Survival Prep Thread

[Norton]

And what kind of fekin leftie wears their watch on their left wrist?

This kind I reckon.

[Texpat]

He's dialing in his Star Wars Soviet Destruction Laser Disintegration Weapon.

His watch is on the other wrist, just under the cuff.

[barbaro]

Certainly, not everyone agrees. I am open to all scenarios, from a rebound to a long-term decline. Personally, I don't see such a meltdown, but I do see slow growth, for a few years or more. We'll have to wait and see.

Link:
Total Meltdown and Civil Unrest

Total Meltdown and Civil Unrest
Wall Street's Manipulated Stock Market Rally

by Matthias Chang

Global Research, March 26, 2009

The numbers that have been bandied about is beyond the comprehension of the average Joe Six-Packs. I cannot even figure out $500 billion, what more $500 trillion. Ninety per cent of government leaders are also unable to figure out the enormity of the global debt sink-hole.

So, I have accepted the fact that 97 per cent of Americans will just accept whatever explanations and excuses thrown at them by President Obama, Fed Bernanke and Treasury Geithner for bailing out the banks and failing to prevent the implosion of the economy by summer of 2009.

Obama inherited the mess created by war criminal Bush, aided and abetted by Alan Greenspan, Bernanke and Geithner, so he can be excused for there is nothing that he can do at this late hour to change the outcome. But the rest should be lynched!


In the last two years, in several articles, I drew your attention to the fraudulent securities that have been peddled by the global banks and how they have caused the present grid-lock in the global financial system. In essence, these securities – MBS, CDOs, CLOs, etc. were all fraudulent papers. Whatever mortgages underlying these papers, were over-valued and now they have shown to be worth at the most 10 to 20 cents on the dollar.

There have been suggestions that if all these papers were to be shredded and the debts written off, the global banks’ balance sheet would be wiped clean of such toxic assets. In the result the economy would restart and the good old days of cheap credit and unrestrained consumption would usher another boom!

This is a fairy tale.

In the old days, when the hoodlums want to kill someone and have him disappear for good, they would tie his legs together and attach the rope to a heavy object or an anchor and throw the poor fellow into the bottom of the lake or sea, never to be seen again. A small weight, say 10 kg is more than enough to drag the body to the bottom!

The current financial system is not unlike the man who has been thrown overboard and being dragged down by the heavy object. The only chance for survival is if the man could somehow loosen the rope and detach the weight from his legs and swim to the surface, if he could hold his breath long enough.

What is this small weight that is dragging the financial system down? And why writing off this particular debt will not save the banks?

Compared to the global derivative market which is valued in the hundreds of trillions, the global stock market by comparison is a midget. But it is this midget that will cause the financial implosion in America and Europe and reverberate across the world.

Let me explain in simple terms.

When the Dow collapsed from the stratospheric high of 14,000 to less than 7,000 recently (though recovered somewhat) and other stock markets also went south in tandem, it was estimated that at the minimum $30 trillion was wiped out.

What are the consequences of such a drastic collapse?

Let me explain in simple terms again.

Take the share price of Citigroup. At the height of the boom, its market capitalization was over $250 billion. Today, it is less than $10 billion.

Let us say that you bought the shares when it was trading at $150. You also borrowed from the bank to purchase the shares. These shares will have to be pledged to the bank as security for the loan. The shares are now trading a few dollars, say $5.

There is just no way that you can repay the loan and or to obtain additional security to “top-up” the value of the security pledged to the bank. Where are you going to get the cash to buy more shares? Shares of other companies that you may own have also collapsed, and their value may not be sufficient to cover the difference. You are dead meat!

The bank is also in deep shits because there is no way that they can recover the loan from selling the shares, which is worth $5.

There is the added problem that companies, whose shares are traded in the stock exchange, are not worth even at current values because their core business and operations were premised on cheap credit and were therefore highly geared! These companies are in debt to their eyeballs!

They are insolvent, bankrupt!

Try as hard, the Fed and the Treasury will not be able to engineer a stock rally back to 14,000 points. And even if they could, it does not follow that the prices of the shares of specific companies would return to its previous high. In the case of Citigroup back to $200 per share!

There is no way in the next 3 to 5 years for companies whose businesses have collapsed to be able to recover fast enough and to be profitable enough to justify a market value of at least 50 per cent of its previous high. In the case of Citigroup, back up to $100.

That is an example in the financial sector.

In the manufacturing sector, an outfit like General Motors will take at least a decade to recover. Then there are those companies which have out-sourced and or re-located overseas. To restart local production again would take time and vast amount of credit. But would they be competitive, given cheaper cost of production elsewhere?

Corporate America is shutting down.

Stimulus and pump priming will not solve this huge problem.

Millions played at this casino using home equity. Pension funds risked your retirement benefits gambling at this casino and lost. Leveraging, 10, 20 or even 30 times was the norm. There is no money left in the kitty!

Quantity easing or printing money will not solve the problem, because a company’s value and market capitalization can only be enhanced through actual production of goods and services. But the Western economies in the last twenty years were skewed towards consumption and the availability of cheap credit.

Applying common sense, what was missing was the creation of surplus value, which is the result of efficient production, and savings which in turn provide the essential capital for more production and savings.

Nothing illustrates this problem better than the case of a farmer who stops farming because he had so much cheap credit, that he stopped farming. He could now easily purchase all he needed, and earned five times more gambling in the stock market casino than he would earn from farming. He mortgaged his farm to secure the borrowings. He lived and consumed like the rich and famous!

When the casino collapsed, he could not maintain the lifestyle and had to resort to selling heirlooms to survive.

Until and unless the farmer starts farming and pays off his debts, he would not be able to accumulate sufficient capital to resume what was once a profitable business.

In short, the farmer like all the millions of gamblers who have been ensnared by the global casino, are now in the debt trap and being slowly dragged down to the bottom of the lake!

Therefore, pumping hundreds of billions to the banks will not solve the problem.

You can bet your last dollar that when millions are caught in the debt trap and there is no way out, and they see billions been given to the Wall Street fat cats, lynching parties will be the order of the day!

The Count Down has started.

Link again: This is from Global Research: Total Meltdown and Civil Unrest

[chassamui]

Very interesting article MM. Dont you think that

a computer and widescreen TV.

will be a bit of a luxury during the

downfall of civilisation

?
It is just typical of the capitalist west mentality to think that such things might be important, or even usable. They play such an important part in most peoples lives today, we just cannot visulise being without them.
A sad indictment of our greed based culture.

PS Not a criticism, just an observation on our tragic values.

[Texpat]

More a function of a journalist trying to paint a picture that is a characiture of reality. Exaggerate features to emphasize the point you're trying to make.

What's the first thing people say when they lose their house following a fire or tornado or hurricane?

It isn't, "At least my HDTV plasma survived."

When you read this kind of garbage in an article:

Obama inherited the mess created by war criminal Bush, aided and abetted by Alan Greenspan, Bernanke and Geithner, so he can be excused for there is nothing that he can do at this late hour to change the outcome. But the rest should be lynched!

it's time to stop and have another gulp of Kool Aid.

Let us say that you bought the shares when it was trading at $150. You also borrowed from the bank to purchase the shares.

If, as a personal investor, you do this you're a fucking retard. Gambling with borrowed money is a fool's game.

[Boon Mee]

I can't imagine what Americans would do for themselves if ever such disasterous events ever came about {natural or manmade}. Instinctively self-sufficient and self-reliant they're not as they also a culture that is highly vacant of familiar and social extensions....dreamers.

Go rent the movie "Red Dawn" and you'll have a clue what they'll do...

Reality looks nice in the movies, doesn't it?

RS...I work with some of those "good 'ol boys' who, during their off-time, are quite well-prepared for such an eventuality...believe it. It's out there and when feces meshes with the proverbial blades, these guys are locked & loaded.

...not just a movie scenario...jing, jing...

[Spin]

Gambling with borrowed money is a fool's game.

Agreed, trading with margin is satan finding work for idle hands. Been burned doing it myself.

I lot of folks online are reporting that ammunition in a whole array of calibres is totally unavailable. Out of stock, everywhere. Why?

[Norton]

Out of stock, everywhere. Why?

Mexican drug cartels bought it all up. Least that's the message I got watching that libbie CNN program about the drug wars.

[Boon Mee]

Out of stock, everywhere. Why?

Mexican drug cartels bought it all up. Least that's the message I got watching that libbie CNN program about the drug wars.

They ain't as Pink as MSNBC although I can't stand that Jack Cafferty and Wolf Streisand...make me wanna hurl!

[chitown]

I could have lived in my old RV. It had everything I needed and was top of the line. I wish I still had it.

[barbaro]

Will there be more mass shooting? Mass killings? People "losing it" because they have lost everything?

Riots?

Jobless aid running out for many
As unemployment benefits expire, thousands could be left without help or a job.

WASHINGTON -- In the coming weeks and months, hundreds of thousands of jobless Americans will exhaust their unemployment benefits, and it comes at a time when jobs are scarce.

Congress extended unemployment aid twice last year, allowing people to draw a total of up to 59 weeks of benefits. Now, as the recession drags on, a rolling wave of people who were laid off early last year will lose them.

Precise figures are hard to determine, but Wayne Vroman, an economist at the Urban Institute, estimates that up to 700,000 people could exhaust their extended benefits by the second half of the year.

Some will find new jobs, but prospects will be grim: Layoffs are projected to go on, and many economists expect the jobless rate, already at 8.5 percent, to hit 10 percent by year's end.

"It's going to be a monstrous problem," Vroman said.

U.S. employers shed 663,000 jobs in March, and the jobless rate now stands at its highest in a quarter-century. Since the recession began in December 2007, a net total of 5.1 million jobs have disappeared.

Those who know that their unemployment aid is about to run out are counting the days, taking on odd jobs, moving in with relatives and fretting about the future.

"My biggest fear is we'll lose the house," said Hernan Alvarez, 54, an Orlando, Fla., construction worker who lost his job in July and whose benefits will end in four weeks. "The only thing I can do is keep looking for work and hope tomorrow will be better than today."

That so many people have remained on jobless aid for more than a year underscores the duration of the recession, which began in December 2007. If the downturn extends into May, it will be the longest recession since the Great Depression.

The jobs crisis it has created is worse than most economists forecast.

In March, nearly a quarter of the unemployed had been without work for six months or more, the highest proportion since the 1981-82 recession.

And the problem will probably get even worse. Employers typically remain reluctant to hire even months after a recession has officially ended.

"What comes next, I'm afraid, will be the mother of all jobless recoveries," said Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist at the Economic Outlook Group, a consulting firm. "While we may emerge from recession from a statistical standpoint later this year, most Americans will be hard-pressed to tell the difference between a recession and a recovery the next 12 months."

That's grim news for Sterling Long, 40, of Pittsburgh , who said he's willing to take any job available to support his wife and four children. He is dreading the expiration of his benefits this month.

"I'll work in McDonald's," he said. "I got no pride as long as the people in this house eat, have hot water - that's all I need."

Long, like many of the long-term unemployed, has tried to learn new skills. For three months, he spent Saturdays and Sundays working to get his commercial driver's license. That led to work as a cargo loader for a couple of months at a supermarket warehouse. But since then, nothing.

A bus pass and $50

Experts said food stamps and other social programs provide a partial backstop for many recipients who exhaust benefits. Some will also take low-paying "tideover" jobs - if they can find them, said Rebecca Blank, an economist at the Brookings Institution.

One of them is Rainie Uselton, 39, who also lives in Pittsburgh. She took a course to become a certified nursing assistant after being laid off from a restaurant early last year.

She landed a job at an assisted-living facility but lost it after her car broke down and she couldn't make it to work.

Uselton is caring for a friend's mother part-time in exchange for a meal, bus pass and $50 a week. She hopes to use that money to help pay for car repairs before her benefits run out in four weeks.

"It takes a little longer to fall asleep because of all the scenarios in your head," Uselton said.

Unemployment has risen so high that in some states a third leg of benefits is kicking in - a new lifeline for many who would otherwise run out. Under federal law, states found to have particularly high unemployment under complex formulas must provide 13 to 20 more weeks of benefits.

It has already taken effect in 18 states, twice as many as activated it in either of the last two recessions.

The National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group for low-wage workers, wants more states to change their laws to make it easier for the extended benefits to kick in.

The federal stimulus package provides full federal funding for the extension, which otherwise would be split between the states and federal government. California's Legislature took such a step recently, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to sign the legislation.

That comes as a huge relief to Beth Lambert, 58, of San Diego, who's been out of work since January 2008 after losing her job as an administrator at a construction company.

"I can breathe for a few more weeks and just keep trying," she said.

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1472467.htm

[Jet Gorgon]

Frugal's Forums

How come 500 rounds of ammo costs more than some of the guns?

You know.....one thing pops into my head when I read all this panic stuff and start stockpiling and getting ready for riots and wars and shit over food and water and everything else.......just think ...........................HOGWASH

I guess that's what the Italian folks thought when that seismologist raced through the Alqinca area a few weeks ago, telling them that a large earthquake was imminent and urging them to evacuate. Oh ya, but the govt told the people not to believe him.

Will there be more mass shooting? Mass killings? People "losing it" because they have lost everything? Riots?
Jobless aid running out for many
As unemployment benefits expire, thousands could be left without help or a job.

Mebbe riots first. Remember BKKAndrew talked about this moons ago.
Yep, jobs are vanishing quicker than hotcakes at a Klondike breakfast. WTF is Obama still focusing on education, eco-friendly crap and healthcare? JOBS, man!

When was C at $150?

[barbaro]

As we know, more Americans are growing their own food in their gardens. Many positives to this.

February 2, 2010 at 12:07 PM
In uncertain times, growing your food is fashionable again

The era of competitive gardening, with its focus on fabulous flowers and foliage, is being supplanted by a movement to get back to edibles. We're focusing on rhubarb instead of roses now, and along the way making connections with our communities.
By Valerie Easton

PREV 1 of 8 NEXT





How to learn
We have a relatively cool and short growing season in Puget Sound country. These resources can help you deal:
"Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades," 6th edition, by Steve Solomon (Sasquatch Books, $21.95)
"Winter Gardening in the Maritime Northwest: Cool-Season Crops for the Year-Round Gardener," by Binda Colebrook (Sasquatch Books, out of print but available at online outlets)
Western Cascade Fruit Society: www.wcfs.org/

THE HEADY DAYS of high horticulture, when gardeners would kill for the newest and coolest perennial, are well and truly over. The resurgence of food gardening has ushered in a post-competitive era, where people share seeds and meals, and even welcome landless gardeners into their backyards for a little communal cultivation.


It doesn't really matter whether the food-gardening renaissance is driven by do-it-yourself frugality in a time of economic uncertainties or by concern over food safety and the environment. Its joys are as tangible as the taste of a fresh-picked tomato, as sublime as popping a sun-warmed raspberry into your mouth, as viscerally satisfying as stepping out your back door to pick a dinner you grew from a couple of seed packets. Seemingly overnight, raised beds are the new water features; we're hedging with blueberries and replacing roses with rhubarb.


Edibles are the engine propelling horticulture these days, with a younger generation of gardener in the driver's seat. The National Gardening Association forecast that 40 percent more households would be growing their own vegetables in 2009 than in 2007. Vegetable-seed sales are up by more than 25 percent.

Link & Entire: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...rmid=obnetwork

[Jet Gorgon]

^ Geez, those toms look fekin measly. Probably taste like caca, too. Just like the crap the hippie organic farmers try to slog off in the local farmers markets here. Visited with a pal and they wanted a buck for three shrivelled green onions when the farm guys sell 20 for a buck. 5555555

Hek, my fam's been growing their own veg and shooting their own meat their whole lives. I grow my own herbs, lettuce, scallions, chives, snap peas, etc. Good lot of apples and figs this summer. Puget Sound has a good climate for veg growing. Whiners.

[barbaro]

Homelessness on rise. Medicaid rolls increasing. Shelters full.

Suburban homeless: Rising tide of women, families
Feb 16, 2010
By FRANK ELTMAN
Associated Press Writer and among families


ROOSEVELT, N.Y. (AP) - Homelessness in rural and suburban America is straining shelters this winter as the economy founders and joblessness hovers near double digits—a "perfect storm of foreclosures, unemployment and a shortage of affordable housing," in one official's eyes.

"We are seeing many families that never before sought government help," said Greg Blass, commissioner of Social Services in Suffolk County on eastern Long Island.

"We see a spiral in food stamps, heating assistance applications; Medicaid is skyrocketing," Blass added. "It is truly reaching a stage of being alarming. "

Link & Entire: Suburban homeless: Rising tide of women, families

[GooMaiRoo]

I can't imagine what Americans would do for themselves if ever such disasterous events ever came about

I can't imagine what they'd do either, unless they had the foresight to see things a few years in advance, gather enough solid assets to get by (e.g., gold and stable currencies), buy a home in a resource-rich country like Thailand and marry into a rural family that has for centuries survived just about everything. Rural Thai existence beats the heck out of living in an RV in America's countryside and waiting for some hillbilly to come by and blow you away for a few cans of food. Middle-class life in pre-apocalyptic America is bad enough. Perhaps America's expats living in Thailand are some of its earliest survivalists.

[Mr Earl]

You need to build one of these

200+MPG

[barbaro]

I can't imagine what Americans would do for themselves if ever such disasterous events ever came about

I can't imagine what they'd do either, unless they had the foresight to see things a few years in advance, gather enough solid assets to get by (e.g., gold and stable currencies), buy a home in a resource-rich country like Thailand and marry into a rural family that has for centuries survived just about everything. Rural Thai existence beats the heck out of living in an RV in America's countryside and waiting for some hillbilly to come by and blow you away for a few cans of food. Middle-class life in pre-apocalyptic America is bad enough. Perhaps America's expats living in Thailand are some of its earliest survivalists.

Very insightful post, GMroo.

Very insightful.

As things have changed recently, my take on teaching in South East Asia has changed a lot. And I've talked with a lot of Americans about our current situation and the situation of those we know back home.

[barbaro]

Some very helpful survival tips if there is a disaster.

What to buy in a grocery store and how to catch, cook, and eat a rat.

[CaptainNemo]

You need to build one of these

200+MPG

nah... one of these:

Mini-Taurus Submarine for sale

Better if it could fly though...
http://ftp.sunet.se/pub/pictures/tv....nderbird-2.jpg

...not to mention an undersea base with greenhouses and fish farms, and orbital communications platform.