens, and top rated items.  You’ll get a better selection to choose from.

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You can’t store 12v batteries long term.  You can AA batteries.  Which are the standard for the bulk of LED personal lights.  $3 a battery might be a bit of a shock to your wallet.  But if you are using a LED light that gets thirty hours use per battery and the battery can be charged two thousand times, that is almost TWO generations-about forty years-of use.  These solar rechargeable AA batteries are one of the best deals of the oil age to take into the post-apocalypse future.  They will far outlast your industrial grown wheat or steel case ammunition stockpile.

END ( today's related link http://amzn.to/2jQWTO2 )

 

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page. ***You can make donations or book purchases through PayPal ( www.paypal.me/jimd303 )

*** 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 a buck 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.***   Land In Elko*  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

 

solar budget

SOLAR BUDGET

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note: most excellent author and article ( how we are sheep, but not in the current definition ):
http://epsilontheory.com/sheep-logic/
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Thank goodness, nowadays you can REALLY own a budget solar system.  Before, “budget” or “cheap” or “affordable” was all relative.  My first system was $360, for 45 watts of power.  Today, that goes for $200 and is 100 watts.  And we are only talking a ten year time difference.  Of course, as always, I must insist that you buy panels NOW.  No, better yet, yesterday.

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 How many of you wish you’d bought $90 Mosin-Nagant bolt action guns with 22cent rounds of ammunition?  Don’t get me wrong, I hate the gun, but buying imported goods before they are embargoed is always a great idea.  You never know how long $1 a watt panels will last.  Once China and Russia completely scrap the PetroDollar-any day soon-Chinese goods might, mostly, disappear. 

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And while I’ll cover the frugal system, let’s also talk about upgrading that system.  All for cheap.  It is like food storage.  You only need to buy a bucket at a time, not the whole amount costing a grand or two.  Building your off-grid hovel, you need only build a room at a time ( this is where the geodesic plate kit comes in.  $109 for the kit, $79 for two by fours, some bolts, chicken wire and cement saturated sheets or blankets.  Boom, done.  $240 a room plus insulation ).

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 Power systems are the same.  Just buy as you can.  Of course, no, you can’t have a deep fryer, hair dryer, shag carpet ( throw rugs only, no vacuum needed ) or huge freezer, but as long as you require little and are thankful for the little luxuries, all is well.  Only damn fools, or fools with money to spare, try to duplicate on-grid power with solar.  Your area might differ, but my system uses the easy formula of “one hour charge equals all power used that day”.  It worked for me for years.  I have 45 watts in generation, I used 40-50 watts total in a day.

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I started writing at home rather than at work, I bumped it up to 70 watts production ( adding an hour of netbook computer use-and damn, even if that was cheaper than the initial system of $7 a watt, it was STILL $3, and that was with the new improved moly panels ).  Now I never run out of juice, or run down the battery, even with days of storms.  Don’t worry about actual verses claimed production, or the energy used to charge the battery.  This is just a broad guideline.  Now, if you ARE using too much power, that factors in of course ( panels perform 20% less than stated, 10% loss charging and try to avoid the inverter as that is another 10% ).

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All you need to start is $200.  That is one 100 watt panel and one RV/Marine battery, with a $10 charge controller.  Yes, you need wiring, but how hard to scrounge is that?  You can do a LOT with this system.  A LED bayonet bulb uses 4 watts, a standard size lamp bulb in LED, 8 watts.  I trust you’ll try to stick with 12v DC and eliminate the inverter ( you can buy laptop DC power units to replace your wall outlet ones ), so let’s stick with 4 watts.  In winter, 4pm to 10 pm, plus 6am to 8am lighting, 32 watts usage.  I used a truckers 12v TV, a dinky seven inch screen, but it only used 12 watts.  So, about 20 watts a night for TV ( why do you want a bigger screen to watch broadcast TV full of ads? ).  That leaves an hour and a half computer use.  In the summer, you can waste far more.

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From then on, if you want to power your toys, it is only $100 for another panel.  The average cold crank battery rating is 600 watts ( my easy to use if not completely factual rule of thumb is the cold crank amount is how much you can safely draw down the battery ), so take the number of cloudy days and that 600 watt usage into consideration, then add batteries from there.  I would recommend separating the batteries as stand alone units rather than in a bank-but that is just me being paranoid.  Remember, this is NOT the optimal equipment.  This is your frugal solar system.  FRUGAL.  Not “best”.

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Want a microwave ( great saver of propane )?  $500, for 400 watts of power and another battery.  A small oven will only use 400 watts in a half hour, and that is a LOT of cooking.  Potatoes only take four minutes to pre-cook.  Flat bread only 2 minutes per 200 calorie bread.  Heat water your solar unit only got lukewarm.  Of course, then you need a $100 extra for a 1,000 watt inverter if you don’t already have one.  But you can also use that, in theory ( turn off the fridge while nucking ), for your $500 solar refrigerator. 

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Even with a gifted or trash picked propane fridge, the gas costs $300 a year, so a $500 solar fridge makes much more sense.  A fridge is great for a single guy to buy cheap meat.  You go to the store, buy a family pack of meat, then keep in the fridge a few days, cook the rest up and save those a few days. 

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You can use a few 12v rotary fans to replace AC, assuming you are under shade.  Even without trees, although far from cheap, in an off-grid small structure a second raised roof not only delivers a rain catchment system but keeps you cool enough.  Fans and shade are all you need, not air conditioning.  Consider how often the grid crashes from overuse in the summer.  Record hot summers, record blackouts.  You’ll be glad you lack AC then.  How about a solar panel and inverter for hand tools?  Would that be easier than those rechargeable tools?  Even if all you’ve done is convert a backyard Mother In Law shed to an off grid back-up, solar is smart, easy and cheap.

END ( today's related link http://amzn.to/2xZPSki )

 

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page. ***You can make donations or book purchases through PayPal ( www.paypal.me/jimd303 )

*** 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 a buck 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.***   Land In Elko*  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

 

looking for doom

LOOKING FOR DOOM

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note: I'm not the only one prattling on about empire collapse.  Try to read the whole thing, even if it has a leftist lean click here
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Are you looking for doom in all the wrong places?  Obviously, few of us care about the charge that we are wrong in looking for doom at all.  We fought that demon with spouse and family and friends long ago, and we either won and have prepped or we lost and are just fulfilling our doomer dreams by reading about it vicariously.  I imagine very few of you who haven’t paid the entry price of an expensive divorce are stocked up enough, or live in an acceptable location, but at least you can somewhat stockpile.  Mainly you just needed to stop caring about how other people thought of you. 

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I know, it’s hard as we are conditioned from birth to follow the acceptable tribal norms.  But hard isn’t an excuse that is going to keep you alive.  The main survivors of the coming die-off are going to be drawn from the pool of people who were able to display at least a modicum of social dysfunction.  Remember our talks about evolution?  Please don’t ignore that even if you are a creationist.  Because even if you are, evolution has one thing to teach you.  And that is, when conditions are suddenly changed abruptly, misfits and those with abnormal traits are the only ones who have the now needed survival peculiarities.

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An over-population, resource contraction die-off is going to be a relatively quick event.  One day there is enough global currency paradigm, central banker credit financed trade flow and energy availability and then after enough shocks to the system knock off a critical component, the next day the whole system fails to function and then, even with available resources, those resources can’t be utilized and the system fails.  Look at Puerto Rico.  The economy gets worse, slowly the companies defer maintenance and cut back positions and rot sets in, suddenly a hurricane hits and there is little hope reconstructing the grid there. 

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If you are busy with your Oil Age lifestyle, trying to fit in by avoiding cantankerousness or contrariness, please rationally evaluate your true odds of survival in a real catastrophic event.  Not pretty, is it?  So you cling desperately to denial and optimism.  Which means you prep for pussy problems and worry about Big Event Catastrophes that have few odds of happening.  Now, please note, I’m NOT trying to embarrass or mock anyone.  Not all of us share the same worries, and I understand that.  I can’t agree with it, because there is only one logical end to now, but I understand it.  All I am trying to do here is get you to challenge your assumptions.  If you think I’m mistaken, fine.  But hopefully I can introduce you to the dark side of paranoia. 

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Prepping for a hurricane is smart.  ONLY prepping for a hurricane is head in the sand denial.  In what universe does overpopulation fed by oil as oil runs out not end badly ( sorry, you can’t use fracking as a snake oil preventive )?  How is being in debt for two mortgages and three cars being prepared?  Sure, you get a mountain top concrete bunker out of one mortgage and a bug out vehicle from one car loan, but to make that work you need to ignore all other problems.  I mean, really, if you think you have thirty years, you can ONLY be prepping for really long odd events like Yellowstone, CME or asteroid impact.  Eventually, they do happen.  But eventually could be in a millennia.

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Let’s take North Korea.  Talk about a non-issue.  Did we go to war over Soviet Russia getting the bomb?  How about when Communist China did?  Hell, that was good for the military industrial economy.  If you apply the rhetoric of NoKo to those other countries, where is anything different?  Both were a “threat” to our hegemony.  Both could have easily been defeated by us, as long as we didn’t mind a few more clouds of death from fallout.  Not that there were any shortages of that at the time, our tests killing off our own citizens even as we feared non existent similar poisons from Russia. 

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Are we about to be nuked from Pakistan or Iran?  Supposedly, they are also Terror States ( terrorists, the false flag operators best friend ).  All DC has to do to stop the threat from NoKo is to do…nothing.  Just as it did before.  Let them have their defensive weapons.  Didn’t MAD run our foreign policy for decades?  I’m not saying a Geiger counter is a bad idea, just that if you focus on the improbable doom events at the expense of the probable, what good are you to yourself?  Why are you all worried about Gore Warming?  You should, up to the point of deciding where to relocate, but certainly not after that.

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Because Gore Warming might not even be a thing.  I really could give two craps that 99% of scientists agree on anthropological warming .  The same ones live in societies where 99% agree that women’s lib was a good idea, that a PC military can defend us and that central bank debt is a good thing.  What in the hell do they really know?  If you can fall for the later fairy tales, you can fall for the former.  If you can’t look at all things rationally, how can we trust your judgment on anything?  You can use Gore Warming as ONE aspect to consider, but certainly not all.

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I choose to live outside The South, even as I love the region.  Malaria and Chorea being reintroduced soon has little to do with it.  The far more reasonable threats are Carpetbaggers, an already overpopulated area and racial warfare.  Those are already threats, whereas climate change isn’t ( at least so far-I’m not outright rejecting Gore Warming, I’m placing it in Possible rather than Probable categories ).  Only preparing for minor emergencies, and ignoring the probable-economic collapse, famine-for the possible ( almost anything screeched about by the doomer porn people, if it requires AR’s and MRE’s, generators and Important Paper Copies ), is looking for problems you WISH for, because they are easier.  Bad move, bucko.

END  ( today's related link http://amzn.to/2xDHLZs )

 

 

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page. ***You can make donations or book purchases through PayPal ( www.paypal.me/jimd303 )

*** 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 a buck 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.***   Land In Elko*  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

 

 

what's frugal?

WHATS FRUGAL?

A long time back on the Unnamed Idahoan Yuppie Scum Survivalist Website, when men were men and sheep were nervous and there were actually articles on prepping rather than today’s sad Links To Others Articles Only ( falling advertising support ), there appeared a piece on the Rugar 10/22 as a primary weapon of choice.  The reasons were the lack of recoil and the relative savings on the arsenal.  Shot placement over target shot saturation.  Well, you would have thought that it was I who had written the article, the hate and discontent so obvious.  Who was this Independent Thinker to question the Holy Grail Of Yuppie Scum Survivalism?

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I was inspired by this article myself.  Not the rimfire itself, although I think they make outstanding Forever Guns if you keep the cost per round at two-three cents each ( reload kits are $80, the primer liquid comes to one cent a charge and in theory another cent for the powder ), but the Shot Placement idea.  It is such an obvious tactic, and most overlooked ( even by myself, using a battle rifle that was always and only about group volume fire, a Brit military dictum since the Longbow ).  When Matt Bracken, one smart and talented dude, professed his preference for the 9mm due to Shot Placement, I knew I needed to give more weight to the idea.  That was when I stopped hating the Nine so much ( and, not hating, saw how it was a preferable Forever Gun candidate over factory round rimfire ).

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Shot Placement also means I couldn’t hate on the AR as much.  Not that I’ll ever change my mind on its horrid and unreliable semi-automatic system ( to MY mind, only having experienced the first generation guns ), but since I’ve figured out how to change it over to a bolt action I think the weapon is much more attractive now, leaving behind the bad and only having the good features.  Except it is a bit flimsy for a bayonet, but that can be modified if not alleviated. 

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For someone such as myself that has always from day one bloviated and spastically screeched about logistics and ammunition scarcity Day Two of the Apocalypse, I was a bit too slow coming around to Shot Placement.  Not the concept, but the needed guns to achieve it.  I’m still hooked on the Lee-Enfield, but I realize that for me it is mostly just a hundred yard gun, so I can hit my target.  The Mauser is really the only viable longer range affordable surplus rifle, and I just don’t care for them personally.

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But back to the article on the rimfire.  As soon as the rationale was given for the choice, it was off to the races by the owner and operator of said site.  He started listing everything wrong with the weapon, insisting on higher capacity magazines, more ammunition, better more center fire choices for the 22, etcetera.  It all boiled down to increasing volume of both fire and money.  In short, he heard ZERO of what he had just read.  The heathen had despoiled the Church Of Yuppie Scumness and that could certainly not stand!  More spending, more equipment!  Dude, the guy just said he was poor!  Why is that so hard to understand?  But you know what?  I think I’m just now beginning to-SLIGHTLY-kind of understand.  I can’t grasp the problems people have being, if not rich, at least well off.  And yes, I understand THEY don’t think they are well off-but that just underlines my contention.

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Most people of relative affluence can’t understand how to live frugal, and poor people can’t understand Rich People Problems.  I mean, this stuff SHOULDN’T be too difficult of an intellectual exercise, right?  Match up income with spending.  This is rocket science?  Evidently, because I think economic classes is about everything EXCEPT money.  Status, ego, self worth, mating.  Everything but budget.  Everyone makes it so much more difficult than it needs to be.  I’m confused that people with much more can’t make ends meet and everyone I talk to keeps wondering why I don’t just get the basics.

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Yep, that easy.  Well, why don’t you just by a clunker car for transportation?  Why don’t you just get a small plot of farmland to grow your own food?  Why not fence in an acre and get a well for livestock?  On the other hand, I’m confused with their questions.  To me it is all so self evident.  You don’t spend so you don’t have to earn.  They think earning means more and more every year ( “that’s the ‘Murican Way!” ) and spending that amount is a reward.  I think earning more and more is both a disease and a punishment.  They think I am a slacker ( even if I was working twelve hour days, I’m a slacker because I don’t earn a lot in those twelve hours ).  I think they have no idea how much they earn.  How can that NOT be enough plus oh so much more?

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Then I begin to wonder if all my readers are just hearing me, but not listening.  I hope not.  I hope I’m not just some court jester that entertains.  Living frugal is easy.  Spend less than you make.  Simple, unless you need Baby Jesus Using Huckster Dave Ramsey to sell you a few hundred dollar program telling you essentially just that.  Living frugal just means you can’t say “yes, BUT, if we just did One More Thing, at a small cost, it would be so much better!”.  You are supposed to be saying “what is the cheapest way to solve a problem most people just throw money at?”.  But you know what?  I’m not hating.  I simply can’t put myself in Rich Bitch Shoes, so I can’t expect them to know What’s Frugal. 

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Don’t you just hate that, when what we have here is a failure to communicate?  Let that be a lesson.  For all the effort in human history with communication, it usually doesn’t work so well.

END ( today's related link http://amzn.to/2xSyyOe )

 

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page. ***You can make donations or book purchases through PayPal ( www.paypal.me/jimd303 )

*** 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 a buck 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.***   Land In Elko*  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

 

death to prepping

DEATH TO PREPPING

I just finished stating that Trump didn’t kill prepping because the last time the economy was good ( it sucks, but the perception is that it has improved ) the prepping industry was awash in spending.  Good economies don’t slow disaster spending, they increase it.  Now, you could say that the prepping industry killed itself, so desperate for sales growth to pay for all the debt they incurred ( new print magazine start-ups, more freeze dried equipment ) that their Boy Cries Wolf constant doomer blather eventually killed off customers.  And I’m sure there is something to that.  But it can’t be all.  I had also just talked about how there will always be customers for doomer equipment, just that it will once again become a boutique industry with high prices ( or a low cost hobby business ).  The doomer industry will never die, but it will shrink and eliminate companies in debt or hooked on growth.  But, still, we are left with the question of why they are dying off.

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Granted, industry greed drove some away.  Economic contraction drove many away.  Yet, when you look around at the masses driving to view the solar eclipse, see the roads chock a block full of traffic 24/7, wonder how so many folks can eat out when it costs twice as much as it did five years ago, with worse tasting food, see all the shiny new cars that START at twenty grand, it is hard to see how consumer spending is suffering and you wonder how the prepper industry has fallen on such hard times ( the illusion of prosperity given by the stock market and the crowded restaurants won’t drive away potential preppers.  Perhaps those only serious on a camping trip duration emergency, but these were never serious preppers, just industry wet dream potential new customers ).  I have no definitive answers ( and I usually take great pride in coming up with them when all others are stumped ), but I have a few theories I’d like to try out on you. 

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First, the industry sabotaged itself.  Not by the Boy Cries Wolf issue of turning everything into fear mongering, but by actually pacifying everyone.  The fear mongering actually reduced fears by trivializing any warnings, and so most eagerly embraced the Business As Usual with the industry which was a combination of both Yuppie Scum Gear Buying and the Panic Enough To Buy But Not Enough To Leave The Consumer Stable.  In other words, despite the illusion of Doomer Porn being normal, the effect was to get everyone to focus on ONLY short term disasters.  Most preppers probably looked at “EMP attack” or “solar flare” or “Yellowstone erupting” as they did “Gore Warming Will Kill Us All”.  They discounted the hype and easily convinced themselves that they just needed a month or three of food and plenty of guns and ammo.  The sky high prices kept them at a lower planning duration.  Oops, that is what is known as cutting off your nose to spite your face.  Great profits at first, but then no customers.

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So, with the de facto emphasis on short term prepping, when you get done with three to six months worth of food, you are done.  You are no longer a customer.  So companies had to get more and more marginal, less fanatical or dedicated customers.  They also started selling a lot of crap that was unnecessary and too costly.  Which, I’m guessing, quickly moved over to Amazon from the niche doomer companies.  The Chinese see a profit item, boom, the knock off crap is weeks away from filling up a cargo ship.  And plenty of Americans, seeing no employment out there, are only too happy to see an opportunity to open a doomer business with that nonsense.  But Amazon has got your ass beat on prices.  They don’t even have to invest in inventory.  A third party vendor is only too willing to put his money into that.  Amazon just cashes in on its eyeballs.  If you have a hard time visualizing this, just look at the zombie novel publishing industry.  Ruined by amateurs flooding the market with zero start up costs, now reduced to the need to give their crap away for free with Kindle Unlimited and write a lot of sequels. The writing quality equals that of the cheap flashlights or filters or whatever Amazon now offers to frugal preppers. 

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Then there is the old issue of Wives Permission.  I don’t need to elaborate, you all know the pain and suffering.  If you lucked out with a good wife, you were allowed a bare minimum of prepping budget.  Then, hours were cut and medical costs went up, and the prepping allowance stopped.  The eating out ( I used to have a wife that insisting on eating out regularly regardless of how it effected the budget.  Perhaps I’m not alone ) and the newer cars, they don’t stop.  My theory for that is that less males work as more females do, plus the age old control afforded to the wife in all household matters to include the budget, and the two pronged lifestyle paradigm is reinforced.  First, females are geared towards form over function.  Just their nature-not a judgment.  Second, as we moved more towards a digital reality, everyone is more aligned with a unicorn glittery unreal fantasy world.  If the economy LOOKS good, it is.  And if the car LOOKS good, you don’t have to worry about it breaking down as much.  If the eating out meal LOOKS better than homemade, it must be.  If the illusion is supported there will be more illusion. 

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So, why do you need MORE prepping supplies? It looks like enough, right?  The budget is tight, so no more prep supplies.  You have enough for the hurricane hitting and a week of no electric.  The collapse of western civilization?  Are you insane?  Even if your neighbors can’t find a job, The Donald is getting money to them. Everyone is driving cars, eating out and we got Fracking Forever.  If you are allowed or even want more prep supplies, just get them from Amazon.  No need to pay more through the Doomer Vendors.  That is on top of the advertising model of business failing, on top of the mass unemployment.  Remember, it’s never just ONE cause, right?

END ( today's related link http://amzn.to/2yq0dmB )

 

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page. ***You can make donations or book purchases through PayPal ( www.paypal.me/jimd303 )

*** 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 a buck 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.***   Land In Elko*  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

 

attention k-mart shoppers

ATTENTION K-MART SHOPPERS

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note: BP, got the very generous donation.  Many thanks!
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I grew up shopping at K-Mart ( as little shopping as we did ).  It was a pretty cool place.  And I didn’t move out of California for good until the early nineties so we didn’t have Wal-Marts around to compete with K-Mart.  The last year there I could drive down the mountain and over to Carson City in Nevada and shop at a Wally, but it wasn’t a Super Center.  No food, so just like a K-Mart copy.  I wasn’t impressed.  But once I moved to Oklahoma, Wal-Mart became the new shopping standard, and I never again heard the K-Mart call to a Blue Light Special.  I tried to shop there a few times once I moved here to Elko, but they simply must stop embarrassing themselves and close already.  And yet, Wal-Mart is now in the same position as K-Mart was twenty-five years ago.  They are starting to suck, won’t admit it, won’t change and won’t have the good grace to just declare bankruptcy and try to stop being a blight on society.  For now, we are stuck with the pukes ( I try to help them into financial collapse by not shopping there anymore.  I cherry pick a half dozen items and go to Kroger and Amazon for everything else ).

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Everything you buy there sucks.  As in abysmal quality.  Some things you can’t screw up, like a bag of flour or a can of shortening ( knock on wood, in case they can indeed screw it up like Chinese contaminated baby food ).  Most everything else, why yes, yes they can.  Why don’t I blame the products companies for the quality issue?  Because Wally insists on wholesale prices below the cost of production and companies must cut costs to have a market presence.  The companies making the stuff suck, but Wally sucks so much more by blatantly lying to us and pushing inferior product.  Because it is by no means any longer about giving us the lowest prices ( the lowest prices have emphatically NOT been at Wal-Mart for some years now ), but about Wally losing money from this crap economy and doing anything they can to survive, at the customers expense.  Well, I was just reading another pandemic book ( I get a lot free at the web site I’ve already told you about twice and you ignored me ) which wasn’t too bad-at least the guy is a writer rather than a hack-but at the beginning our intrepid hero goes to Wal-Mart to stock up for the apocalypse he alone gets a heads up on a day in advance ( or something like that-I didn’t say the plot was great, just the writing.  It is “Infection, a post-apocalyptic survival novel, Sympatico Syndrome book 1 by M.P. McDonald ), and I couldn’t help but howl with laughter.

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He’s going to try to survive the zombie apocalypse with WAL-MART EQUIPMENT!!!???!!!  You have got to be friggin kidding me! Okay, granted, the author bought all his gear years ago before the crap quality paradigm started reigning supreme.  They actually used to have great stuff, and all the stuff you’d ever need.  I wrote an article long ago ( the Bison e-mail newsletter ) on how Wal-Mart could offer you ALL the prepper gear you needed ( they even had the Mini-14.  I don’t think at the time they carried any AR’s.  Perhaps you could have ordered one? ).  But that was a simpler time, when Lee-Enfields were affordable, along with basic living expenses.  And those times were over a decade ago.  Now, you cannot trust your life to anything from Wal-Mart except for their food.  Let me go through the novels shopping trip, just so you can share in the humor with me.  We ignore all the smart shopping such as flour and sugar and cooking oil and beef jerky ( we also ignore plot holes ).  It was his second and third cart full that was so hilarious.

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First, he emptied a end rack of candles.  Glass candles.  Glass, dude.  They won’t survive the trip up to your Wisconsin ( Minnesota, wherever.  One of those areas.  He has a island on a lake ) retreat.  Okay, whatever.  At least they will burn, if not long due to crap wick, and hopefully your fingers won’t be full of glass shards.  Tarps, in case the roof leaks, or to cover equipment.  Soon you’ll have leaks and the grommets will rip.  The mosquito repellant will probably just attract them.  You want to trust the quality on a water purification tablet?  The utility knives are probably cheap Chinese crap, which lately don’t have a proper angle for sharpening.  You’ll need to grind it again to be done properly.  The ropes will of course work, but sub-optimally.  Don’t put too much weight on them.  The stakes will bend or shatter.  Netting will easily rip.  The lanterns will be extra low-lumens and the wiring will break soon.  The flashlights, if they even work, will keep shorting out.  Batteries will have less charge.

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The kerosene will burn just fine, but I wonder how good the container is.  The solar oven construction materials?  I’m sure the tinfoil is extra thin, the tape and glue won’t hold for crap.  If you buy anything other than cast iron ( can you put substandard ore in iron, causing it to rust easier, or be brittle or bend? ) frying pans the Teflon will easily chip, the rivets will fail the handle and the thing won’t lay flat on the stove.  The fishing gear should all be as equally substandard.  Fishing line easily tangled, hooks bending, bobbers snapping at the glue line.  The raft and tent are just asking for leaks and you can’t have enough patching material when the whole thing is failing along all seams.  The axes should have substandard metal, with weak wood handle, and need sharpening immediately.  These are all the items I copied from the book.  I didn’t add any on my own.  But can’t you just visualize the comedy of errors ensuing from trying to use any of this crap? 

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Some readers try to accuse me of buying too inexpensive of gear.  What I try to do is find the cheapest gear that has enough quality to give you a valid return on investment.  I NEVER advocate the cheapest, regardless of quality.  That is simply false economics.  If everything you buy is free, as in this novel as the credit card debt is soon to be irrelevant due to worldwide collapse, you STILL don’t get crap quality because the tool is completely useless in a very short time.

END ( today's related link http://amzn.to/2xSwB4o )

 

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page. ***You can make donations or book purchases through PayPal ( www.paypal.me/jimd303 )

*** 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 a buck 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.***   Land In Elko*  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

 

preppers job never done

PREPPERS JOB NEVER DONE

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note: you guys are more than awesome.  Total $405 earnings last month ( exact same as last month-figure the odds ).  $220 for amazon commissions and Kindle book sales, $185 donations.  Many and most thanks.
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note: Paladin Press is going out of business.  Karma.  Here are a few books I deem worthy of having.  You can wait for them to come down in price from Paladin, or order now through my Amazon links.  It is a gamble on whether they shoot up in price or not.
***Makeshift Workshop Skills Here For Paladin  Here For Amazon
***More Makeshift Skills Here For Paladin  Here For Amazon
***Long Term Survival Coming Dark Age Here For Paladin   Here For Amazon 
***How To Bury Your Goods Here For Paladin  Here For Amazon
***Dirt Cheap Survival Retreat Here For Paladin  Here For Amazon
***Homemade Guns & Ammo Here For Paladin  Here For Amazon
***Do-It-Yourself Gunpowder Here For Paladin  Here For Amazon
Those are the ones I bought and deemed worthy.  Not to say there aren't other good ones, but mostly to me they just seem like Militia Porn.
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note: a few of his books free-today only.  Bison Double Stamp Of Approval click here
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Mostly, this has already been done with a booklet, but let’s touch on preparing for the three stages of collapse.  Why not?  You got something better going on right now?  I know you aren’t keeping the sheets cold on your side of the bed by choice.  Remember the three types of collapse?  Economic collapse, die-off and PODA ( Post Oil Dark Ages ).  Yuppie Scum prepping doesn’t help much for PODA, because once his carbon fuel stockpile depletes he is screwed.  It doesn’t help him during the economic collapse because trying to earn more money and being in debt is quite the suboptimal strategy when the economy contracts.  For the Redneck White Trash Irregular, prepping for the economic collapse doesn’t help much during the die-off phase as he has few means to defend himself other than hiding.  The three types of collapse are usually not compatible.  This sucks the hairy one, obviously, because just prepping for one, let alone all three, is hard enough.  Hey, what can I say?  A preppers job is never done.

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Look at your arsenal, just as an example ( I won’t delve too long there ).  You, ideally, need semi-autos for the extra fighting you will engage in, IF you can’t run away and stay hidden ( I still maintain two or three folks with bolts are superior to one with a semi, but all of our situations differ and I speak of the ideal ), then you need a bolt action of good power to conserve ammo for a very long time, and lastly you need a Forever Gun so that hopefully if the planets align and the gods favor you, you will never need a black powder gun or a crossbow.  This is, again, IDEALLY, prepping for all three types of collapse.  The “economic collapse” part is still followed if you do this part frugally, not getting into debt for it ( you can trim the financial pain by reloading rimfire and using an SKS as both semi and bolt, with the bayonet replacing a pistol.  $150 rimfire rifle, $400 SKS, $300 rimfire and reloading components [ 10k rounds total, in theory ], 2k SKS ammo semi, 3k bolt, for a needed $1k, $1900 or so total.  Not much more than some folks spend just on AR’s and magazines ). 

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As for eating, the economic collapse food is your standard buying in bulk, on sale, six months to a year ( one chest freezer per person for meat for a year ) everyday grocery store items.  Don’t take the figure you eat on now and times it by twelve.  That is too high because a lot is convenience foods, junk foods and eating out.  Just calculate what 2500 calories a day-3500 if you are engaged in harder labor-is in meat and starch with no frivolous comfort foods beyond the weekly ( NOT daily ) treat.  If you do it right that is around $2-$3 a day.  So, as hard as you think it is going to be to come up with a grand a person, it isn’t actually hard at all.  Easy, in that you just spend a little extra every sale until it is done ( and it can finance itself through savings if you can immediately cut out junk food ).  The die-off food doesn’t have to be all MRE’s and freeze dried foods.  You want stealth foods and energy prep diminished foods, but it doesn’t have to be just add water foods.  Home canned meats, instant rice, flour.  Or, instant oats, cup of noodles, peanut butter, factory wet can meats.  It isn’t too hard to grocery shop this solution, and it doesn’t have to be a year.  We talked about this-weeks for the die off or a small number of months max.  Post die-off foods are bulk grains to give you minimum calories so your farming and herding efforts ( or, for a lucky few, trapping ) can be fuelled.

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Your job is three collapse type specific.  The economic decline  sees you earning less and facing layoffs.  This is what most of us have adapted to all our adult lives.  The economic COLLAPSE sees the end to pretty much every job.  Self employment does you no good here.  The majority of Americans don’t have $500 savings for an emergency.  They have consumer items that can’t be considered an asset, and debt.  They certainly don’t have the extra to pay for non-essentials, which is what your self-employment job offers ( most houses are already underwater, and things get tight enough the structure will just be allowed to rot ).  Debt bites you on the ass here, as the economy collapses before the government.  Your job during the economic collapse is to live as long as possible on your assets, with no income.  During the die-off, it is usually going to be that of a combatant.  After that, soldier, herder/warrior or farmer. 

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Clothing needs two collapse types.  The first is plentiful clothing, to substitute for trade collapsing.  Ideally this would combine quality with quantity, but I don’t think most folks are going to get that lucky.  After that you need a plan, besides barter, for making your own clothing and shoes.  If you are lucky and can get legal hemp seeds, or whatever-wink, wink, that will go a long way with that problem.  As a bonus you get oil for metal preservation, illumination or feed.  And it is grown as a weed, NOT on agricultural land.  Clothing fiber has traditionally used a lot of farmland.  Hit those thrift stores while you can, when you can.  Stock up on plastic shoes ( soccer slides, with Shoe Goo for repairs ) for a cheap long lasting supply of footwear, useable for most of the year. 

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Money/investments has three collapses to prep for.  Most people lacking paper currency, paper currency becoming worthless but needed ( precious metal for property tax ), and, besides your personal basics, tools for a trade.  Even if trade barter or currency is not needed for lack of trade, you need tools for a craft to replace everything you buy now.  So, while true that planning for the worst case scenario should cover MOST other collapse scenarios, you still need to prep for the phases of collapse ( as you can’t gamble on just an overnight collapse event such as Yellowstone or global nuclear war ).

END ( today's related link http://amzn.to/2xsSkyE )

 

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page. ***You can make donations or book purchases through PayPal ( www.paypal.me/jimd303 )

*** 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 a buck 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.***   Land In Elko*  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