peev2c14part2

PEEv2c14part2

Bare Bones List

#3

Water Filter

Ah, the good old days of prepping when the only illumination was kerosene and the only water filters were from the Swiss. Bless them, but the cost of living atop that mountain is pretty high and anything you buy from them is rather expensive. There were poor boy workarounds for both, but only cheap when compared to the originals. Well, now we have proper affordable tools and while we might not save money in the long run, at least now we can have multiple tools for the price of one old one.

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Anyone who cannot see why “one is none, two is one” is important never actually lived out in the field where crap breaks. They are the type that replace cotton laces with paracord and think they never need another backup because they upgraded. Crap breaks, despite your best intentions ( cough, expensive scope, cough ), crap gets stolen or crap is consumed in fires. Crap can be accidentally left behind when fleeing the enemy ( although, yes, I know if that is a shoelace you lost the boot as well. Surely you take my point )

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“Crap happens” is why you have a minimum back-up kit on your belt and in your pocket, in case something happens to your pack. Anyway, one of the best things to happen to preppers in a very long time is the Sawyer filter. Sweet Baby Jesus on a unicycle, $18 for tens of thousands of gallons of water. You cannot beat that deal with a sharp stick. When I was covering this before, the cheapest filter was $70, a Katadyn ceramic element and two five gallon plastic buckets, making your own Berky counter top filter.

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Now, obviously, you can go cheaper. A used $2 pot from the thrift store will boil all water. A $10 WAPI ( water purification indicator, the wire in the water melting the wax to indicate pasteurization ) is half the price and literally lasts forever if not broken. The only problem is that while a filter can be used anytime, the other two cannot. Sometimes you cannot light a fire, either because wet wood or a nearby enemy. And the sun isn't always out to solar heat your water. I have all three, as should you ( as well as the homemade Berky, as well as powder bleach-but that I mostly plan on for medicinal uses ). But if you cannot, if budgets are too frayed, I would recommend a Sawyer.

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#4

Rifle

I don't always talk about firearms, because Food Is First. And when I do cover guns I like to make the point that ammunition is far more important than guns. It is better to have a better supply of ammunition than it is to have a better gun. I would even call it normal to have five to ten times the cost in ammunition as the rifle ran you ( one TYPE of gun per ammunition stash. If you have duplicate guns, the ammo numbers stay steady ).

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Many folks ignore stockpiling ammunition, assuming they are going to die quickly. To each his own, but I don't agree with that reasoning. Murphy's Law argues against it. But the important thing here is budget, not logistics or tactics. You cannot have a firearm on a budget that you want, only what you can afford. It saddens me greatly that Obammy's only anti-gun measure was accidental, embargoing Russia and cutting off the supply of Mosin-Nagants. Which was in the history of smokeless bolt guns one of the worst designs.

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But it was so cheap it didn't matter. Now, alas, the days of $100 guns are pretty much over. You can still buy a $100 single shot rimfire or break open twelve gauge, but I would only view that as my “butter knife brigade” gun, a partisan gun only meant to get you far enough so that you can liberate an enemies weapon. They are cheaply built and you should plan around that. If that is all you can afford, well, want in one hand and crap in the other. As needs must. I wouldn't feel dirty and cheap, because even those guns are superior to archery or other primitive weapons-just know your limitations.

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I wouldn't necessarily recommend a break open single shot rifle unless you are using them at short ranges. I like them, as they are one of the most basic long arms mechanically. They are the perfect apocalypse gun. They just suck at long range accuracy as the design makes them sloppy. But they are $250. You can get a bolt action rifle for $300, but they usually don't have iron sights. Bad move! You need back-up for glass, if even having glass is a good idea ( I only use them for rimfire, and have many back-up's ).

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For $350 you can get a better bolt action, or, if you assemble one yourself from a Palmetto State kit, an AR-15. I don't necessarily think a semi is a good idea ( mine use a disabled gas tube to construct a bolt action, which has its own issues ) on a severe budget, but the one thing you can be assured of is that you'll never run out of spare parts for it. They are just as flimsy as your $100 guns, however. Of all the things an AR can do, survive rough handling indefinitely isn't one of them.

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If you are going extra cheap, I would pick rimfire over a shotgun. Folks love the shotty for its ammunition variety, but that isn't going to be cheap. You'll have far less rounds on a budget. If you want a break open or bolt rifle, and are still severely constrained financially, I would choose a carbine round over a full size battle rifle round. You can buy the ammo one half to one third the price.

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#5

Fire

I love the magnifying glass for long term fire starting. Long after your Bic's run out, long after your fresnel lens's is scratched or cracked when frozen, the sun will still be shining. Now, no, I do NOT only suggest glass as your sole fire starter. I do think some kind of fire starter will be very important forever, as YouTube primitive survival dudes might make friction bow fire starters look easy but it still takes too much work. In the very long run, magnifying glass is superior. You can start the fire on a sunny day and just keep it going if needed.

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In the short term, you can have many different kinds of sparkers to assist you on cloudy days, so that a Forever Fire isn't necessary. Ferro rods are about a buck each. You can get a Zippo lighter, with ten cent each flints. I've been told the welders spark tool is superior in longevity. For about $10, you can get two magnifying glasses from the dollar store, two fresnel lenses, a welders sparker with back up flints, a ferro rod and a Bic or two. Fire should never be an issue.

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We continue next time with #6 of the bare bones list.

( .Y. )

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*** 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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beer virus 4

BEER VIRUS 4

Well, that was invigorating! I finished part three of this series yesterday morning, and that evening Silver Report Uncut had a video on factory closures in China due to Beer Virus. And not “Uncle Cho's Plastic Toy Factory”, but rather Big Names. Like, Johnson & Johnson and Samsung. I think perhaps even Apple, but don't quote me on that one. Anyone remember what the flash drive shortage from the Japanese earthquake was like? That was one factory. That was what JIT Inventory failures look like. Get ready for another lesson ( if it isn't already apparent in the week before you read this ).

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Unless you have been living under a rock recently ( cough, certain commentators on this blog, cough ) you know that the US economy blows monkey dingus. Without the Federal Reserve fire hosing tens to hundreds of billions into the repo market daily, and then continuing to prop up the stock market ( “buy the dip” means the Fed, not Joe Investor ), the economic collapse would have already started. Now, even with the Fed covering anything that moves with liquidity, what happens to companies that cease to have any product to move?

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And not just one company, but many, all at the same time. Do you think Helicopter Money can save us this time? I know, right? I was waiting out on my front lawn too, for the money drop. It never got to the residential section. It stopped and dropped it all on the corporate headquarters. Bastards. Now, I might imagine that you and I, we can do without a fresh infusion of appliances or tablets or coconut scented shampoo. But what about the shipping company? The bunker fuel company? The interstate trucking company?

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Enough factories shut down long enough, and pretty soon all of the companies that borrowed money aren't paying back their loans, which means the small banks start to fail. The Fed starts bailing them out. But even if digital currency is free and instant, you cannot bail out thousands and thousands of companies, with more every day. Remember what happened the last time the volume of sales dropped at Wal-Mart ( the largest grocery store )? Their business model went to crap, and I think it was a close call how long they could have stayed in business if nothing had changed.

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What happens when Wally sees huge swaths of its shelves empty? Even with the same, or more, number of customers, their sales volumes plummet. In some places, there really isn't much competition in grocery stores. Less stores, less amounts of food, now there are food shortages because of limited shelves. If ten thousand people need four grocery stores, and one store is fifty percent of the demand, what if the big stores closes? The remaining small mom and pops cannot physically carry that extra volume. And that is not even factoring in the lack of credit in a failing bank system, so that the stores can reorder.

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Here is the issue as I see it. I'm not trying to imply this will be an instant collapse, as with Y2K or a EMP. I am worried that this will be unprecedented in our over fifty years of decline. Prior to this, we went from decentralization to centralization. This led to economics of scale and elimination of redundancy ( that WAS the good news, but it also becomes the bad news ). We aren't used to moving in the other direction, towards decentralization. I fear that is only possible after a collapse. Both because infrastructure and political and economic control is centralized.

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We all knew long ago that centralization is dangerous once growth ceases. And I cannot see how this is a surprise to anyone, after such a big deal was made out of that little publication titled “The Limits Of Growth”. Anyway, we all know the vulnerabilities. The cascading effect of the JIT system unraveling. Some Bright Boy points out the abundance of jobs in his area, never stopping to break down exactly how much of that is dependent of government and central bank spending. Most local governments only survive as they keep getting into more debt. At its simplest, think of the school board taking out a bond for construction.

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What happens when the federal government sees its revenues decline, when it is already borrowing 25% a year to keep running? What happens when local taxes fall as jobs are lost and mortgages ( and hence property taxes ) are not paid? The last time, there wasn't enough asphalt to repair roads, money to plow them or gas for the deputies to patrol them. The last decades of decline saw an UNEVEN process. You could move out of the area to where jobs were. You could “learn to code”. You could work for retail, because a 75% cut in pay from a Union job sucked, but at least you had a job, any job.

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What happens when this time, the severe decline is national? There will be plenty of oil in the ground, but companies cannot get financing, they cannot pay the workers enough to live on ( as the Fed hyperinflates the liquidity crises away ), the Detroit car factories already closed and the Chinese ones are temporarily closed ( the Mexican factories aren't getting parts from China ) and there are no replacement vehicles the company needs, the company payroll keeps getting robbed as the local banks are closed and there is no more direct deposit?

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Isn't it wonderful, from a tactical point of view, how much global chaos was produced by one country having a disease outbreak? And China doesn't even have to convince the world, merely its own citizens. They are the ones staying off the streets, even within the city itself that is quarantined only to outsiders. I'm not saying this isn't actually serious. The Chinese are indeed a nation of shopkeepers, the universal timeless insult, and they wouldn't stop grubbing for money if it wasn't necessary. There might not be bodies littering the street, but from what little I've seen and heard, information is being allowed to flow insofar as the corpses and chaos in the hospitals.

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The announcement that the officials would try to build another hospital from scratch in two weeks, to augment the existing ones at the Patient Zero site? Can you imagine how much you'd freak out if YOU heard that? I think the disease is just bad enough mortality wise that people are going to panic anyway, but the cherry on top of this feces Sundae is the fact that you are contagious up to two weeks, NOT showing any symptoms. This is far worse than SARS, in that regard. If every swinging dingus around you could infect you, and they appeared perfectly healthy, what is going to obviously happen?

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Everyone stays home. Even if those factories didn't want to close, their workers weren't coming in. The government soft selling the numbers just adds fuel to the paranoia that this is worse than being admitted. If I was an idiot drooling Chinaman, my brain softened from eating too much rice, and the government said “two and half percent fatality rate”, and yet I saw 60 million quarantined, or whatever the number is this week, I would conclude, “ten times worse”, and I would decide on my own to avoid crowds.

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And you know how people are. Uncle Ho in a quarantined city, talking to rural Cousin Chin, automatically embellishes the gossip, to elevate his own bravery and suffering. Chin has boots on the ground reporting, and before you know it, the whole country is in Ebola levels of panic ( do you wonder about the Pig Ebola that was just unleashed before this? A PERFECT set up to the Beer Virus, to really fan the flames of panic. The government doesn't need much of a conspiracy level set up past unleashing the two biological agents. The rest pretty much takes care of itself.

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Looking at all the past Barnyard Flu's out of China, it almost seems as if they were trial runs. Teachable moments for the ChiComs. And if I'm completely wrong and over wrought about all this? So what? This is a great time to ask yourself, what if it actually did happen? Are you ready? Can you Bug In? Are you still trying to keep the collapse on your schedule? Ponderables.

( .Y. )

( today's related Amazon link click HERE )

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*** 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 ).

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*** 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***Screw the NRA, join the GOA HERE
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beer virus 3

BEER VIRUS 3

China knows the US has limited power in actuality. You can make excuses for aircraft carriers, but in essence they are obsolete after cruise missiles. A military power is not judged by an obsolete naval platform, and the Pentagon brass is as blind to their obsolescence now as they were blinded to their potential 100 years ago ( although it wasn't the Pentagon until WWII, but ONLY a coincidence I'm Soooo sure construction started three months PRIOR to Pearl Harbor. You know, because a country in a Depression needs a huge military building when they are isolationist. Rot in Hell for all eternity, FDR scum! You too, dingus Lincoln. And hump you, Washington and any other blueblood centralist prick ).

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Remember when dictators ruled the world? Stalin, Churchill, FDR. Being effective at slaughter and hate makes you successful no matter what your politics are. I'm not trying to cast a vote behind communist China when I note their effectiveness at evil. I'm actually sad that America can no longer effectively rule the world. When it pays, I love oppression. But we suck at it anymore. Well, so did Churchill. Try to read a book on him actually written by someone else not so far up his ass there is a colon cleanse taking place. The man helped to dismantle the British empire far better than Hitler could have.

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Anyway, if you read a tiny bit of history from the era, you note that these dictators had no problem slaughtering their own citizens for the war effort. Yes, I believe FDR was responsible for Pearl Harbor. He knew what the embargo would do ( for the same reason we attempt them today, against Iran, or Cuba or Venezuela or whoever ). You don't build the Pentagon, institute the draft, and build huge power generation plants in the middle of the wilderness-enough to smelt insane amounts of aluminum you cannot use in peacetime-all BEFORE the Japs attack, unless you are pre-planning a war. And no, Francis, there was never a NEED for that war. Except economically to benefit the bankers who needed more business to stay in hookers and blow.

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China is run by a totalitarian system, if not exactly a dictator. Will that “dictator” have any problem slaughtering his own people to win a war? A war China doesn't even REALLY need, but feels compelled to wage anyway as they view the US that much of a danger. She could stay pliant and submissive, but now the US went and screwed up-AGAIN-and threatened the Chinese leadership, AGAIN. Tienanmen Square was more than likely a Color Revolution by the US. She was far too weak at the time to strike back. But now, we tried to screw with Hong Kong. Which, need I remind you, is actually NOT its own country. If China attacked Guam, do you think the US wouldn't retaliate?

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Hong Kong is Chinese. Period. I don't know WHY we felt compelled to try to Revolution them, as that is just stupid. I'm not sure how they even thought it would spread to the mainland. But the Chinese leadership sure took it as an attack ( actually, wouldn't it be kind of funny if China is behind the protests? Perhaps as a ready made excuse for unleashing Beer Virus? It is all speculation, granted, but I think the US was trying for destabilization ). The protests began in about March 2019. Our Derivatives Bubble started to unravel mid September last year. By December there was the first Beer Virus outbreak.

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Note that this is just ONE possible way to attack the US. I find it interesting that the Left didn't go rabid stupid full retard until about the time Hillary started mass agitation with the “Deplorables” nonsense. Seemingly overnight, the Left started calling for White genocide, in actual no ambiguity plainly worded recorded statements. All the Queer Queen BS and chemical castration and everything else was thrown at us. Now, who was in the White House selling military secrets to the Chinese? Did you guess Hillary? Do you think Virginia is an accident, a Democrat risking his career ( like Beto )? I don't think this is any accident. All this Commie Democrat crap is a GREAT way to start a war. It is almost as if it is being orchestrated. Could China be pouring gas on this fire?

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We know there are dozens if not hundreds ( or even more ) of cyber attacks, and I would guess China way before I thought Iran was capable. Start adding this all together. Derivatives imploding ( whether China or just long overdue ), an almost guaranteed cyber-attack from the trial runs, a deadly disease shutting down the trade transportation, AND home grown revolution. It simply seems just oddly coincidental, like FDR and his “it's only economic stimulus” PRE-war spending.

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If I was a young and ambitious Deplorable, and I saw a cyber attack paralyzing the grid and screwing everything up? I would go ahead and bring the war to the communists, the one they have been asking for. If a deadly flu started in the Blue cities and did the same to our infrastructure? Yep, attack first. If the economy crashed, you guessed it, Go Time for smiting the ROG. Now, if ALL these were happening at once, I would be like a kid in a candy store ( IF I was that young and pissed off Deplorable, which I am not. All that happens, I'm bugging out, not going GI Joe ).

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Now, you see, this is where the genius is. China cannot just stop shipping or cyber attack. The US would take it as an act of war. Just as she cannot turn Saudi Arabia out in the open ( the Saudi's have already hedged their bets and begun accepting Chinese currency for oil. They do not advertise, and still act America's bitch, to cover that up. Even way past Saudi Peak, they can offer China a LOT of oil in the future ). But China can have a legitimate disease outbreak that is more deadly than advertised, and as that crashes the economy, it is through no fault of the Chinese government. No danger of nukes from the Potomac.

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Remember, the US attacked first. We sent occupation troops there during the Boxer Rebellion. We supported anti-communists around WWII. And lately, the Color Revolutions. China isn't attacking because of that, but it does give her in her own eyes a morally superior ground to operate from, justifying anything she does to us. I think she COULD have decided to finally attack because of Hong Kong, but there has to be further motivation. Something else is going on. I think she understands we have never been weaker, and that this is the perfect time while all our military assets are stuck scattered about hither and yon.

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If she waits too long, there is the possibility we gather ourselves and attack her interests. If she gave us time to react, we might just nuke the Saudi oil fields. Or, picking and choosing her vital points such as Nigeria oil, strangle points on the Belt & Road, and etcetera. But with a disease outbreak, and the other points of attack, there is the multiple domestic distractions. This is getting delicious! 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***Screw the NRA, join the GOA HERE
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

beer virus 2

BEER VIRUS 2

I would like to try to question the common assumption that China is desperate for American business and will kiss our ass because she needs to unload tons of plastic crap onto our shores in order to survive economically. I can't refute the myth, because we don't know China's strategic timeline. But I CAN guarantee you a jelly filled donut that China knows a hell of a lot more about running a country than Orange Man or Black Jesus combined ever did, and that she understands how dangerous that dependency is, if it is even still a problem. China looks to the future and plans.

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Meanwhile, America keeps fornicating the small dog as she only focuses on the next quarterly bonus. To save one half cent on each item sold, to buy more hookers and blow, our Dear Leaders cling to JIT Inventory, which will act as the equivalent of an EMP detonating over Kansas. The only thing they learned from Y2K was that they got rich off of another economic bubble. I look at almost any item in my stockpile and I notice I have more in stock than the grocery store. On some things, more than all of them combined.

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You do the math. Anyway, to continue with China, Europe and Africa combined almost total the amount of imports from China that America receives. That was from figures two to three years ago. Now, does anyone remember that trade war we are conducting with China? Anyone? Bueller? That means we have been getting LESS from China. At the same time, China expands via its Belt & Road the number of countries it is strengthening its economic ties with. While Russia trades natural gas for manufactured goods with her. Is it just me, or does it sound like China is detaching itself from us?

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Those Treasury Bond holdings that China has? She reduced that substantially. The only reason she holds what she does is because she needs them to buy oil from the exporter nations still under the US hegemony. And those bonds are all very short term ( she got out of long term a very long time ago-no fool she. If a relative gave me a ten or twenty year bond, I would stock that with my toilet paper ). Every time Orange Man gloats in front of the camera how he is punishing China in the trade war, you should have been thinking, “oops! China is now even LESS reliant on us as we aren't buying more crap”.

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When China stops buying any of our soy beans, I'm glad. We need to keep our food here, as well as stop importing any more Eaters. But that has a cost, in Chinese independence from us. And as China sees a manufacturing slow down from demand destruction, that too is less dependence. Those Corporate Clowns that lay everybody off to save a few bucks because more money must go to pay off debt? They are reducing the amount of paying consumers. Which means less imports from China. Which means Chinese Independence from us economically.

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We are killing ourselves here, as usual. We are our own worst enemy. Granted, we may have zero options to do otherwise, but that isn't the point. The point is that we have given China no choice but to plan around not having us as a customer. The dependence has been reduced over the years. I don't think she is even worried about it any more. She might even be using the decoupling as a military weapon. Will she hurt herself? I don't know, will she? Or is it a great way to clean out her own deadwood, the overcapacity issue she has had for many years?

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Much has been made of the lack of Chinese quality, and it is hard to argue with that. But perhaps that was intentional? After all, China CAN build quality, if that is what her customers demand. She builds the requests from crap to quality. Japanese started out after World War Two building flimsy plastic crap, and look where they are today. Not to imply Chinese will ever equal Japanese, as the Nips have a long standing cultural affinity towards perfection. Just that the Chinese learned from the best on jump starting a minor economy into the big leagues.

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Now, if you were to look at business as war, strategically your industrial economy would look like a weapon. Use it to bring in capital to strengthen your economy, to defend it by playing the pliant fool. If you chose, deliberately, to make that plant and infrastructure lower quality, you could built it lightening quick and dirt cheap. It served its purpose, getting you from rice farming to building a world trade network that brought in the worlds wealth ( it is thought that China has WAY more gold than reported, just as the US has WAY less than propagandized ). China has once again fooled the world empire Rome into sending her all its gold.

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You remember that little kerfuffle called the Opium War, don't you? England wanted all of China's silver ( a huge percentage of the worlds holdings ). She enlisted ALL the other industrial western powers in occupying China and draining her treasure. Do you think China is blind to her own history? She knows the value of industrialization as a weapon. All she did was “flip the bitch”, using the same weapon the westerners employed at one time. I can guarantee you that if any power understands Peak Oil, China does.

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She understands the temporary nature of industrialism, as she has always understood the power of exporting goods she has in abundance for precious metals. “That She Has”. Let that be understood. She had very little oil. A good portion of the coal she had was used ( keep in mind, soft low energy coal produces mostly pollutants and has limited utility, and is about all that anyone has left in quantity ). She won't make our mistake of being ruled by the availability of oil. Or of England's reliance on both coal and North Sea oil.

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It is easy to be caught up in American Exceptionalism. It is an easy way of denying reality, of pretending that our time hasn't passed into the twilight. It is also an illusion, anymore. The sooner you see that we are a washed up and denuded power, the quicker you see the trajectory we are on. Pretending China still needs us is American Exceptionalism. I WANT it to be true. But it isn't. Our collapse is baked into the cake, and if you know that you are prepared for our Balkanization and impoverishment. You don't have to like reality to understand its power over you. I'll continue tomorrow.

( .Y. )

( today's related Amazon link click HERE )

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note: DZ, thank you for the generous PayPal donation-who da man?
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note: don't believe gold and silver production has fallen off a cliff?  View this article ( HERE ) and look at the first chart in the article.
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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***Screw the NRA, join the GOA HERE
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

beer virus

BEER VIRUS

Let me start out right away by saying I don't think the Corona Virus is going to be anything much past the SARS scare. Of course, this is just a guess on my part and I could be way off. And as usual this is written a week in advance and things could have changed. I do think that the one thing most alarmists are missing is that the one constant worldwide pandemics share is that usually you need starvation, famine, malnutrition to first weaken the herd. Usually. I know that the Spanish Flu case doesn't follow that guideline.

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And perhaps not the Feather Indian Smallpox Outbreak ( but, not having cows... ). Records aren't too thick on the ground, but the natives on one of the islands Columbus first found were cannibals. Whether this was ritualistic or borne of necessity is unknown ( although I haven't studied this in any depth and could be wrong assuming the worse ). The plagues of Europe did follow the starvation then disease model, and it seems the Spanish Flu is the outlier. The disease started only as lethal as any other minor outbreak. It was the following mutations that proved far more deadly.

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Usually a disease rolls in and the first is the worst, each wave following far less deadly as the strong survive and breed. The AmerIndian Smallpox tales of blankets holding the disease was from subsequent outbreaks and far less deadly than the initial 90% exposure and die-off. There was a reason the east coast was chock-a-bloc full of lush forests by the time White settlers showed up. All the heavily populated centralized civilizations had been wiped out, the forests had recovered and the decentralized small tribes were in constant conflict ( just as the Dark Age in Europe after Rome ).

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Now, obviously, Beer Virus could buck the trend and be another Spanish Flu. I'm just saying that the odds are that most of the time you need a food crisis first, to be a true civilization altering event. We are merely playing the odds here, that is all. “Peak Prosperity”, while by no means cashing in their Doom card, does think the Chinese reports are BS and that is more serious than thought. “The Atlantis Report” ( a strange site that uses a voice synthesizer and a fuzzy foreigner language to English translator, but which can have some valuable economic information. Not always, but enough times ) questions if it is man made.

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They also think this might be-conjecture only-the bankers are behind the event, an attempt to hide the ongoing economic collapse. I'm not sure about that, as the bankers never care that people know they are evil twats, but Atlantis also covers the Beer Virus economic effects rather well ( HERE ). Even if this isn't a civilization ender, what if there is enough after effects to be the black swan event popping the everything bubble? I thought we could cover that, and discuss how this is a great wargame, if nothing else.

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There were videos of nearby towns putting up makeshift barriers across roads. Dump trucks full of dirt. You don't see military personnel, but these could be officials acting independently of Beijing. It LOOKS scary, as if everyone is panicking, hard. But then, Beijing itself is quarantined. Along with cities in the multi-millions population. Can you imagine the US trying to do such a thing? Just Los Angeles alone, even with natural chockpoints, would never be effectively sealed off. Our police are there for revenue collection, not real security.

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I don't think I've ever heard of so many cities locked down at once. It is enough to force one to question those failing to panic enough. It is just with all the past crying of wolf, it is hard to get too excited here, even with the seeming signs from China. Not that I EVER hesitate to panic early and often. But my main conclusion is not to worry overly much. I'm not claiming I'm right. I could be wrong, as I'm always terrible timing the collapse. I'm just reporting my non-reaction after an hour spent on You-Tube. It LOOKS scary, but the Lizard Brain isn't reacting. You just take that for what it's worth.

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As to the financial effects, now THAT I can believe. How much of a slowdown in manufacturing caused from China freezing transportation would it take to really screw up the US economy? I would wager, very little. We don't make diddly here anymore. Every day there are more reports of mass lay-offs from factories ( “no need to panic! The stock market is well!” ). Even in the gangbusters ( sarcasm ) fracking sector ( granted, I admit, after Peak Fracking, this is natural. It is more the physiological effect ).

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If you were the US military, and had already started cannibalizing equipment in inventory to keep some units running, and the folks that sold you a LOT of those spare parts suddenly stopped shipping to you, how long could you keep your war machine in operation? Now, what about the general US economy, where EVERYTHING is made in China, without any security concerns keeping some manufacturing here? If I was the extra paranoid type, I would almost think China staged this whole thing, to blow up the Western world economy.

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Is that too over the top? I admit, it could be. Just ponder the possibility. China, in the same city a bio weapons lab exists, suddenly sees a nasty disease. It of COURSE does the globally responsible thing and over-reacts with quarantines. It doesn't work, because they give advance notice of shut downs, during the busy travel season Chinese New Years, and it spreads. Western airport gropers are Super Extra Vigilant taking everyone's temperature. For a disease that is contagious while it isn't showing any symptoms, for about a week. Ah, our Transportation Gestapo, giving the Keystone Kops a better name.

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Peak Prosperity Dude mentioned that the WHO and CDC were too busy worrying about the economic impacts of quarantines, and not focusing on the disease potential/danger. I can believe it-their god Mammon will protect them. How funny is it that it is the Chinese communists, rather than the Soviets, that are selling us the rope that we hang ourselves with? The CDC is so busy removing Disadvantaged Youth from the gun crime statistics, while adding in all the White Deranged Deplorable Mass Shootings, that they have no budget left for actual contagious diseases ( well, ask a Democrat-it IS a plague, by gum! ).

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Just getting started. I'll continue tomorrow.

( .Y. )

( today's related Amazon link click HERE )

*
note: SF, yet another very generous and much appreciated PayPal donation-bless your heart.
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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***Screw the NRA, join the GOA HERE
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peev2c14

PEEv2c14

10 Bare Bones

This list is a VERY bare bones list, the ten items that you'll need if you can afford nothing else. And I mean like, zero, zip, zilch. For the really, really poor boys. Or, more likely, those of us grossing butt tons of money and netting close to crap all, dingus or squat. When I was making $25k in the mid 90's, and my dear loving Baby Mamma was enjoying anal sex with my virgin bunghole, destroying me financially so I had no resources to counter her free government lawyer, I was netting two or three hundred dollars a month.

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That was rent, food, gas to get to work and anything else I might desire to keep me alive and out of jail. I remember I was able to sub-let the rooms in my apartment and only paid $100 or $150 for rent. I'll never forget the $40 a month food budget. Luckily that $10 a week grocery shopping stretched pretty far as Super Wal-Mart had just become a huge thing. Them keeping me alive allowed me to overlook their thieving ways for many years, such was my gratitude. I ate a LOT of day old donuts at the convenience store job, as they were free after midnight, and a few $1 sandwiches might have accidentally ended up in my belly ( real, thick, stuffed sandwiches, not the skimpy crap ones today ).

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Gas was $1 a gallon in Oklahoma then ( although food was taxed, so my $10 a week groceries were just $9 worth of food ) and I got free cigarettes at work ( buy two, get one free meant I got one free and customers bought two at the regular price, removed from the sales bundle. Was all this “grazing” a bad juju move? Of course. If you had asked me if I cared at the time I would have told you to hump off. I was hungry and needed nicotine for stress relief. I couldn't afford alcohol ).

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Let that be a lesson. I was hungry-it was a high calorie burn job. We busted our asses detail cleaning all night. The industry standard was $15k entry level management, and these folks paid us $20k plus profit sharing. You earned the extra, and were grateful. Did I feel the least bit sorry for eating on their dime, even after the extra pay? No, not in the slightest. I experienced absolutely no remorse or guilt, not the slightest indigestion. People WILL do as needs must and suffer not a pang of transgression.

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This was back when a couple with kids could live middle class on a $30k paycheck, comfortably as long as there was no waste ( and as this was prior to cell phones or Starbucks-at least that I was aware of-I wonder if there is a correlation with these and the standards of living ) so I was making super wages. And I had ZERO to spend on prepping. This is where I expect most people are today, lots coming in, more going out, and no wiggle room for prepping. That is why, in Trumps most magical economy my frugal survival advice is more popular than ever.

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Now, this “10 List” is really for the poorest of the working poor ( as defined by NET-just as with petroleum, it isn't gross but net that is the only important metric ). I expect most of you can do better. It is just if one has few other options. Please do not bother listing all the other things you could buy, or perhaps feel you need to upgrade your level of comfort. Please look up the definition of Bare Bones. Let us start where any preparedness planning starts, Food First.

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#1 FOOD

You need calories. If you ate a pound of white flour or white rice a day, there is your calories. You get no nutrients, but you do get calories. If you would like a little taste of how dangerous ONLY eating white rice ( and by extension, processed flour ) is, read King Rat by “Shogun” fame author James Clavell. It is a great book in and of itself, much shorter than his regular door stoppers, and could only have been written by one who experienced it. Fun filled fact, Clavell was able to take the time to write those huge books by selling movie screenplays.

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Calories are paramount, but you cannot eat just anything and stay healthy. Hard candy as calories might have worked in civil defense fallout shelters, because the plan was to only stay two weeks or so. A years food, you need healthier calories. That is why I insist on wheat kernels. You can sprout some for vegetables ( fresh, not processed, is necessary for enzymes and micro-nutrients ) and it does contain protein, if not a complete one. Wheat first, for healthy calories. 400 pounds a year, about $100 before container.

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If you want a complete protein, you must add beans to your diet. I would plan on a minimum of 100 pounds a year, about a quarter pound a day, the cheapest being soy flour from the feed store, about $35 before container. Surely, anyone can find $135 for a years food? Hopefully, and don't call me Shirley. I would then recommend fat. Again, buy these in order of ability to keep you alive. Wheat, beans, fat. Shortening is disgusting but cheap at about $1.50 a pound and will last forever. Eight containers will be about $30 and should last a year ( far less in summer, more in winter. Without sufficient heat your body makes its own, from fat ).

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For the remainder of a $200 bill ( not counting storage containers-call that another $50 ), you could get some vitamin pills. I recommend it, as the sprouts might not be sufficient, only being about three pounds of wheat per month to make those ( one pound a day calories, the remaining fraction in sprouts ). You can survive just on wheat, perhaps, but if you can double that budget you give yourself a much better chance. $150 minimum, $250-$300 ideally.

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#2

Grain Grinder

This is easy, on a bare bones budget. The old Corona, now sold as “Victoria”. $45 at Amazon. There are cheaper, half the price, but that is Chinese rather than South American. I'd buy within your own hemisphere for a better quality. It is a corn mill, not a wheat mill, so you must apply labor rather than money. Wheat needs three passes to get a rough meal ( not pastry flour fine-that costs another $100 to $200 ). But the Victoria is affordable and built as a tank. It will last forever if you just use dry foods in it, to keep it from rusting. You cannot beat these on a budget. No, I recommend no other bubba engineering tools. Get the proper tool, one up to the task of grinding hundreds of pounds of grains.

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We continue tomorrow, or the next day as tickles my fancy, with #3.

( .Y. )

( today's related Amazon link click HERE )

*
note: free for today books, EMP 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***Screw the NRA, join the GOA HERE
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

peev2c13

PEEv2c13

Peak Oil

Twelve chapters ago, I started rewriting this book ( as blog articles ). On the first article, you were told I was going to write on this subject. You WERE warned. Now, here it is. If you hear nothing else, I want to make this point. “They have been saying we would run out of oil for 100 years” is no excuse for dismissing Peak Oil. Because Peak ONLY means that is the point production starts to fall. It does NOT mean we have run out of oil. You mix apples and oranges to deny reality, that infinite growth isn't possible on a finite planet.

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I actually understand your reluctance to give up the good life. I certainly don't wish to live in deprivation and despair, and that is on a GOOD day, after the oil. Oil is so ingrained in our lives we cannot imagine another reality. It allowed a LOT of scientific research that was a complete waste of time, just so that a few nuggets of helpful knowledge was gained. All that waste was just surplus energy. It allowed hundreds of millions of people to do nothing but cruise around for no other purpose than to be cruising around.

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Wasting oil was FUN, dammit! The problem of course is that all the fun we had growing up is no longer possible. Because we don't have as much oil to waste, per capita and BTU's in toto. The per capita part screwed the pooch when the powers that be needed more consumers to pick up from depressed earnings and profit, and the BTU part came from substituting real oil with lesser quality fuels once conventional oil decreased in volumes discovered and produced. We certainly have NOT run out of oil!

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We ran out of enough oil per person, to continue our standard of living, and then we started using fake fuel that delivered far less energy and which also was far more resource intense to produce ( I do NOT say “more expensive to produce” because fracking oil almost always lost money. The bankers giving away the soon to be defaulted loans didn't care because without some kind, any kind, of energy, their racket would have ended. And hell, lost loans are just entries in the ledger, not real money. Just inflation, which doesn't hurt the rich ).

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These last fifty ( plus ) years of economic decline ( we are still waiting for the economic collapse ) were all caused by the decline in oil. Energy in general, as all the high grade coal was used, as there were no more rivers to dam, after we passed Peak Plutonium and after the US saw the peak of its oil production in the lower 48 states. If you take away Alaskan oil and the Gulf Of Mexico oil ( both in severe decline. We weren't deep sea drilling because it was easy or profitable, but because that is what is mostly left ), we would be far below half our Peak 1971 production.

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No, I do NOT call fracking oil “energy independence” and I would NEVER call it “surpassing 1971 production”. Let me try to make this clear. Stick a pipe in the ground and out comes conventional oil. All it needs is 1880's levels of technology to distill ( yes, it is more complex and expensive now, because of centralization and economics of scale. But fundamentally the level of technology isn't much advanced. I know you want to argue. Look up “fundamentally” ). Nothing besides a well needs to be shipped in to start the drilling.

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With fracking oil, you need to ship in, besides the drilling rig, butt tons of water and chemicals. That is an added energy cost, which lowers your NET energy. The wells must be deeper. And a lot of times, you get a VERY poor grade of oil. Sometimes so poor you need to add in a thicker petroleum product to get anything other than lower energy gasoline ( you remember that you need diesel for trucks and trains, yes? ). But the biggest sin of fracking oil is that instead of a minimum of forty years of well production, you usually only get four years MAXIMUM. Fracking spots are in essence the sludge left over from conventional oil drilling or which were NEVER economically viable in the first place.

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Now, yes, indeed, we can run an economy on fracking oil. We have been doing it, the last five years fracking alone producing one third of all of our liquid fuel needs. But, you have noticed the economy during that same time, haven't you? If it wasn't for printed money never to be paid back, the majority of companies publicly traded would have already closed their doors. If it wasn't for the new housing bubble artificially injecting money into the banks vaults, Douche Bank ( and its illegitimate inbreed cousins across the globe such as HSBC ) would have probably actually already touched off the derivatives implosion.

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It was the lack of affordable oil at a sufficient net energy that collapsed the world manufacturing economy ( okay, “declined too far to remain viable” rather than “collapsed” ). If too much energy is going to produce more energy, what is left for the real economy? It is bad enough the financial sector is a parasite that drains too much economic activity, now we are also working with an energy sector that is producing too little to maintain the infrastructure of the planet. I know I've lost some of you, so let me elaborate. It takes oil to drill for oil.

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You see a statement perhaps to the effect of “we were pumping 70 million barrels of oil a day in 1970, and now we are pumping out 90 million a day. Hooza!” But, one, there are a crap ton more people wanting calories today that fifty years ago ( which you will of course dismiss as “starving Black babies in Africa-screw them”, ignoring the THREE friggin BILLION people in India and China working towards a middle class lifestyle ) and two, volume of production means dingus all compared to NET energy.

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If you use more oil to get oil out of the ground and to its end user, the volume doesn't matter. A fracking well can lose up to 80% of its volume in ONE year. That means you need more wells. Every time you set up a rig and run pipe down into the ground, it takes away from the net energy delivered. You need at least ten times the drilling for fracking as conventional, and then after all that, you get a lesser grade of oil. With these kinds of inefficiencies, NET energy is really reduced. And I beg you to remember, we are trying to run a 1930 infrastructure with 2010 energy.

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Every year, less NET energy means that old timey infrastructure sees less energy devoted to its maintenance. Every ill in our economy is attributed to less energy inputs. Less energy to dredge out the lakes behind dams, less energy for the consumer, less energy for a business that caters to a consumer, or employs a consumer. Retailers failing is NOT economic, and it was NEVER about Amazon, it is energy contraction. 35% unemployment is energy contraction. Chinese overproduction from lack of employed consumers is all about energy contraction.

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None of this is because we ran OUT of oil, it is because we are getting a constant decline in net energy. THAT is Peak Oil. You have been living it for fifty years. The only reason it matters is because what is in constant decline eventually means it runs out. You've been living Peak most of your life. Isn't it time to think perhaps you should accept the proof before your eyes?

( .Y. )

( today's related Amazon link click HERE )

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note: January earnings report.  $212 donations.  $162 Amazon commission.  $5 Kindle books.  $379 total.  Most excellent.  A hearty thanks to any and all who filled the begging bowl.
*
note: Gary North on the historical context of Brexit HERE or as he puts it, and to tie in somewhat with today's article, if only in a snarky manner, Peak Globalism
*

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***Screw the NRA, join the GOA HERE
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there