super savings

SUPER SAVINGS

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note: free book, most excellent "1632" by Eric Flint, ties in with rebuilding society. click here  Not as good of a series as The Lost Regiment http://amzn.to/2B30aAZ as far as the subgenre, but the first Flint book is stand alone superb.  If you can't do a Kindle file, go to www.baen.com for free book downloads.
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Three years ago I wrote the book “Consuming To Invest”, which was how to turn your soon to be worthless paper currency into tools that could save you money ( to buy you more tools ) and make you more sustainable.  It was a step above mere consumables like ammo and wheat.  For instance, cloth diapers.  They pay for themselves very quickly and then they save you a butt metric ton of money.  Let’s say a cloth diaper costs $1.50 and throwing in pins and the plastic outer shell and a cloth insert to catch most solid matter adds another fifty cents to it.  $100 should be more than enough of an investment. 

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What are disposable diapers now?  About a quarter apiece?  Call it ten a day, every day for a year ( I can’t remember how long it took for my kids-is two years too long?  Let’s just say a year ).  $900 a year.  $60 a year going to the Laundromat on their Dollar Day, plus soap.  You’ve saved $750.  That can buy a lot of other tools such as a manual sewing machine ( which can be a business as well as savings-the point here is if the tool is more expensive than the labor, only then is it a business.  If you charge a dollar to fix a rip, no one is going to buy a $100 machine to DIY ), manual saw ( save hundreds from using a chainsaw, to buy…), galvanized stiff metal clothesline ( which saves the cost of owning and operating a clothes dryer which buys…), glass sheets for solar heating and cooking ( which saves you propane and electric which increases the saving into other tools ).

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 Think of your monthly budget as credit card debt.  With debt, you take the lowest payment and put extra towards paying it off.  Once you free up that payment, you place it towards paying off the next.  And so on until it is all paid quickly and painlessly.  If you don’t do this, you pay for thirty years until the principle is finally wiped out, an insane plan.  In your budget, you take one expense you can eliminate.  That takes investing in one tool.  Be in a rooftop antenna to replace cable, a bike with trailer and baskets to replace a car, etc.

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The difference between credit card debt and budget elimination is that the same amount will kill the debt, but with the budget, you make more money every time.  Once you get past the first hurdle, it becomes fun and games and eventually it turns into a “Hump You” budget.  The olden days plan was to make enough money to tell your job Hump You.  That is unrealistic in a contracting economy.  Now you must need so little to live you can tell your boss to Hump You. 

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But with that book, I don’t think I really covered eliminating professional services.  I went back and glanced at it quickly and saw nothing ( although I could be wrong.  I don’t remember what I wrote three days ago, let alone three years ).  Saving money on the plumber, HVAC guy, carpet layer, chimney sweep, wood supplier, etcetera, might be not just an option but a necessity.  If you are looking to increase your security by becoming self employed, you need to beware consumers making you obsolete.  Not because they want to, but because they have to.

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Am I the only one far enough removed to see the insane cost of living that is the average American lifestyle?  Can you not see the HUGE amount of fat that can be cut once it becomes necessary?  I tell you to stop driving, you tell me to get stuffed, yet nothing guarantees that you will be allowed to drive up to the start of the Apocalypse.  I won’t go off on a rant-I’ll just say Peak Oil, PetroDollar Collapse and hyperinflation.  And even if none of that were true, look at the unemployment numbers and globalization and the future of your job.  Isn’t that why you are looking to become self-employed?

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But that is NOT happening in a vacuum.  More folks are becoming unemployed or getting their hours cut.  More folks are paying 20% plus every year for less health insurance.  More folks are paying more for rent.  Why do you assume they will have the money to pay for your services, indefinitely?  Eventually they will be forced to watch YouTube videos and try to do it themselves.  Would Home Depot even be in business after the first housing bubble if folks weren’t Doing It Themselves?  In fact, you go on their web page, many, many products have the video right there on the page.

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Will Home Despot survive?  Of course not.  If I, self proclaimed and awarded World’s Cheapest Bastard will go ten miles out of my way to go to Ace Hardware and pay twice as much for both advice and help and better quality, because it is an investment which saves money anyway in the long run, how much longer will the flock of idiots stay wasting money at Despot?  Yeh, I know, they are still at Wal-Mart doing exactly that, as well as eating out, but that is because fiscally they actually have a choice right now.  My point is they won’t too much longer.

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Look at fast food restaurants, or actually any dinning out establishment.  It used to be that it was cheaper to eat out than eat in.  Your total calories were cheaper and tastier.  You had to be careful what you ordered, and where you ordered, but it wasn’t hard to beat the at home meat and potato cost.  When you could eat two burgers and fries for two bucks, that wasn’t possible to duplicate at home ( your oil would go rancid before it matched the cost per unit of the mass quantity provider ).

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When I first moved here there was a Mexican place that served Sonora style food ( yummy! ).  It was $4.50 plus tax for a burrito that oozed more meat than beans and literally filled the plate.  You could eat all the thin crispy chips with salsa you wanted while waiting. It was a dive building, cracked linoleum floors, terrible acoustics and an industrial line pay and serve.  It was right behind the library and as a treat I’d occasionally bring a book to read and pig out.  It was literally a days calories.  No way could I duplicate that shopping at the store.

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And remember, this was in a high rent, two hundred mile one way out of the way of everything high cost of living town, with the place on the main drag downtown.  The last time I went there, after all eateries everywhere had jacked up their prices, the same burrito was $7.  It was recently sold and rebranded,  and I’d hate to think of the price now that the cost of buying the business had to be included.  This was a mom and pop place.  You only needed two people to run it, the cook and the part time cashier/cooks helper.  I’m sure everything was from #10 cans ( but, oy!, was it tasty ).  But that couldn’t have counteracted the bulk buying discount the chain stores worked with.

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I could take a couple of articles to break down the causes of food price inflation, but let’s just leave it at Corporate Debt, Corn To Ethanol and Fuel BTU inflation.  And I understand that my figures could come undone if the bulk of shoppers return to market buying rather than restaurant eating ( there might be a discount to shopping at the market now, as they are forced to cut prices to compete with dining out ).  But for now, it is MUCH cheaper to eat at home than to eat out.  It just took a few specialty tools ( chest freezer, pots and pans, convection oven ).  I’m stating that this is the future of most goods and services.  Continued tomorrow.

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* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

 

DD 3 of 3

DISCOLORED DOOM 3

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note: want to learn to reload steel cases or turn Berden primered cases into Boxer?  Check out the YouTube channel The Ammo Channel click here
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Looking back on industrial infrastructure, creative destruction was in full bloom.  Where once water power was the first machine fuel, that was displaced by coal or even sometimes by wood ( or prior, wood was displaced by water ).  Steam coal power was replaced by petroleum or natural gas.  In most cases one area was abandoned and another closer to the new fuel source had its new infrastructure built up and the old area saw abandonment.  Think of the town and railroad of a tapped out gold mine rusting and falling down, and apply that to manufacturing. 

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Peak Oil wasn’t the only reason our factories moved overseas.  We had already encouraged steel mills elsewhere to account for the Peak Iron Ore here.  But what those early mills showed us was that our fifty year plus old plants were inefficient compared to the newer ones.  They were closer to the ore, they used less energy and as a bonus labor was cheaper.  Domestic Peak Oil was an isolated event that pushed the factories out that were already headed there.  Now, take that manufacturing issue and apply it to all other infrastructure such as roads and water and sewer lines and electrical generation and airports and finance.  Because most of the rest of the world either had zero modern infrastructure ( based on oil consumption ) or had it destroyed by the war, everybody got brand new crap. 

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Whereas the US was still using all infrastructure ( not just manufacturing ) from the beginning of the petroleum age.

This accounts for some of the disparity between ours and most other locations, infrastructure wise.  They started building everything when ours was already thirty to fifty years old.  And most of what we had built was already forecasted to be obsolete not too long after the war anyway.  The fact it has lasted this long with minimal issues is testament to the far better materials and labor used a century ago ( or longer ). 

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Yet not everything built new after 1945 was the same quality as 1900 ( World War One was largely a rural rather than urban destruction ).  To some extent it was certainly superior to anything built today, but there was also a quantity verses quality issue.  Most of the world had to be paved over, built up, dammed, connected with electricity and the like.  There was independence from the old empire, so, for instance, Indian wealth stayed at home rather than being diverted to Britain.  Even First World nations like Canada built up infrastructure.  We all know the story of China building up from a rural Japanese colony to the factory to the world.  They started even later, but they kept the pace of infrastructure construction going.

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The destruction of WWII wiped out almost all quality infrastructure in the industrial world ( Britain’s had been even older than ours and been decaying from an earlier start.  Bombing just ended the process-with the Pound Sterling dead before that ).  What replaced it was of lesser quality but allowed excess quantity ( cement went from centuries old Roman to decades long rebar supported.  Building went from massive iron beams to thin steel and window walls.  Sewers went from bricked tunnels to plastic pipe.  Even the best replacements don’t have longevity ).  When old tech is bypassed by new, when the old wasn’t available such as phone lines in Africa, it is plastic and silicon and is delicate by nature.

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Everything new was shiny and bright, but it also will not last as long as the old over engineered and overbuilt everything we in the US are still relying on fifty years past their pull date.  Not only that, the new build, but also factor in military spending.  Most of the rest of the world spends little above nuclear deterrence and national police forces for their military.  Sure, the Dutch send over a military unit to help out in Afghanistan as part of NATO pressure.  Then they stay at base, not fighting.  Why should they?  One engagement gone wrong and almost their entire infantry structure for the whole military is wiped out!

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Almost all spending and manufacture is dedicated to military uses these days in the US.  Other countries keep the water from being poisoned ( unlike Dearborn Michigan and Anywhere USA fracking ) because they don’t have that expense.  You can’t accuse them of “not paying their share to ensure Freedom/Democracy” when you never wanted them challenging your hegemony to begin with and didn’t allow their military to grow ( Japan, Germany ). 

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Okay, so most other places have new-ish infrastructures, and economies not wiped out in military spending.  And they don’t need US Dollars because they are butt paper as soon as they aren’t good for buying oil.  Doesn’t that give the rest of the world a head start from our collapse?  Unfortunately, no.  Newer infrastructure is not built solid.  Everything was built to take oil.  The reason our infrastructure is neglected is because there are NOT the resources to fix or replace.  And the only thing keeping the oil flowing is secure trade and banking. 

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If their infrastructure is now oil based, because the new build up decimated the pre-petroleum infrastructure, and the Spice Stop Flowing, they are in just as bad of a place as we are now.  As crappy of a deal as the PetroDollar is for everyone else, our greedy banks and our incompetent military still allow global trade.  The structure of Global Policeman is always necessary for trade.  Without them, you get Somali Pirates everywhere and nothing gets delivered cheaply enough that the market can bear the extra. 

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No, we are NOT an effective Global Policeman anymore.  We really haven’t been for some time.  If we were, there would not be the Chinese non-naval carbon fuel infrastructure being built at huge cost ( the infrastructure of China is especially fast and flimsy and they need the fuel to keep it all running, performing the same short sided fuel inefficiency for cheaper upfront cost we did ).  They aren’t JUST building it because they want energy independence but because we can’t be as protective of trade as we were.  Our Policeman role has degraded a lot.  This ain’t your grandpappy’s multi-thousand ship navy anymore ( with, you know, ships and personnel that actually performed to a minimum standard ).

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As crappy as our banking and military industry is, they perform somewhat.  Now imagine that absence ( another reason for Chinese alternate trade systems-not just militarily or economic.  Without credit and financing AND a military protection, trade doesn’t happen ).  So, I’m not claiming that without the US the rest of the world collapses.  I’m saying without infrastructure in place the rest of the world collapses.  If there was an infrastructure ( don’t JUST think pipes and wires.  Finances and payment systems are also infrastructure.  They don’t collapse from poor material, but from diminishing returns and lack of the material infrastructure supporting it, like communications and military protection ) that could take its place, it would all transition.

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But there ISN’T an infrastructure to take its place, such as when an oil economy took over from a coal economy ( the US from Britain ).  Not only do we NOT have another petroleum empire to take over, we probably won’t even have a functioning coal empire ( China ).  Just to maintain, forget growth, what we have now we need petroleum.  Which is in decline Net Energy wise.  Regional economies can survive, but not a global economy.  Which is an oil economy. 

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The economy needs infrastructure to survive.  And nobody has an infrastructure they can maintain or replace.  The whole world is going down, not because the USA won’t be there to run it, but because the oil won’t flow.  Globalization was a stupid idea, but it did allow the best extraction of oil.  The party was great while it lasted, but it about Oil, not the Good ‘Ol USA, ‘Murica #1!

END ( today's related link http://amzn.to/2iouds0 )

 

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

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle, send me a buck and I'll e-mail it to you in a PDF file.  If you donated, you may request books no charge.   My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.***   Land In Elko*  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *** Wal-Mart wheat***Amazon Author Page
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

 

DD 2 of 3

DISCOLORED DOOM 2

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note: I know you guys didn't care for this authors fiction ( which was a damn shame ).  How about some non-fiction from him?  Know thy enemies, the PC Brigades click here
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So, are we extrapolating to the rest of our world our demise?  Do we think we are so important that once our economy implodes the rest of the world follows?  That is the common and current consensus.  Yet, how can it be?  If huge sections of the rest of the world are doing BETTER than us ( in important metrics, such as the ability to keep their infrastructure running ), how does it follow that they will get worse as we do?  In other words, why would the ghettos decaying effect the middle class neighborhoods?

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You need to understand that nothing is as it seems.  If it is all a lie and a Potemkin Village,  a man behind the curtain, can you believe ANY “common knowledge”?  If they say the economy is good, you know it is bad.  If they say Multiculturalism, you vote for xenophobia.  If they say Hillary is good, you know in reality she is called Alzheimer Annie for a reason.  Now, you also need to take this current assumption of lies and take it back at a minimum fifty years.  All the history they taught you is an imperial centric lie.  All the understanding of current events over the last half century were a lie.

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Now, of COURSE they have been lying to us far longer than fifty years.  Public schooling started out as education but you know it couldn’t have taken long for Social Engineering to start.  We were lying about White Privilege and Evil Indians for four hundred years ( not that any of us, even guilty White liberals, have any reason to complain, since none of it was ours.  Yeh, migrations suck for the displaced.  I don’t mind being one of the victors, but I don’t lie about the process )( and Indians were just as guilty of displacement as the Whites were, just as the Mexicans have no reason to hate Whites as we only stole what had been stolen anyway.  Again, migrations ).

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Don’t you think that, if everything is suspect ( from “Lincoln was good” to “FDR saved the economy” to “Gulf Of Tonkin” to “democracy” ), so too is the whole understanding of the economy in relation to the rest of the world?  If we were just exploiting the world for our own gain, to the victors went the spoils, wouldn’t it make sense to lie and say it was for THEIR own good?  Why, without us consuming, the rest of the worlds factories would shut down!  Fact, or lie?  I’d call it a fabrication based on a fallacy founded on a sliver of truth.

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Back after WWII, we gave away a crap ton of our surpluses.  We made it sound all magnanimous, because of course we would.  I’m bombing your ass into rubble, as it puts my  factories at full capacity which saves my own economy, then I’ll parachute some surplus C-Rats in to feed the folks I bombed out of their homes.  I get super bonus karma points and, oh, yeh, it makes my rich warmonger industrialists more money even after the war.  Then, I’ll “help” you recover through my generosity giving you taxpayer guaranteed loans so my rich homies the bankers make money, the industrialists make money and the serfs can be grateful to be employed.

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And back then, a victor hogging all the spoils and parceling them out, yes, the world economy was a subset of ours.  We used our own fuel and our own ores and churned out everything that everyone wanted to buy.  But we ran out of surpluses.  A long time ago.  Not long after the Korean War we reached Peak Iron.  There was Peak Oil which threw a wrench in the Vietnam War and somewhere around those two there was Peak Coal BTU ( we still have plenty of coal, but each ton delivers less energy, being low grade coal barely above peat ).  We no longer had the lions share of the gold in our vaults ( no audits allowed means no gold, and if there were I’d wager my last jelly donut that it is Chinese manufactured tungsten ).

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Most everything we talk about today is myth based on information up to a century old.  The gold bugs still think we can be a gold based economy.  Everyone assumes our farms turn out the surpluses like it was 1920.  Statistics assume a factory run economy, as if one Union worker was supporting the family.  Europe has a Muslim problem but all our immigrants go into a melting pot.  The stock market is a true reflection of the economy.  The American Dream is still within grasp.  Most Americans own guns ( sniper behind every blade of grass ).  I could go on and on.  The point is, everything is history based and inaccurate.  Nothing is now the same.  Nothing.

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That consumption is a valid sector of the economy is predicated on some of those old myths.  Like we can still borrow money like it was the early 1980’s.  Like we still have plenty of oil.  Like we still have another fifty years of burning through our assets banked seventy years ago.  Like all countries bow to our will still ( Russia now is certainly not the Former USSR of Bill Clinton’s time.  Think about the 90’s.  We needed to spend little money on Medicare, Social Security or the military, and we had oil still gushing from Alaska, the Gulf Of Mexico, Old Mexico and Siberia, and yet we still crashed the economy on the Tech Wreck.  And you want to believe any of those fundamentals aren’t WORSE? ).

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France is still making a bit of ruckus over in Africa, in its former colonies, but we all know they are a Has-Been and should stop embarrassing themselves.  Yet when the US does the exact same thing we think we are playing the US Policeman, like we were way back when.  We aren’t embarrassed by our ham-handed incompetence, but we should be.  Old assumptions.  Old myths.  Continued tomorrow.

END ( today's related link http://amzn.to/2ns6EUG )

 

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

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle, send me a buck and I'll e-mail it to you in a PDF file.  If you donated, you may request books no charge.   My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.***   Land In Elko*  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *** Wal-Mart wheat***Amazon Author Page
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

 

discolored doom 1 of 3

DISCOLORED DOOM

Is our imperial collapse discoloring our sense of doom?  Or, put another way, is everything all right, except here?  Are we so full of hubris that we believe whatever happens to us it simply has to effect the rest of the world?  If we are collapsing economically, they are at differing levels, right?  This would be a comforting situation, in that we wouldn’t have to worry so much about our demise ( in militia porn scenarios, this would mean that the ammunition kept being imported, never running out.  In our present reality, magic fairies fueled by petroleum assure us our plastic carbines never run out of Suppressive Fire.  In our assumed future fantasy, magic Chinese factories keep us in AK ammo so as to fight our Federal overlords ).

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If you look around the place, outside of Africa and Central and South America, it seems like everyone can live in clean and bright surroundings ( aside from the gunk in the air or in the water-you know, how the US looked prior to moving the factories overseas ).  The planet almost looks like the inside of a shopping mall prior to graffiti taggers and Minority gangs taking over.  It looks like the 1990’s out there ( at least superficially-I don’t leave the Great Basin, let alone the country, to investigate ).  Are we the only ones living in decrepit squalor?  Or is the Prettiness just a façade?

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You can excuse the two Crap Continents.  Africa has always been a colony continent and isn’t allowed to invest in infrastructure without permission.  They might have avoided a few decades of European colonization, but the local warlord just kept the treasure flowing to his own bank account anyway.  If the Chicanos and Whites and Blacks were all fighting each other in California, with Jerry Brown ( you people ought to be friggin ashamed of yourselves! ) getting rich from shorting Hollywood stocks, you could see how the state would start looking like more of a craphole than it already does ( yes, Virginia, it is a shame that all the minorities and immigrants crapped on a once gorgeous state.  Now move the hell out of there [ anywhere except Nevada, for the love of God! ] instead of complaining about it.  It is a lost cause ).

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Now the Chinese have moved in, taking a page from our 1950’s playbook, and using a soft economic colony strategy.  The locals feel saved rather than exploited.  Of course, just like a tourist town, the resentment will come and replace the gratitude.  What do people expect?  The boss gives you money, so he hates and defiles you.  The tourists give you money and they trash the place and spit on you as a result.  If you are a whore, selling yourself for money, expect to be treated like crap ( not that this excuses how employees are treated, but it does explain it ). 

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South America had a different kind of colonial exploitation, but it was just the same effect and has never stopped.  I know as soon as I bring up the dreaded S or C words ( no, not Sodomy or the C-Bomb ), socialism or communism, you will go Full Retard on me and start excusing monopoly mega-corporations and explaining to my simple mind how capitalist exploitation is so much more efficient than extra taxes, but if you look at say, Cuba, you can’t really claim communism In Toto was completely terrible.  I’m not talking about the secret police torturing dissidents.  As a society as a whole, they do have some features that are preferable to a capitalist system.

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I don’t know about you, but I think an extra 10% tax on my paycheck would be preferable to paying the insurance company $1200 a MONTH, with a five THOUSAND dollar deductible, before I could get ANY health care ( yes, I know, at this point you bring up waiting lists for treatments.  I’d rather be on that list than having the option of ZERO care like I do now ).

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But I bring up communism and socialism to, mostly, point out that in large part they were a reaction to being a helpless colony only being granted existence for exploitation.  Just like the American South after the War Of Northern Aggression.  I don’t care about slavery-you Yankee pukes agreed to it for your own sakes and profited off it and to whine that it was then time for Take Backs is a blatant lie which you used to further enrich yourselves.  Industrialism needs colonies for free commodities.  I no more condone the Yankees colonizing the South as I do them colonizing South America ( although, being a selfish self centered punk myself, I’m not arguing with the cheap coffee ).

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If communism was the answer to overthrowing the Yankees, it was probably a welcome trade-off.  Me and you, and before us the Brits ( when they weren’t being slaughtered in the trenches ), made a nice little living sharing in colonial treasure.  We might still be poor, but it is a relative position.  Would you wish to trade positions with a slum dweller in Calcutta or Sao Paula?  So, rather than viewing the world through a capitalistic lens, since capitalism is no longer anything other than an economic yoke enabling globalism ( be honest.  At this point, wouldn’t you rather trade a little socialism for a return to Union work protections? ), look at it as those benefiting or those exploited by empire.

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We THINK China is our bitch, polluting itself for the privilege of being our factory serfs.  Sorry, that ship has sailed.  Now we have no choice but to buy from them as they are the only purveyors of product.  We think we are getting a swell deal, but we are no less than in the position of England relying on ships to supply them with critical goods even through a wartime siege.  The goods are kept cheap, but we are no less dependent for it.  So who is large and in charge and who is benefiting?  We think we are top dog, but we are old and crippled, afflicted by mange, loosing teeth and earning no friends.

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Our empire has already ended.  Libya was our Swan Song.  The 1918 Armistice was Britain’s.   They didn’t want to admit or face the facts, but you couldn’t claim that was entirely just hindsight.  Their economy was trashed.  Anyone divorced from the delusions and hubris of empire could have seen the writing on the wall.  The Irish certainly seemed to have.  Not bad for a bunch of whiskey swilling spud eaters.  Okay, this portion of the subject was mostly about imperial citizen hubris.  Tomorrow let’s try to burrow further into whether we are blinded by our own collapse, or not.

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

 

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

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle, send me a buck and I'll e-mail it to you in a PDF file.  If you donated, you may request books no charge.   My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.***   Land In Elko*  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *** Wal-Mart wheat***Amazon Author Page
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

 

pecking order

PECKING ORDER

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note: I put this in yesterdays comments and thought I should add it here for more eyeballs.

There is a video on PVC testing for bows. It seems a lot of manufactures have Gone Cheap and they are getting more brittle. Take the pipe, whole, not yet flattened down with heat or stuffed with reinforcing fiberglass rods, and tap the end with a hammer, against a chunk of metal. If the pipe chips off, don't use it as a bow. If the hammer bounces back, it is good.
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You should check out www.epsilontheory.com.  Sometimes it makes your brain hurt, but he is THAT good.  The recent article was on the pecking order of chickens and humans.  Ours has been disguised so that the violence is hidden, but in short, chickens further inequality of food with their pecking order and humans encourage inequality of wealth ( which is used to buy food and health care and shelter ) through the pecking order.  He gives the example from two movies, Glengarry Glen Ross and Office Space.  In the first, “second place is a set of steak knives and third place is You’re Fired” and in the second, there wasn’t enough birthday cake to go around.

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The first movie shows the blatant punishment of all for the benefit of the few.  This is NOT how our pecking order works.  Instead, as in the second movie, we are all given comfortable chairs and cake ( except a few, who get neither cake, offices, OR staplers-seriously?  Watch the movie.  I’ve never seen a better depiction of corporate culture ).  The problem with our fantasy depiction of the pecking order is that we are lulled gently to sleep as inequality has relentlessly marched towards French Revolution levels ( I’m not trying to engage in hyperbole here.  As long as the safety net of welfare and the bread and circuses of corn derivatives and Net delivered TV last, inequality is for most people a non-event.  It is the brutal aftermath of their demise I speak of ).

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Another problem is not just the Elite directed propaganda.  It is our own self-delusions, as we lie to ourselves that the pecking order doesn’t exist.  I try to point out the history of this, and rather than thanked profusely by getting a ticket tape parade, I’m accused by far more than one of having a convoluted and queer interpretation of history.  I don’t blame anyone for wishing to skip my view of history.  It means all your comfortable assumptions are wrong.  And we can’t have that, now can we?  Nobody likes to admit they’ve been eating out of their own ass. 

*

But this isn’t a dingus measuring contest.  I love to think I’m always right ( although believe me, I know better ).  But that isn’t the point.  If you fail to see the threats, you leave yourself vulnerable.  And you can get hurt.  All I’m doing here is trying to get you to view history through the lens of a paranoid.  You think I’m a paranoid schizophrenic.  No, JUST paranoid.  And the fact of the matter is that you or I, we are NOT special, or equal or gifted with God given rights or are exceptional or are Baby Jesus’ chosen few.  We are just at the bottom of the pecking order ( in our society, if not in the global ranking-although that will come soon enough ).

*

The poor have stayed poor, the rich are much richer and the middle class has lost everything gained, a few debt ridden doo-dads and electronic contraptions away from being poor.  Again, I’m not saying the New French Revolution is right around the corner.  Losing the middle class is merely a return to a historical norm.  The middle class is just a colonial empires temporary holders of excess surplus.  As the surplus shrinks, those in power have no choice but to withdraw that surplus so they themselves don’t have to suffer.  And hell, we haven’t even really had a real middle class for many decades now ( not just the last decade since the ‘08 collapse ).  House equity, an illusion only fostered by surplus anyway, were the only assets the middle class had ( electronic promises of stored wealth such as pensions were always fairy dust ), leaving them with nothing but debt to pretend they weren’t poor.

*

The whole point here is that your position in the pecking order is clear but you choose not to see it.  All your life’s work is endangered by that illusion being realized.  But denial simply means you don’t see the danger now, giving you time to react with a modicum of insurance to make the inevitable crash more of a slide than a free-fall.  You cling to the debt toys which enslave you.  You are working like a dog to service your debt.  Only the bankers appreciate it ( the wife doesn’t appreciate it, but in fact expects it.  And guess what?  Second prize with her is NOT a set of steak knives.  You’re fired! ).

*

The Protestant Work Ethic is only rewarded in a middle class.  Which is only possible through colonial surplus resources.  And our colonies are already imperiled by the collapse of the PetroDollar.  I can’t see an entire alphabet worth of cause and effect links.  I’m just showing you A, B and C.  I can see them as self evident.  You aren’t seeing them because you don’t believe in the pecking order for people.  You think because The Constitution or God or Natural Law said so, you are equal.  You believe that because the illusion was always reinforced through your life by a share of the wealth.  You think the pie will always get bigger.

*

Well, guess what?  The pie is shrinking.  How folks can both believe they need to prepare for the end of a civilization, AND think they won’t be effected by the withdrawal of resources at the same time is beyond my comprehension.  Well, I can comprehend the need to lie to ourselves.  Self-delusion is a human trait.  No one blames you for acting human.  I just think that if you have any amount of self preservation, you could see through your own lies at least to a small degree.  But instead, you call me full of crap for thinking everyone is out to get you, to hump you dry until you gush blood.  You think people are “fair” or “just” or “fundamentally good”.  Have you been living under a rock your whole life? 

*

Donald Trump is only out for himself.  Just like Hilary Clinton.  The central bank doesn’t care about a stable money supply, but about its own payday.  The NRA doesn’t care if you are allowed to own a gun, they just want your membership dues.  Your boss doesn’t care if you work eighty hours a week, have a nervous breakdown and die early or get divorced and lose your kids.  He only cares if HIS paycheck is fattened.  I won’t even start on your family’s attitude.  I’m glad I used to be trusting and needy for love or approval.  I got screwed enough times as a result that my blinders, if not removed, were at least nudged aside.  You mean NOTHING to most people.

*

Once we re-tribe, yes, your efforts will once again be rewarded and your security assured, unquestioned loyalty the only price.  But above that level of organization, there is a pecking order and those on the bottom are literally pecked to death ( if you don’t think tens to hundreds of thousands don’t die yearly JUST on the medical industry profit plan, you haven’t been paying attention ).  If you can’t see that, you can’t protect yourself.

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

 

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

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle, send me a buck and I'll e-mail it to you in a PDF file.  If you donated, you may request books no charge.   My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.***   Land In Elko*  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *** Wal-Mart wheat***Amazon Author Page
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palace coup 2

PALACE COUP 2

Communism is fascism is capitalism as far as social control goes.  It is all the same economically, with the carrot and the stick differing.  The idiots over in Russia were too direct about their punishments ( it must be a cultural thing-we can probably blame all those Ormanentals who kept invading the place.  Remember, invading Russia was only a bad idea AFTER gunpowder.  Prior, the steppes were just a fuel source for mounted archers.  After, horsepower became useless as shock weapons ).  In the US, the propaganda is so dam good we all still think we’re By Gum Free ’Muricans!

*

And isn’t that where the family unit does so well?  The illusion of love and clannishness, support and safety.  Well, illusion?  Or self-delusion?  Being programmed to need social units, we might hate the family but we hate being alone and vulnerable even more.  So we lie to ourselves that the spousal unit loves us, that our kids are grateful for our sacrifices.  The alternative is so frightening we gladly embrace The Suck.  Our need to belong is so strong we act against our own best interests otherwise.

*

When I was trying to flee California, from age 21 on, I would go to another state and work and have social interaction, but there was no place I fit in culturally.  Which saw me fleeing back to California where even if I didn’t have any friends I still felt more at home.  The dysfunctional relationship was preferable to no relationship.  Just like a bad marriage being better than no marriage at all ( perhaps not in your twilight years, but certainly as a youngster.  Is it a need for a relationship, or just to breed?  Damn brain and its chemical warfare ).

*

There is nothing wrong with these bad choices.  That is just how we are wired.  No sense in beating yourself up about it.  But if you can recognize the disadvantage it puts you at you can live a better life.  Or, really, live at all.  Which is the whole point of this article.  We all live in controlling relationships, and how we are controlled or how we control others is rather important.  It has repercussions one way or another.  If the other party doesn’t FEEL like they are being controlled, they are much easier to live with.

*

Think of relationships like it is a Gift Economy.  Gifts are reciprocal.  When they are given freely without a scorecard everyone is happy.  Once the gifts start to be unequal the conflicts begin.  But while that is a nice philosophy-both parties try to satisfy the other, so both always stay happy-we all know the reality on the ground is more like 95% toxic.  Why do you think you go your whole life before finding the right mate?  It isn’t sexual compatibility because by the time he/she comes around you are lucky the equipment works half the time.  It is compatible reciprocity.  

*

I don’t mean to gay this up and make it more complicated than it needs to be.  Simply, you have a partnership rather than a command and control relationship.  If you are lucky.  Which most of us never are.  So in reality you are in an adversarial relationship.  Which is where this is going to bite you in the ass.  If you don’t have a working relationship with your spouse, come the collapse you better be worried about who you are sharing your bed with.  Simply, the bitch will probably kill you.

*

No, I’m not trying to be dramatic.  And, no, I’m not suggestion anything too fantastical.  Everywhere you turn, you run into the same old propaganda that humans are naturally inclined to find horrid the thought of killing each other.  What complete bullcrap!  That is merely the state asserting control, protecting their monopoly on force.  It is true we’ve been conditioned to not want to do violence on each other to that point.  But our hard wired instinct is to want to harm others.  Once the state imposed prohibition is lifted, it won’t JUST be criminals and psycho’s who want to kill others. 

*

Look, we don’t need to be taught how to hurt others.  We just need to be taught how to overcome the fear of placing ourselves in danger while we harm others.  If you look into your soul after abandoning your superficial programming you’ll see I’m correct ( this might be a subject onto itself one day ).  All we need is permission ( self imposed or official ) to hurt others, and baring that whole self preservation hesitation, we will gladly do so.  Look at the animal kingdom and realize we are just better groomed ( through tool use ) chimps ( even setting aside if evolution is a correct theory-and I’ve only ever claimed I only accept if for lack of a better one-at the least we have close enough behavior programming ).

*

Now remember me talking about self-justification?  No one is evil.  Everyone acts as if they are normal and any heinous acts are justifiable.  Stalin needed to force his country into an imperial industrial economy out of self preservation as a nation.  Hitler had to protect his people from another attempted genocide from the Jewish bankers.  Obama was just a poor kid from Kenya who was picked on for his homosexual tendencies and wanted to lift himself up by his sponsors bootstraps. 

*

Now add together self justification and our natural ( if not our present culturally acceptable ) violence, and what do you get?  A palace coup.  There is no way, given resource restrictions, that you can bribe and sweet talk your new tribe into reconfiguring themselves into a behavior pattern that accounts for the new reality of the collapse.  There will be resentment over sacrifice and deprivation.  If you do not have a solid relationship with your wife, how long do you think it is going to be before she poisons your soup or slits your throat ( and, most likely, with help from a suitor or at least with one waiting in the wings )?  Why do you think I’m being unreasonable or excessively dramatic?  She already hates you, demanding equality yet still expecting you to provide for her ( against all realistic expectations, as the economy is geared towards two income families to provide the expected amenities ).

*

I’d wager most marriages are more akin to roommates sharing the bills than any kind of loving union.  She doesn’t love you and most likely you reciprocate.   Why WOULDN’T she harm you if she thought it would better herself?  Because she is a “decent” person?  None of us are decent enough to place another’s need above ours IF the other is in any way not reciprocal ( don’t lie to yourself.  Once your kids stop the unconditional love and become teenagers, how badly do you wish they were outside your home?  You may never stop in your tribal obligations, but beyond your children I’ll wager you don’t put much effort into non-reciprocating participants in your life ). 

*

All I’m saying ( in as long and convoluted a manner as possible ) is that once you can no longer afford to bribe your spouse into believing your control is hidden, she will lash out to reject that control.  Violently, if the relationship is at that point.  And she is your weak link.

END ( today's related link http://amzn.to/2BDO7aY )

 

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

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle, send me a buck and I'll e-mail it to you in a PDF file.  If you donated, you may request books no charge.   My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.***   Land In Elko*  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *** Wal-Mart wheat***Amazon Author Page
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there