pampered peasant book 2

PAMPERED PEASANT BOOK 2

( continued below after my NOTE )
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NOTE: I keep forgetting to post this.  A minion who owns and shoots a Mosin-Nagant wrote to disagree with my horror and disgust with the rifle.  To paraphrase, he said that my fear of the lack of a gas bleed safety is unfounded as he noticed a constant slight gas discharge from the rounds being fired most of the time.  I wonder if this was due to the original design made for the brass cases which swell to seal the chamber, then having a steel case being used failing to seal.  If so, this would not stop a catastrophic case rupture from releasing too much gas into the shooters face.  Nonetheless, I felt I should pass this on to you as it might mean my fears are unjustified.  Of course, with the rifles now selling for too much at $300, and the cheapest steel cased ammo now doubled in price, I can’t imagine WHY you’d want to buy one.  But it is better to have too much information than not enough, so here you are.

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INTRODUCTION part 2

The book The Alpha Strategy was really at base a middle class instruction manual on how to mitigate the effects of the end of the Manufacturing Economy.  Even then, it is surprisingly relevant, at least to some degree.  The economics section probably won’t help you all that much.  Now that all of the economy is financial based and all the markets are grossly manipulated, as well as computerized, plus now that we are over a decade well past Peak Oil, this economy is nothing like that fifty years ago.  The stockpiling section is still a good read and you can find e-books at no charge hanging around the Internet if you are interested.  But this booklet is NOT the same as The Alpha Strategy.  There, remember, middle class economics prevailed.  Here, we are all about the Frugal Prepper.  And why, you ask in a snide tone as visions of FLIR scopes and MRE’s dance in your head?  Because, dumb ass, you don’t the money to stay middle class, if you even still are ( but lie to yourself about it ).  If you want a fantasy primer, check any other survivalist tome out there, or for better writing, The Lord Of The Rings.

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If you might go back and examine the title of this book, we are assuming your immediate future is anything other than middle class pampered Yuppie Scum.  Let’s go back 150 years.  Why not, right?  Every uppity Black agitator wants us to live in a guilt state over what happened then anyway.  After the Yankee Scum won the war and occupied the South with military troops, you can bet that the starvation and imprisonment of civilians that had occurred all through the conflict was still happening.  Ask anyone who had been in Sherman’s path what they were supposed to eat with the livestock slaughtered and the crops burned.  Reconstruction was about colonizing a rebellious province.  The South was full of poor.  Next up, remember when FDR starved out the farmers to force them into the cities and into reliance on the bankers Greenbacks?  Okay, his central banker masters who elected him instructed him to do so after they caused the Depression for profit, made gold illegal for profit, and entered into a fascist state disguised as socialism, again for profit.  Do you think there were a lot of middle class folks around at that time?

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Hell, no, the poor stayed that way until they volunteered to go fight for world domination.  Only then were they allowed to start living a middle class life.  We went from strike breaking police with Maxim machineguns to powerful Unions, and you think it was a communist plot?  It was an Elite plot, and it doesn’t matter what political façade you slap on any of their projects, in the end it is just about funneling more money to the same few people.  Follow the money.  They decided to share a bit of the wealth, but that was only because they needed a much larger workforce and bureaucracy to colonize the world.  For however much they shared, they made oh so much more.  Alas, we used way too many resources to win the war of dominance and as early as the ’50’s we were running out of surplus.  Peak Iron Ore happened then, and coal also started getting scarce in the higher grades.  We had about a quarter century of middle class living until the Peaking caught up and with just a minor supply disruption OPEC was the straw that broke the camels back, manufacture economy-wise.

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We THOUGHT we were still living middle class after that, but the clear unstoppable trend ever since has been an erosion of the standard of living we used to define that lifestyle.  We were little more than indentured servants to the banks way before the 2008 real estate backed derivatives implosion cleared the decks of all the former middle class by wiping out their last metric of housing assets.  They are no more.  You are either now poor, or poor with rich people products made in China owned by debt trying to give the illusion of un-poor.  But you are poor, just as most of us have been for most of the time we’ve been a country.  You need to start acting your class, which is poor, and embracing That Suck by refusing to play the game that only enriches the Bankers anyway.  Stop buying the illusion of middle class.  Just accept being a peasant.  You might not toil in the fields, but toil under less than safe circumstances for very mean compensation you certainly do.

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Peasants of old had to face starvation regularly.  Today, there is an embarrassment of food, but it isn’t food by most any definition.  It is empty calories.  As you feed more and more into your face, you are still starving your body of nutrients.  Malnutrition is a much slower form of starvation and you have to suffer through cancers and strange diseases before merciful death takes you.  Peasants of old had no money.  Today, we are paid an embarrassingly high amount of wages for little actual work-mostly being robot operators or supervisors.  Yet we die broke and in debt, and not just because we spend frivolously in a consumer nightmare of a culture.  Taxes in insane amounts, coupled with steady inflation, in addition to monopolies we are forced to subsidize, leave very little money to do anything much with.  If we do save industriously, there are still barriers against the poor actually investing in any real way so as to be able to bootstrap up out of poverty. 

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Giving up the illusion of being middle class is not giving up and wallowing in poverty.  It is freeing the golden handcuffs you’ve been wearing.  When you don’t have to pay for the trappings of middle class you can live a lot better with less pay.  It is quality over quantity.  And here is were the Pampered Peasant strategy comes in.  While you are downgrading into peasantry, you are using still somewhat valuable currency to stockpile the luxury items true poverty stricken individuals can never dream of.  It is a stockpiling strategy like The Alpha Strategy, but it is a far cheaper and more realistic one geared to the poor rather than the middle class.  More Introduction next article.

END  

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page.  IF YOU DON’T SEE THE AD, DISABLE AD BLOCK ( go to the Ad Blocker while on my page and scroll down the menu to “disable this site” ). You can purchase anything, not just the linked item. Enter Amazon through my item link and then go to whatever other item you desire. As long as you don’t leave Amazon until after the order is placed, I get credit for your purchase.  For those that can’t get the ads because they are blocked by your software, just PayPal me occasionally or buy me something from my Amazon Wish List once a year.  Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for mere Book Money, so do your part.*** 
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prioritize lifeboat items part 2

PRIORITIZE LIFEBOAT ITEMS 2

Combining the realization that The End Is Nigh and the new and improved Dark Age will be global, along with acknowledging the Oil Age is on its very last leg ( ExxonMobil hasn’t made a profit-and they are best of the top US oil companies-in three years.  And that is just the financial aspect of the many problems ), you might come to the realization that you should get off your flaccid jiggley ass and stock your lifeboat with the basic items that will never be duplicated again in the history of ever.  The first I listed was industrial grown grains.  Screwy weather is global, as is the diminishing net energy of petroleum, as is overpopulation.  You certainly can grow your own grains and you should, but most likely you will be growing vegetables and legumes rather than grains, given our usual lack of land all but a extreme small minority experience.  Growing grains is for after the die-off, stored grain is for during and to cushion against crop failures.  So while you don’t need modern anything to grow grains, only industrial grain is cheap enough to stock a decades worth.

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You could also find a way to grind your grain in a primitive ( rocks ) or salvage specific way ( metal pipes ).  But why should you?  A modern metal grain grinder is under $50 ( my first one in the ‘80’s was actually more, so they are great inflation fighters ).  It won’t force you to eat sand, nor will it take extra calories you can ill afford.  So too, you can easily make a storage unit for your grains out of primitive materials.  And you should have the instructions for such.  Yet, buying the plastic now is-relatively-affordable and will be an invaluable water container after emptied.  So, this is why I recommend buying lots and oodles and gobs of grain NOW, as your first lifeboat item.  Followed by the grinders ( multiples, duh ) and plastic storage containers.  Diatomaceous earth is also a very wise investment.  It is invaluable in your stored grain, and will prove VERY useful against age old problems such as lice or bedbugs.  You can buy the non-food grade at Home Depot, and you should.  They come in a thick plastic bag and can be stored for the day of infestation.  Just get food grade for your grain-you’ll probably need to mail order it and I’d appreciate it if you bought that through my Amazon ad links so I get a commission. 

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Next up of course is ammunition.  There are more firearms than people in this country, and that nicely translates into a lot of surplus firearms after the die-off.  What won’t be in such good supply will be ammunition.  That is a far greater priority than a crap load of guns or magazines or laser sites of FLIR’s or tacti-cool sighting systems.  Given that every swinging cheese dingus out there thinks tactics are spray and pray, don’t expect ammo to last any longer than the surplus population.  That is all you really need to know on the subject ( if you recover or steal ammunition, steel cased ammo is okay in non-CommBlock guns.  On a limited basis, and I’d try to trade the crap myself and only use it in emergencies.  If extractors and firing pins take a beating on harder material steel case ammo, you might damage your gun.  You might not be able to get another quick enough, so don’t be lured into false economics buying this stuff ).

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Next up would be illumination.  You need AA rechargeable batteries, the LED lanterns and flashlights that use them, and some solar chargers.  Because here is the thing.  12v RV batteries are great for using high power items.  You could run a fridge off of a couple of panels and a modified freezer.  You could run a microwave if fuel was an issue.  But 12v batteries do NOT last all that long, AND if you store dry batteries for later use to initially charge them you need much more than a trickle charge off of a solar panel ( so you’ll need a quality generator-that means Honda for a cool thousand bucks-and the gasoline storage now becomes another limited time storage issue ).  It is far better for those on a budget to simply forego using 12v batteries.  With AA rechargeable the batteries can sit in storage forever until you need them, then you can charge from the sun.  You could use candles and oil lamps for tow tech illumination, but the light output sucks and LED’s and rechargeable AA’s are pretty darn cheap.  Plus, low tech light needs fats ( unless you have bees ) you should be using as lubricants or foods rather than for lights.  You are fat and well fed now, but in the future every calories will count like you can’t believe.  Because you didn’t spend $50 for illumination now, you want to go hungry and have your gun rust in the future?  Light is VERY important for psychological health.  Do not discount its need.

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Glass and insulation for building might be a very easy to salvage item, or it could put your life at risk.  What is easier for you to do?  Salvage or stockpile?  These two items will be very important and while glass MIGHT start being made after the Dark Ages, insulation is mostly Oil Age Only ( unless you live in a wool tent, of course ).  And plastic sheeting.  It won’t salvage well, and nothing is better for water proofing.  Most locations with water in this country are going to have cold winters.  Nothing is better for conserving fuel than building dug-outs.  And plastic sheeting is almost mandatory unless you want dark and dank.  I built my Test Pit the wrong way and the bugs and mildew are simple gross.  I wouldn’t want to live in there ( and I can‘t imagine it would be healthy ).  The B-POD was built the right way ( an exposed doorway at the bottom of stairs so you get air movement from the bottom to the top ).  If you build a dug-out like this you shouldn’t have an issue with living underground ( subject to soil and rain at your location, of course.  However, you can build an earth covered shelter completely aboveground with good drainage, so this isn’t completely impossible ). 

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And there is your bare bones, frugal budget, impossible to duplicate items you need for your lifeboat.  Yes, the list COULD be endless.  This is a reality based list, however.  Keep your fantasy confined to your football.

END

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page.  IF YOU DON’T SEE THE AD, DISABLE AD BLOCK ( go to the Ad Blocker while on my page and scroll down the menu to “disable this site” ). You can purchase anything, not just the linked item. Enter Amazon through my item link and then go to whatever other item you desire. As long as you don’t leave Amazon until after the order is placed, I get credit for your purchase.  For those that can’t get the ads because they are blocked by your software, just PayPal me occasionally or buy me something from my Amazon Wish List once a year.  Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for mere Book Money, so do your part.*** 
*Contact Information*  Links To Other Blogs *  Land In Elko*  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com           *wal-mart wheat
*Link To All My Published Books
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

prioritize lifeboat items part 1

PRIORITIZE LIFEBOAT ITEMS

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I cannot vouch for them, so proceed at your own risk, but this does look interesting as a cheap water well drill:
http://howtodrillawell.com/
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Prepping for Y2K ( to mostly include research, except for a single period one year prior when I saw increased pay and put a LOT of money into supplies ) I was finally able to abandon my previous Mormon/’50’s Fallout Shelter inspired limited stockpile and begin to think about systems wide collapse instead of the localized immediate survival preps of limited utility ( which assumed a rapid recovery no matter the event.  I actually woke up, smelled the rancid future and assumed real world reality rather than prepper/militia fantasy was the nightscape to come-I don’t know what reading prompted this reversal of nearly twenty years of dogma, but I’ll just credit Gary North for his public service work here ).  I went from a home centric to civilization centric view.  After that, things got a lot easier on the frugal front, because not only did I abandon a lot of unnecessary preps ( why stock propane or propane accessories if the wells will forever more stop pumping?  Why stock semi-auto’s if no ammunition will ever again be made?  Why worry about precious metals if trade will never exist in my lifetime as the Dark Ages will last forty plus generations? ), the number of things needed also declined.

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If our future is brutish and short, luxury items and expensive toys are certainly not very important.  Just as a cancer patient knows he has very few months left to plan and prep for his families future, and on very limited funds, so too must you view the oncoming collapse as an impetus to get the hell off your ass and quickly see to the very basics.  You can’t time the collapse, and there is nothing saying it will happen tomorrow.  Yet at the same time there is nothing saying you still have five or ten or twenty years cushion ahead.  So you prioritize what is the most important and what needs immediate attention.  You are in effect just notified that a forest fire will be at your front door in twenty minutes.  You need fifteen of those in driving time.  What do you grab?  The house will burn, so you must prioritize those items that cannot be replaced.  In our case, you are at the end of the Oil Age ( as analyzed ad nauseam already, it is patently obvious that the Industrial Age has already taken a Big Squishy ) and there is a limited amount of time to grab those items that only the Petroleum Industry can provide.

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Again, we’ve talked about this many times before.  But if you are looking at this from a limited time collapse event you aren’t grasping the finality of oil and all it provides.  We have already seen the end of cheap and energy rich oil, over ten years ago.  Since then more and more of our oil is dirty and returns very little in the way of net energy, and a lot of it isn’t even REAL oil but substitutes such as tar sands.  Over FIFTY years ago we saw Peak Discovery ( ever since then we discover less and less new oil, and for some time now we are discovering even less than what we are using, AND all discoveries are of smaller and smaller reserves ).  Yes, Virginia, the age of oil is winding down.  Already as a nation we are abandoning one petroleum rich activity/item after another to compensate.  That is what the race to the bottom quality wise is about.  From manufacturing jobs to service.  From metal to plastic.  From gas guzzlers to Batteries On Wheels.  From warehouses to JIT.  From houses to Black Mold Boxes.  From higher education to PC Indoctrination institutions.  From cash for advanced medical to lifetime debt from lawyer proof tests and symptom masking drugs.  From nutrition to Frankenfood.

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NOW is the time to stockpile oil age products.  While they are cheap and available.  Just like oil ten years ago.  Now, while they are of marginally useful quality.  You want to wait for wheat to go total GMO like corn has, before you buy any?  Or how about you wait for it to experience shortages like rice did six/seven years ago?  Does that sound like a valid strategy?  You should maybe wait for another global heat wave and crop failure before you buy?  What’s the matter for you ( sorry, almost through the seasons of The Soprano’s-I’m starting to think in YankeeSpeak )?  Shortages, quality decline and higher prices are all indicative of an item on the Endangered Species List ( rice will never stop being grown, but cheap and abundant rice is another matter.  Or, look at lentils.  They used to barely be more than grain in price.  Now, after eight years, they just keep going up in price ).  You want expensive food?  Smallholders will always be able to plow a field with mules and produce grain and ship it by wagon.  For half of your wages you can still eat, just like most of the Third World in slums must do.  They are not allowed to farm the countryside, as those areas are for commodities to export-not for the local population.  Wait for sea trade to stop and see the many revolts and revolutions.  Right in the spot you retired to in your tropical paradise.  You want to go to Panama or Guiana to avoid the collapse?  It will follow you there.  Just get some swamp land in Florida or Louisiana ( with a boat to survive the floods ) if you want to avoid freezing weather.  It will be safer. 

( moving to a foreign country to Survive And Thrive?  Too much money has made your brain go soft.  You want way too much crime, a language you can’t understand, high prices to live in a ghetto, tropical diseases, gun control while surrounded by enemies and deadly revolution in the near future?  Just move to New Orleans ) 

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Since you can’t time the collapse you must assume tomorrow is BSD ( Big Squishy Day ).  So what must you grab for your lifeboat items?  Obviously, mechanized petroleum input grains.  Lots and lots of grains.  Plastic storage containers for grains.  And grain grinders.  None of these can be duplicated ( right now, a YEARS worth of grain is 1/10^th your monthly income.  In the near future, one MONTHS worth will be between ½ and ¾ of your monthly income, if indeed you have an income.  All that stored silver wasted on food when you could have simply stockpiled it cheaply now.  $100 now, $8,000 tomorrow.  That is a heck of a good return on investment ).  Continued tomorrow.

END

 

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page.  IF YOU DON’T SEE THE AD, DISABLE AD BLOCK ( go to the Ad Blocker while on my page and scroll down the menu to “disable this site” ). You can purchase anything, not just the linked item. Enter Amazon through my item link and then go to whatever other item you desire. As long as you don’t leave Amazon until after the order is placed, I get credit for your purchase.  For those that can’t get the ads because they are blocked by your software, just PayPal me occasionally or buy me something from my Amazon Wish List once a year.  Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for mere Book Money, so do your part.*** 
*Contact Information*  Links To Other Blogs *  Land In Elko*  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com           *wal-mart wheat
*Link To All My Published Books
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

 

 

to the barricades

TO THE BARRICADES

I happened across an article from Mountain Guerrilla, which was about the best I’ve run across there, on how The Detestables mocking and hating toward The Left is not only misplaced it is very dangerous.  In effect, Lefties are the only ones with a history towards violence and to marginalize that behind your Commando Computer, your heavy jowls jiggling mirthfully, is discounting the next likely enemy.  Now, Mountain Guerrilla belongs to the crowd over at Western Rifle Shooters and while I don’t discount that group I also don’t take a lot of it all that seriously.  They are militia and I am survivalist and while they might be spot on and 100% accurate, I have identified rightly or wrongly other dangers and concerns.  The two groups do have overlapping views but ultimately the destinations are different.  Theirs is a far less collapse-ish future, by and large, and while they are right to be concerned with warfare and insurrection, I’m far more worried about food and waterfall collapse with die-off.  They see long wars and I see a short period of conflict you can avoid by going to ground, followed by lifetimes of weak state/decentralized groups always at war ( but war on a reduced technological level ).

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Again, I’m NOT saying only I am right and they are wrong.  I’m merely stating that I’ve identified my favorite horse and have hitched my wagon to it.  Their horse is on another track entirely except for the occasional visit in a mutual agreed upon pasture.  But the article was so good, such a smorgasbord of food for thought, that I had to at least acknowledge the good possibility it could be correct.  The premise being that The Donald being elected will actually lead these deranged creatures to revolt.  I mean, why not?  We are on the rapid down slope of Peak Oil and economic collapse could/will occur any day.  Who is to say we will stay Empire Steady up until the very end?  Who is to say this isn’t as wrenching as the ‘60’s, sociologically?  Why does the gun culture have to be the one to initiate conflict ( not having done so at all ever since the first gun control pushes 80+ years ago.  All these reclining chair warriors seem to think they have what it takes to fight for their AR-15, when much stronger more viral specimens failed to fight for their BAR’s, Thompson’s or silencers )?

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Soro’s was mentioned as a possible agent provociteur.  A better financed version of Bloomberg.  Now, I am NOT offering a conspiracy theory.  I do NOT believe in the Trilateral Commission, the Illuminati,  the International Jewish Conspiracy or any of the New World Order crap.  Energy surplus equals centralization and energy decline equals decentralization.  PERIOD!  You don’t have centralization as surplus turns to deficits.  So let me ask you two questions.  Who used nuclear weapons?  Arab terrorists?  Or the US?  And who has used domestic terrorists to topple dozens of countries?  Arab immigrants?  Or the US?  These are not conspiracy theories.  This is history.  Every other government out there knows the US will nuke them if they so much as fart funny.  But they also know how successful domestic unrest can be.  So, while they won’t confront the US frontally, how hard is it to believe that other countries could easily be using Soros as a front man ( he wouldn’t even have to know-they just use his greed.  I have a hard time believing a rich puke just spends money because he can on social engineering.  I have a much easier time believing he makes more that he spends ).  A foreign intelligence agency with billions of US dollars it can use ( and must get rid of while they hold value ) to overthrow an enemy that will nuke them, how hard is that to believe?

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Because domestic unrest is simply home grown discontent/revolution.  It has no target to nuke.  I used to work for a crotchety old guy that was quite intelligent ( he was a medical doctor ) but had no problems reading and believing The Spotlight ( populists ).  He held that MLK was a communist run revolutionary.  You know, all peace and love in theory but social disruption, anarchy, lawlessness in practice.  Anymore, I wonder if he was on to something there.  The KGB could easily run willing idiots who were completely unaware they were being used for other more nefarious purposes.  So why couldn’t we be seeing a repeat now?  Is it so hard to believe? Why was there Leftist revolution in the 1960’s, a time of comparable economic growth, and none in 2000 when Shrub got elected? Foreign government intervention certainly seems plausible.  If it wasn’t economic destitution that caused revolt ( I’m certainly not saying the ‘60’s didn’t experience economic decline, just that then was much better compared to now and the worldwide demonstrations speak of coordination and an expense account ) then what other factor could it be?  The Soviets tried to undermine us from within then, in theory, and so why not now?

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They aren’t doing it from ideology or some Marxist revolutionary fervor but out of sheer survival at this point.  Not just because of the fear of nuclear weapons but also because we are showing little signs of letting go of our share of the resources and other countries need them just as we do.  As the pie shrinks more eaters fight for a bigger portion.  What makes you think that the US will retain control of most of the world’s oil until it is all gone? We are already rapidly losing control of the PetroDollar, and when that happens our economy is toast.  No imports means we starve ( fuel is food in the Oil Age-and we import the majority of our fuel ).  And so far, China and Russia have been very careful supplanting the Dollar.  Why couldn’t they speed things up if it was safe and relatively cheap?  I’m not saying this is what IS happening, but it certainly COULD ( or, can be ).  Just more fuel for paranoia.

END

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page.  IF YOU DON’T SEE THE AD, DISABLE AD BLOCK ( go to the Ad Blocker while on my page and scroll down the menu to “disable this site” ). You can purchase anything, not just the linked item. Enter Amazon through my item link and then go to whatever other item you desire. As long as you don’t leave Amazon until after the order is placed, I get credit for your purchase.  For those that can’t get the ads because they are blocked by your software, just PayPal me occasionally or buy me something from my Amazon Wish List once a year.  Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for mere Book Money, so do your part.*** 
*Contact Information*  Links To Other Blogs *  Land In Elko*  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com           *wal-mart wheat
*Link To All My Published Books
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

too good to be true

TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE

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note: last year's Amazon Commission fees were $2k.  Thank you one and all!  All book sales were $125.  $10 a month is NOT worth the disadvantages filing taxes for it brings.  Therefor, all my books are now being sold at cost with zero profit for myself.  e-books go from $1.25 to .99 and paper books are at the minimum price-usually at least 50% less than before.  As a result all the books are now sold from Lulu.com rather than on Kindle.  All the book links are at my web site:
www.bisonprepper.com 
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Now, I certainly know for a fact that none of you have fallen for the e-mail scam that is supposedly from a Nigerian prince needing to claim his fortune with your help.  All you needed to do was give him your Social Security ( “don’t call me a national ID” ) Number and bank account and he will gladly shall in this windfall since you were nice enough to help him.  And I doubt although I cannot prove that few of you would will all your worldly possessions to the televangelist that talks in tongues.  I’m trusting and hoping that if your parents didn’t teach you that If Something Seems Too Good To Be True, You Can Be Certain It Is, at least after being screwed a time or two you finally learned your lesson.  When I suddenly found a very bodacious buxomly lass in my bed at the young age of 26, I SHOULD have known it was too good to be true, but alas my Little Brain being the dingus he is would brook no argument as the lady offered me her charms.  That only took roughly half my adult lifespan to pay for, the price one is charged for a REAL education.

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When everyone and his brother started telling you that This Time Was Different, that housing prices would always increase ( as they had seemingly magically done in California for close to a century ), did you think that was Too Good To Be True?  I trust that if any of my readers, who I expect great things from and shan’t brook any nonsense from about Yuppie Scum Survivalism, actually did fall for it that they had no choice as a wife as evil as my ex forced you into it ( that shall be your only excused excuse ).  The only reason California had the mirage of ever increasing housing costs was both from state/fed subsidized water imports, a one off soil draw down and federal money pouring in.  Plus, they had a lot of oil there at one time and all newcomers could live further and further away on desert land so as to be able to afford a home themselves.  And the only reason the nation itself saw insane housing prices was the last credit binge the central banks unloosed on every single swinging Jack and Jill out there.

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Even if you weren’t aware of any of that, were you leery nonetheless?  I hope so, for your sake.  And if you did treat the housing boom as the bubble it was, did you fall for the fracking fiasco right after?  It didn’t take very long for the naysayers to pop out of the Blogger woodwork and show you what a complete scam that was.  As soon as Beck & Company embarrassed themselves cheerleading for the century minimum Oil Independence, we were shown the figures from the most hyped wells that proved fracking was at most about a three year bonanza.  And not a very cheap one at that.  If you still have any illusions that ( USA! USA! USA! ) we will be the new Saudi Arabia ( which, really is NOT what you want to aspire to as they were cutting their prime wells with 90% seawater TEN YEARS AGO to get out the dregs-they only avoided production declines by moving offshore and pumping less sweet crude ), that should have dissuaded you.  If not, there is always the EROI.

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Okay, technically it might be EROEI, but, whatever.  Energy return on energy invested is such a simple concept you have to be stoned to miss it.  If it takes MORE energy to get carbon fuel out of the ground, you get LESS energy to burn.  Kind of like, The More People There Are, The Less Food There Is To Go Around.  You can slap all the lipstick you want on that pig, but you are still looking at swine, not a prom date.  So, let’s look at EROI, shall we?  I covered this already, but I don’t think I got through to most of you ( with, you know, most states going legal on weed, I wouldn’t doubt most of you are stoned as you read this ).  So we’ll look at it in a different way.  In 1930 we were pumping 7 mbpd ( million barrels per day ) and had a population of 123 million.  Hence, every day each citizens share of the oil was .06 barrels.  In 2015 we were pumping 20 mbpd ( actually, I think we were down to about 18, but rounding up makes for better numbers ) with a population of 320 million.  Still .06 barrels per person.  No problems, right?

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Wrong.  Because back in the day, with super giant fields ( there is a classing system where this is an actual designation-I’m not making it up as if to say “super groovy” or some such ) gushing oil all over the place-Texas and California and etc.-was so easy to extract and process that the EROI was 100 to 1.  By 1970 US domestic oil was down to 30 to 1 ( which might explain far better the economic class warfare from the Sixties than any sociological explanation-if energy was declining in delivered BTU’s, less to fuel growth to placate the minority masses.  Not that the meat grinder of Vietnam helped all that much ).  Today, with the incredibly bad 5 to 1 of fracking oil, even importing better EROI oil doesn’t expand the total mix of consumables past 10 to 1.  We are ONE TENTH the useable energy per capita as we were a hundred years ago.  That means that even if each person sees in their hypothetical share the exact same as always, that volume delivers only ten percent of useable energy as it used to. 

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And you think that argues for continued economic prosperity?  Continued employment?  The only reason we aren’t even worse off is that we still are holding the reserve currency globally ( BARELY.  I believe that any friggin day now, that whole system implodes.  A dozen years ago we invaded Iraq to keep them from selling oil for Euro’s.  Since then, more and more countries are trading outside the dollar and we can’t say boo.  Just a few days ago Japan-our Japan-agreed to trade in the Chinese centric system.  If foreigners don’t trade oil for dollars, we can’t get any oil! ).  The Oil Age is in decline.  Big time.  To think it won’t get very bad very quick is to dream of things too good to be true.

END

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pampered peasant book 1

PAMPERED PEASANT BOOK 1

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note: well written book on military life.  Nothing has changed except for the worse since I was in lo these many moons ago. 
http://amzn.to/2lwD9MF
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INTRODUCTION

“The Alpha Strategy” was a book back from the ‘70’s or ‘80’s that dwelt with the strange new first ever end of the Industrial Age for this country.  While our country certainly didn’t spring forth as a result of the new carbon fuel economy, it had so many resources to get itself started that the Revolution to a certain extent did seamlessly merge into manufacturing.  Okay, we had to fight a civil war to place those pesky farmers in their place ( I mean, come on!  Swamp plantation owners equal to genteel Yankees?  The nerve!  We’ll just throw the German and Irish immigrants into battle to defeat those uppity negro owners and at best they can hope to be the new overseers of our brand spanking new colony.  Then we’ll claim it was all about freeing the colored folk to mask our robbery.  Hell, we hate those people more than the Southerners-even have laws on the books making it illegal for them to live up here with us WASP’s.  It will be a good joke on everyone ) and get the powers of government behind industrialization.  It doesn’t really work otherwise.

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The first industrial economies were mercantilists and central banks created financing so rather than capital for investment you merely needed the interest payment amount.  Colonies provided the free resources ( with just a few soldiers to guard your investment ) and civilians provided both the taxes to pay the loans used for industry but also the warm bodies for the cannon fodder.  If you were at the top of the government, banking pyramid or corporate ladder, it was a sweet deal indeed.  Now, after a few shaky starts, the elite noticed that if they didn’t allow about 10% of the total wealth they grasped in their greedy little corpulent fists to trickle down to all the worker bees, unpleasant things like revolutions occurred ( such as the French one, where the idiots thought the peasants starving would lack the energy to fight.  The American one was not about the little people revolting but the indigenous elite using the masses to wrest control from the original elite.  They dressed it up in patriotic glitter and it works so well that even today those screeching about retaining their rights call for its repeat.  So, I suppose, they voted for Trump who is all about money-but he is crass enough to pass for an un-elite ).

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The wonderful thing about our one off carbon fuel supply economy is that, hey, even just 10% of the wealth for the other 99% of us still is a GIANT amount of treasure.  It got everyone a job ( starting during the Great Depression, most jobs were government backed.  Like all mobsters, the government collected a third of the paycheck as a bribe for us to keep the job.  Since then, little has changed other than we don’t work for the civil service but for a “private sector” nicely disguised by being a layer or three removed from Uncle Sam.  But the majority of jobs are from the imperial masters or the local lackey’s ) and a car ( only after the peak of oil has it become difficult for everyone to own a vehicle-even ghetto dwelling minorities ) and central heat and air and multi-channeled television.  The proletariat was mostly satisfied ( when the Blacks got peeved about lack of equitable sharing, we shoveled bribe money into the ghettos before the ashes from the buildings burned in protest even cooled down ).

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The problem with our empire at that time was that it was founded on manufacturing.  Every problem relied on throwing goods at it.  And then, suddenly, we saw a decline in the increase in energy to manufacture.  And just as suddenly, our entire growth based manufacturing economy was taking a Big Flush.  All it took was a slight decrease in our oil supply, and everything came to a screeching halt.  The war in Vietnam, the space program, our entire economy.  At the time, The End Was Nigh.  Luckily for us, we had some smart folks behind the curtain who seemingly already had the answer, and that quick our economy went from domestic energy and manufacture to foreign energy under our control and exported manufacturing which were paid for by the same worthless paper currency we got to use for that imported energy.  Instead of working hard at manufacturing machines, we sat behind a desk and pushed the button on a printing press. 

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Well, as you might imagine, there was suddenly no need for factory workers.  Again, almost seemingly overnight, the machines were shipped overseas, mass layoffs became the norm and a few math nerds in California saw a great market for robots and software that would displace the remaining manufacturing jobs as quick as possible ( so, yes, Silicon Valley was the epicenter for hollowing out the remaining employed after the ’70’s-and we celebrate their brilliance.  We really are embarrassingly retarded.  He says as he types and publishes electronically ).  It wasn’t all catastrophic.  We had Saudi Arabian, then Alaskan and North Sea, them immediately following, Siberian gushing free oil to keep enough wealth in the hands of the 99% to keep our financial economy afloat.  That ended when the Great Ponzi Scheme Of ‘00’s imploded.  But we get ahead of ourselves.  Back forty years ago, as our industrial economy was imploding, the only way of life anyone knew was suddenly over.  A book on how to beat the death of manufacturing was most welcome.

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Most of that book was economics, but one section was on stockpiling industrial items, manufactured goods.  It was a strategy for beating inflation by stocking as many long life items as possible for as long as possible, hence saving the difference in consumer items costs.  In retrospect, for someone with way too much time on their hands and a vivid imagination, it seems to be subliminally a way to beat the end of our factories.  With a lifetime supply of light bulbs or tinfoil or whatever, you didn’t need to be as concerned the oil was running out and the industrial economy was ended.  Next time, introduction continued.

END

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page.  IF YOU DON’T SEE THE AD, DISABLE AD BLOCK ( go to the Ad Blocker while on my page and scroll down the menu to “disable this site” ). You can purchase anything, not just the linked item. Enter Amazon through my item link and then go to whatever other item you desire. As long as you don’t leave Amazon until after the order is placed, I get credit for your purchase.  For those that can’t get the ads because they are blocked by your software, just PayPal me occasionally or buy me something from my Amazon Wish List once a year.  Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for mere Book Money, so do your part.*** 
*Contact Information*  Links To Other Blogs *  Land In Elko*  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com           *wal-mart wheat
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* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

druid doomer denier

DRUID DOOMER DENIER

Just as Commander Zero gave me plenty to write about a few weeks ago when he suggested that every prepper tool should cost at least a days wages if you were to be considered worthy of saving, now the Druid Dude is up to his usual deriding all claims of doomers that The End Is Nigh And We Are All Going To Die.  He doesn’t deny that the end is indeed nigh, but his unrealistically optimistic ray of sunshine blowing out of his ass blinding most of his readers gives the illusion that once you embrace permiculture gardening you shall be a happy little peasant serfing ( intentional misspelling ) the collapse in style.  As I’ve said more than once, the Druid Dude is forever in my limited bro-mance circle, from having introduced me to the pretty close to one book fits all doomer needs “Overshoot” by Clatton.  The Druid Dude is far smarter than I, yet having the same source material refuses to acknowledge that pessimism is the order of the day.  That is our fundamental difference.  Like a close member of your family, you love him even as you admit he’s kind of a douche.

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Last week ( start of February, 2017 ) he was yet again hating on the Calamity Corps for ignoring history.  He unfolded the cycles of history to prove to us that empires fell and rose and civilizations collapses as others prospered.  End result, while the economic collapse will be painful it will be business as usual in a pre-carbon fuel way ( the gist of his stair step collapse theory ).  Now, if I was one of the faithful for this kind of soft collapse, I think I’d be a bit pissed that while the Druid Dude is entirely correct, it is only in the macro sense.  Some areas will be less effected than others, but those areas suffering the most will primarily be where all his readers will be.  They will experience a Rwanda circa the ‘90‘s, not a Great Britain who signed over its colonies more or less peacefully and settled into a Forever Crap Economy.  I’ve pointed this out several times, and you would be a fool to ignore the end of oil ushering in the end of oil based agriculture with STILL increasing overpopulation even if the rate of increase has fallen.  The Druid Dude has such a wonderful grasp of history that he is only seeing the big long term picture and ignores the immediate horrid journey to get there.

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I look at history in a generalist way.  And looking at the collapse of empires, you always see a near complete die-off.  Humanity in general is never, ever threatened.  But the imperial citizenry is pretty much double dog dingus humped.  Our imperial implosion will indeed be just like any other in history, just as the Druid Dude ascertains.  Which means that the center imperial nation is wiped off the map with only a minimum of successful escapees.  Population will be severely reduced.  Because one of the defining characteristics of collapsing civilizations is denuded soil.  That means you can’t feed your people.  Yes, we will return to decentralized organic farming.  AFTER the friggin die-off!!!  Sweet Baby Jesus On A Pogo Stick!  90%+ die-offs are absolutely no picnic.  They usually include close enough to everybody that you should just count on being part of the body count, a twisted bleeding corpse surrounded by your semi-auto weapons in the suburbs. 

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The Four Corners feathers not dots Indians had a nice civilization going on.  Then the long term precipitation changed and they couldn’t grow enough crops to survive.  Let alone build.  Only a few percentage escaped ( writers of said civilization like to give Happy Joy Hope that they all dispersed to neighboring villages and were greeted by distant family members with open arms.  This is a great theory, if we assume the weather didn’t change there for the worse-which to me seems like a lot to assume ).  The Mayans had a swell civilization going on in the jungles of Central America.  Then the rains stopped and the area never recovered.  Greece never recovered for two thousands years plus after they destroyed their farmland from overpopulation.  When the Spanish visited the Inca’s, those who survived the diseases were quickly killed off in the silver mines.  The Mongols had no problem accepting unconditional surrender, but if not they could easily kill every single non-new slave in an entire metropolis.  Now, granted, the last two examples were unlimited warfare rather than civilizations destroying themselves from resource exhaustion, but just like Rome that is usually just the slightly quicker collapse of an empire/civilization already on its way through decline.

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Going by historical example, as the Druid Dude wishes us to do, you might notice that the end is usually full of slaughter and starvation, disease and enslavement.  Not happy peasants tending their perennials in blissful contact with Mother Earth.  Why, oh why, great exalted Poo-Ba of the Druid Order, must you show me how much you hate me, when all I do is shower you with love and buy all your books to support your further research?  And, ah, yes, this time will be different.  Not because history won’t fulfill another cycle, because it will, but because the entire globe is now a resource collapse area once the oil stops pumping.  The dark ages will last about a thousand years, given the time it takes soil to rejuvenate.  At least in the fortunate areas.  How about that for a slight disruption of the historical cycles?  Yes, it will resume at a much later date.  But I certainly don’t call that a soft collapse.  I don’t call it a return to normalcy after a fall, not when the whole planet will see such a huge die-off. 

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Eventually, yes, all will be well once population drastically falls below solar economy output.  Then after that Dark Age we will indeed restart the whole ugly cycle.  And yes, during that Dark Age, family life will function as biologically normal.  But you can’t discount the die-off, because without it family life CANNOT return to normal.  And a 99% die-off is nothing other than a calamity.  Only by stretching out the time frame and averaging out deaths does it turn into background noise.  For those boots on the ground, at the time, the noise will be hideous.  And to think the die-off will last generations?  How can you think that when the oil won’t last that long ( and all our food is oil based, yo )?

END

 

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page.  IF YOU DON’T SEE THE AD, DISABLE AD BLOCK ( go to the Ad Blocker while on my page and scroll down the menu to “disable this site” ). You can purchase anything, not just the linked item. Enter Amazon through my item link and then go to whatever other item you desire. As long as you don’t leave Amazon until after the order is placed, I get credit for your purchase.  For those that can’t get the ads because they are blocked by your software, just PayPal me occasionally or buy me something from my Amazon Wish List once a year.  Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for mere Book Money, so do your part.*** 
*Contact Information*  Links To Other Blogs *  Land In Elko*  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com           *wal-mart wheat
*Link To All My Published Books
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there