more alpha strategy 2

MORE ALPHA STRATEGY 2

Another definition of the Alpha Strategy is, “tangible assets instead of digital illusions of wealth”. You need cash on hand, everybody does. You can only trust your bankers as far as you can throw their Hampton mansion full of hookers and blow. ATM's are a convenience, and shouldn't be a reliance. Bank bail-in's are real. Have cash. It buries easy, and you might as well be part of the problem with disposable plastics. Not that Greta would approve, but screw that stupid bitch. How sad is it going from Vikings to Muzzie mating and Greta?

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Yes, having cash is also stupid. You still need to do it, unless you have an oil well in your back yard. I love how all the bloviators of “gardens for food independence” rely on their vehicle to get into town. If I have to, I can eat my neighbor. How do you get anywhere? I guess you could harness your neighbor to a wagon. Okay, never mind. Bad analogy ( of course, now you have to feed your neighbor half your garden. Sorry, I needed go get the last word in ). Cash is just a transition tool. Mostly, you want to need as little cash as possible, so your loss will be minimized.

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I bring this up in case anyone panicked too much and wants to go all in on silver. Sorry, you still need Greenbacks for instant emergency use. Unexpected sales items too cheap to ignore, is another good reason for cash. I used to have three or four years expenses in cash, but converted all but one to silver and lead. I'll build that cash amount up, once again, just because whenever I solve one problem I go back to worrying about another. It's simply in my nature.

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You are probably worrying about debt. If you do pay it off, you leave nothing for supplies. If you don't pay it off, you are homeless with no place to have your supplies. Me? I'd pay off one bill, then take half that monthly amount to pay off another bill, and half for supplies. Rinse and repeat. You get the best of both worlds. That way the debt goes down and the supplies go up, and you are rewarded more than merely philosophically by cutting back on spending to pay off more debt even faster. But your mileage may vary depending on the debt and your perceived velocity of the collapse.

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I would secure an abode as priority, leaving the car and credit card debts for last. And just a note, the bubble is still Full Retard bloated. Might you sell and downgrade, eliminating that altogether? But regardless, back to tangible wealth preservation. This isn't ammo or nickels. The Alpha Strategy eliminates most of the inflation bite by pre-purchasing consumer items. You are buying now, years worth of non-perishables, to avoid the rising costs. Lets say you bought one light bulb a year. Each year the cost doubles.

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$1 the first year, then $2, $3, $4 and $5 on the fifth year. Those five light bulbs cost you $15. Buying all of them the first year, $5. Now multiply that by everything you buy. Toilet paper, socks and underwear, soap and toothpaste and razor blades. Small appliance back-ups such as toasters, hair dryers, hair clippers. Shoes. Shelf stable foods such as flour and rice and noodles. Condiments. Automotive fluids, garden tools. No matter how basic and Spartan you live, you are still buying plenty of consumables. Granted, you can reduce that.

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Getting rid of a clothes dryer, you'll be buying far less clothes as there isn't the wear and tear on the fabric. Replacing paper products with cloth produces eliminates some items. Using the trick of resharpening a razor on a pair of old jeans reduces the amount of those you must buy. Buying quality stainless steel pans, you'll never have to buy another nasty Teflon pan again when they start to peel. Duct tape, Shoe-Goo, sewing kits and patches stretch out the life of your clothing and footwear. There are other tricks such as replacing retail with thrift stores. A TV antenna instead of cable ( Internet streaming is still a reoccurring monthly bill, still consumption rather than investment, even if it is “free” after the computer use ).

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Food isn't as easy but it isn't impossible. The main thing is your meat and produce, both in cost and lack of shelf life. You can freeze meat ( or can it ) and can or dry produce. Just freezing meat, both by buying in bulk and buying on sale, your meat budget is easily reduced by half. The downside is the break down of our grid. California isn't having grid down two weeks in a row because it is a dysfunctional piece of crap whore of a location, although she is, but because there are simply too many people there ( the same applies to the water situation there ).

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Back when our burg was besieged by mouth breathing asshats, all the scum and villainy of the universe trying to suck off the areas economy because of the mines ( as they were failing economically-serves you right, parasitic twats ), the city grid couldn't handle the overuse. The Internet was always going down, the power always shutting off and the water pressure poor to near none and the traffic backed up more than one light. Two thousand people ( 10%, roughly ) left, and all those problems went away. That is California, state wide.

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So, as the Muzzies are shipped in, and the Latino's turn our country into a vibrancy enriched land, expect your grid to be overcrowded as well. Or, due to taxpayers fleeing a socialist paradise, failing from lack of maintenance. Do you want to rely on your freezer? Right now, as meat prices are lower, it might not be a huge loss. But as prices start to rise? Another bonus of pressure canning meat is that you can more easily store beyond about six months a chest freezer will hold. You just need a cool and dark storage area, and an investment in shelves ( don't stack the jars atop each other ). Not that this is feasible for all of us.

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Buying in bulk. Retail stores can mostly screw you over in this category. Wal-Mart is infamous for charging MORE for the larger items. I have a LOT of issues with Wally, but on this I can mostly get behind them on. There is a sticker on every item for sale. It tells you the unit cost. Sometimes they screw with you over it, but mostly it is a tool for comparison. If you aren't buying the cheapest unit per ounce, after they show you the price, you deserve to get boned on the deal.

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You can try jobber suppliers ( janitorial supply company, beauty salons, restaurant supplier ), but mostly nowadays between Sam's, Wal-Mart and Amazon, you are getting the best price unless you are ordering pallets by semi truck. And ALWAYS shop around. Wally has antacid half the price of Amazon, but Amazon has packing tape at half the cost of Wal-Mart. And it doesn't matter where you live, even in the boonies, just Internet search “item X for sale bulk”, and you'll find vendors that might be cheaper than the above, as long as you buy in bulk.

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As important as mini-warehousing is to combat inflation, I really like the retirement aspect even more. Then it becomes about spending NO money, rather than just less. I'll cover that next time.

( .Y. )

( today's related Amazon link click HERE )

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Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon links here ( or from http://bisonprepper.com/2.html or www.bisonbulk.blogspot.com ). Or PayPal www.paypal.me/jimd303 

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods ( I get 4% of the Amazon sale, so you need to buy $25 worth for me to get my $1 ) or mail me some cash/check/money order or buy a book ( web site for free books, Amazon to pay just as a donation vehicle ).

*** My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184 ***E-Mail me if you want your name added to the weekly e-newsletter subscriber list.

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more alpha strategy

MORE ALPHA STRATEGY

Here is the original book ( click HERE for PDF ), “Alpha Strategy” by John Pugsley. It was copyrighted 1980, so don't expect a lot of the economics to be relevant. Hell, I don't even know how much of the commodities stockpiling is usable anymore. He was talking about, mostly, American made goods and now it is all Chinese. Or worse than Chinese ( it seems most of the shoe manufacturing is swiftly moving over to Indonesia right now, for instance. Yes, Muzzies are making your shoes, infidel dog ). But the grandfather of the concept must be acknowledged.

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For instance, if I died before the apocalypse, and who knows if I will as things are looking spicy, I would want future writers to throw me a bone. Yes, he was the only voice crying out in a wilderness of optimistic hubris, no semi-auto, deep stock wheat, junk land, Peak Oil, fracking fable, frugal prepping, Jim Washer. Not that anyone will, the bastards. Some cheese dingus will steal all my good ideas and pass it off on his own, probably thumping the bible as he hawks FLIR scopes to the unwashed masses.

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The Alpha Strategy is simply short hand for “buy now, brown cow, for inflation will see their price increase tomorrow”. I bring this up in response to a minion comment, where it was written that even Disaster Dan's ( two week preppers ) and Fracking Fanboys still needed to prep against inflation. And, since pensions aren't looking too bright for the future, retirement. Everybody used to know, “pay off the mortgage before retirement, dumb ass”. That WAS common sense. Now everyone is like the idiot financing his car for seven years, perpetually in debt.

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I don't care who you are. I don't care how much an ex-wife or the bankers or little green men from Mars screwed you over, you NEVER go Full Retard and have rent or a mortgage for retirement. Nor should it ever enter your mind that a car payment is a good idea. You should have no debt for retirement, I don't care if you went from suburbia heaven to junk land hell. You do whatever it takes to avoid debt and almost every bill. I know this is not as much of an iron clad rule as it used to be. Hell, neither is marriage. We are all, “yeah, but...”. Always an excuse.

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Now, I can see getting a divorce. Perhaps the bitch only put out once a month. Or, your husband drinks beer like it is water, and is a miserable bastard. Everyone should deserve a shot at happiness. But you never divorce if the financial cost is too high. Well, the males rarely have a choice on that, but I'm speaking of post-kids. At least you almost never have to pay alimony anymore, what with all women working. If she doesn't work, and alimony might be possible, here's an idea. Start her up a business.

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A few years prior to dumping her ass, start her on a business, selling what you would want to buy. Say, silver coins. Now, in the next town over rent a private mail box and use another name and buy silver from her regularly ( yes, I know there are laws requiring reporting “stacking”. My old coin dealer in the mid '00's told me, “don't come in on a schedule and don't buy the same thing, and there is no paperwork”. Beware of this issue and work around it ). Now there is a record of sales, of her income ( have a high dealer mark-up ). The judge sees a viable business with proven income. And you aren't out too much investment.

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Anyway, back on track. No matter who you are and what future you foresee, you know just as God made little green apples, there WILL be inflation, and your retirement will take a hit from that, as will your weekly shopping trips. Going “Alpha Strategy” means you are always LESS affected by inflation. No one can escape, and I cannot even believe some folks see deflation on the horizon. What is the ONLY two things going down in price? Food, mostly, and electronics, usually. And those are subject to caveats.

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Food, adjusted for inflation, is cheaper than MOST other items. For now. We saw a good bout of food inflation in 2009, and then a trickle as “package shrinkage” increased, but that was, again, MOSTLY, processed foods. Make your own meals, from scratch, and food has not been this cheap, inflation adjusted, for around twenty years. Produce might be up, as production moved from California to Mexico, but you don't need out of season produce. Learn to eat sauerkraut in the winter instead of oranges. And we should all be gardening anyway.

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Not to say food won't skyrocket in price. It always has periods when it does so, regardless of how dedicated to Too Cheap To Meter the powers that be are. But at least bless them for understanding revolution only happens during hunger ( for the most part ). But the point is that, like overseas oil and fracking gas, food is SUBSIDIZED. It isn't “capitalism” or “'Muricanism”, it is straight up socialism, the government gifting the poor cheaper than market prices. There, see? Socialism isn't just for Venezuela anymore.

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Electronics are a bit more difficult. Yes, they are built overseas. But not everything overseas keeps going down in price. Auto's don't ( although to be fair, there is a lot of politics and tariffs involved ). Sure, guns went down in price, but that is mostly due to quality reduction ( the AR's decreased mostly from overcapacity, but politics and a saturated market will kill off many current manufactures, raising the prices again. Get 'em cheap while you can ). You can pretty much say that except for TV's, computers and cell phones, inflation is always here screwing us.

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I think a lot of electronics deflation is overcapacity and never ending demand. Not necessarily by consumers, because high end phone demand doesn't survive pink slips. But by corporations, always buying more chips and electronics to replace workers with robots. Every day, you go to work and do three workers jobs for half the money one worker used to make ( inflation adjusted ). Every day, your boss comes into work and has meeting on how to replace you with HAL. He only seems like a nice guy because he is a reptile underneath ( see the TV show “V”, sorry-a remake, now showing on Tubi ).

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You can take Trend Inflation to the bank. Even if I'm 100% wrong on the doomer porn, and your precious Stairstep Collapse comes to pass, even if I'm full of more crap than a holiday goose, inflation will dry hump you all day long, every year, until the sweet release of death. Even if you don't deep larder wheat and steel case ammo, you would be foolish to not follow The Alpha Strategy. Sure, it's a pain in the ass, as are all methods of saving money. Oh, boo-hoo, Sad Panda :( Get over yourself, you ain't THAT special that you get a ( robot ) maid and butler. Continued tomorrow.

( .Y. )

( today's related Amazon link click HERE )

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Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon links here ( or from http://bisonprepper.com/2.html or www.bisonbulk.blogspot.com ). Or PayPal www.paypal.me/jimd303 

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods ( I get 4% of the Amazon sale, so you need to buy $25 worth for me to get my $1 ) or mail me some cash/check/money order or buy a book ( web site for free books, Amazon to pay just as a donation vehicle ).

*** My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184 ***E-Mail me if you want your name added to the weekly e-newsletter subscriber list.

*** Pay your author-no one works for free. I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.*** junk land under a grand *  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

auto derivatives

AUTO DERIVATIVES

You may have heard, and not altogether given two wet craps such as I myself felt, that subprime automobile loans delinquencies recently went from the semi-normal 2% all the way up 8%. You, as I, yawned and went about your day wondering what all the fuss was about, since it is just Poor Bitches nuking their credit, and perhaps a few shady companies going bankrupt. Well, now I'm reading that the problem is pressure on the derivatives market, shades of 2008 with sub prime mortgages. It isn't the bad loans or poorly run companies that matter. It is their hedging that poor behavior with derivatives.

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I keep harping on derivatives, which, even at their most optimistic calculation are two to three times the size of the global economy. At worst, the exposures are one and a quarter QUADRILLION dollars. If Douche Bank alone carries $50 trillion in derivatives exposure, I'd bet on the higher number. Why is this scary? Because when a company or bank only has one half to three percent physical assets to financial bets, only a small amount of failures domino effect the whole system. We have seen this time and again, and each time is exponentially worse.

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1987, Orange County, Russian Default and the Housing Bubble are the big ones. A small amount of bad bets have system wide repercussions. The Federal Reserve still has a Full Retard amount of toxic assets on its books from 2008, counting them as real of assets as Treasury Bonds would be ( not that they are any prize, no longer used for oil transactions as they had been-and getting worse every year ). As we speak, the repo market shenanigans are more than likely to cover the bad derivative bets made over in Germany.

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You do understand that derivatives are not just a problem in the auto market, correct? The obvious gold and silver price suppression is orchestrated using derivatives. On some days, more paper silver is bet on than has been physically mined that year. No worries, right? Barely an inconvenience. Business as usual. Oil speculation was surely involved when the Saudi oil facilities were attacked. Like the gains from the 9/11 attacks. But the speculation is not really the focus but rather derivatives used as insurance, then a run on that insurance.

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A sub-prime auto loan company knows its customers are a bunch of scumbags. Crackheads with jobs, still. But the intellectual capacity of a crackhead. The whole reason the auto financial industry was in the news this time was because some geriatric bimbo wanted a loan which was $800 a month, on income of under $700. Now, I don't read too much into this. The bitch could have other income, like from a cohabitant ( who wouldn't co-sign, say ). What amazed me was that she was buying a Kia. After an hour on YouTube, you should know what brands to avoid.

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Kia is a 100k mile car. Like a Subaru ( I would cut off my own junk and use it as a marker to write on my forehead that I was a dumb ass before I ever bought another Subaru. Subaru's are the turds Toyota's make after burning rice ). They are complete junk, and are not worth anything approaching $800 a month. But they look pretty, and perhaps she has ass cancer from taking it up the pooper as a porn star, and only has a few months to live. Whatever, bitch, I'm not judging. I actually approve of your carbon emissions, just as hearty hump you to the Gore Warmers.

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Hell, for all I know driving cars is the only thing keeping us out of an Ice Age. Sorry I'm not doing my part. At $30k a shot to save us from the glaciers, however, I think someone should just drive double, for me. The used car market was shot down in flames with Obammy's Cash For Clunkers, the mutant Kenyan. Thanks for nothing, as if doubling health care costs weren't enough. That Mick Jagger lip mother humper sure has a lasting legacy to commemorate the first butt pirate in office. Rot in Hell, Muzzie twat.

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Anyway, no matter what kind of dumb ass you are, the finance company is not going to lose money on you, so they buy insurance against defaults. Those are your derivatives. As far as the sub-prime auto loan bank is concerned, they have zero exposure to increasing defaults. But the folks that insured that bank, they aren't going to be ass raped either, so they buy insurance on the insurance they sold. And etcetera, rinse and repeat. When one insurer in this gay train suddenly doesn't have enough money to pay off a lost bet, everyone is effected.

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Netflix came out with a movie somewhat covering this, a few months ago. It was by the same guys that produced ( directed? ) “The Big Short”, but about a hundred times worse. “The Laundromat” is about The Panama Papers, but the beginning about the boat operators insurance gives you a flavor of derivatives insurance. If you do attempt to watch the turd, I wouldn't waste my time finishing it. Great fun was had by all, except the audience. And you must suffer through Maryl Streep. I don't recall her being so insufferable in earlier movies.

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Now, honestly, I don't care about the auto loan market. That is more indicative of the US economy, with Detroit as the poster child, again, than having to do with the western banking sector imploding ( after all, the US economy has been offal for a long time, but the bankers did paper it over. Without those scumbags, nothing is propping it up. Certainly not the hot air from jingoistic military cheerleaders and fracking industry apologists. GAWD! How I shall cherish my victory dance as events unfold. You will rue the day you embraced optimism and positive attitudes! )

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What concerns me is when you add the repo market with the auto subprime market, to the paper gold market ( if you forgot, Britain just refused gold reparations, again. I think if it was my countries gold I'd be shopping around for a semi-retired IRA freedom fighter with explosives experience, and send a little message to a London bank. Remember that John Cusack movie, with the paper boy? “Where's my $2?!”? [ clips HERE ] Where's my gold, bitches?! ). And what other events are unfolding that independent analysts haven't sniffed out, yet? Are the commercial real estate companies suffering from mass retail closings started to see derivatives failures yet?

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Yeah, this suckers going down, for good this time. And if they do hyperinflate away the problem, we'll only need to wait a year or so and the fracking industry implodes, which will definitely do us all in. Consider this my 2020 forecast. We go down for good in 2020. Because I always get those predictions hilariously wrong, hopefully I'm erring on the side of doom.

( .Y. )

( today's related Amazon link click HERE )

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note: on Tubi, the movie "The Crazies".  It is the 2010 remake, not the original.  The first one, despite trying twice ( the beginning has really nice boobs, and is a pleasure to view ), I simply couldn't watch.  Low budget drive-in drek.  At least I could watch this new one.  It isn't good, but it is watchable.  The first part is about the military attempting containment, and has boxcar deportation goodness, but the second half is just cheesy "jump scare" nonsense.  First half, thriller.  Second half, really bad horror.  The end MIGHT be worth suffering through the second half, but mileage may vary.
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note: free for today books, EMP HERE 
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note: sale today only, a $35 stripped lower receiver, Primary Arms HERE 
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Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon links here ( or from http://bisonprepper.com/2.html or www.bisonbulk.blogspot.com ). Or PayPal www.paypal.me/jimd303 

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods ( I get 4% of the Amazon sale, so you need to buy $25 worth for me to get my $1 ) or mail me some cash/check/money order or buy a book ( web site for free books, Amazon to pay just as a donation vehicle ).

*** My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184 ***E-Mail me if you want your name added to the weekly e-newsletter subscriber list.

*** Pay your author-no one works for free. I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.*** junk land under a grand *  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

peev2c9part2

PEEv2c9part2

Location, continued

I hope everyone realizes that the perfect survival location doesn't exist. Let me save you $40 ( so how very welcome you are ) and tell you that you don't need a coffee table book with pretty pictures on survival relocation. They are hopelessly out of date, as nuclear war targets are as antiquated as the Soviet Union. Nuclear weapons are in much shorter supply than they were when such target lists made sense. Not to say those nukes won't still kill us all. They will. They are now spent fuel rods at nuclear power plants.

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I would say to avoid direct downwind locations from these power plants, and then you can pretty much forget nukes as a viable worry. Sure, something could still happen. If Hilary had been elected we all would probably be glowing in the dark right now. But the odds of an asteroid strike are probably much higher, and I never read of a relocation to the Rocky Mountains because of an asteroid ocean strike concern, not since the fiction Lucifer's Hammer came out. You cannot plan for everything, so why plan around the lesser odds?

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These books never are up to date, never include The Great California And New Jersey Exodus trends, never touch on the Great Pale Replacement Program From Latin America, or the quick “purpleing” of a lot of former freedom states. They are as worthless as a FLIR scope atop a Swiss designer battle rifle ( with bottle cap opener in the stock ). You need to pick the place YOU want to live. Your variables are different than any authors, or his readers.

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Pick the climate and the culture you desire. Culture is VERY important. I've moved to many different locations and in many of them I was NOT comfortable with the people there. Hawaii might have the perfect climate, but White boys are as welcome there as a darkie at a Klan convention. I grew up in California, but the last time I was there, even before political correctness exploded into GroupThink, the place was lousy with bat crap crazy. Neither climate or culture could save it for me. If you weren't born in Texas, you'll probably not be comfortable living there ( that goes double for Louisiana ).

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Find Your People. Then find the land you'll enjoy. Most of us preppers are older now, having joined the movement during the most dangerous 80's ( we also got a start in the job market when there was one, and have always had the option of stockpiling, economically ). As such, we don't have many years left. So don't waste them. Don't move to a spot because it seems perfect for survival. Pick people, THEN climate, and LAST, the safest place among those two. Trust me, a stranger in a strange land is a miserable existence.

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Since there is no perfect survival spot, don't be fooled into moving there. Pick the least worst spot. I think the high desert is magical for survival. These are my people here ( as much as there can be, nowadays ). I love the cold over the heat. I love having a 300 mile moat of desolate land around me, protecting me from western Californians, southern Las Vegas'ans, eastern LDS'ers and northern Rawlesians. I love potatoes and mutton, about all you can raise here. But I didn't pick my land based on food production, rather economically.

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We are in an economic collapse. We have been, if not from 2000 ( tech wreck, far more devastating economically than we admit ) then from no later than 2005 ( peak oil globally ). In case you didn't get the memo, this is longer than the Great Depression lasted. I submit to you this is THE last Oil Age, Industrial Age economic collapse. I moved with the economy in mind. Not because this area had gold mines. They aren't long term viable, even with gold at $1900 or diesel at $2.50 a gallon ( too diffuse of ore ). They hang on as many other corporations do ( including fracking ), central bank money manipulation. No, I moved here because of affordable land ( among the other high desert spots I considered ).

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Is it the perfect survival spot? Far from it. Not because I can't grow my own food. That is overrated and not very practical for most of our budgets. A decades worth of wheat is one twentieth an acre of farmland's cost. I'll have to go raiding for food, if I want any, more than likely. I don't feel bad about that, as it isn't raiding fellow survivalists for their storage food. I have my own stockpile. No, it is just a tax on farmers to keep a safe buffer state around them, to keep out invading farmers from outside my land. And of course, trade is always a viable option for them, even if on terms favorable to us rather than them.

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Yes, I know, I won't live to see that, more than likely. But you plan, regardless. Plans to deal with imperfection are easier than chasing a mythical perfection. Something is always going to be wrong with where you pick to live, where your survival location is and what you do to prepare. You could pick a pretty decent location, then afterwards get the neighbors from Hell. You could have a perfect job at your new location, then the company goes bankrupt. Pick, and move, and try to make your decisions as if the ass falls out of the economy tomorrow.

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I know you want to plan for the apocalypse, but realistically you must plan for the economic collapse and then hope you made the correct choices for the die-off and Dark Ages. The economy is already collapsing, and not all apocalypse preps are good economy preps. As much as it would be smart to stock fifty thousand rounds of ammo, it is smarter to pay off the land and then only have fifteen thousand rounds of ammo. Because the repo man takes the house before it is feasible to shoot him.

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I was able to move to my retreat land, because it is terrible for a retreat, only being six miles from town. I chose it as an off-grid home because I could bike to work, and I biked to work so I could pay off the land very quickly ( in case I became unemployed ). I picked the town because there was plenty of cheap land outside it ( inside the city limits, prices are insane. Outside, very reasonable with reasonable zoning laws ). This was all done under a collapsing economy ( 2008 ). If I had waited, I might have gotten a better retreat. OR, I might have seen an even worse economy and become unemployed and then been unable to prep at all.

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I advise moving to the smallest town you can, and still find a job. Pick THAT as it is closest to the cheapest land you can find ( with the other considerations of culture and climate accounted for ). Either rent in town or commute from your land. If you are in town, have a way to bug out to your land ( with most supplies buried ) with a temporary shelter. RV's are the default, but do whatever is in your budget. If you commute, make sure it isn't a death sentence to live out their without a car ( hello! Peak Oil, death of the PetroDollar ).

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As far as East verses West, neither is safer than the other. The East has all the population, but the West has few water sources and they are all a target ( never have a well that needs a mechanical pump. Commute to surface water, and have rain catchment ). I like my odds in the West, but this was where I grew up and am comfortable, not because it is inherently safer. The East has plenty of safe to safer areas in the mountains outside the urban sprawls. I don't like the population in the East, nor the more vibrant members, but you can survive there off farming.

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The West was never viable past small groups of hunter/gatherers. Only coal and oil made it realistic for settlement. Keep that in mind if you choose to live there yourself. It isn't a bad choice, it just takes extra planning and preparation. As does the population density in the East. But there is no wrong choice. Just wrong preps.

( .Y. )

( today's related Amazon link click HERE )

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Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon links here ( or from http://bisonprepper.com/2.html or www.bisonbulk.blogspot.com ). Or PayPal www.paypal.me/jimd303 

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods ( I get 4% of the Amazon sale, so you need to buy $25 worth for me to get my $1 ) or mail me some cash/check/money order or buy a book ( web site for free books, Amazon to pay just as a donation vehicle ).

*** My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184 ***E-Mail me if you want your name added to the weekly e-newsletter subscriber list.

*** Pay your author-no one works for free. I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.*** junk land under a grand *  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

peev2c9

PEEv2c9

Location

I hate bug out locations. Not as an emergency location should your retreat be overrun, but rather your retreat itself being a bug out location. Just getting there is problematic, your things will not be safe there, and generally the concept entails far greater cost than is prudent. I'm also not fond of small towns as a retreat location. A town of only fifty still sees your supplies stolen and you tortured and dead ( this will hold true regardless of the number of FLIR mounted semi-auto's you own ).

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Let's start out by saying that a homestead is not a retreat, not if you are making payments to the bank for it. The Great Depression saw plenty of farm foreclosures, and then all the food production in the world didn't help those farmers. They joined the soup lines in the city. I hear folks claiming that homesteads won't be foreclosed as fast this time, due to the volume. This may or may not be true. The bulk of the “jingle-mailers” were never taken to court to collect on remainder owed, as some states allow, and many got free rent for up to a year after stopping payment.

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Yet please keep in mind that all the banks did, rather than get stuck with too many vacant houses that cost them money, was to bide their time until all the mortgage holders were out of the homes, then turned most of the real estate into rentals rather than purchases. Rent has gone up two to three times 2008 levels, in any market with available jobs. When my daughter was born, our apartment was $500, utilities included ( this was in a higher end market, at least for wage earners ). Now she is paying, in her mid-twenties, $2,000 a month PLUS utilities. And most folks gross wages have dropped.

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So, how badly did the banks really make out, after all that “free” rent ( the banks create credit, they don't use their own money to give mortgage loans ) and after being unable to cope with the volume of defaults? The bankers OWN this country. Not your little Orange butt buddy, not Beelzebub's daughter Hilary ( one hopes the names of babies will forevermore never include “Hilary”, as was done to “Adolf” ). Corporations do not run America. They borrow from the bankers to survive, as does the government.

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If you think you are going to outwit the bankers, I have bad news for you. They might be immoral and lazy, but they have almost every one of us locked down. We jump through THEIR hoops, and any loophole is soon identified and closed by Rothschild's butt buddy government lackeys. Why do you think you are not allowed to collect rain water in one state, or cannot lack electricity for raising your children in another? In the city, you are milked. That is why you can't sell raw milk. That doesn't pay enough into the system.

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The banks are your mortal enemy ( not that you can escape the minion SWAT teams, but they work for the banks ). You must do everything you can to avoid them, and number one on that list is not having a shelter over your head that the humpers own. And that includes minimizing the property taxes on anything you own outright. Look, we all know the system is going to fall. The pricks are even more dependent on oil that we are. Production is the only thing keeping hyperinflation in check. But we still have to survive until the bastards are hanging from the lampposts.

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Not all debt is terrible, even though that is one of my own personal guideposts. Just realize that debt can be a tool used AGAINST you, and it probably will be sooner rather than later. Your boss uses debt against you, reducing wages and bennies, hours and sanity, because you dare not lose your job. Your wife uses debt against you, after she insisted on the most house you could afford to mortgage, because there is no way you can then leave her after she cheats on you with the pool boy. Your buddies even use debt against you, using the credit card to max out their semi-auto's purchases, making you feel like less of a Tactical Ninja.

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Now, tell me why the bankers wouldn't use debt against you? Of course, the ONE good thing about a homestead is that at least you are living there. NOT living at your retreat is a really bad idea. The only exception would be if the structure was concrete and you had replacement doors and windows cached ( along with every single supply ). And even then, I'd worry a bit about crackhead destruction. Those are scum of the universe, and a recent phenomenon you are silly to ignore. They even wait for you to visit town, to strike, even if you live there.

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On that note, how about a public service announcement? Crackheads are your human cockroaches. They root through even your garbage. But there are also going to be sharks, apex predators. They are going to be doing the home invasion thing. Don't help them out with beacons such as a new car, shiny off grid home, expensive fencing, etc. Stay armed, even at home. That doesn't mean a crotch holster color coordinated to your robe, but firearms near your reach at all times. And, dogs. Filthy animals, but useful.

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Now, I know you have to work. You can't just move out to the boonies. A huge difference between now and when most survivalist relocation advice was written is that work is a whole lot more complicated now. Skill isn't even the problem, or education. Jobs themselves are shrinking as the population explodes. There is also a political component involved. Here is the issue. It isn't about corporate unprofitable practices, or Diversity Hire so much as it is about shrinking net energy. That forms all the other issues.

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Without surplus energy, there cannot be consumption, without consumption there cannot be jobs. The suits in the corporations are eating the seed corn to continue with their quarterly bonuses. The workers fight among themselves to see who can win a job, using government force. You must NOT make relocation plans that are future dependent on jobs. You need a job NOW. But you must assume that will NOT last long. So you need a very short mortgage, if one at all and you cannot be completely dependent on a motor vehicle.

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Continued tomorrow

( .Y. )

( today's related Amazon link click HERE )

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Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon links here ( or from http://bisonprepper.com/2.html or www.bisonbulk.blogspot.com ). Or PayPal www.paypal.me/jimd303 

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods ( I get 4% of the Amazon sale, so you need to buy $25 worth for me to get my $1 ) or mail me some cash/check/money order or buy a book ( web site for free books, Amazon to pay just as a donation vehicle ).

*** My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184 ***E-Mail me if you want your name added to the weekly e-newsletter subscriber list.

*** Pay your author-no one works for free. I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.*** junk land under a grand *  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

why must it be black or white? 3

WHY MUST IT BE BLACK OR WHITE? 3

You cannot time the collapse. I cannot time the collapse. And Ross Perot? Well, he's dead, so you do the math. Damn, that dude lived forever. He and Ruth Bader Ginsburg must have sold their souls to the CIA for aging treatments, draining the blood of Deplorable virgins and transferring it into their dried mummified remains. I think Ruth might even be a zombie at this point, or at least had Demon Hilary resurrect her and shove automatronic controls up her ass. Hell, not even Hilary can time the collapse, and she shall sit on the right side of Lucifer's throne again soon.

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If you cannot time the collapse, you cannot say with certainty that you will have enough remaining time to continue on towards completing your preparations. I think it is a mistake to confuse probabilities with regards to timing. Probable causes of collapse guide the types of preparedness you undertake. They should not be used as an excuse for prolonging preps. Are the probabilities of Nork attack, an asteroid strike, an all out nuclear war or an EMP attack low? Of course they are. But they COULD happen.

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The probability that an economic collapse will spell our doom is high, but you cannot say WHEN the economy recovers, if it does, next time. You cannot say with any certainty how secure your job is, because the companies have been getting near free loans to buy back their stocks. You don't know when you will get fired as the company gets desperate. Plenty of those business model companies have already failed, prior to the official recession or actual economic collapse. Didn't the largest trucking company just declare bankruptcy? The repo guys had to go get trucks from rest stops and loading docks-how's that for no warning?

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You don't know WHAT will happen, although each of us has a favorite we pick and choose from, no one necessarily worse than the other because “possibilities”. We don't know WHEN it will happen. We do know, or at least I hope we know or we really are hopeless, that the collapse should have already happened, long ago. Only miracles have dictated otherwise ( and PLEASE, don't confuse the role of a miracle to continue to be repeated infinitely ). Yet, I know a lot of you ARE depending on divine intervention in your prepping plans. “Why, I simply MUST have the best grinder, best gun, best storage food. Plenty of time to get MORE of the very best. Because I deserve it and Murica!”

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You are trying to time the collapse. You are wrong. If you are always assuming the collapse occurs before Amazon delivers your next vital package, you will plan much differently than when you assume a trickle of money each payday will prep you by 2031. After which time you'll be the rootinest tootinest survivalist around, ninja gear belt complete. Again, why must this choice be black or white? Why can't you be prepped, now, and then take your time preparing with better gear and a better location?

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Because “buying crap is a waste of money”? Why? You aren't buying the worst, but “middlin”. Everything will be usable, serviceable and worse case, salable. Everything can be a back-up. No matter how good your crap is, it isn't bulletproof or unbreakable, with the exception of a few items like a cast iron pan or a hammer with steel handle. You can spend five hundred bucks on a scope, and it breaks just as easy as a $25 one. No matter how expensive your house is, almost all of them can burn down.

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( At least with most of today's building practices. Skyscrapers used to be built to withstand planes crashing into them, with the only exception seemingly the World Trade Center, but the insides can burn nicely ) No matter how smart you think you are, you can be outwitted by a stranger, your super deluxe storage food stolen. A back-up sure would have been nice! Well, perhaps if you had started out with wheat, and then buried that after you bought the freeze dried, you'd still have storage food, hmmmm?

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Why is a middlin AR a bad investment? You know the prices are going to go up. They already have. Palmetto used to get as low as $259 for a kit ( this was since I've been tracking them-I have no idea what they were doing multiple years ago ) on special and now the only time you see $289 is for a blemished item, even on Black Friday and Christmas sales. They will of course go much higher. As will ammo. Why not buy steel case now? Later, go with a premium bulk brand. You can always save the 2 MOA ammo for later as you use the One stuff now.

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( Side note, I was watching the Russia AK Guy showing off his Romanian Semi-Auto Designated Marksman rifle sold by Century. With surplus ammo, 3 MOA. On a $1800 gun! I love AK's and I love thirty cals, but if nothing else, that should make you appreciate the AR, even with poodle shooter rounds. A $350 AR with 18cent ammo does better ) Again, I know there are outliers reading this. You CAN buck the general trend and go All Best, in bulk. Good on you. This ain't for you.

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This is for folks just starting out or really lagging behind. Get your food. You can improvise weapons and catch rainwater, but in a lot of our areas of residence, there isn't enough food. It takes three other people to decide to find and eat wild plants, and you are all out of food. It takes a few dozen hunters to wipe out the game. Food First. Just starting out at six months of grain, or even flour, and you have some breathing room. JUST worry about calories at this point. Six months of flour is about $40, not including the storage container. You could get sick JUST eating that, but it will probably keep you alive.

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Get ANY bang-stick. A break open shotgun or a rimfire rifle of poor make for a $100 each is still better than a spear or a thirty pound bow you got at a garage sale ( although, it can't hurt to get those anyway ). Again, if you are just a normal Joe. I know some super warriors could take a spear to a battle and come back with a FLIR mounted AR. It takes almost zero money to get prepared. Then, work at more supplies, to lengthen the time you have supplies. Buy better, then store the old food or guns or ammo, for MORE, and back-up's.

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It is hard to actually waste money prepping. You have to be completely new to the field to buy completely worthless crap. Crap like hollow handled knives, or “survival ration bars or pills” which have cheaper better tasting alternatives. Above that absolute crap level, there is middlin “worst”. The worst supplies still retain utility. After your dirt cheap preps, then knock yourself out, buy the best, the most expensive, the most likely to impress. No one is saying “no”. I'm merely saying, “no, not YET”. Quantity, quickly, then quality, slowly.

( .Y. )

( today's related Amazon link click HERE )

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note: sweet Baby Jesus, now that's a way to start out the new year.  Most generous and excellent PayPal donation, R.B.!  And thank you as well for the very kind words.
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note: John Wilder ( HERE ), I honestly did write the above a week ago.  I notice we wrote similar hi-jinks concerning Ruth.  Great minds think alike
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Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon links here ( or from http://bisonprepper.com/2.html or www.bisonbulk.blogspot.com ). Or PayPal www.paypal.me/jimd303 

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods ( I get 4% of the Amazon sale, so you need to buy $25 worth for me to get my $1 ) or mail me some cash/check/money order or buy a book ( web site for free books, Amazon to pay just as a donation vehicle ).

*** My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184 ***E-Mail me if you want your name added to the weekly e-newsletter subscriber list.

*** Pay your author-no one works for free. I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.*** junk land under a grand *  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

why must it be black or white 2

WHY MUST IT BE BLACK OR WHITE 2?

Very few people have an unlimited preparedness budget. I do, but I also had to pay eight years of gross wages to learn that lesson. After Baby Momma, all future wives and Old Ladies had to be infertile. Not that I resent having kids-mine are really special, and make yours look pathetic and weak. One good thing I can say about the bitch, we had a heck of a good combination of genes. I merely regret it took me so much money to learn how to pick suitable mates ( besides being unable to breed, I brooked far less nonsense. It was no longer THEIR money, but either mine or ours ).

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My boy is getting set to get married, but he also whored around for near a decade first ( and he WAS a man whore ) AND she makes twice what his well paid trade pays. I'm so proud, a sugar momma well shy of thirty years old. He is a lot smarter than his Old Man. Or at least he learned well. See? Don't you feel bad about your offspring, now? Anyway, most folks are engaged in what is called “a life” and they choose to do other things instead of just prep. Some of us dumb asses keep prepping, beyond a reasonable level, but that is just because it is a hobby.

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But most sane well developed people do NOT put their life on hold to get ready for the apocalypse. They do NOT have an unlimited budget. So, by yearning for “the best”, the highest quality of material, they severely handicap themselves. What they have is perfect, but they do NOT have enough of it, not even close. Nothing shows this better than choosing a single case of MRE's over SIX FRIGGIN months of wheat. And that is if the MRE's are on sale, close to expiration.

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Congratulations, you have perfect meals, chock a block full of fat and protein, manly men super combat rations. And you'll die two weeks later than everyone else. Don't you just feel all superior to poor bitches stocking peasant food? Yeah you do. Because you are a Prepper Princess Pussy, and to be perfectly honest I shall be celebrating your demise. I give you free wisdom, which only cost you if you deem it worthy, and you think you know better.

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Look, there are a lot of things you can do better than I. You can earn more money. You can do algebra. You can actually hit what you aim at, past a hundred yards. You might write poetry or fix a leaky pipe. But I have serious doubts you have studied collapse as much as I have. It isn't just reading books, you need to eventually develop enough of a background so that you know when to call bull spit or not on what you are reading. I won't mention any names of more famous “experts” who live north of me who are incapable of calling BS.

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Enough tooting my own horn. Except, remember who has the more perfect hair. There, now I'm done. My point is this. The more I learn, the more afraid I become. Very afraid. Not about death, I know enough about pre-Oil Age actuary tables to realize I don't have that much longer to go, even in normal times. I won't turn down a few extra years, but I don't expect them ( the NOL and siblings, of the Baby Boomer generation, think 70's and 80's are normal. I know better ). Death is a given at this point.

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The fear is based on how much different this collapse is going to be. Reading history only conveys how bad the die-off is going to be. The problem becomes how much worse the recovery is going to be, if we even ever see one. Is the Agricultural Revolution even going to continue, given the lack of ore past the salvage stage? Don't get cocky about the amount of steel above ground and the coming lack of people. Will the forests recover from the die-off in time to recover the steel before it rusts away? Will there be enough petroleum based grease/oil to preserve the steel we want to use?

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These are rhetorical questions. I need to dig back into a few of my older books and read up again on that subject ( those I have in mind are “Rust, The Longest War” and “The World Without Us” ). That isn't the important thing, as much as What We See Is What We Get. Forever. The die-off will be so intense that all our knowledge will be lost, after a time we used up all the resources, and there will be no more Less Tech/Lower Tech or Appropriate Tech substitutes for everything we have now. And a lot of what we have will NOT be missed. Yet, there is enough loss to make post collapse life exponentially less comfortable.

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These things we have discussed before. Plastic sheeting, rigid board insulation, ammunition, machine grown grain and legumes, industrial production of simple items such as sewing needles. The list could expand to several articles. What you can get now, that is all there will ever be. The silver and gold above ground now? That is it, without industrial mining. You MUST be your own logistics, for your children, and your grandchildren. For your tribe, if they are to have a chance of survival.

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Do you REALLY think any of that is possible, if you restrict yourself to ONLY having the very best of everything? Stop being a selfish bastard and think of the children ( like Hilary! LOL, sorry. I couldn't help myself ). You need to stock deep, and for most that means stocking as cheap as possible, without buying junk that simply wastes our money. Your greedy ass is sitting out the apocalypse all pretty as you please, mega manly sub-MOA AR. Don't think about all the extra ammo you could have bought with the extra AR money, had you bought MIDDLIN AR's, in multiple, PLUS had ammo money left over. No, just think about yourself.

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Don't put in the effort to get away from crowds. Just spray and pray on the urban masses with your Team America semi-auto, instead of shooting that AR bolt action, in the boonies, saving ammo because none will ever be made again. You are short sighted, and your descendants, should they survive, will curse your befouled memory. And hey, if you despise your kids, just reverse engineer the above. Welcome to the sweet life of hate and discontent. I welcome you.

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There will be no recovery. Certainly not a partial one. The Dark Ages will last far longer than the last one at 500 years. That one saw an immigration away from the affected area, and a partial recovery due to far lower population. There is no where to go to today, not for any more than an odd family or two to the most remote hunting and gathering location. Those teeming masses in place will strip the carrying capacity down to zero. This is far more serious than prepping for a camping trip, with “da best, duh”. You need to prep for almost all traces of civilization to flounder and fall. Your descendants cannot survive on ONE superior rimfire rifle, as their Forever Gun. They need multiples, and ammo stocked way deep.

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Rinse and repeat with EVERYTHING. Or not. Your decaying corpse will help replenish the soil. Continued tomorrow, with “timing”. Am I beating a dead horse? You betcha!

( .Y. )

( today's related Amazon link click HERE )

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note: SF, a most kind and generous PayPal donation.  Thank you, kind sir.
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note: EM, many and profuse thanks for the awesome PayPal donation!
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note: monthly earning report.  $366 donations.  $237 Amazon commission.  $4 Kindle books.  Total $607.  Good Lawd!  That's a very generous month.  Thank you all so very much.
*

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon links here ( or from http://bisonprepper.com/2.html or www.bisonbulk.blogspot.com ). Or PayPal www.paypal.me/jimd303 

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods ( I get 4% of the Amazon sale, so you need to buy $25 worth for me to get my $1 ) or mail me some cash/check/money order or buy a book ( web site for free books, Amazon to pay just as a donation vehicle ).

*** My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184 ***E-Mail me if you want your name added to the weekly e-newsletter subscriber list.

*** Pay your author-no one works for free. I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.*** junk land under a grand *  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