Bison Prepper

Friday, January 8, 2016

old school safety razor

OLD SCHOOL SAFETY RAZORS

Note: minion dude who gave me this article idea, along with “biggest mistake in prepping” and “will the world go on sale”, do you have any more? Obviously, our interests coincide.

Wayyyy back in oldy times, when I was writing The Bison Newsletter ( my weekly e-mail newsletter in the early ‘00’s ), I ventured my opinion on straight razors. I bought a butt load on sale of stainless steel units for barter and used one, being not at all too sharp, to teach myself how to use it. I not only got an article out of it, and a cheap stockpile, but a loving minion sent me a real carbon steel straight razor. Now I had a Forever Razor, a nice back up, but the things still scared the crap out of me and so I started stocking up on disposable razors. Ten cents each every day and on sale at the dollar store, five cents ( this was ten years ago-don’t hurt yourself trying to find nickel razors now ) sometimes. If I live to over eighty and never buy another disposable razor I’d still be able to shave ( right now I use them three times a week, the other three a travel electric that goes for a mere $12 and uses just two AA batteries which last over a month- minus the electric I’d return to just three shaves a week ) until I died. The one tool I bought, besides a shaving brush, was a Shavr Razr from Lehmans.com ( they now go by the generic name “Sharpener For Disposable Razors” ).

As the name says, these sharpen up disposables and allow you to use them two or three dozen times if not longer. I actually don‘t know as I throw the blade away when the lubricating strip is rubbed away, which is before the razor gets dull. I can be this extravagant now, prior to the collapse, but rest assured when I have to they will go as long as possible. I allow ten razors a year, but I use less than that even when I don’t use the sharpener. If I did, a dollar pack of ten might last me two years ( I allot ten a year for stockpiling planning purposes. One pack a year, one buck a year, one stuffed plastic bag of bags of razors good for a lifetime [ I leave them in the regular package for extra moisture proofing as they are stored under my bathroom sink ] ).

As great as this strategy is, it suffers from inflation ( and before you mention it, yes, I know some of you are studly with beards. While I refuse to do away with my soup strainer, I can’t personally abide a beard. On me, it looks stupid and itches. When it takes a grand total of $60 to shave the rest of my life, I think shaving is an affordable luxury ). It is nearly impossible to find disposables under twenty cents now. You used to be able to buy double blades with lubricating strip for ten cents each. Then, they offered double blades without the strip at a dime. Then, it went to twenty cents. Now, if you are lucky enough to find them, you must buy the single blades if you want them at a dime. Well, one caveat, I haven’t been to a Dollar Tree in a year and a half, so I might be wrong. But no where else am I finding the old price. Unless I drive two hundred miles, that price ain’t happening.

New strategy, same as the old strategy, the old school safety razor ( unscrew the top, drop in blade ). You can go to-wait for it!-Amazon, and buy the razor for $10 and a pack of a hundred blades for $9. The old timers sharpened these blades ( the thin double sided blades ) by running them along the inside of a drinking glass ( one assumes you could use a mirror or a pane of glass ) when their supplies ran low. Just search in Amazon under “single blade safety razor” and the razors and blades will show up. Since the Lehman’s sharpener is nearly twenty bucks and the disposables are mostly twenty cents each, the safety razor way is half as expensive. And takes up way less room. And, allows you to buy under my top-o-da-blog ad for an Amazon commission. Now, I’m not sure what precautions you must follow to keep these from rusting in storage, or if that is even an issue. Also, you should have another razor as a back-up. But other than that, and the issue of having a single blade to shave with rather than a double ( as with a disposable ), I can only see beautiful things frugality wise by going with the old school safety razor.

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Thursday, January 7, 2016

fire sale 4 of 4

FIRE SALE 4

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The Lost Regiment Series is in my top twenty list for post-apocalypse fiction as it depicts building a 19th century industrial society from the ground up. The first book of the series, Rally Cry, is now on Kindle.
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Inflation is fixing to hit us out of the blue, Obammy Health Care style. Unemployment will continue to rise as companies are so far in debt they can’t make a profit and layoffs, cutting into meat and bone-the fat long gone, just continue regardless. More folks work less hours so their employer can avoid health insurance, but still pay more out in fines as the earning maximum to avoid them is far too low for any of us to survive on ( I could live on less than gross $10k a year quite easily, but it isn’t much of a life at all. Rent, food and helping out my kids are all about $200 a month each, nobodies idea of splurging, and that leaves me less than that amount for myself. Add in taxes and you are already at $10k ). And last but not least, purchasing power is declining. Package size shrinks, something that you bought a pound of for decades suddenly selling in 15oz sizes. What used to be real foods are now monstrosities ( pink slime in hamburger, wood cellulose a bonus ). More and more is plastic rather than metal, leaving simple parts to break that ruin the whole item ( cheap plastic holding in batteries under tension, the loss of the door leaving no way to provide it ). As cars increase in price, their plastic parts becoming more and more fragile and expensive. Transmissions now costing what a car did twenty years ago. And on and on. The point is, desperation is guiding these decisions. Again, profit margins are razor thin for everyone but central bankers. Who can afford to mark down anything?

So, why wouldn’t that change in the future? Did you see any houses marked down drastically in ‘09? Of course not. They didn’t sell them, so as to keep prices high. Just like with the out of date foods. Everyone is maxed out in debt and nobody can afford to cut wages or cut prices. Why would that change just because sales declined? Sales have been declining. For a long time. Yet, no one in business is slashing prices. Employees are getting slashed. Quality is being slashed. But not prices. This is your inflation, disguised. It isn’t higher because of the other cuts. Now, throw in REAL inflation, after the petrodollar collapse. Prices raise. No sales. Prices just go up. The best you can hope for is prices lag a little here or there in their increase. If nobody is living below their means, nobody can slash their income. Prices are income. Inflation is going to get worse, not better, and there are more than one kind of inflation. Like resource contraction inflation. Debt driven inflation. You haven’t even seen pure monetary inflation in a truly horrific amount. Not yet. You will.

Buy tangibles now, not later. Later the prices just go up. Resource contraction and the failure of capitalism due to energy decline ( the decline in oil price is short lived due to the “surprise” of global demand contraction. It will go back up once the low prices drive out producers. Why a fire sale in oil and no where else? It is a perishable commodity to some extent, dictated by storage capacity. Most other commodities have a longer shelf life or just are not created if demand declines. Will other items behave like oil, at least on the short term? Perhaps, but these low oil prices are a one-off event. A consumer can’t stockpile much gas. But houses can sit, as can auto’s or what have you. There isn’t the immediate pressure necessitating a fire sale like with oil. Also, oil was until recently, higher priced. The profit margins were not razor thin so prices could fall. Most other saleables don’t have that leeway ) are putting relentless pressure upwards on prices. It isn’t a guarantee, but a clear direction I wouldn’t bet against.

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Wednesday, January 6, 2016

fire sale 3 of 4

FIRE SALE 3
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CURSES! Why haven't ALL my minions bought my Malthusian Survivalist Newsletter #6?
Does my breath smell? click here to buy, you bastards
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After a LOT of work, you are welcome you ingrates, I've got all my books and their links squared away. I've published a second "sweet survivalist six pack" of books ( I had to remove the bonus 7th book from the first collection, move it to the second and then compile the "Consuming To Invest" book to make enough available ). The "Frugal Survivalist" is back in Kindle, for a buck. I have links to all the periodicals from the last 15 years. This is all on my main web page, down a bit and in the middle under "My Writing". As you of course now can see over to your right on this blog, the web site is www.bisonprepper.com
I keep updating the Links To Others, on the web site. And, thank you minions for your help, I've added more Amazon links to this blog and am updating the top three every day and will change the rest-except the bottom three which are the main important items-once a week.
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You know unemployment is going to continue to increase. If the petroleum growth which was necessary for economic growth is over and done with as oil supplies contract, and only quantitative easing kept the stock market looking good ( NOT economic growth ), AND global economic activity is taking a big stinking squishy dump, so that even consumption and jobs connected with imports are not providing employment, why in the name of all that is holy and just can you imagine that there will be job

growth, less layoffs or anything other than more 1930’s era Great Depression levels of unemployment? Which, honestly, we are pretty much at already so that can only get much worse. What do you need to convince you your job is in danger? 50% unemployment? 50% inflation? Oil imports down by half? If unemployment is increasing, wouldn’t consumer spending be falling? There are less paychecks to go around, so less people are shopping. And they aren’t shopping for bargains outside a few small percentage points measured in the tens of one, because almost nobody saves anymore ( not a bad strategy, because you just know Uncle Obammy or Aunt Hilary are going to crank up the printing presses to pay the interest on the national debt after the petrodollar collapse. That will be the only money coming in ). Everyone, or near enough, is in a negative cash flow due to debt. Hell, nobody even remembers how to budget anymore.

You and I, part of that .00001% truly believing in collapse ( preppers are NOT part of that number-they only worry about preserving their luxurious middle class lifestyle, which, newsflash, is an endangered species no matter what they do anyway, and only prep to avoid interruptions of said luxuries. They don’t prep to survive complete collapse ), lives below our means and are close enough to out of debt that we defy the norm, but the economy is run for the norm. Not us. Every company is up to their eyeballs in debt, almost all of them past the point of debt helping business and instead are doing nothing but trying to survive the stranglehold of said debt. They are not in business for profit, but survival. All because of too much debt. And the same with households. Who has extra money for sales? Who can afford to sell at sale prices? Remember when I was bragging to you how I found wool socks for a $1 at the dollar store, an unbelievable bargain? How long ago was that? Two, three years? I’m one of the tightest people you know, and I’m always on the lookout for real, solid sales. Real bargains. And they simple don’t exist anymore. The sales today are very brief returns of last years prices. But those prices are still two or three times what we consider the norm. Things are simply getting worse, all over and all around, and the dynamics are not the same as before. Nobody is selling below cost ( grocery loss leaders might give up most of their mark-up, but no one is losing money ). Why do you think the Food Bank is doing such a booming business? The stores don’t want to fire sale and cannibalize regular profits. They make more by giving us the out-of-dates.

More Next Article

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Tuesday, January 5, 2016

fire sale 2 of 4

FIRE SALE? 2

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note: Malthusian Survivalist Newsletter #6 is already on sale, it has been on sale for like, practically a week, and you have yet to buy it? What is wrong with you? CLICK HERE NOWWWWW!
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We just covered current retail practices which negate the possibility of fire sales. Will anything change so that the dynamics differ? Again, no. We can look forward to more inflation, especially once the Petro-Dollar takes a few more hits. Unemployment will continue to increase. Purchasing power to continue to dip. Even if oil prices stay down, transportation costs will increase so even less inventory will be on hand. In short, this ain’t your daddy’s economy and our consumer based economy is on the way out ( to be replaced by die-off and subsistence farming ). Consumerism was nothing more than a profit and employment substitution for an industrial economy and since we were consuming petroleum ( in the form of plastics, energy to form silicone and energy to extract the last of the diffuse ores ), once oil started to contract in supply, so does our economy. If we were still running factories the same would have happened ( now, look at China. Global demand destruction is idling factory production. Do you see fire sales? Of course not. Every mark-up in the food chain is razor thin and everyone is financed to the max. There isn’t any discounts in price if you would be selling below cost ) as they are also energy dependent. Factories, retailers, they are all at the same petro teat which is drying up.

( fracking oil was at most a 50% boost in our production. From five million barrels a day to seven and a half. We were importing 20 a day, then down to 18 after the ‘08 crash. 18 minus our production, which is continental conventional-Texas and Oklahoma production, stripper wells in California [ which used to be our #2 producer, but that was almost a hundred years ago ] and everything else in the lower 48- AND Alaska [ which is so far down in production from its peak there was danger to the actual pipeline from lack of volume ], AND Gulf Of Mexico deep well production AND fracking all combined was STILL leaving the need to import 60% of our daily petroleum use. Yet, globally, over half of the producers are in decline and most producing nations are seeing more domestic production going to a growing population which means less for export. AND, global production has already peaked and started to decline, if we take delivered BTU’s rather than total production- 70 mbpd, verses the reported 85. Prior to Peak 2005, we were at 75 mbpd globally. If you go by net energy, the figures are even worse ).

Our PetroDollar monopoly, getting Saudi Arabia to only accept US Dollars for oil, which at the time pressured OPEC to do the same, is clearly on its last legs. More and more countries are trading for Anything Other than Dollars ( AOD’s, my cute twist on IUD’s ). Countries we can’t invade to send a message to the others to tow the line, like China and Russia. It worked in Iraq, except then it didn’t work as instead of being fearful everyone started to fixate on getting out of the US orbit. The US drove most countries into the eastern axis, giving Chinese and Russian the geopolitical power they didn’t have yet. We shot ourselves in the foot, an easy thing to do when you run a country for profit rather than power ( such as when you piss away your petroleum on suburbs and vacations and bankers growth. Russia still has enough reserves to ensure military security, despite pissing a lot of it away for operating capital. They pissed away a lot less. Even their version of Vietnam used far less resources than our long distance failed war ). The Petro-dollar is doomed, and that is baked into the cake. Timing is the only question. Without the world subsidizing our economy by holding Treasuries ( which are used for petrol purchases, NOT as investment bonds ), inflation is going to get a lot worse. Even if you were to see fire sales, as improbable as that is, your stashed dollars for such an event will be inflated away to nothing.

More Next Article

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Monday, January 4, 2016

article 2 of 2 today

Article 2 of 2 Today

FIRE SALE?

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note: YOU BUY NOW!!! NOWWWWW!!!!! Malthusian Survivalist Newsletter #6
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A minion asked if I thought that there was going to be a time when everything went on super deluxe sale, everything must go we are going out of business, a nationwide fire sale on everything as everyone and every business was desperate for cash and so slashed the prices on everything. And if so, should you save cash to pick up these bargains? My short answer is of course, no, but the devil is in the details. Which, if you don’t agree with would change your answer if not mine. First, a bit of background. In our living memories, if not recently, this sort of thing happened from time to time for a lucky few. Arms dealers and the former Soviet Union. A garage sale at the end of the day which actually still had useable items left rather than the usual stained toddler clothes and broken plastic items ( which was about what the former Soviet citizens had to offer for sale as their pensions went unpaid ). An off day when no one was online and the seller on E-Bay had no idea what he was doing. But the norm seems to be that fire sales are rare. There are way too many merchants, wholesalers and retailers, brick and mortar or online, out there willing to buy inventory. You can’t compete with lot sales. There is planned obsolescence, so by the time an item no longer interests the seller it doesn’t even interest the buyer ( such as VHS tapes or older computers ), suggesting inventories are trashed after a certain point.

Then of course there is our old nemesis Just-In-Time Inventory ensuring that there is never enough extra inventory on hand for a fire sale to take place. Do you notice any Halloween candy going on sale in November anymore? I have a sneaking suspicion they send it back to be repackaged for Christmas candy, thousands of Bangladesh child workers ripping open spooky goblin M&M candy wrappings, depositing the candy back into giant crates where they are sent back to the plant that deposits them into elves and reindeer bags. Or, I could just be paranoid and there isn’t that much of a demand for candy anymore, not since corn goes into gas tanks now instead of into sweetener and the price of candy tripled and so less folks buy or give away candy and the companies have figured out to send minus X amount each year. But the point remains that there just isn’t all that much in the way of inventory hanging around creating a surplus. When our local dollar store ( not a national brand, just a regional one-I was too lazy to ever look up and see if it was just ours closing due to high rent or if it was the chain lacking financing or volume buying power and so going out of business ) closed it took a few truck trips to pick up most of the inventory left behind, but far fewer than you’d think given the store size ( it is now a Sears, after sitting vacant a couple of years-rents really are insane here which might be why all the idiots from California feel right at home ). Picture the cardboard bins that sit on a pallet and hold watermelons. We had about a dozen on those filled with loose merchandise, about half cookies and other dollar food. And they donated those rather than keep paying rent or employees to fire sale them. Leading one to believe once financial ruin sets in, getting pennies on the dollar costs too much ( of course, granted, this was a single event and might mean nothing ).

More Next Article

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article 1 of 2 today

ARTICLE 1 of 2 TODAY
Sportsman's Guide Kick-Ass Items
Sportsman's Guide just came out with a lot of insane bargains. I just dropped a $100 on cold weather gear, not including shipping. Here are the links:
wool trenchcoat $27
wool twat caps, 6 for $14
2 commie caps $14
6 pairs wool gloves $14
5 pairs Dickies brand wool blend socks $14
3 pairs wool dress pants ( warning: pant length will be short-I plan on tucking mine in to my high artic boots ) $14
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That is all. Article 2 today will be full length.

Friday, January 1, 2016

interweb

INTERWEB

Note: Happy New Year. This year is guaranteed to be far worse, so get ready to enjoy the ride. Far too much havoc is being loosed upon the land for it to be otherwise.
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The latest and greatest Malthusian Survivalist Newsletter is available. Click Here
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Some time ago, over wails of anguish and denial, the Druid Dude set out to show how subsidized and vulnerable the Internet was. In short, only a modern unique set of fortunate circumstances are allowing the Internet to consume such huge amounts of electricity and resources sold at bottom barrel prices to insatiable consumers. What I would like to add today is the parasitic nature of most of its users, besides the end consumer, to illustrate why those vulnerabilities will wreck the Web relatively quickly once economic forces are altered. If it happens independently of the general collapse this concerns me as my publishing is dependent upon its functioning ( I don’t know if I’d have enough subscribers to even justify buying a CD burner to send a monthly e-magazine through the mail ). If it happens as part of the bigger collapse then of course it is no big deal in the great scheme of things. You do have to admit, it is a bit scary how crack cocaine addicted we all have become on our computers hooked up to SkyNet. I wouldn’t miss e-mails ( the original function of the first Net was University communications to stop research duplication, not nuclear war communications survival as most assume. That might have been budgetary propaganda ) as mostly all I get is commercial mail. I would miss publishing, because before the Net, you had to pay to get readers. Not just advertising but actual publishing ink and paper and postage for them. Self-publishing was NOT a paying proposition. What is the point of writing if nobody reads you?

But most of us ARE news junkies on the web, and it provides nearly all our entertainment. Between shopping at Amazon for books and streaming Netflix, I’m as addicted to Internet entertainment as all those fools on Facebook and so we come to my main point about today’s reliance on the net. It IS entertainment far and above any of its other functions, the modern day television ( even heavily used by those who denounce TV as Lucifer’s Glass Enema ). There is no sense in subsidizing its existence outside of being the other vital half to our handlers of bread and circuses placating the masses. Right now, corporations profit off of its use while the proletariat is mesmerized by its warm glow, and we all know the ultimate fate of corporations in a trade war Peak Oil PetroDollar Death economy-eventual doom. In the meantime, companies use the Internet as another robot replacing workers-big time. The Post Office replaced pesky hard to sort and deliver first class mail and advertising catalogs with parcels. Without the Internet pimping online stores, they wouldn’t have enough business to stay in business. The only reason there are any Mom & Pop businesses left in this wretched economy is the Internet. They sure can’t afford rent for a retail business. Amazon, much to its surprise, found itself downloading over half its book sales rather than mailing physical copies of them ( Amazon couldn’t even have started without the net ). Newspapers have no one but themselves to blame for their demise, wretched content not worth anyone’s time let alone their money, but some can still limp along on the Internet.

Too many businesses are alive just because of for-all-intents-and-purposes free to use Internet. When the economy gets bad enough that those aren’t even in business ( you still need customers even if everything else is free to create and move about ), there is your signal the Internet is dead and just waiting to be buried ( one imagines the last subsidy to go will be the NSA propping up the data gatherers ). Most likely it will happen in our lifetimes ( and by “our” I mean my mostly 50+ year old readers-by the time we are old enough to prep properly we are almost too old to enjoy the collapse, mores the pity ).

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