Bison Prepper

Thursday, August 20, 2015

economic games part 1 of 2

ECONOMIC GAMES 1 of 2

ATTENTION: I'm going to post an article this Saturday, then see how long that extra sixth post a week lasts. So, until further notice, a regular post Monday through Saturday.

We spend a lot of time here in the past, unraveling the true nature of economics and politics so that your mind can be free of the shackles of public school propaganda. And we spend just as much time in the far future ( although, we can’t know if it is the immediate far future or the middlin far future or the very far future ) during the die-off where overpopulation meets the empty promise of the petroleum-less Green Revolution meets Gore Warming climate change. Do we need to talk more about today and tomorrow and the ongoing economic collapse? I might have given that a bit too much of a pass, usually dismissing it as “baked into the cake” and then preceding directly to the fun stuff of the Four Horsemen smiting all my enemies imagined or real. In short, the question becomes “have we ignored the immediate crisis in favor of the long term one?”. Perhaps. And perhaps winged monkey’s and glittery unicorns shall fly out of my butt some day. Irregardless, today that shall be our focus. I see very little actual comprehension of the decade long ( if assumed to have started at the apex of conventional crude Peak Oil rather than the ’08 bankers implosion ) economic collapse amongst most survivalists. I see wishful thinking and a strong desire to ignore reality, but as that is human nature and avoiding it is an acquired skill that takes time and practice I don’t think poorly of those that chose the easy path.

An economic collapse today is not the same as an economic collapse eighty-five years ago, when our population was one third of today’s, our soil was healthy ( the parts nor blowing off Oklahoma into DC ), our elephant oil fields were still being discovered and the jingle of gold in citizens pockets kept the evil whore Federal Reserve at bay. An economic collapse today is not the same as one forty-five years ago when the Saudi’s oil became our new backing of the Greenback and even though a bunch of scumbag Yankee’s lost their factories at least the microchip was on its way to provide a service economy that paid for crap but at least offered jobs ( Alvin Toffler might have seemed a shrill for justifying those kinds of jobs, but being there on the ground floor in the ‘70’s had to have produced such trauma that anything, even debt slavery, was better than unemployment ). An economic collapse in times of overpopulation ( I don’t hate Mexicans as much as I hate the fat rich White Industrialist sperm gurglers who encouraged their influx to push wages down. Today, those masses are going to outbreed our resource base to a degree that the inevitable bloody backlash will surprise us all ) and resource depletion ( we are low to non-existent on everything, having used the petro-dollar to supply us in any shortfall, where even our fabled food surplus is completely dependent on imported petroleum ) is a far different animal than any of our economic collapses in the past. And it isn’t coming to a theatre near you soon, it has already been released on DVD and soon to be a TV movie.

More Next Article.

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Wednesday, August 19, 2015

apocalypse 101 part 2 of 2

APOCALYPSE 101 part 2 of 2

( note: Gary, your package was mailed Monday. Please e-mail to confirm its arrival. Cheers, brother )

Notice how I nicely didn’t even get started making fun of people who worship the military since their handlers tell them that they had better be jingoistic, or else! I can sometime mostly hold my tongue. So, what do you get when you consult former military types ( either watching their TV show, or reading their blog )? Why, advice that reflects the organization they used to work for, the nation states armed forces. Which use disposable ammunition and weapons and disposable people to project its will, which is to conquer territory ( no nation state has ever expended blood and treasure to be nice to other people or to spread democracy. We came out of WWII colonizing half the globe and got rich off it, yet today the sheep still bleat on cue when recounting how we made the world safe from Hitler ). So, preppers flock to those people for advice. You’d be better reading up on guerrilla groups throughout time, but since they are not agricultural empires, the lesson goes unheeded. Anyway, a couple of young parents on the Colorado plains want to repel mobile marauders come collapse, yet are unwilling to rely on help from neighbors. The Marine Group thinks this is kind of retarded, which does impress me despite myself ( I’m not allowed to hate Jarheads as much now, with my son in their ranks ). They set up an hour time limit defensive position set-up followed by a group attack using paintballs to try to demonstrate to the couple how vulnerable they are without neighborhood help. In quick order, the boys demonstrate how wonderful suppressive fire and ammunition waste is, and the couple is “killed”. Lesson learned? Not so much. The husband still refuses to abide by the lesson and can’t see the need to rely on neighbors.

I mean, you can’t blame him. You and I both know how difficult other people are. Most of his neighbors are probably the last to stockpile supplies and the first to head for his place ( especially now that they saw him on TV. If I can get Netflix, as cheap as I am, all these Farmers Franks and Francine’s can too ). You can bet all those neighbors will gang up against him, since Americans are completely deficient in math ( despite more and more mandatory advanced classes in public school ) and they can’t divide the one families three man years of food into their total of thirty three people to cipher “famine next month instead of today”. This guy is oblivious to the possibility of downgrading his calorie delivery system to just grains, then stockpiling for his neighbors ( as much as it pains him ), or better yet selling his ranch and moving from this soon to be second Oklahoma Dust Bowl ( the wife talks of a lifetime of observed weather now changing, and the hubby being too stubborn to hear, but that could just be Politically Correct film crews playing up the Girl Power angle ).

Yes, I understand this is just TV, and poorly scripted “reality” TV to boot ( although to give Beelzebub his due the forth segment on the show was the boys building a Faraday cage and demonstrating it, which was wicked cool-that alone worth the watching ), so I’m well aware this is just a version of me Yelling At The TV. Yet, these shows seem to serve a purpose in highlighting the absurdity of others plan, which hopefully also shows you the flaws in yours. And if nothing else, they can be a bit fun.

END

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

apocalypse 101 part 1 of 2

APOCALYPSE 101 part 1 of 2

This last weekend we acquired Netflix streaming. The girlfriends new TV had Amazon and Netflix built into the remote control so those technologically challenged such as myself ( my first real computer was a Mac, and I never owned a Microsoft machine until after “95” came out. I own computers to write, with the Net thrown in as a bonus. I don’t own machines that make me work too hard at using them, else why did I pay good money for them? ) had few issues using the service. Well, at first I was all agog at the movies-if not an extensive selection at least good enough, but then I realized for longevities sake I needed more TV series. And so once I started searching, appropriately starting in the A’s, I stumbled on “Apocalypse 101”. It is just another sensationalized slam on preppers, a “reality” show about as realistic as professional wrestling, but I couldn’t help but watch the thing as it gave me article fodder ideas. Season one show one ( only one season and I have yet to find out how many shows here. So I’ll amend that to “premier episode” ) had some uber-nerd 14 year old fixated on his bug-out bag doing “warrior mindset” unarmed combat drills that made my testicles retract into my body cavity in embarrassment, but more interestingly they had a couple living on the prairie trying to set up for invasion.

First, allow me to back up a bit and tell you that the show follows a group of former Marines opening a Colorado business selling survivalism consulting ( think Rawles, had he sold out to TV Trash Talk ). On the face of it, this seems an improvement over the crap on National Geographic and like ilk, as anyone paying for advice must be serious, but when the film starts recording the magic behind the screen does strange things. For instance, the old daytime TV show Judge Judy gets its participants by paying any cash settlement judgment. Suddenly, everyone is lining up out the door if they can get a dispute legally resolved which costs them nothing. The result is obviously guilty people putting on a dog and pony show for the camera. Not exactly true justice at work ( I won’t veer off on to a tangent about our kangaroo courts and justice for hire to big corporations or K Street lobbyists ). When a TV crew offers to reimburse you if you hire a consultant ( I have no idea of the actual contracts here, I’m guessing at how the show draws in participants ), suddenly you have the usual band of idiots on display. Both the participants sacrificing operational security and willing to display embarrassingly lacking tactical plans ( really? A Honda GoldWing motorcycle bug out plan? With a blowgun as a primary weapon? Do you know how hard it is to get the parts for those bikes nowadays? And he’s been concerned with society taking a crap since the ‘70’s, and this is all he’s come up with? A farm in the mountains would have been paid off long ago, to mention only one better plan ) and the consultants themselves needing to temper their astonishment at same while in front of the filming crew.

More next article

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Monday, August 17, 2015

2012

2012

A couple of months back I got a hair up my butt to go visit the towns two pawn shops, to replenish my dwindling DVD collection ( we watch more movies than TV ). The one had no movies and not even very good guns, and this surprised me as they are the low rent area one, but the other on the main downtown strip had both in abundance. I must have spent a half hour easy just going through their selection. In the end I spent $2 apiece for a handful of good post-apocalypse movies. And then there was the flick “2012”. Okay, it was a fun movie, and I figured this was a good way to ease the girlfriend into the genre painlessly ( we are also watching the four “Tremors” movies, a jolly fun rollicking time ). And I didn’t mind watching it again, but it certainly isn’t a good PA movie. It was good times the whole way, the special effects enjoyable even when we lost the DVD player remote and so I can’t get rid of those annoying top and bottom bars with a universal remote, but at the end I got so agitated at the flamming stupidity of the script I couldn’t help but yell annoyingly to the TV much to the guffawing delight of the significant other. I mean, the first three quarters plus of the movie was “no way in hell” plausible but at least it was just meant as eye candy. But the last part was stupid, illogical retarded Movie Message.

The whole movie Oliver Platt’s character is admonishing the chief scientist dude to be realistic and stop being a whinny bitch and grow a pair of testicles. Stuff like “it is about saving humanity” and “resources are limited”. At the end, whiney scientist bitch is lecturing all the world leader dudes to act civilized and have compassion and to save as many people as possible, at the last minute, as the big ass waves are rolling in. They all think, suddenly after all these years, that this is a wonderful idea and tell the American ship captain dude to load up the swarming sea of humanity at the dock. And the movie ends, as all disaster movies do by rote, as the lone hero saves mankind and the government is portrayed as the savior who helps him. Those not paid to think these things through like I am might be tempted to take home the following messages: 1) individual rugged he-men save the day magically, 2) centralized governments are the only force capable of saving mankind, and in this movie particularly, 3) Negro’s are the new saviors. Whiney Black scientist guy, with accompanying super hot Black chick, want to save the downtrodden masses and chide all the old fat White politicians into doing so ( the Prez is Danny Glover but he dies early so we just see him being all wise and compassionate and grandfatherly ). Not so subtle translation: Obammy is better than me and you because he is Black. He is perfect because he is Black. He will save us all, because he is Black. But this reverse racism isn’t even what began to chap my ass.

The over riding message of this movie was not just that big pappa government was going to save us but that they can be compassionate and save more of us, and resources will still magically be available! In the movie, the south of Africa was not flooded and was the destination of the ships. Translation: we let too many people in the ship, with not enough food for them, but we’ll just go farm on a new island and feed everyone. Did they know about Africa when they decided to overload the ship? No. They were being emotional and wanted to do the right instead of the logical thing, acting all female ( something Hollywood preaches incessantly ). So OF COURSE, with bitches and Blacks in charge, everything works out wonderfully. I was rooting for the Platt character or the ship captain to order a guard to blast the stupid scientists brains over the bridges wall as he was being a dumbass, but of course in our new world order, big daddy government would never act so harshly or violently ( other than, you know, if the guy were a Constitutionalist or gun owner ). GOD!!! This movie is insidious and evil, wrapped in a fun filled special effects package.

END

Friday, August 14, 2015

barter and inflation 2 of 2

BARTER AND INFLATION 2

A loyal minion had suggested stockpiling a shed full of bike parts as an investment ( really, you should be madly putting all paper type money into something tangible, just beware of buying more guns. Not the best investment past the needed minimum, but that is the subject for another article ), and that isn’t a stupid idea. The problem is that all the junk bikes you encounter are multiple speed mountain bikes. I still think single speed beach cruisers in 26 inch are the best bet, even though the used market is sparse. Simplicity is best. Be that as it may, whichever way you go learn the mechanics now. If you don’t, you really don’t know which parts are needed or in what proportion. Next up is grain, and you can’t have enough. Seriously, I wouldn’t see why you couldn’t have ten years of wheat for yourself, then start adding to that for barter. You think nothing of spending $1500 on an AR and 9mm pistol with all the mags ( ammo extra ), and that is what two tons of grain and buckets will cost you. Grain is THE best investment of the Oil Age, bar none. Six hundred years ago, a city dwelling merchant or craftsmen could spend 50-70% of their wages on food, about the proportion we spend on rent today. Today, you spend fifty cents on three thousand calories of wheat for a days food and at minimum wage ( less than what a merchant or craftsman made ) you’ve spent far less than 1%!!! ( okay, apples to oranges. Yet, even making half those calories meat, it is still only 2 ½% ).

Next up is coffee. Comparing the cost in the store to the growing, transporting and the metal or plastic can value and even $7 for two pounds is an insane bargain. You can’t invest in enough coffee. Cigarette smokers will Jones hard for their fix, but far fewer smoke than drink coffee ( do not invest in cigs past your own use. With taxes today the cost is silly stupid and artificial. With one cigarette a day, just to stockpile a two and a half year supply set me back over $200 ) so coffee WILL be in demand. Parking your spare cash there today will be a great return ( plastic or metal can, NOT waxed cardboard, for longevity ). Modern building materials have been hawked by the loyal minions, and rightfully so, but one has to wonder how much will be able to be salvaged. Will all the glass be broke, or enough left to saturate the market? Will insulation all be moldy from lack of maintenance, or will there be more available than we can use for quite awhile? Modern nails are made from crap metal, but there sure will be a lot out there waiting for us ( remember, you will see a LOT less people around if you survive ). But with my three choices, you won’t see competition, per se. Too few adults bike, no one stockpiles grain, not even survivalists [ J ], and coffee is a just in time item, with at home supplies usually only an open can.

END

Thursday, August 13, 2015

barter and inflation 1 of 2

BARTER AND INFLATION

Investing money used to be pretty easy. Buy a duplex or triplex in poor shape while you were young and in good shape, live in one as you fixed up the whole thing. As you gained renters you doubled down on your mortgage and in ten or fifteen years you have no debt. From then on, you kept the place up and had an income for life. Alternately, if you weren’t as handy with repairs, you buy a section of land, bribe the politicians for a favorable zoning, and rent out RV spaces. Nowadays, it isn’t really easy to get a mortgage. The banks are busy playing with derivatives and getting money from Washington, so that leaves little time to process mortgage applications. Plus, far better to have a giant corporation with a line of credit be the investor in rental properties. Not that you’d want to get into debt anyway. And not that you could, with half the pay of seven years ago. And as jobs disappear, so do renters anyway. Now, far better to just downgrade your expectations. The economy is going to implode, and being a landlord isn’t a great occupation once the fires from looting start ( and your insurance company goes bankrupt ). I’m talking “downgrade to a personal consumption level”. We’ve already talked about investing in skills and their tools, so now let’s talk about investing in inflation busting barter items.

Barter items have been covered extensively in survivalist circles, but that’s a currency substitution deal. You know what I’m talking about. Cigarettes and booze and rimfire ( back when it was affordable ) and the like. My latest and greatest brain fart had been about learning way old school skills and investing in the books covering those and the specialized tools needed ( I’ll get that up in book form at Lulu.com one of these days ) as a way to invest in a better barter item. The latest we will cover is investing in barter items that rely exclusively on modern petroleum inputs to make them exponentially cheaper than any version of them previous to or following the Oil Age. First up are bike parts. Yes, I know, there were no bikes long ago. But there where horses and mules and camels and unless you were a nomad, where pack animals ate waste plants and procreated naturally, those were very expensive options for transportation ( because in an agricultural area, animals competed with human crop soil to a degree ). Most poor people walked. Or better yet, never ventured too far from their homes and fields. A bicycle made personal transportation extremely cheap. And while humans will once again contract into small villages surrounded by fields, or go nomad, until then they are so spread out that bicycles will be very useful for a very long time. Next article I’ll cover bikes a bit more, then we’ll talk about grains, coffee, plastic, insulation and the like. Just keep in mind these are items you park your money in before the currency is devalued. It is a saving account, not a currency substitution. More next article.

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Wednesday, August 12, 2015

move to the head of the line, dumbass

MOVE TO THE HEAD OF THE LINE, DUMBASS

My job as the food bank driver entails a heck of a lot of physical labor. Two years ago the boss put in a grant proposal for a big refer truck and now I’m doing even more work ( before, I could park my little Chevy S-10 right at the stores back door and load directly into the bed. Now, I must park in the back 40 and then load everything twice as often up and down the lift gate. In just three weeks I can tell I’m pumping up my muscles ). The one thing I’m not allowed to do anymore is think ( with my chain of command all female, you can bet there is a lot of dismissal of any thought or idea I might express, both because I happened to be born with testicles and because of my superior intellect they feel threatened by ). The only mental effort I need is while driving, and even that isn’t as difficult as it once was. The new truck is such a lumbering diesel bastard I couldn’t quickly dart in and out of traffic if I wanted to. So, while I’m on the job I have a lot of free time for my mind to wander. There is one store I frequent daily that got a new department manager, and she inspired this article. Nice gal, nice looking ( yes, ugly bitches, sorry we discriminate against you but if we didn’t all our babies would look like you-although if you have a nice rack there are exception vouchers ), a nice personality if you don’t work for her, and as far as I can tell not as stupid as a box of rocks. And a total incompetent in her new job.

Once I begin to question why she is still holding the position, I began noticing others in similar positions and have concluded that incompetents don’t accidentally end up that way. It has to be purposeful. First, like attracts like, and we all know how insanely stupid most corporate bosses are. But more important to today’s discussion, incompetents are put in place for their attributes. They are compliant, knowing their position depends on currying the favor of their superiors. They are invariably young if the position is entry level, and youth has energy. It is my contention that by placing a young person in a job, properly motivated, they will do the work of an entirely addition position. Once they burn themselves out, and they inevitably have to as the work pace is unsustainable, corporate just hires another young and hungry sucker. They are also greedy, motivated by fear as discussed above but also by the promise of an addition token of money necessitated by the drive to pay off college debt or pay for child support or what have you. And last, it seems the old military trick of promoting pricks intentionally has been adopted by corporations. Remember basic training, where your sergeant made the most obnoxious dick the acting squad leader? Just another “screw with you” part of the process, along with sleep deprivation and other neat tricks of manipulation. The private sector seems to excel at doing the same, but for different reasons. Perhaps they don’t want any fraternization. Mission accomplished when your boss is the worlds biggest pud pumper. Your boss has NO people skills, is an insufferable corporate lackey, and believes no one else should have a life outside work? Know that feeling that all along they are out to get you? You are right.

( why this discussion on a survivalist blog? Duh, I’m trying to get you to leave the big city and your dead end job and downgrade to the boonies )

END