Sunday, October 1, 2017

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 )
 

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18 comments:

  1. I like this approach very much, it confronts the reader with the complexity of the situation overall.

    If no firearm is the optimal one for each of the stages (local optimum), we can consider than certain types of firearms are less recommended when seeing the three stages as a whole (global optimum).

    That is also true of location, but "remote" is better than every other option.

    About the post die-off phase, a guy once told me : "after the collapse, stuff will be laying around everywhere". There is something to it. But sometimes one doesn't have the luxury of choosing, depending on where the chaos leaves us - immobility is not a good choice of surviving.

    Dennis Meadows confessed that his predictive model (the end of growth, basically Peak Everything and the Die-Of sequence, scheduled for around 2030. About twelve years to go, folks) is valid only until the plateau phase.

    He didn't say why, but if you search for the Seneca Effect / Seneca Cliff, then you'll see the figures are going down vertically. So IMHO he knows very well that it's going to be very extreme.

    This is why I don't believe one can prep beyond the "plateau phase" of the die-off. Too much stuff can happen then, especially stuff we don't know about (engineered depopulation plague, nuclear exchange, killer drones, killer microdrones, cults, engineered mass psychosis etc.)

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  2. engineered depopulation plague ( mass malnutricion globally from GMO, nutrient dead soil, etc ), nuclear exchange ( nuclear fallout from plant failures, perhaps solar radiation from ozone depletion ), killer drones ( saves taxpayers money on regular planes, to help kick the can economically ), killer microdrones ( probably as much sci-fi as "meals in a pill" and "fusion power" ), cults ( tribal fragmentation, same difference ), engineered mass psychosis ( going on a century now, propaganda ) etc. Pretty much already happening, just without the noticeable die-off. The four horsemen are already riding, but they need to work harder to catch up to birthrates AND past population gains.

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    1. Yes indeed. The mention of GMOs makes me think there is probably a date limit on preparing, sometime before the collapse unfolds.

      When all you can purchase are cans of mystery meat, does it still make sense to buy these as a way to survive ?

      If the collapse is due to exponential developments, then at one moment there will be no safe food to be found anywhere. I remember having read that in China there are organic farms whose produce are stricly reserved for leading members of the communist party (not even the humble party member).

      The same concern appeared on articles and comments here about the quality of wheat.

      This is one of the reasons why I don't do prep rotation. I scarcely eat canned food, but have lots of it, and more and more frequently it's from known brands who are on sale because they're increasingly expensive. (The "hard discount" cans (Aldi etc.) don't inspire any confidence in me.)

      What do you think would be unmistakeable thresholds to signal that "it's too late to prep now" ? Food-wide, or other.

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    2. I don't do rotation either. Old & Stale is better than None. Yet, I don't agree that you'll get quality. Not enough to matter. I look at it like I do my drinking water. Yes, pollutants in city water. But I drink from the tap, as proper hydration is more important than just drinking what you can afford in bottled water ( at 45cents a gallon for fill-your-own, bottled water is a great deal. I just have my doubts about ALL water ). By drinking a lot I'm flushing everything and any pollution is no worse than the crap I'm eating or breathing.
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      "unmistakeable threshhold"? Well, since I'm saying "eat anything short of pure poison like Chinese baby formula", I guess that doesn't apply. So many pollutants from everywhere, you are eating crap now ( unless you grow your own-and even then the crops and animals are polluted to an extent ), so just stock crap for the future. In the end, calorie deficit kills you before nutrient loss does. All this pollution? It isn't killing us like it did in the 50's and 60's with above ground nuke testing, but it is killing us slowly all our lives. We might even return to the fallout issue, if the grid down meltdown of spent fuel rods is a "thing". Pollutants in your food are a lesser threat.

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    3. Oh, and thanks for the lead on Dennis Meadows. I had breezed by Energy Skeptic.com before and ignored it. You got me reading in depth and it is a great resource.

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  3. I went ahead and ordered Homemade Guns And Homemade Ammo, and one other item that I needed (Yes, through your links). I noticed right off that there were limited copies, and one vendor was asking $95 and another the astronomical price of $621, and so the writing was on the wall.

    I had been wanting a good reference book like this for a while, but I wanted something more than just the knowledge of how to make the actual gun. I also wanted homemade ammunition ideas.

    I’m still a big proponent of primitive weapons though, due to ease of manufacture, and more commonly found material requirements.

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    1. Most excellent-thank you. Not a be all and end all book, but better than most.

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  4. Much of the last 15 years I spent thinking about and, more importantly, trying out all the ways I can think of to survive in the PODA. I lived in the remote bush, learned how to hunt and trap with primitive and modern means, tried making shoes and clothes etc.
    My experience was that the closer you can live to a hunter-gatherer, the better off you'll be. Of course, I was stationary (having two kids and a soon-to-be ex to shelter) and built various structures ranging from primitive to modern (earthbag house, worked well until the fires wiped us out)
    Also, while plants are OK for clothing and shoes, leather and felt is SO much less work, and is a superior end product. I've tanned rabbit, cat, fox, kangaroo, sheep, goat, deer and cow, with some excellent results. But for a bombproof product, RIGHT NOW, you can't go past felting. You need hot water, soap and elbow grease. And wool.
    As for catching stuff, traps are the way to go. I know lots of folks focus on guns, and I have a few too, and aim to use them. But they'll run out of ammo or the scope will break or my eyes will get dim. But if I have a pair of pliers, I can catch near on anything that hangs around where I used to be. Traps and snares are quiet, you can put out as many as you have material for, and they're working 24 hours a day.

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    1. You got my interest up on felting-I'll check it out.

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    2. Wow - Sounds like you're living the dream Dampignak

      I'm stuck in surburbia mostly because of a lack of courage in my convictions.

      I'm 100% with you on trapping being superior to hunting. I'm only just starting on my trapping skills. Hell I'm a city kid so even minor bush skills are a bit beyond my abilities. LOL

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    3. I’ve always wanted to learn primitive survival skills as a foundation for a back up plan in a worst case scenario. Over the years I’ve read many survival and primitive bushcraft publications. The last book that I read on this subject was Wildwood Wisdom by Ellsworth Jaeger. This book was written so long ago (1945) that the author had previously consulted with actual pioneers and Indians that had lived through the 19th century. It covered pretty much everything from making clothes, shoes, furniture, traps, weapons, etc.

      I think that everyone should have something like this book as a reference manual should the need arise. I do think however that the mastery of such skills are quite an undertaking for the average person to achieve with a limited amount of time.

      https://www.amazon.com/Wildwood-Wisdom-Ellsworth-Jaeger/dp/0936070129

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    4. This is the one I have as a reference: http://amzn.to/2xSiJG6
      The "Primitive Wilderness Living" by McPherson

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    5. Hmm? I was about to say that I have the same book, but I just looked, and the copy that I have is titled: Ultimate Guide To Wilderness Living (Same authors) and is a 2008 publication. This version has an endorsement from Les Stroud of Survivorman fame. Looking at the bookmark, it appears that I started reading it, but I must have found the content to be a little dry, because I gave up on it.

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    6. Can't remember for sure, but I think I did try the sequel and didn't like/keep it. The original is the best.

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    7. Books are good - I started off with the Ron Edwards series (Australian Bushcraft etc), the occasional library book on tanning and so forth, and trial and error for the rest of it.
      I wouldn't say you NEED to get out there and learn how to do it all, so long as you have both the info and, more importantly, the right kind of brain that plays around with things until you get them good enough, then you'll be fine.
      I like to say to folks who ask about bush living etc that it is both easier and harder than you think it will be, and in ways you won't expect.

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    8. And remember, learning is going to be easier once your mind is clear of distractions like TV, commuting, the job.

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  5. The chlorine in your city tap water is a known carcinogen. You can filter it with the Katadyn Gravidyn filters in your homemade bucket filter. The carbon in each filter lasts 6 months of chlorine absorption, but then will still function for removing bacteria etc. (like from the river) for its normal 13,000 gallon life cycle.
    Peace out

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