Preppers Panama

Just In Time: When the Trucks Stop, America Will Stop (With Immediate and Catastrophic Consequences)

2012-04-03T10:37:00.003-07:00

Most Americans take for granted the intricate systems that make it possible for us to engage in seemingly mundane day to day tasks like filling up our gas tanks, loading up our shopping carts at the local grocery store, obtaining necessary medications, and even pouring ourselves a clean glass of water. When we wake up each morning we just expect that all of these things will work today the same way they worked yesterday. Very few have considered the complexity involved in the underlying infrastructure that keeps goods, services and commerce in America and Panama flowing. Fewer still have ever spent the time to contemplate the fragility of these systems or the consequences on food, water, health care, the financial system, and the economy if they are interrupted.

A report prepared for legislators and business leaders by the American Trucking Associations highlights just how critical our just-in-time inventory and delivery systems are, and assesses the impact on the general population in the event of an emergency or incident of national significance that disrupts the truck transportation systems which are responsible for carrying some ten billion tons of commodities and supplies across the United States each year.

A shut down of truck operations as a result of elevated threat levels, terrorist attacks, overall road-blocks or pandemics would, according to the report, have “a swift and devastating impact on the food, healthcare, transportation, waste removal, retail, manufacturing, and financial sectors.”

So too would events such as an EMP attack or a coordinated cyber-attack that could shut down global positioning systems and the computers responsible for inventory control. Another potential scenario that is more likely now than ever before is liquidity problems within the financial system stemming from currency crisis or hyperinflation. All of our just-in-time delivery systems are built upon the unhindered transfer of money and credit, but when credit flow becomes restricted or money becomes worthless, no one will be able to pay for their goods. Likewise, no one will trust the credit worthiness of anyone else. This is exactly the scenario playing out in Greece right now and the consequences on the health care industry in that country have left many without life saving drugs. When there’s no money, no one will be transporting anything.

The effects of a transportation shutdown for any reason would be immediate (in some cases, within hours) and absolutely catastrophic.

Excerpted from the American Truckers Associations report

Food

Significant shortages will occur in as little as three days, especially for perishable items following a national emergency and a ban on truck traffic.
Consumer fear and panic will exacerbate shortages. News of a truck stoppage—whether on the local level, state or regional level, or nationwide—will spur hoarding and drastic increases in consumer purchases of essential goods. Shortages will materialize quickly and could lead to civil unrest. (We’re seeing this in the UK right now)

Water

Supplies of clean drinking water will run dry in two to four weeks. For safety and security reasons, most water supply plants maintain a larger inventory of supplies than the typical business. However, the amount of chemical storage varies significantly and is site specific. According to the Chlorine Institute, most water treatment facilities receive chlorine in cylinders that are delivered by motor carriers. On average, trucks deliver purification chemicals to water supply plants every seven to 14 days. Without these chemicals, water cannot be purified and made safe for drinking.

Health Care

Without truck transportation, patient care within the truck stoppage zone will be immediately jeopardized. According to Cook, many hospitals have moved to a just-in-time inventory system. In fact, some work from a low-unit-of-measure system. This means that essential basic supplies, such as syringes and catheters, are not ordered until the supplies are depleted. These systems depend on trucks to deliver needed supplies within hours of order placement. Internal redistribution of supplies in hospitals could forestall a crisis for a short time; however, in a matter of hours, hospitals would be unable to supply critical patient care.
If an incident of national significance produces mass injuries, truck transportation is the key to delivering urgently needed medical supplies necessary to save lives.
Hospitals and nursing homes will exhaust food supplies in as little as 24 hours
Pharmacy stocks of prescription drugs will be depleted quickly. According to the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, most of the nation’s 55,000 drug stores receive daily merchandise deliveries by truck.

Transportation

Service station fuel supplies will start to run out in just one to two days. An average service station requires a delivery every 2.4 days. Based on these statistics, the busiest service stations could run out of fuel within hours of a truck stoppage, with the remaining stations following within one to two days
Air, rail and maritime transportation will be disrupted.
A fuel shortage will create secondary effects. Without access to automobile travel, people will be unable to get to work causing labor shortages and increased economic damage. Without cars, many people cannot access grocery stores, banks, doctors, and other daily needs. Public bus systems will cease to operate as well, preventing many disabled and elderly people from accessing these necessities. Without fuel, police, fire, rescue and other public service vehicles will be paralyzed, further jeopardizing public safety.

Waste Removal

Within days of a truck stoppage, Americans will be literally buried in garbage with serious health and environmental consequences. Further, without fuel deliveries, many waste processing facilities will be unable to operate equipment such as backhoes and incinerators.
Uncollected and deteriorating waste products create rich breeding grounds for microorganisms, insects, and other vermin. Hazardous materials and medical waste will introduce toxins as well as infectious diseases into living environments. Urban areas will, of course, be significantly impacted within just a couple of days.

Retail / Manufacturing / Economy

Replenishment of goods will be disrupted. Many of the nation’s leading retailers rely on just-in-time delivery to keep inventory levels as low as possible. Similar to the low-unit-of-measure hospital inventory system, these stores rely on frequent deliveries to replenish basic goods. Often, delivery of a shipment is not triggered until the current inventory is nearly depleted. Without truck deliveries, retailers will be unable to restock goods, including consumer basics such as bottled water, canned goods, and paper products.
Consumer behavior during emergencies triples the rate of inventory turn-over. Since many large retail outlets typically keep inventories as lean as possible, problems often arise quickly during truck transportation slowdowns that occur from crises such as hurricanes.
Just-in-time manufacturers will shut down assembly lines within hours. Major American manufacturers, ranging from computer manufacturers such as Dell and Compaq to major automakers such as GM and Ford, rely on just-in-time manufacturing. Without truck deliveries, component shortages and manufacturing delays will develop within hours

Financial Sector

ATM and branch bank cash resources will be exhausted quicky. In today’s fastpaced, high-technology economy, consumers access cash 24/7 from 370,000 ATMs nationwide. JP Morgan Chase, the nation’s second largest consumer bank, replenishes its 6,600 ATMs via armored truck delivery every two to three days. Given the increase in ATM activity that occurs before and after any type of crisis, ATMs would run out of cash much sooner.
Small and medium-size businesses will lose access to cash.
Regular bank functions will cease.

While an event that disrupts truck transportation systems may be unlikely, recent history suggests it is fully plausible and the blowback can be devastating. A day after Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans, panicked government officials stopped all transportation flow into the region, forcing hundreds of trucks loaded with emergency supplies like food and water to wait for permission before they could enter the area. As a result, thousands of residents of the city were left without items essential for survival. It took days before truck routes were re-opened and supplies were allowed to flow. Government officials acting on limited information, lack of knowledge and personal politics were responsible for restricting the flow of goods into New Orleans, potentially killing hundreds of people in the process.

What this incident demonstrated is that when the trucks in America and Panama stop, all commerce and delivery stops with it.

Now consider what may happen if the emergency is more widespread, affecting not just a city, but the population of an entire region or the United States in its entirety.

Is Now The Time To Move Away From Major U.S. Cities

2012-02-01T04:06:00.000-08:00

Michael Synder ~ The American Dream

As the U.S. economy falls apart and as the world becomes increasingly unstable, more Americans than ever are becoming "preppers". It is estimated that there are at least two million preppers in the United States today, but nobody really knows. The truth is that it is hard to take a poll because a lot of preppers simply do not talk about their preparations. Your neighbor could be storing up food in the garage or in an extra bedroom and you might never even know it. An increasing number of Americans are convinced that we are on the verge of some really bad things happening. But will just storing up some extra food and supplies be enough? What is going to happen if we see widespread rioting in major U.S. cities like George Soros is predicting? What is going to happen if the economy totally falls to pieces and our city centers descend into anarchy like we saw in New Orleans during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina? In some major U.S. cities such as Detroit, looting is already rampant. There are some sections of Detroit where entire blocks of houses are being slowly dismantled by thieves and stripped of anything valuable. Sadly, the economy is going to get a lot worse than it is at the moment. So is now the time to move away from major U.S. cities? Should preppers be seeking safer locations for themselves and their families? Those are legitimate questions.

According to a recent Gallup poll, satisfaction with the government is now at an all-time low. Americans are rapidly losing faith in virtually every major institution in society.

Anger and frustration are rising to very dangerous levels, and we are rapidly approaching a boiling point.

When people feel as though they have lost everything, they get desperate.

And desperate people do desperate things.

In many communities in the United States today, crime has become so terrifying that people are literally sleeping with their guns.

The following is a story from Rancho Cordova, California that one of my readers recently sent me....

When I first moved here, it was not a bad place, it was quiet and clean.

However, over the past three years this place has gone to the dumps there are thugs and unruly people everywhere.

I have prevented two car break-ins by scaring these thugs away.

While I was home on thanksgiving weekend, someone decided to break into my apartment.

They trashed my place stole all my items and even took my law enforcement (LE) vehicle to include my equipment.

I m sure they had been watching me for a while because they did not take items that contained my identification.

Thank god, I had my weapon with me.

In many areas of the country, law enforcement resources are being dramatically cut back due to budget problems at the same time that crime is rapidly rising.

Right now, the city of Detroit is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. Officials there recently announced that due to budget constraints, all police stations will be closed to the public for 16 hours a day. From now on, they will only be open to the public from 8 AM to 4 PM.

But in Detroit the police are needed now more than ever. The following is what one British reporter found during his visit to Detroit....

Much of Detroit is horribly dangerous for its own residents, who in many cases only stay because they have nowhere else to go. Property crime is double the American average, violent crime triple. The isolated, peeling homes, the flooded roads, the clunky, rusted old cars and the neglected front yards amid trees and groin-high grassland make you think you are in rural Alabama, not in one of the greatest industrial cities that ever existed.

The population of Detroit is less than half of what it used to be. Over the past few decades people have left in droves, and large sections of the city are in an advanced state of decay.

Not too many people want to buy homes in Detroit now. At this point, the median price of a home in Detroit is just $6000.

Detroit has become a very scary place. 100 bus drivers in Detroit recently refused to drive their routes out of fear of being attacked on the streets. The head of the bus drivers union, Henry Gaffney, said that the drivers were literally "scared for their lives"....

“Our drivers are scared, they’re scared for their lives. This has been an ongoing situation about security. I think yesterday kind of just topped it off, when one of my drivers was beat up by some teenagers down in the middle of Rosa Parks and it took the police almost 30 minutes to get there, in downtown Detroit,” said Gaffney.

But it is not just Detroit that is having these kinds of problems.

In Cleveland, over 50 percent of all children are living in poverty and abandoned houses are everywhere.

The city has already demolished about 1,000 homes, and there is a plan to demolish 20,000 more homes. The following comes from a recent CBS News report by Scott Pelley....

Perfectly good homes, worth 75, 100 thousand dollars or more a couple of years ago, are being ripped to splinters in Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Here, the great recession left one fifth of all houses vacant. The owners walked away because they couldn't or wouldn't keep paying on a mortgage debt that can be twice the value of the home. Cleveland waited four years for home values to recover and now they've decided to face facts and bury the dead.

Down in St. Louis they have a different problem. In some of the worst areas of the city, roving packs of wild dogs are a serious threat to children that are walking to school. A recent report by the local CBS affiliate in St. Louis described the situation this way....

...Lewis Reed is sounding the alarm. "I’ve witnessed packs of dogs, 10 and 15 dogs running together, and I’ve seen all these dogs I’m talking about they don’t have collars, they don’t have tags, these are truly wild dogs," he said.

Reed says stray dogs are terrorizing the north side. "It’s obscene that parents have to walk their kids to school, in some parts of the city, with a golf club to fend off wild dogs."

How would you feel if you had to fend off wild packs of dogs as you walked your child to school?

These kinds of conditions can be found out on the west coast as well.

For example, there is an area of San Francisco that is known as "Hunter's Point" that is an absolute nightmare. In Hunter's Point, over half of the population lives in poverty and more than half of all children live in a home where there is no father present. The following is what one reporter discovered on a visit to Hunter's Point....

Abernathy and I cut through the complex, tromping over an expanse of dirt and concrete toward the northeast end of the development, where a row of apartments looked down from a grassy hill. We paused next to a vacant, boarded-over unit to take in the scene: A stream of ****, piss, tampons, and toilet paper spewed from a dark hole in the sidewalk, poured down the hill, and formed a sort of **** lagoon next to the street. Weeds, about six inches tall, were growing in the little lagoon.

Raw ****, obviously, is not cool. Beyond the fact that it smells and looks nasty, fecal matter provides a haven for dangerous bacteria, most notably E. coli, a virulent pathogen that can sicken and even kill humans, especially infants.

When conditions like this reign, it is a prime breeding ground for crime.

In major U.S. cities all over the United States, drug dealing, gang activity and prostitution are on the rise. The following comes from a recent article in the New York Times....

In November, a terrified 13-year-old girl pounded on an apartment door in Brooklyn. When a surprised woman answered, the girl pleaded for a phone. She called her mother, and then dialed 911.

The girl, whom I’ll call Baby Face because of her looks, frantically told police that a violent pimp was selling her for sex. He had taken her to the building and ordered her to go to an apartment where a customer was waiting, she said, and now he was waiting downstairs to make sure she did not escape. She had followed the pimp’s directions and gone upstairs, but then had pounded randomly on this door in hopes of getting help.

In some major U.S. cities, the gangs have virtually taken over. In an article entitled "City of Ruins", Chris Hedges described what life is like today in Camden, New Jersey....

There are perhaps a hundred open-air drug markets, most run by gangs like the Bloods, the Latin Kings, Los Nietos and MS-13. Knots of young men in black leather jackets and baggy sweatshirts sell weed and crack to clients, many of whom drive in from the suburbs. The drug trade is one of the city's few thriving businesses. A weapon, police say, is never more than a few feet away, usually stashed behind a trash can, in the grass or on a porch.

As I wrote about the other day, the FBI says that there are now 1.4 million gang members inside this country. That number has increased by 40 percent since 2009.

Organized criminal behavior by groups of young people is on the rise all over the nation. Just check out this video which shows a flash mob robbery happening in Montgomery County, Maryland.

Sadly, this is just the beginning.

This country is still enjoying a tremendous amount of prosperity. We still have a very high standard of living compared to most of the rest of the world.

So how nightmarish are things going to get when the economy gets really bad?

How growing numbers of American 'preppers' are getting ready for Armageddon

2012-01-25T11:11:00.000-08:00

When Patty Tegeler looks out the window of her home overlooking the Appalachian Mountains in southwestern Virginia, she sees trouble on the horizon.

'In an instant, anything can happen,' she told Reuters.

'And I firmly believe that you have to be prepared.'

Ms Tegeler is among a growing subculture of Americans who refer to themselves informally as 'preppers.'

Ready for anything: Chuck Izzo, a "prepper" sits in his basement where he stores wood pellets to fuel his woodstove, an alternative heat source in his home

Some are driven by a fear of imminent societal collapse, others are worried about terrorism, and many have a vague concern that an escalating series of natural disasters is leading to some type of environmental cataclysm.

They are following in the footsteps of hippies in the 1960s who set up communes to separate themselves from what they saw as a materialistic society, and the survivalists in the 1990s who were hoping to escape the dictates of what they perceived as an increasingly secular and oppressive government.

Preppers, though are, worried about no government.

More...

Ms Tegeler, 57, has turned her home in rural Virginia into a 'survival center,' complete with a large generator, portable heaters, water tanks, and a two-year supply of freeze-dried food that her sister recently gave her as a birthday present.

She says that in case of emergency, she could survive indefinitely in her home. And she thinks that emergency could come soon.

'I think this economy is about to fall apart,' she said.

Stocking up: Dennis McClung, of Mesa, Arizona, filled his basement with food to ride out the end of civilization, which he believes is coming December 12

A wide range of vendors market products to preppers, mainly online. They sell everything from water tanks to guns to survival skills.

Conservative talk radio host Glenn Beck seems to preach preppers' message when he tells listeners: 'It's never too late to prepare for the end of the world as we know it.'

'Unfortunately, given the increasing complexity and fragility of our modern technological society, the chances of a societal collapse are increasing year after year,' said author James Wesley Rawles, whose Survival Blog is considered the guiding light of the prepper movement.

A former Army intelligence officer, Mr Rawles has written fiction and non-fiction books on end-of-civilization topics, including 'How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It,' which is also known as the preppers' Bible.

Emerging market: Best Prices Storable Foods in Texas has seen a surge in customers looking to fill their pantries and basements with nonperishable foods to ride out any fall of civilization

'We could see a cascade of higher interest rates, margin calls, stock market collapses, bank runs, currency revaluations, mass street protests, and riots,' he told Reuters.

'The worst-case end result would be a Third World War, mass inflation, currency collapses, and long term power grid failures.'

HOW TO STOCK UP LIKE A PREPPER

You don't have to own a fallout shelter and believe society is on the brink of collapse to store some extra supplies in case of a natural disaster or other emergency. Here are a few suggestions from the federal government:

Food - Three day supply of non-perishable food that requires no heat or refrigeration and little water to eat. Consider MREs (military rations), peanut butter, canned fruits and vegetables, canned ready-to-eat soup and energy bars. Be sure to include a can opener
Water - One gallon per person in your household per day. Keep enough for at least three days.
Light - Candles with matches and flashlights with fresh batteries
Communication - Battery-operated on hand-crank radio with NOAA weather radio function
Health - First aid kit as well as an prescription and over-the-counter medication you regularly use
Sanitation - Spare toilet paper, paper towels and plastic garbage bags
Documents - Be sure to keep important documents and family photos together in an easily-accessible place in case you need to leave home

A sense of 'suffering and being afraid' is usually at the root of this kind of thinking, according to Cathy Gutierrez, an expert on end-times beliefs at Sweet Briar College in Virginia. Such feelings are not unnatural in a time of economic recession and concerns about a growing national debt, she said.

'With our current dependence on things from the electric grid to the Internet, things that people have absolutely no control over, there is a feeling that a collapse scenario can easily emerge, with a belief that the end is coming, and it is all out of the individual's control,' she told Reuters.

She compared the major technological developments of the past decade to the Industrial Revolution of the 1830s and 1840s, which led to the growth of the Millerites, the 19th-Century equivalent of the preppers.

Followers of charismatic preacher Joseph Miller sold everything and gathered in 1844 for what they believed would be the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Many of today's preppers receive inspiration from the Internet, devouring information posted on websites like that run by attorney Michael T. Snider, who writes The Economic Collapse blog out of his home in northern Idaho.

'Modern preppers are much different from the survivalists of the old days,' he said.

'You could be living next door to a prepper and never even know it. Many suburbanites are turning spare rooms into food pantries and are going for survival training on the weekends.'

Like other preppers, Mr Snider is worried about the end of a functioning US economy. He points out that tens of millions of Americans are on food stamps and that many U.S. children are living in poverty.

'Most people have a gut feeling that something has gone terribly wrong, but that doesn't mean that they understand what is happening,' he said.

'A lot of Americans sense that a massive economic storm is coming and they want to be prepared for it.'

So, assuming there is no collapse of society -- which the preppers call 'uncivilization' -- what is the future of the preppers?

Ms Gutierrez said that unlike the Millerites -- or followers of radio preacher Harold Camping, who predicted the world would end last year -- preppers are not setting a date for the coming destruction. The Mayan Calendar predicts doom this December.

'The minute you set a date, you are courting disconfirmation,' she said.

Ms Tegeler, who recalls being hit by tornadoes and floods in her southwestern Virginia home, said that none of her 'survival center' products will go to waste.

'I think it's silly not to be prepared," she said.

'After all, anything can happen.'

Please see this important Video! (Today!)

2011-11-11T06:56:00.000-08:00

2012 is getting closer and closer but still, many

people aren't prepared/aware of the things that

are going to happen.

Click Below To Watch This Video Now

You will be amazed at the things coming up over the

next 6-12 months. You cannot be too naive to recognize

the facts about what is coming up in the near future.

This will be very shocking, but everyone deserves to

know the truth.

Please click here now to watch <<----

http://2012-survival-guide.com/?vsa=y

Peace & Love

James Sayer
2012officialcountdown.com

15 de octubre – Unidos por un cambio global

2011-10-13T11:32:00.000-07:00

El 15 de octubre personas de todo el mundo tomarán las calles y las plazas. Desde América a Asia, desde África a Europa, la gente se está levantando para reclamar sus derechos y pedir una auténtica democracia. Ahora ha llegado el momento de unirnos todos en una protesta no violenta a escala global.

Los poderes establecidos actúan en beneficio de unos pocos, desoyendo la voluntad de la gran mayoría, sin importarles los costes humanos o ecológicos que tengamos que pagar. Hay que poner fin a esta intolerable situación.

Unidos en una sola voz, haremos saber a los políticos, y a las élites financieras a las que sirven, que ahora somos nosotros, la gente, quienes decidiremos nuestro futuro. No somos mercancía en manos de políticos y banqueros que no nos representan.

El 15 de octubre nos encontraremos en las calles para poner en marcha el cambio global que queremos. Nos manifestaremos pacíficamente, debatiremos y nos organizaremos hasta lograrlo.

Es hora de que nos unamos. Es hora de que nos escuchen.

http://15october.net/es/

Alternative Markets, Barter Systems, and Local Co-ops are the Lifeboats That Will Save Us

2011-07-13T11:15:00.000-07:00

Activist Post

More and more people are becoming aware of the complete system failure we're experiencing in the United States and around the globe. As the true nature of the control system is revealed, people tend to feel as Howard Beale did in Network when he said, "first, you've got to get mad...and scream, I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

But once that anger at being lied to for so long subsides, then we must get on with the business of taking action to make the world more just and hopeful for our children. Many people will take to the streets to protest certain aspects of the current system. Others will do everything in their power to inform or warn their peers of the coming iceberg. Those are good and necessary functions, but they won't stop the Titanic from sinking.

It seems the broken system will continue to take on water despite the best efforts to affect change within it. That's why some are suggesting to jump ship now before they run out of lifeboats. By jump ship, I mean function outside of the system as much as possible. The faulty economic system is only propped up by our belief and support of it. When we operate outside of it using alternative markets, barter systems, local cooperatives, and competing currencies, we not only provide a lifeboat to many frightened passengers, but the paddles as well.

Below is my email interview with alternative market activist and founder of Alt-Market.com, Brandon Smith. He explains the need and benefits of using alternative markets as a form of protest and survival:

EB: What was your motivation for starting Alt-Market?

BS: I had been writing for years under the pen-name “Giordano Bruno” on my first website, Neithercorp.us, which is now retired. My original purpose when I began was simply to provide as much clarity as I could for people who were feeling overwhelmed by the wash of mainstream media disinformation, especially in terms of economic analysis. This was back in 2007 at the onset of the credit collapse, and there were a lot of good writers and researchers already doing great work, but most of it was geared towards people who had a pretty intensive understanding of the common terminology. The MSM, on the other hand, was a highly concentrated example of educational dissuasion through obscure linguistics. That is, they talked big and thought small, and the rest of us were left confused and frustrated. . .

Average Americans believe economics is mind numbingly tedious, and they are right. Primarily, because mainstream financial pundits on your typical FOX News or MSNBC afternoon market show spew vocabulary particular to their field that most of us are not exposed to on a regular basis. They might as well be speaking Sumerian and posting stock quotes in Cuneiform. I really felt this was just a byproduct of the inbred banking and investment world. The complex language makes them appear knowledgeable, almost unreachably superior. In reality, once you learn the terminology of micro and macroeconomics, you begin to discover that these guys actually HAVE been talking gibberish the whole time. It wasn’t you that was incapable of understanding; it was they who were incapable of giving valid explanations. I set out in my own little way to help people realize that they could grasp finance easily, and far better than any talking head on cable television.

Until the past year, I hadn’t really considered taking the reigns of a project dedicated to organizing people around anything. I just didn’t see myself as the “frontman” type. I had written numerous articles on the concept of decoupling from the corrupt establishment system, including pieces on what I call “Alternative Markets”. I figured that launching the ideas and strategies out onto the Web would be enough. “Let some of the heavy hitters in the Liberty Movement pick them up and run with them“, I thought. Some of these guys can jump in front of a camera or a microphone and talk for hours, non-stop about any number of subjects. That just wasn’t me.

Almost out of nowhere I received an email from Stewart Rhodes of Oath Keepers, an organization I have a lot of respect for. Its one of the few that have gone beyond the sphere of education and produced tangible results, and whose members are willing to take substantial risks to their careers and themselves. Stewart was looking for someone to help him with solutions on the economic side of the globalist problem. We agreed that the military, even honorable oath keeping men and women, would feel compelled to participate in a martial law scenario if there was no alternative in place for Americans to utilize during a breakdown. If we were tearing each other apart for food and water, the DHS, FEMA, and NORTHCOM, would have the perfect rationalization for complete lock-down, and a lot of the troops would go along with it.

I brought up my work on decentralization, localization, alternative markets, and barter networks. He basically said “Great, let’s do it. You take the lead.” I was reticent, but Stewart is a Constitutional lawyer, and damned persuasive. It’s almost impossible to dissuade the guy. So, with the help of my good friend and web designer Josh Ogden, Alt-Market.com was born.

EB: How would you define alternative markets? In other words, what constitutes an alternative market?

BS: It was all theory based on diametric opposition; the idea that there is an opposing methodology for every political or social strategy, that defuses the effects of that strategy. If you want to fight elitist centralization of a system, for example, you have to develop your own working system based on decentralization. If you want to stop the destructive effects of globalism, you have to turn away from participation in it, and focus more on localism. The purpose of centralization is to remove options from a cultural system until the only options left are those that YOU want people to bow to, and become dependent on. If the Liberty Movement wants to fight back against this, we have to have the determination to create our own options and stop playing by their rules. I feel that an Alternative Market is one of those options.

As for what an Alternative Market is; it is essentially any method of trade outside the establishment-controlled economy. It could be based on the barter of goods and skills, or the proliferation of precious metals to break our dependence on the fiat dollar (or Federal Reserve Note), etc. It could be a network of people across a county or state, or, an agreement between two friends.

The Federal Government would call this “black market trade”, and they have called it that in the past. After the recent Liberty Dollar case was concluded and they railroaded Bernard von NotHaus with the broadest and most ridiculous interpretation of counterfeiting law I’ve ever seen, the DOJ even compared barter groups and sound money advocates to “domestic terrorists”. This was meant to shoo us away from such organization, but, really, all it did was reveal what they are afraid of. They are desperate, and I do mean DESPERATE, to keep us from developing our own private economies. If we are successful, we will no longer be in the position of dependency on the dollar or the sham economy. When it implodes, we will be relatively unfazed, and certainly not tearing each other apart. Meaning, their rationalization for martial law goes straight down the drain. The thought of that possibility really pisses them off…

EB: Why are alternative markets important? Explain to our readers what the benefits are to supporting alternative markets, barter systems, local co-ops, or competing currencies.

BS: I went into this a little bit above, but I believe widespread alternative trade and barter will solve a large portion of our problems. We deny the Federal Reserve the ability to collect income taxes to pay off the debt they generate out of thin air to enslave the country. We remove ourselves from dependency on the dollar, a fraudulent fiat currency backed by nothing but more debt, which is on the verge of hyperinflating into oblivion anyway. We rekindle the bonds of meaningful community once again, bonds which we have neglected for far too long. And, we openly declare our independence from a bad system run by despicable people. I see very little downside.

Another thing to remember is that barter networks are inevitable. I pursued a comprehensive study of barter markets throughout history before I even began writing my ideas down on paper, and I can tell you, every single modern economic collapse from the Great Depression on resulted in the immediate and natural formation of barter groups, some of them containing tens of thousands of participants. It’s going on in Greece right now! Alternative markets are a necessity when the mainstream economy falters. They work. Period.

I suppose my project is only original in that I changed the timing. I propose that instead of waiting until the whole edifice comes crashing down, we are preempting collapse by building barter networks now. That way we are insulated from the effects of the disaster before it happens.

Another important benefit is that barter networking is the gateway to other forms of organization. You might trade with each other, but you also might work towards mutual defense if things really go downhill, which I’m sure most of us are aware is a distinct possibility.

EB: Do you consider them a form of protest of the current system?

BS: Absolutely. A lot of people naively call America a “free market economy”. This is simply not so. If you have only two options; use the dollar and play the game, or starve to death, then this is not freedom. In a true free market economy, you should be able to participate in a particular system all you want, but also have the choice of walking away at any time. If you can’t walk away, or if you are punished for walking away, then you are slave. That’s the bottom line. Think “feudalism”. The most effective anti-establishment movements are those that create a “third option”; a way of thinking or a means of living outside of mainstream conditioning. This is what really draws the ire of the authorities, because it presents an actual threat to their base of power.

Normal protest in itself is fine and it gives exposure to your ideas, but, really, true protest involves independent action with tangible benefits. This requires nonconformity, and risk. Without risk, there is no chance of gain. Not to disparage street actions, but waving around signs is a minimal risk, and you can see that in the behavior of our government. Nearly 80% of the country was against the bailouts, and many protested admirably, yet they passed the bills anyway without a second thought. They don’t feel threatened by traditional protest. We’re going to have to do much more than that to stop globalization in its tracks, and I think Alternative Markets are a good start.

EB: What do you think is the major reason for the current system's failure?

BS: Oh man! That’s a loaded question. I suppose if I was to go to the very bottom of it all and pick out the primary root from which the whole poisonous vine sprang, it would have to be the establishment of the private Federal Reserve Bank in 1913. It’s funny, because you couldn’t even call the damn thing private four years ago without media sock puppets jumping all over you like feral cats. It’s “quasi-governmental” they used to say. Frankly, I don’t know what the hell that means. Either it is an institution under the direct authority of Congress and the American people, subject to audit and to public scrutiny, or, it is a private corporate bank outside of public control. You can’t be both. Sorry. Them’s the breaks.

Now, Alan Greenspan has finally admitted to the fact that the Fed is private and answers to no one, not even Congress, and the MSM stooges have shut up. However, the reality of that has not set in with the American people yet. Think about it; our entire economy is fully in the hands of a group of private corporate bankers who are almost all open proponents of globalization and the disintegration of national sovereignty for the sake of further centralization under the purview of an unaccountable global governing body. They go to meetings like Bilderberg or Davos along with many of our political leaders in violation of the Logan Act, where no press is allowed, and write foreign and domestic policy which is then implemented without our consent here at home. This isn’t “conspiracy theory”. This is just what’s admitted! Our taxes pay for this monstrosity to exist. We are paying for our own chains.

In terms of the immediate cause of collapse, anyone who has done the research behind the Fed’s activities knows, whether they admit it or not, that the whole nightmare is engineered. I welcome those who are skeptical to read my research papers on the derivatives crisis and the devaluation of the dollar, or the papers of many other alternative economists. It’s all there. The Fed knew it was creating a credit and mortgage bubble all through the '90s and early 2000s. The Fed and entities like Goldman Sachs knew that the derivatives and mortgage markets were an utter farce and on the verge of meltdown (just look into the writings of Catherine Austin Fitts, the former Assistant Secretary of Housing). The Fed knew that the banks were ridiculously insolvent (it has recently been discovered that Lehman Bros. received $18 Billion in secret Fed funds months before they declared bankruptcy, and they warned no one). The Fed knew it all!

So, the only logical conclusion one can come to is that they wanted a financial disaster to take place. Why? They are globalists! They want a global currency, a global economic infrastructure, a global government. The U.S. is simply being prepared for that transition, whether the American people want it or not.

EB: We share the belief that a genuine free market is the answer to current global consolidation, but do you think free markets, or underground markets, will be permitted beyond the local level?

Who knows if they’ll be “officially” permitted at the local level, let alone the national level. I guess there will come a point where Americans will have to ask themselves where the line is. In my opinion, the line was crossed a long time ago, but human beings will put up with a lot of trouncing for the sake of “not making waves”. Under a corrupt government, the law is not for us, and it is not “just”. It is not an equalizer for the safety of the citizenry. Under a corrupt government, the law is a weapon to be used to subjugate the public. That is all. Ultimately, if we wish to survive, and if we wish our principles of liberty to survive, we will have to break the law, because it is in direct opposition to our survival. To be quite honest, I would rather be called a criminal or an “extremist”, than be called an “abiding subject”.

My suspicion is that many people feel the same way, and that free markets will spring up everywhere regardless of what is permitted.

EB: Once local alternative markets are established to weather the transitional storm that is coming, what do you think should replace the Federal Reserve System?

BS: Not the IMF or some other global central bank, even though that appears to be the plan. Alternative Markets are a shield against the storm, but eventually, we’ll have to rebuild our government, only then can we replace the Federal Reserve with something honorable. The way any transition would naturally progress would probably be through the implementation of numerous decentralized markets which would then take on gold, silver, and maybe copper as a common currency mechanism (being that precious metals are the only practical replacements at this time). The power to create and regulate money would have to be given back to the Treasury as was originally intended by the Founding Fathers. A new paper currency is certainly plausible, but this time its production would have to be limited by a metals standard.

People who don’t comprehend how a metals standard works always blubber about how there’s not enough gold or silver to support a currency anymore. They don’t understand that the value of metals increases with demand, and therefore, it wouldn’t matter if there was only one ounce of gold in the entire country. That one ounce would be worth trillions, and each paper currency note would represent a tiny fraction of that ounce, while at the same time forcing a level of commodity backing. There can still be some inflation, but a metals standard sets limits, and it limits the government’s ability to spend with wild abandon. Keynesianism is a travesty. It doesn’t work (obviously), and Keynes himself was a globalist cretin with aspirations of total centralization. Let’s dump his wretched theories and move on, please!

EB: Wouldn't Wall Street have to be completely overhauled as well for a new monetary system to function properly?

BS: I’m not even sure what Wall Street is anymore. It’s certainly not a representation of free markets or of true Capitalism (in the Adam Smith sense). It’s a kind of nasty bulbous tumor now, leaching off the lifeblood of the real economy. The bull market rally we’ve had over the past couple years is completely fiat driven. If the Fed raised interest rates tomorrow, I guarantee stocks would plummet to 2008 levels or lower. The bailouts and Quantitative Easing are the only things keeping it alive. Fiat injections are like formaldehyde for the Dow; it’s a corpse, but a pretty corpse, with blush and a nice suit. It looks almost alive, but it died a long time ago, and its starting to smell a little. I think speculative markets have a place in any economy, and investment must be encouraged. But, it should be investment based on legitimate performance, not cooked books and fabricated securities. In a new stock market, transparency would have to be demanded with no exceptions. That’s the only way it would work.

EB: What do you ultimately hope to achieve with your alternative market social network?

BS: We began with the goal of 50,000 members before collapse escalates towards hyperinflation. Right now we have around 1200 members, so we have a long way to go, though there has been a very exciting snowball effect in membership over the past month. The website itself is just a springboard for local action. I try to impress this on all our members. It’s not enough to merely join the site and start a group in your town or city; you have to leave your freaking house and meet each other face to face. You have to commit to real organization and real trade. You know . . . what people used to do before the Internet. My hope is that through Alt-Market, we can facilitate strong community building across the country and help people to remember that they do have a choice. That they can walk away from the rigged game and play by their own rules. Most importantly, my hope is that it will save lives, and save our country. It’s not a perfect country, but that shouldn’t stop us from aspiring to something better.

We can sit around on our asses and complain about the terrible state of the world, or we can take it upon ourselves to clean up the mess. That’s all there is. If you are afraid to take action, then I suggest you consider what will happen if you don’t. I see far more danger in complacency and fear than I see in defiance and courage.

EB: Where do we go from here, what can people do to stimulate alternative markets?

BS: My website is only one way to build a barter network. You don’t have to join to do it, we just try to make the process easier for you. Food production should be a priority for any new alternative market, especially in the face of inflation. Approaching farmer’s co-ops or garden co-ops, or even starting your own and trying to develop a barter plan, would be a good first step. Getting people to meet bi-weekly and discussing goals would be more than what most in the movement do. It’s a lost art form. It’s going to take a little time for us to relearn how barter is done.

Stewart Rhodes and I will actually be driving Alternative Markets even further with our Safe Haven State Project, which will be ready for launch soon. For those who feel the area in which they live is too unreceptive to barter networking, we’ll be building barter communities in states and counties that have a strong existing foundation. The first state we will be focusing on is Montana. We also hope to work with other Free State Projects like those in New Hampshire and Wyoming to give people more moving options. The plan is to set up coordination committees and welcome wagons within certain areas that will make your move smoother, as well as help you to find housing and employment. On top of this, as more people move to these Safe Havens, barter networks will grow until a full bore alternative economy is in place. I will be putting my money where my mouth is and moving to one of these areas shortly.

At bottom, we need to set aside our cynicism and our nihilism and become human again. There is nothing to lose and everything to gain. Honestly, I don’t know many people that have better things to do. There is no excuse for failure. In the words of Carl Jung; we make our own epoch.

Please visit Alt-Market today to begin building your local alternative market connections. And please consider making a donation to their summer fundraiser; the movement needs lifeboats and paddles. You can reach Brandon at brandon@alt-market.com.

Preparing at Unprecedented Levels

2011-04-29T13:08:00.000-07:00

Mac Slavo
SHTF Plan

Do you have enough larder to feed your family and some friends if grocery stores ran out of food? How about several assault rifles and a few thousand rounds of ammo? Solar panels, a water filter, medical kits, bug-out bags, fire starters, tents, sleeping bags, some junk silver and reserve gasoline?

Don’t worry, you’re not alone.

It’s becoming apparent to many Americans that depending on our local, state and federal governments in the event of an emergency, catastrophic societal collapse or widespread disaster will not be sufficient to meet the needs of your family. Residents in Colorado (and likely the other 49 states) are stockpiling in droves and preparing to live off the grid if it comes to that:

Four families in Yoder are building a sand bunker and stockpiling ammunition and weapons.

A Black Forest resident has erected a geodesic dome on her 5-acre spread to grow vegetables, keeps horses for emergency transportation, in case she can’t get gasoline for her car, and plans to acquire chickens and goats as food sources.

A husband and wife who have a cabin on 100 acres of secluded land in Park County have weaned their property from the electric grid, acquired a three-year food supply and taken other measures to become self-sufficient.

While there’s little threat of the earthquake and tsumani that rocked Japan last month in landlocked Colorado, other epic crises on the home front are possible: A flood or fire. A terrorist attack. A nuclear weapons launch. World War III. Or an apocalyptic-type scenario.

An increasing number of people say they are getting ready.

“More people are getting into the survivalist mode. I’ve been in business 30 years, and I’ve never sold so many assault rifles as now. The last year was the best we’ve ever had,” said Mel Bernstein, a Class III weapons dealer and owner of Dragon Man’s shooting range east of Colorado Springs.

Israeli gas masks, helmets and sand bags also have been selling well, he said.
“People are putting stuff away in case something big happens,” he said. “I think it’s superstition, but it’s been good for business.”

Interest in the survivalist movement has been heightened, many say, by global turmoil.

The ongoing strife in the Middle East, the lingering possibility that the Obama administration will enact stricter gun laws and the sustained economic downturn, coupled with political unrest in Libya and Japan’s nuclear catastrophe, have made people uneasy.

In addition, doomsday prophesies by Nostradamus and the Mayans pinpointing 2012 are distressing for some. There’s also a group of Christians who say they’ve determined that the end of the world will begin on May 21.

“People are afraid, and they want to be able to protect their families,” Bernstein said.
Y2K — the dawning of the third millennium — brought forth a fury of survivalist instincts, as many believed the nation’s network of electric connections and computer systems would crash.

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, raised concern among even the complacent.
But this time in history feels more urgent, say those who identify themselves as “preppers” — people preparing to have all they need to sustain a catastrophe.

“There’s a distinct possibility that some other country could wipe out our electronics and computers, and the U.S. infrastructure is not ready — it would take six months to rebuild a transformer,” said Bob, a retired engineer who said he designed airplanes, power plants and aqueducts for the government.

He asked that his last name not be used because he shares a philosophy common among preppers: the desire for anonymity. Not everyone understands why they’re doing what they’re doing, Bob said, and there’s the possibility of others looting their stockpiles.

“Preppers will give someone a pound of rice and a bowl of soup, but we’ll defend ourselves against people who are going to take everything we have,” he said. “We’re doing this to make sure that we can live the way we’ve been living and we’re not going to be out there scrounging or stealing food from others.”

There are any number of scenarios, both natural and man-made, that could lead to what preppers refer to as TEOTWAWKI (The End of the World as We Know It), be it an electro magnetic pulse attack, a US dollar hyperinflation, economic collapse, an earthquake along the New Madrid Fault Line, Yellow Stone’s super volcano, or the purported Mayan end of days.

While some may be more likely to occur than others, and some are improbable outliers, the fact that the possibilities exist, and that there are a whole host of reasons why life as we have come to know it could be halted from one day to the next, makes preparedness that much more reasonable.

We’ve seen how governments respond to disasters. Recent history in the modern age suggests that there is simply no way to meet the needs of millions of people if a far-from-equilibrium situation were to arise.

Americans spend thousands of dollars per year on insurance for our homes, our cars, our health, our lives, and even our mortgages.

Is it really so crazy to insure ourselves from unforeseen black swans by stockpiling some food, water, supplies and a means to protect them?

The US government is spending billions of dollars to prepare for unlikely events like war, catastrophic collapse of society, and even asteroids – maybe you should consider a little end-of-the-world insurance as well.

Into The Economic Abyss - Taking responsibility for your own food

2011-04-26T10:44:00.000-07:00

Over the past few years, mainstream analysts have shown a tenacious blind faith in the U.S. economy and the dollar that goes far beyond religion to the point of mindless cultism, so, when even they begin to question the future of American finance (as has been occurring more and more everyday), you know its time to worry. For those that have been following my work since 2007, the events of the past few months have not been a surprise at all, however, for those just waking up to the ongoing implosion of our fiscal infrastructure, the bubbling inflationary meltdown just over the horizon and the nightmare unfolding around our national debt is rather shocking. Living through a full spectrum catastrophe is, to say the least, confusing, especially when you have no idea where the whole thing began.

Until now, the mainstream media has provided nothing but economic fantasy for the masses. They have satiated the public with what amounts to financial toddler talk for helpless preschool minds averse to any research beyond their daily 15 minute sippy cup of New York Times, CNN, MSNBC or FOX cable news sound bites. I mean, have you ever actually stopped and read a Paul Krugman article more than once? Or listened carefully to an MSNBC economic piece? It’s like being violently accosted by a band of slobbering mental deficients with securitized ARM mortgages stuffed in their pants. Of course, fewer and fewer people are now buying what these hucksters are selling. With gasoline nearing $5 a gallon, grain prices doubling, and shelf prices beginning to skyrocket, it’s hard for even the most ignorant suburban schlep to remain oblivious to the problem anymore. We are no longer on the edge of the abyss; we have fallen into it head first…

I make this statement not for effect, not to startle people out of their apathy, not even to illustrate what “may” be coming around the bend in the near future. I make this statement as directly and sincerely as I know how; we have indeed crossed the line between economic weakness and economic catastrophe. For those of you who have been asking when the final stage of the economic collapse will begin, that time has arrived. Here is why…

Energy Inflation Overdrive

Here’s how to tell when inflation is about to run out of control in your country; wait for the politicians and bankers to begin making excuses for its consequences instead of pretending it doesn’t exist! Remember after the initial 2008 spike in oil prices when we talked about the prospect of “speculation” as the culprit? Remember also that I have pointed out for the past three years at Neithercorp Press that when the dollar eventually began to crumble, and the price of crude began to spike again, the government would try to blame speculators as the scapegoat hoping that Americans would assume the situation today was the same as it was in 2008?

http://neithercorp.us/npress/2010/12/oil-juggernaut-unleashed/

Well, guess what? The Obama Administration has just initiated the first volley of “speculation” propaganda talking points by tapping the Department Of Justice among others to “investigate” possible trader fraud and speculation in the price destabilization of oil:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-21/obama-says-u-s-team-to-study-whether-speculators-driving-up-pump-prices.html

Ah! So it’s those devious “traders” and “speculators” out there in the ether that are driving up the price of oil, and don’t worry folks, ole’ Barry is on the case! Little mention of OPEC’s general distaste for current U.S. activities in the Middle East. And certainly, no mention of the dollar’s continuous sharp decline over the past two months from the White House as being even remotely responsible for you being robbed at the gas pump. The dollar, despite intervention by G7 countries, continues to depreciate against the Japanese Yen, and has also slid to a 15 month low against the Euro:

http://www.rttnews.com/content/CurrencyMarket.aspx?Id=1597070&SimRec=2&Node=

At the publishing of this article, the Nymex crude index is at around $113 a barrel, while the Brent crude index stands at $124 a barrel. Gasoline prices across the country are averaging $3.50 to $4.00 a gallon. Now, some crazy individuals out there may question any overt concerns towards $120 or even $150-a-barrel crude. We survived it back in 2008, right? Why not today? However, this fuzzy logic depends greatly on a very unfortunate premise; that the economic atmosphere of today is the same as it was in 2008. Not even close…

The crude explosion in 2008 lasted for around six months, peaked at around $4 a gallon, and then ended with a deflationary-like plunge precisely because that price spike WAS (for the most part) caused by speculation. This time, expect no peak. Only an endless steady climb as the summer months progress. We have been calling for an increase in oil costs far exceeding the $150 a barrel achieved in 2008 and we stand by that prediction.

Negative aspects of energy inflation will take hold much faster than in 2008, primarily because our economic foundations are even weaker than they were three years ago. Today, we not only have a massive and unsustainable national debt, and a credit crisis still unresolved, but also a privately controlled Federal Reserve with no oversight running amok, printing non-stop since the derivatives bubble first popped. Not even the dollar’s fake reputation as a safe haven investment can stall the collapse now.

High energy costs hit every conceivable sector of the economy, from freight, to food, to vacations, to housing. People drive less when it costs them twice as much to do so, which means less shopping, fewer trips to Disney World, and second thoughts about moving to a new home in a new state. The cost of producing goods hits wholesale prices, which eventually hit retail prices when corporate chains are no longer able to absorb the increases. Your electric and heating bills take a bite right out of your tender behind. All of these factors will snap the thin thread our system is clinging to. America, as we know it, WILL NOT survive $5-$10 gas. Period.

To Default, Or Not To Default

Should the debt ceiling be raised? Should it be frozen in place? Frankly, in the short term, these questions are irrelevant. In either case, the taste and feel of the resulting chaos will be the same. Holding the debt ceiling in place will at least (in theory) stop the Federal Reserve’s printing bonanza. If the Treasury can’t continue borrowing from the Fed, then the Fed has no means to continue creating debt or fiat (my suspicion though is that they would find a way around this). A national default would result. The U.S. Treasury Bonds held by governments around the world would become essentially worthless, the dollar would lose its reserve status, plummet in value, and hyperinflation would result.

If the debt ceiling is raised yet again, the Fed will persist in its quantitative easing programs until the dollar is dust, or foreign central banks lose all interest or respect and begin a dollar/treasury dump, again resulting in hyperinflation or Stagflation. Today, news has hit the wire that officials in China are discussing a reduction of their large forex (Foreign Exchange) reserves to around $1 Trillion and diversifying away from the Greenback:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-04/23/c_13842843.htm

To put this in perspective, China currently holds around $3 Trillion in various bonds and currencies, a large portion of them U.S. dollars. This means that China is now considering cutting its reserves by over two-thirds! Can you guess where the majority of those cuts are going to come from…? This is devastating news for the dollar!

It is perhaps not a coincidence that this news comes right after the S&P changed its debt rating outlook for the U.S. to negative. At the beginning of this year, the Obama Administration and the Treasury made it clear that rating agencies would be ignored when it came to their analysis of the American debt situation. Rather convenient since this was right before U.S. default became a stark reality in the face of budget battles and the falling dollar. Ironically, despite the government’s insistence that ratings agencies views no longer mattered, the White House still attempted to pressure the S&P to back down from its recent announcement:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/04/20/obama-officials-tried-convince-sp-issue-credit-warning/

Fitch has also warned that the U.S. “official” debt to GDP ratio is around 100%, an impossible position for any nation to maintain and still hold onto a AAA credit rating. As long as we continue to spend at the rate of a trillion dollars or more a year (not counting Fed stimulus spending which is mostly unknown), and the so called GOP leadership is willing to compromise cuts down to a pathetic pantywaist $38 billion, you can bet the ratings outlooks will grow much worse in the coming months. That said, if you see what I see; the endless stream of evidence asserting a deliberate destruction of the U.S. economic structure and the dollar as a pretense to remove it as the world reserve and replace it with a basket of currencies under the control of the IMF, then the government’s seeming fiscal madness and its complete inability to heed the wishes of the people it is supposedly tasked with defending makes perfect sense. To put it simply, they represent globalist interests, not our interests. Shocking….I know. But then again, I’m just a crazy kooky conspiracy theorist doom monger terrorist puppy killer….

But at least I’m not a liar…

Alternatives: Ours And Theirs

Nothing scares the hell out of me more that $1500 an ounce gold and nearly $50 an ounce silver. I mean, I’ve been predicting it since the credit collapse, and I’ve been begging people to buy precious metals for the better part of three years. Its one thing to know that such inflation is coming, but it’s another thing to witness it first hand. If you took my advice to buy silver back in November of 2010 at $25 to $27 an ounce, for instance, then your investment has just doubled. It’s barely been six months!

http://neithercorp.us/npress/2010/11/silver-still-the-investment-of-a-lifetime/

Despite incredible market manipulation, precious metals have fought back and are now on the path to historical highs. Even if you are a holder of PM’s, though, this is not good news for the country.

There are two reasons why international banks like JP Morgan have consistently manipulated the market value of gold and silver down (and been caught in the act). First, global bankers strive to remove all competition from any economic system, and this includes forms of currency. Gold and silver have long been competing forms of currency to fiat paper. Therefore, banker attacks on metals are a given. The less viable gold appears to be as an investment, the less people will take it seriously as an alternative to the dollar. You must be forced to believe that only dollars hold “tangible value”, otherwise, Americans would realize they don’t need the dollar (or any fiat currency) at all.

Second, commodities like gold and silver are traditionally prime indicators of inflation and dollar devaluation. Skyrocketing commodities mean poor monetary policy. Thus, manipulation of metals downwards helps to hide poor monetary policy. The doubling of silver in only six months despite this manipulation, along with the doubling of most other commodities in the past two years, is not just a sign of destructive inflation, it is a guarantee.

As the dollar heart attack nears a climax, many individuals as well as sovereign states are turning towards precious metals and alternative markets as a way to hedge against a Weimar-style fiscal fiasco. At the same time, globalists are introducing their own “solutions” into the mainstream. Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University has come out against the dollar, calling for an end to its world reserve status as well as the implementation of a new “global system”:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-10/stiglitz-calls-for-new-global-reserve-currency-to-prevent-trade-imbalances.html

George Soros has done the same at his Bretton Woods II conference, which received almost no initial publicity despite four major journalists on the speaking list, including the editors of both Reuters and The Times, calling for the “global regulation of financial systems”, as well as the formation of a “New World Order”:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/nov/14/g20-summit-key-aims-imf

So, you have the American people pulling towards transparency and sovereignty, and you have the globalists pulling towards more secrecy, more unaccountability, and more centralization. Story as old as time, right? Perhaps the stakes are higher this go-around…

If global banks have their way, we are facing, at minimum:

Full Housing Collapse

Full Credit Collapse

Grid Failures

State And Municipal Defaults

National Default

Energy Crisis

Food Crisis

Civil Unrest

Increased Crime

Reduction Of Civil Liberties

Martial Law

How these incidents play out in the end is dependent upon the reactions of the citizenry. Placation will result in the complete loss of Constitutional freedoms. Rage could result in civil war. There are no easy answers. There are no magic bullets that remove all obstacles. This IS the reality we are facing in the near term, and there is little left to question. I am personally shifting away from economic analysis because I feel that the problems are so numerous and so evident that it makes little sense for me to point them out much longer. The elephant in the room has been noticed.

If ever there was a time for solutions and action, it is now. From my perspective, the best bet for short term protection against inflation and dollar collapse is for communities and hopefully states to begin decoupling from the diseased system entirely. This means localized markets, self sustained neighborhoods and towns, as well as sound money legislation and nullification bills at the state level. It means average Americans taking responsibility for their own food, energy, money, and defense. It means pursuing the exact opposite of what international bankers are suggesting; a global version of the Federal Reserve with prolonged fiat slavery.

Again, we have crossed the line. Every concrete economic signal and index I know of shows the avalanche is no longer building but in progress. Prepare now, or not at all.

You can contact Brandon Smith at: brandon@alt-market.com brandon@alt-market.com brandon@alt-market.com

5 simple Ways to prepare for the Comming Food Crisis

2011-01-15T12:49:00.000-08:00

5 Simple Ways To Prepare For The Coming Food Crisis

Dees Illustration

Recently there has been an incredible flurry of news reporting about food shortages and the pending global food crisis. Everyone who looks at the indicators would agree that this crisis is only likely to worsen. It is estimated that the Australia floods alone could cause a 30% jump in food prices. Although the average shopper already can feel the food inflation, it is difficult to recognize the severity of the looming food shortages. After all, there are still 15 types of colorfully-boxed Cheerios packing the isles, which gives us the illusion of abundance.

The truth is that we are headed for large food production shortfalls, manipulated or not, while middle-class food demand grows massively in the developing world. For decades the world's agriculture community produced more than enough food to feed the planet, yet some now believe we are reaching "Peak Food" production levels. In turn, other experts believe the "food bubble" is about to burst, and not even the biotech companies can save us.

However, there are still vast unused stretches of fertile land that can be used around the globe, and the U.S. ethanol mandates that reportedly consume at least 25% of the corn harvest could be reduced to ease the burden. Therefore, it seems that despite the extreme weather and dwindling harvests, food production still has room to increase, but not without foresight and planning.

Additionally, the current systems for growing food are fully dependent on oil to achieve high levels of production, while livestock production is running at full concentration-camp capacity; the end product must then travel thousands of miles to get to store shelves. Clearly we can see the fragile nature of this system, especially on human health and the environment. Consequently, solving the so-called "food crisis" is far more complex than simply fixing statistical supply and demand issues.

Indeed, these are turbulent times where humanity appears to be nearing Peak Everything. Ultimately, solutions to the food crisis will begin at the local level. There are cutting-edge farming techniques gaining popularity that produce a large variety of crops by mimicking nature, as well as innovative techniques for small-scale food production at home or in urban buildings. These hold promise for easing local hunger.

Personal ways to protect yourself from food shortages may seem obvious to some, but many feel the task can be insurmountable. To the contrary, here are 5 simple ways to protect yourself from the coming food crisis:

Source

1. Create a Food Bank: Everyone should have a back-up to the everyday food pantry. In this environment, you should consider your personal food bank far more valuable than a dollar savings account. Start by picking up extra canned goods, dried foods, and other essentials for storage each time you go to the store. Also, hunt for coupons and shop for deals when they come up. Devise a plan for FIFO (first in, first out) rotation for your food bank. It is advisable to acquire food-grade bins to store your bulk dried foods, and be sure to label and date everything. Besides the obvious store-able foods like rice and beans, or canned goods, some other important items to hoard are salt, peanut butter, cooking oils, sugar, coffee, and powdered milk. If you don't believe the food crisis will be too severe, then buy items that you would eat on a normal daily basis. But if you believe the crisis will be sustained for some time, purchasing a grain mill to refine bulk wheat or corn may prove to be the most economical way to stretch your food bank. Some emergency MREs are also something to consider because they have a long shelf life.

2. Produce Your Own Food: Having some capacity to produce your own food will simply become a necessity as the food system crumbles. If you don't know much about gardening, then start small with a few garden boxes for tomatoes, herbs, or sprouting and keep expanding to the limits of your garden. And for goodness sakes, get some chickens. They are a supremely easy animal to maintain and come with endless benefits from providing eggs and meat, to eating bugs and producing rich manure. Five laying hens will ensure good cheap protein for the whole family. If you have limited growing space, there are brilliant aquaculture systems that can produce an abundance of fish and vegetables in a small area. Aquaponics is a contained organic hydroponic system where the fertilized waste water from the fish tank is pumped through the vegetable growing trays which absorb the nutrients before returning clean water to the fish tank. Set high goals for independent food production, but start with what's manageable.

3. Learn Food Preservation: Food preservation comes in many forms such as canning, pickling, and dehydrating. In every case some tools and materials are required along with a good deal of knowledge. If you can afford a dehydrator, they all usually come with a preparation guide for most foods. You can also purchase a vacuum sealer if you have the means. A good vacuum sealer should come with thorough instructions and storage tips, and will add months if not years to many food items. If you're a beginner at canning, start with tomatoes first. It's easy and very valuable when all your tomatoes ripen at the same time and you want fresh pasta sauce in the winter. A bigger ticket item that is nice to have for food preservation is a DC solar powered chest freezer. It is the ultimate treasure chest.

4. Store Seeds: The government and the elite have seed banks and so should you. Seeds have been a viable currency in many civilizations past and present. They represent food when scarcity hits. Before the rise of commercial seed giants like Monsanto, local gardeners were adept at selecting seeds from the healthiest plants, saving them, and introducing them to the harvest for the following year, thus strengthening the species. Through local adaptation to pests, genetic diversity was further ensured; it was long-term thinking at its finest. That is why it is important to find heirloom seed banks and learn to save seeds from each harvest.

5. Join or Start a Local Co-Op: Joining local cooperatives is very important, especially when food shortages occur. You may not be able to provide for yourself completely, especially in terms of variety, so having a community mechanism to spread the burden and share the spoils will be critical. If you don't know if you have a local food cooperative in your area you can search the directory at LocalHarvest.org. You may also be able to get information from your local farmers market. If your area doesn't have a co-op, then start one. These co-ops don't have to be big or elaborate. In fact, it may be more optimal to organize it with friends, neighbors, or co-workers. Whether you join or start a cooperative, work to expand the participants and products.

Please tell us how you're preparing by sharing your story in the comment section.

Buy Food for ONE Year!

2010-11-30T06:15:00.000-08:00

By Giordano Bruno

Neithercorp Press – 11/29/2010

Food production is one of the most essential concerns of any society. Without direct availability and ease of consumption, without the consistent flow of agricultural goods, every nation existing today (except the most primitive) would immediately find its infrastructure crumbling and its people in a furious panic. It’s strange to me, then, that long term independent food planning is the one concern that many Americans and Panamanians seem to take most for granted. Firearms and ammo, camping gear and bug-out-bags, MRE’s, beans, and rice; these are the easiest part of your survival foundation. The hard part is not storage of goods, but devising a solid and practical plan for sustainability in the long term. This starts with the capacity to support your own agriculture regardless of how long the grid is down, even if it is down indefinitely.

Understandably, there will be some people who do not have enough land to implement many of these strategies. They should still know the fundamentals and be ready to apply them at a retreat location or within a community should the opportunity arise.

In the first chapter of our ‘Survive Anything’ series, we covered all the consequences of a nuclear attack on American soil, and how to not only make it out alive, but even thrive after such an event:

http://neithercorp.us/npress/?p=273

The reason Neithercorp covered survival tactics for a nuclear strike first was simple; we wanted to make it clear that the title of this series is not an exaggeration. Truly, ANYTHING is survivable with the right knowledge and preparation. Those who promote a ‘doomer’ view of economic collapse or global war are on average people who have simply given up before the struggle has even started. Therefore, their opinions on survival are empty, and barely worth the effort to ignore. Life goes on after collapse, as it always has since the beginning of organized civilization. It is YOU who decides whether or not you will be a part of that life. It is you who decides your chances of success.

With that success in mind, let’s dive into the most important aspects of food survival in a country where infrastructure has ceased to function…

Emaciated Grocery Chains

Last winter, I witnessed perhaps the most incredible snow storm I have ever seen in my life. A low pressure system punished the Northeast with downpour after downpour, stopping most road travel and cutting power to millions for at least a week. Being that the average family has only a week’s worth of food or less in their pantry, you can imagine the chaos that unfolded. Those grocery stores with backup power were flooded with customers buying armloads of batteries, water, ice chests, and, of course, foods that don’t require refrigeration. Now, what I want you to imagine, is what would have happened if no grocery stores had been open that week. What would have happened if they had never reopened? How many people would have been in the very real position of starving to death? From what I observed that winter…far too many…

The problem of storage and backstock is widespread in the U.S. and the culprit is actually one which we have been trained to admire; efficiency. It is because of the over-application of efficiency in grocery models and in the freight sector that most outlets carry little to no backstock in goods. Instead, they order goods as quickly as they sell out, refilling shelves on a product by product basis. This means that in most grocers, what you see on the shelf, is all that they have. The speed of trucking deliveries makes this business model possible, but its operation suffers from a seriously fatal flaw…

Grocery stores may seem like a bounty of goods at first glance, but if freight shipments shut down, or even slowed, those aisles would empty within the span of a few days. Many households in America operate on the same faulty “efficiency”. They rely on the weekly trip to the grocer to maintain the pantry while also attempting to save money by reducing backstock. It’s a frayed rope holding up too much weight, a completely inflexible system that cannot withstand any deviation from the set routine. One unexpected disaster could render the entire food and agriculture distribution network immobile.

Many grocery chains also function on a line of credit from banks while operating at a loss. Profits are poured directly into the liabilities the companies incur from loans and then more money is borrowed to continue ordering goods. Some stores in the chain (flagship stores) usually bring in enough money to cover the red ink of the other branches, however, what if banks were to cut off credit completely to a grocery chain? Or maybe ALL grocery chains? The cycle of debt, to sales, to profit, to debt, becomes disrupted. Any stores that rely solely on credit to stay open for business would immediately lose the ability to bring in new stock. Again, we are faced with empty shelves in less than a week.

This scenario is entirely possible in the U.S. today, especially in the event that big banks institute capital retention in order to protect themselves from a further collapse of investment markets. Banks have already restricted loans to consumers down to the bare minimum. A restriction of loans to the business sector in the near future is not that far fetched.

Food In A World Without Walmart

The above section illustrates just a few of the weaknesses in U.S. food distribution. I haven’t included the catastrophe inherent in a hyperinflationary situation because I think the consequences of that are self evident. The point is, if you are not standing on solid ground in terms of not just food storage, but a plan for sustainability, then you and your family are in serious danger. This is not a game, and it is not to be taken lightly. It is not something to be shrugged off and postponed for some undefined “later date”. If you have not already started the process of prepping for economic downturn or collapse, then you need to start today.

Buying food with a long term storage capacity is half the battle, and I recommend purchasing at minimum a year’s supply of these goods totaling at least 2000-2500 calories a day per person. Do not forget to include salts, sugars, and ample fats, without which, your body cannot function. Being that we have covered food storage in great detail in previous articles, let’s examine some practical methods for food production after your stores run out.

Squarefoot Gardening: One of the most productive styles of gardening I have ever seen is devised by Mel Bartholomew, a civil engineer who was frustrated with the immense waste involved in single row gardening. The process involves building easy to make above ground 4 foot by 4 foot soil boxes and then dividing those boxes into grids. These grids retain water and nutrients to a much greater capacity than traditional yard gardens, resulting in up to 80% less space required, 90% less water use, and 95% less seed to grow the same amount of vegetables. Fertilizer is not necessary and existing soil can be easily used. I would not set up a survival garden any other way.

There is one downside to squarefoot gardening, however, and it is one of visibility. If you are in a situation which calls for discreet growing of crops, then the highly visible soil boxes and neat rows will stand out like a sore thumb and alert others to your presence. If you feel secure in the defense of your homestead or retreat, though, then garden visibility is irrelevant and Bartholomew’s strategy is the best by far. Read his book, or check out his website here:

http://www.squarefootgardening.com/

Non-Hybrid Seeds: Non-hybrid heirloom seeds are basically the seeds nature intended to be planted. These are the only seeds you should ever consider using for your survival garden for numerous reasons. Genetically modified seeds are unreliable, give you a low production count of vegetables, and very few quality seeds can be taken from the plants for the next season. Not to mention, there is no telling what has been infused into the DNA of GMO’s. A company in California called Ventria Bioscience has created a form of rice which contains HUMAN DNA, and this rice has been approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture! The reason? Ventria claims it can be used to treat diarrhea in children, of all things…

I don’t know what the direct health effects are of people consuming food made out of people, and I would rather not find out. I never thought I would see the day when the movie ‘Soylent Green’ was treated less like fiction and more like a documentary…

Natural Pest Control: I hate to say it, but in the event of a total collapse, it may be best to keep pesticides in stock. The first few years of a grid down scenario will likely be brutal, and if you are extremely dependent on your garden crops to keep your family fed, then you don’t want to take any chances on vermin decimating your plants. That said, there will probably come a point when your pesticides will run out, and natural methods will be necessary.

Some proven tactics of organic pest control include…

Lady Bugs (ladybugs eat pest insects and are incredibly beneficial to any garden)

Organic Pesticide (often contains garlic, chilli pepper or powder, vegetable oil, and water)

Repellent Plants (some plants naturally repel pests, like garlic, tobacco, or rhubarb. Some hot peppers are so acidic that they act as an anti-bug defense. Any peppers that contain large amounts of Capsaicin should be included in your garden plan)

Vinegar (can be used as an effective weed killer)

Cornmeal (can be applied to garden soil or turned into a juice and sprayed on crops. Cornmeal attracts fungi from the Trichoderma family, a good fungus which kills pest funguses)

Plant Daisies Around Fruit Trees (daisies attract a certain kind of wasp which is the natural predator of the bagworm, a worm that is notorious for killing crop trees. This wasp also kills locusts, an added bonus)

Herbs (strong smelling herbs repel many animals, including deer, that would attempt to feed on your veggies. Of course, you might like the idea of attracting deer to your property too…)

Grow For Your Region: The region in which you live will greatly affect the types of crops that grow well. Listed below are the various regions of the U.S. along with the vegetables that thrive best in them…

Northeast – Tomatoes, sweet peppers, snap beans, garlic, potato, bulb onion, cabbage, broccoli, mustard, spinach, eggplant, sweet corn, cucumber, radish, snow pea, asparagus

Southeast – Sweet pepper, garlic, hot pepper, broccoli, summer squash, collards, watermelon, cantaloupe, okra, scallion, lima bean, pole bean, sweet potato, potato, radish

Midwest – Corn, onion, lettuce, tomato, garlic, squash, pumpkin, turnips, beets, broccoli, cucumber, hot pepper, carrot

Central Rockies – Carrot, spinach, tomato, bush snap peas, potato, radish, fava beans, beets, shallots, leek, scallion

Northwest – Snow pea, pole bean, potato, garlic, pumpkin, squash, hot pepper, scallion, lettuce, onion, carrot

Southwest – Tomato, carrot, summer squash, bulb onion, snow pea, sweet pepper, eggplant, hot pepper, beet radish, sweet potato, southern pea, scallion

Keep in mind that these are not the only crops you can grow in your region, just some of the top producers. Many vegetables will grow almost anywhere in the U.S.

Most Nutritious Plants: The plants and vegetables with the highest nutritional content of vitamins and minerals are: Sunflower seeds, soybeans, almonds, leaf amaranth, broccoli, navy beans, collards, potatoes, dandelions (yes, the weed), lima beans, northern beans, kidney beans, okra, spinach, kale, butternut squash, sweet potato, peanuts, avocados, and watermelon (believe it or not).

Focus On Grains: Grasses that produce grains are hearty and grow almost everywhere in the U.S. Grains are the mainstay of our diets because they are so abundant and because they can be stored for years, even decades if needed. Families and communities hoping to restore food production after a breakdown in infrastructure will need personal gardens, but also reasonably sized tracks of land set aside for wheat, rice, barley, oats, etc.

Wheat is one of the few plants that can grow during the winter, but only if nitrogen content in the soil is adequate. Growing legumes in a garden patch can add large amounts of nitrogen, after which, wheat plants can be rotated in. Wheat also needs loose soil to grow well, and compacted soil can ruin a crop. The squarefoot method can be used just as easily for wheat as with regular garden vegetables and could help avoid the soil compaction problem, along with certain space issues.

‘Hard Wheat’ is the best type to plant if you live in a dry temperate climate with cold winters. ‘Soft Wheat’ is better for climates with more moisture and mild winters. After harvest, your wheat kernels should be stored in a cool dry place (40-60 F is optimal) and sealed in containers that prevent oxygen exposure.

Grains are the single most important food item for the survivalist because of their longevity. Civilizations are built and rebuilt on grains and grain storage. The average adult requires around 275 pounds of wheat a year, and the average child requires around 175 pounds a year. A well maintained acre of plants will produce around 40 bushels or more of wheat. A bushel contains around 60 pounds of wheat, meaning a standard acre could yield around 2400 pounds of grain; more than enough for two families every year. If the squarfoot method is applied, the yield could be significantly higher and the space could be reduced tenfold. Extra grain can be easily packed away, saving you in the event of a bad crop or other unforeseen problems. Grains combined with beans also make a complete protein in the event that your diet is low on meat. The advantages of grain production for survival are endless.

Indoor Growing And Hydroponics: I realize the word “hydroponics” is synonymous with wacky weed, Maui Wowie, and that shy neighbor in the aviator shades that lives on the corner lot of your block. Of course, its none of my business what that guy is growing in his basement, nor is it the government’s, but before you go out to order a subscription of ‘High Times’, let me assure you that my primary reason for bringing up hydroponics is one of survival, and not “mind expansion”.

Hydroponics is simply a method for growing plants using electric lights that simulate the rays of the sun, and this includes vegetables. There are many benefits to growing your food indoors.

If you are in a survival situation which offers minimal protection and greater danger from looters or others, you may want to consider the hydroponic option. This method would be a considerable edge for those who have chosen to stay within a city or suburban landscape with less open land and more people in tighter quarters. A hydroponic garden in your home or apartment might show up on infrared surveillance, but otherwise, no one would be the wiser to your food supply.

Hydroponic plants grow 30% to 50% faster than outdoor plants and their vegetable yields are often much higher. Some hydroponic systems don’t even require soil for growing! ‘Active Systems’ use a pump to supply nutrients to your plants while ‘Passive Systems’ use a wick to absorb nutrient solutions and pass them on to the roots of your crop. You can build your own hydroponic system using guides available on the web, or you can purchase pre-made systems. Pre-made systems with special lights are likely to run you around $1000, though deal hunters may be able to put something together much cheaper.

The downside to hydroponic growing is that you are paying for the light that you would normally get for free from the sun. Not to mention, in a grid down scenario, you lose your light source completely (we will cover strategies for survival electricity in the next installment of this series). But, if you have the ability to produce your own electricity, then indoor growing may be a godsend. Keep in mind that with hydroponics, food growing can be done year around, even in winter. Pests are much easier to control. And, your crops are also much safer from a threat I see rising to the forefront in the near future; GMO pollen. GMO pollen has the ability to “infect” healthy non-hybrid plants and mutate their seedlings. What would happen if your acre of veggies was suddenly hit with a blast of GMO pollens from breeds that use engineered terminator seeds? Say goodbye to next year’s crop, unless you have indoor gardens and extra seeds to back you up…

Sprouting: One easy way to get nutritious greens any time of year without special growing lights or fancy equipment is to sprout beans. All you need is a wide container with small holes in the bottom, and any number of sprouting beans or seeds. These include; lentils, garbanzo, mung, adzuki, pea, peanut, alfalfa, barley, pinto, and others.

The beans are spread in a thin layer across the bottom of the container and sprayed lightly with water daily. Some indirect sunlight is recommended. After around 3 to 5 days, they will begin to sprout, producing healthy greens even in the dead of winter.

The Omnivore’s Advantage

Vegetarianism seems like a spartan way of dieting, but really, vegetarians have a difficult if not impossible time when it comes to survival environments. Vegetarianism is a luxury, one that you cannot afford if you hope to get through a grid down event. The key to survival is flexibility and adaptability. Forgoing a meal of meat is not an option if you wish to avoid starving.

While killing and dismembering Bambi for your stew pot is not the most pleasant of exercises for many, its something all of us might have to get used to very soon. Traditional hunting, though, is not the most practical way of obtaining meat during a collapse, and counting on hunting alone could very well end in empty plates for you and your family on a regular basis. Here are some strategies for making sure that never happens…

Raising Chickens: Chickens are some of the easiest livestock to raise. They require little space. If allowed to roam the yard they practically feed themselves, they lay eggs which are a fantastic source of protein, and, when they stop laying, they can be eaten.

One problem to watch out for with chickens is ‘fowl cholera’. Symptoms include greenish yellow diarrhea, difficulty breathing, swollen joints, darkened wattles. Infected birds die quickly and there is no treatment. Destroy all infected birds, even those that survive (they become carriers and infect new birds immediately). Other diseases and sicknesses usually require some care and warm shelter, while the bird’s immune system takes care of the rest.

Raising Rabbits: Rabbits are another very easy to raise meat source, though they cannot be allowed to roam like chickens and dry warm cages are necessary. As we all know, rabbits breed like there’s no tomorrow, so you will have a never-ending supply of new stock. Rabbit food is relatively inexpensive to store, though veggies from your garden often work just as well. In fact, planting a couple quick producing crops just for your rabbits may be an effective feed source. Rabbits also need clean water regularly, because they dehydrate easily.

Bring The Game To You: Running around the forest with your scoped bolt action may not be the cleverest way to put meat on the table during a collapse, unless you have a lot of well armed buddies to keep watch over you while you lounge in your tree hide for half the day. There is too much wasted time and too many risks involved. During a societal breakdown, sometimes you have to work smarter, not harder.

Bringing the game to you is not so difficult as long as you know what they like. Leaving salt licks and corn on the perimeter of your land will bring deer, and in some places wild pig. Wild flower and clover patches attract rabbits which can then be snared. Wild turkeys like crabapples, beechnuts, and acorns during winter, and clover during spring.

Another more expensive option is to build a small artificial pond on your land. Animals for miles around will congregate there to drink, especially if there are no other streams or lakes nearby.

Don’t Be A Liability

Preparation is not just about you, it is about all the people you save by not becoming part of the problem. The more Americans prep, the less Americans starve in the midst of calamity. Fewer empty stomachs means less fearful minds and less panic when the other shoe drops. In this sense, survival preparation is not a hobby, or a mode of self interest, it is a duty. Frankly, if we care at all about the continuity of our ideals, our belief in freedom and independence, then we should also feel obligated to become more self-sufficient. If the economy were to slip into oblivion tomorrow, would you be a pillar of strength, or just another frantic helpless man-child waiting desperately for a handout from the nearest criminal bureaucracy? Would you be a strong-point in the protection of liberty, or a weak link holding the rest of us back?

The strength of one can have reverberations in the lives of thousands. Preparation makes us strong. Adaptability and knowledge makes us unafraid. Training and experience makes us successful. These are the principles upon which America was founded, and these are the principles which will allow America to live on.

You can contact Giordano Bruno at: giordano@neithercorp.us

Strategic Grain Reserves gone, they sold them

2010-11-22T11:16:00.000-08:00

_________________________________________________________

As recently as 2008, the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC), a wholly owned subsidiary of the USDA, reported that there was virtually no grain stores left in the US. Of the 24.1 million bushels in reserve, only 2.7 million bushels remained after the bulk of the grain stores were given for humanitarian relief. While some of the grain may have been used for humanitarian purposes, there is no evidence to support this contention. Furthermore, the use of the term humanitarian does not necessarily mean that the grain wasn’t sold, its just meant to condition public thinking into believing the grain was given away to hungry people. I would bet that wasn’t the case at all.

There has been no effort by USDA or CCC to re-establish our strategic grain reserves. The purpose of the CCC is to maintain a balanced supply of food commodities as a strategic backup in case of emergency and is charged with distributing those back up supplies to the population should they be needed. The strategic reserves which had been established as a result of the Great Depression were depleted in the 1980’s and USDA at that time announced it would not re-establish this back up and of course our current bio-tech pandering Ag secretary isn’t about to re-establish them either.

S.510 would insure the capture of the markets for corporations whose only interest is exporting whatever our land can produce to other nations, for commodities profit. Nothing will be held back for the US as “free trade” and export will be first and foremost. Instead of focusing on securing a back up supply for the US, the USDA continues to push for ever more exportation of our food supply. Now why would USDA and congress be promoting export over securing the food supply for the US?

This “free trade” thing is killing us economically. The cost of free trade needs to be measured not by whether or not a few selected individuals make a ton of money, but, by whether or not the economy is benefited by allowing it to continue. Free trade has morphed into rape and pillage, leaving economic destruction in its wake and we are about to be left in the dirt and wondering where our next meal is coming from as multi-national corporations line up to seize control of the worlds food supplies.

Along with this loss of strategic grain reserves, there is no butter, cheese, dry milk or any other food commodity stockpiled for the American people in the event the predicted food crisis occurs. Nearly one third of all corn crops are now diverted to ethanol production and are not grown for food; this while the coming food crisis begins.

It is our belief that this refusal by USDA and CCC to establish a food store for emergencies goes hand in hand with the intent of S.510, the fake food safety bill. This bill will effectively centralize food production not only geographically, but also in the marketplace by eliminating family and independent producers and centralizing food production in CAFO operations and other concentrated farming applications.

The Farmer Owned Reserve (FOR) is busy promoting the most sensible solution to decentralization of food stores, by advocating that grain be stored on farms; effectively establishing and protecting grain reserves as they would be dispersed all across the country as opposed to deposited in massive and easily targeted grain terminals. Of course USDA and CCC have their ears plugged on this sensible solution as it limits their control and manipulation of markets and reduces the number and value of contracts they can issue for export; meaning the amount of money that would be generated by contracting with multi-national corporations against the people of the United States would be seriously impaired, reducing the profit margin for USDA on export contracts.

This was alluded to in the 2009 National Grain and Feed Association (NGFA) report on the wonderful deal grain producers would get if they didn’t store grain on site and instead stored in government owned and controlled facilities. Far from being a logical and defensive strategy, the intent of NGFA (another USDA owned corporation)was summed up in its final statement on the advantages of government owned facilities:

It would better protect CCC’s financial interest, since the value of grain stored at commercial elevators generally is greater than on farm, and is a more “saleable” asset if marketing assistance loan grain is ever forfeited by the producer into CCC’s ownership.

This last statement was in fact the crux of the issue: “forever forfeited by the producer.” Its all about how to seize the supply and who will profit from its sale. None of this plan for massive grain terminals is about anything other than selling off the crops our farmers produce to the highest bidders while leaving the US in the position of having no strategic stores of grains for emergencies. to get the full effect of the planning that went into the theft of our grain crops, you have to read the full document linked above.

Centralization, one of the key talking points when the USDA and FDA is promoting the overthrow of private domestic agriculture, is supposed to be avoided……there could be some mad man in a cave on the other side of the world just waiting for the chance to tip cows over in Iowa. Then what?

These massive terminals that NGFA is promoting would centralize the grain reserves all across the country making them easy targets for terrorists; like the swat teams from USDA and FDA. They don’t have to really worry about them showing up, these teams will be far too busy conducting police state raids on family and independent farms and ranches.

We do need to fear terrorists. You will know them when you see them. They will be dressed like star wars storm troopers and armed to the teeth with weapons the likes of which even James Bond couldn’t imagine. They’ll also have the USDA and/or FDA logo on them just so you know who they are.

As for bio-terrorism……considering we have more than 700 bio-weapons labs cris-crossing the country, its pretty safe to say that should we have a bio weapon attack, it will probably originate from a city near you.

MARTIAL LAW ALERT: Banking Collapse

2010-10-10T12:48:00.000-07:00

THE SITUATION:

As the price of gold reaches new heights (over $1300 per ounce) and silver climbs to over $23 per ounce, the financial situation in America is dire, to say the least. Continuously rising rates of unemployment, increased government spending and the collapse of the real estate markets are all converging into one perfectly-directed/perfectly-designed collapse of, not only our economy, but the greater global economy as well. While major financial players such as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan continue to have record profits, the middle class has disappeared from the American financial landscape. Major financial leaders such as Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, have openly admitted that our country's financial system is in deep trouble and even Europe is having more banker bailouts. Meanwhile, the American media constantly hypes a possible terror attack in America and other countries in Europe.

If another major terror attack such as 9/11 occurs, trends forecaster Gerald Celente has stated that the event would bring the banking system to a complete halt, which would then result in a "bank holiday." And Celente is not alone. For over a year, many others have warned of an upcoming bank holiday. With our economy already in free fall, it would not take much of a national and/or worldwide terror event to completely crash our (fiat) dollar-based system in a very short period of time. Upon the crash of the dollar, more bank holidays could be declared and oppressive emergency banking powers could go into effect (see: Emergency Banking Act of 1933). These include severely limiting consumer withdrawals and a recall of physical gold holdings. Taking Presidential Defense Directive #51 into account (PDD-51), even a major stock-market crash could trigger this scenario. And once PDD-51 is invoked, then martial law could be fully implemented.

Another way the collapse of the banking system could lead to martial law is through cyber attacks.

This possibility has been particularly troubling to us, since, earlier this year, CNN aired a staged (i.e. fake) "cyber terror" attack complete with fake news reports being fielded by Michael Chertoff and other Washington insiders. Their premise was that the American power grid had been taken down by hacker/terrorists via cyber attack. Since the airing of that fake news program, alternative news agencies such as Infowars and others have made the point that such an attack is impossible for the average hacker, because the power grid is on a completely separate network from the Internet. In the meantime, threats against our power grid have been highlighted in other (suspect) ways, such as the Russians who were recently found trying to break into a Georgia power plant.

While the media continues to hype the threat of cyber terror against our power grid, others have looked into the perhaps more frightening prospect of a cyber attack on our banking system, which relies heavily upon computer networks as well as the Internet. Such an attack has already occurred both in America (over the July 4th holiday in 2009), as well as abroad (in South Korea, Estonia, India, and Canada). In fact, in February 2010, the American financial services industry actually participated in a cyber attack exercise to test the readiness of the financial system, so there's no way they can deny that they've actually considered the possibility of such an attack. If such an attack did occur, whole sections of the banking system would most likely go offline (as many believe happened to Bank of America earlier this year), or, worse, massive amounts of account data could be compromised, or lost altogether.

The possible result?

Imagine being unable to access your checking account, your 401K, or, even worse, having your bank balance go to zero and, in the resulting chaos, being left with no way to prove the amount that should be in your account. After all, these days, all your sensitive banking data is stored in computer databases and, in the midst of a "cyber crisis," many (or all) recent transactions could be lost (or the banks could claim such). In such a scenario, the only real proof of funds would be whatever cash a consumer happened to have on hand.

Many analysts such as Gerald Celente and Max Kaiser have been warning people about keeping their money in banks. As America's financial situation continues to deteriorate, a false-flag cyber attack would be a clever way to disguise the inevitable and blame the collapse on something (or someone) else. Also, with the nation's financial data compromised and/or missing altogether, it would conveniently force a "reset" of the banking system back to zero. Amidst the chaos of people trying to function with little-to-no cash while at the same time clamoring for a solution, the government could easily roll out a ration-card system much like the one Venezuela currently has, and/or a combination identification/debit card like Malaysia's. In addition, possible food and/or water riots could also create the perfect pretense for martial law.

In conclusion: A cyber attack that took out either the banking, or the power grid system would undoubtedly cause much turmoil. A cyber attack that took out both would be devastating. Either one would pave the road to martial law.

OUR RECOMMENDATION:

If you have money in a bank, consider getting it out. (Digital dollars are not durable, nor dependable!) Keeping enough cash as needed for survival is always wise, but consider putting all other assets into precious metals and/or necessary goods in order make the transition into the next new currency (whatever that might be). If you do not already have storable food, water and defensive weaponry, now would be a good time to acquire these items. Consider liquidating all paper assets including retirement accounts, stocks, bonds and mutual funds, since, at this point, it wouldn't take much to send the value of all these items to zero. Begin, if you have not already, to be more self-sustaining, whether through gardening, or bartering with other like-minded individuals, etc. Now is the time to introduce yourself to your neighbors before the power (and possibly other services) go out. Know who you can trust and who you can't.

USDA Reports Food Shortages:

2010-07-08T10:48:00.000-07:00

USDA Reports Food Shortages: Wall Street 'Caught Off Guard' by Severity

Eric Blair
Activist Post

Several recent headlines indicate that food prices will continue their swift climb upward. These troubling new reports show that agriculture production and stored grains are critically low and experts are now predicting food shortages on a grand scale.

Look at a few mainstream headlines: Drought threatens global rice supply in the India Times; VA farmers say heat taking toll on crops, Associated Press; Severe food shortage follows lack of rainfall in Syria; and, finally, Corn prices bolt as USDA downsizes crop estimates, which states that, "Commodity professionals were caught off guard Wednesday by a U.S. Department of Agriculture report showing 1 million fewer acres of corn planted this year than earlier projected, and almost 300 million fewer bushels of corn in storage." And these articles don't begin to address crops being damaged by the toxic rain from the Gulf oil disaster.

We are back to recession economics and rapidly heading toward a deeper, longer “Third Depression.” With all recent economic indicators setting new record lows and deficits at record highs, this ship is only going one way folks, down, down to Chinatown. This WTC-Building 7-style-controlled-demolition of the U.S. economy has long been engineered by the borderless banksters and has been set in the same way to collapse at a free-fall rate. With all of the manufactured confusion it may be difficult to know where best to invest your limited assets, but it seems to be clear that Food is on the march.

There were several trend forecasters and financial firms predicting upwards of $200/barrel of oil before the Gulf oil gusher. The “analysts” said this would occur because of the perception of scarcity and a weakening dollar. The oil disaster and the subsequent outrage at Big Oil will surely take care of selling the perception of scarcity, while the Federal Reserve and Congress will surely take care of weakening the dollar.

We’ve seen this Beta test before when oil prices reached their peak of $147 in 2008 sending the price of food to the stratosphere. Food staples like rice nearly tripled in six months and at times increased 50% in just two weeks, primarily because of record oil prices and a weak dollar in 2008. During this run-up on prices, big box stores like Sam's Club and Costco were rationing the number of bags of rice customers could buy. You can bet that Food Crisis Beta 2.010 will be far more severe.

This third factor of actual Food Scarcity, coupled with high oil prices and a feeble dollar, will multiply the severity of increasing food prices. Whether this scarcity is being engineered to further cull the population or is a genuine imbalance in supply and demand is not important. The fact is that this reality is playing out in the matrix. Being aware of this triple-threat to food costs creates an opportunity to soften the recessionary blow, and perhaps offer some economic freedom from those who would like to reduce us all to serfdom.

You don’t have to be an End Times survivalist to believe that storing food is pragmatic. Everyone with expendable cash can and should design a good food storage and rotation system and buy bulk food as an investment -- in addition to creating self-sufficiency. Many rationalists are touting guns, ammo, and gold as good small-scale investments given the despicable agenda unfolding in our matrix. Certainly those are critical investments in an economy dwindling down to the rationing of necessity, but not everyone is into guns or can afford bundles of gold. And gold, at the end of the day, can only be traded for necessity.

These recent food alerts seem to indicate that food may be the best short-term investment for the “Average Joe.” It's simple: if the retail cost of rice doubles, as it did in 2008, then you (the investor) make 100% return in something that's immediately tangible and usable. It’s time to pay the tax penalty for cashing out your mediocre "I-bought-in-to-the-American-Dream" 401K and invest in Food!

Best News for YOU: AutoresponderSwap

2010-06-07T05:44:00.000-07:00

Preppers Panama

2010-06-07T04:36:00.000-07:00

"Preppers" es una palabra internacional nuevo, que simplemente significa
"gente que está preparado para cualquier desastre".
Para unirse a nosotros en el correo electrónico:
admin@panamalimousine.com

We speak also english:

"Preppers" is a new international word, wich simply means:
"people that are ready for any disaster".
To join us send an email to:
admin@panamalimousine.com

In Panama the things are a little different:
We have not too much to fear a civil war or a break up of
the republic, we need to focus on possible Tsunamis
and earthquakes, which we are NOT used to in Panama.

All we had were some high tides and some offshore quakes,
but what might come are Tsunamis caused by nearby
sea-quakes and therefore we ned to be prepared.

Please coment about the posibilities, you may write in spanish.
THANKS!