Can’t say about right this second, because there is a gap between when I write and you read, but the market signals before the open today were very mixed. On the one hand the S&P and the NASDAQ were up a bit, but on the other, the Dow as indicating a 150-point drop at the open.
That was before today’s “breaking economic news.”
One of the big factors in the Dow is Boeing. A crash in Ethiopia this weekend involving one of their 737-Max 8 jets killed 157 and Boeing stock was trading in the pre-market about $382 per share. It has closed Friday over $422, so that crash, and reports of airlines grounding some of Boeing’s newer product (like this one) will no doubt weigh on the market until we find out what the cause of the Ethiopian crash was. It’s an almost 10 percent hit on one Dow 30 stock.
See also: Global Aerospace lead insurer for Boeing.
Also to Impact Markets:
The retail sales for January have just been released by the Census Bureau. Late because of GovDown: You want words or pictures?
Words next:
U.S. retail and food services sales for January 2019, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $504.4 billion, an increase of 0.2 percent (±0.5 percent)* from the previous month, and 2.3 percent (±0.7 percent) above January 2018. Total sales for the November 2018 through January 2019 period were up 2.6 percent (±0.5 percent) from the same period a year ago. The November 2018 to December 2018 percent change was revised from down 1.2 percent (±0.5 percent) to down 1.6 percent (±0.3 percent). Retail trade sales were up 0.2 percent (±0.5 percent)* from December 2018, and 1.9 percent (±0.5 percent) above last year.
Not to rain on the parade but with sales up 1.9% over a year while inflation was in the 3 percent range just doesn’t scream “Success!” to me.
And elsewhere today, business inventories will pop about 10 AM Eastern so that could move the markets around a bit.
Lurching Toward the Abyss
Much is being made of the internet outage in Venezuela over the weekend. As we have been advising for years, any country that loses the Internet which is now the backbone of economic exchange, can be totally screwed. Depends on how fast the lights can get turned back on, backbone routers come up, and fiber gateways powered.
Reader Linda spied a good description over on PJ Media about what it’s like when the Net Hard Down comes calling. And, my buddy JB asked for an in-depth report (coming next Saturday) on using ham radio as a back-up to the web.
While we’ll answer all his questions about equipment and so forth, do remember that there’s no gateway between ham radio and banks of financial institutions if the net goes down, so sure, ham radio is great for health and welfare messaging, but in terms of paying down a credit card or keeping a home from be repossessed? No, bubba, we don’t have an answer for that part.
Which is why for YEARS UrbanSurvival has been urging people to live below their income, get rid of debt and live below your means and invest in that which sustains life:” Food, Water, Seeds and the means to defend all the above.
It’s a terribly simple concept, yet there it is.
Laughably, at least to us and lots of other tech-savvy people, Bitcoin is still holding in the $3,850 range, but we have no idea how it’s faring in Venezuela with the net down. But you DO know what we’ve been saying there, right? E-currencies are worthless without power and infrastructure. But, not to repeat or offend. If you want your life savings on a hard drive in a Faraday garbage can, have at it. Although, we have it on good authority that “hash code” is real low-calorie…
It’s Like a Bad Hangover Monday
That’s one way to look at the sleep deprivation hangover from this damn switch over to Daylight Sheep Time. Idiotic delusion, but as always, we won’t rub the facts in your face more than superficially…
Tomorrow some real data to sink our teeth into: Consumer prices and the NFIB Small Business Outlook.
Small Pieces in Motion
An assortment of items that could impact your life in unexpected ways:
Take for example “FTC will soon decide if Americans get to keep their freedoms, or cede them to China.” In the details we read about how the FTC is still following marching order from the Obama administration which was NOT supportive of American intellectual property as part of their war on American Exceptionalism. So this gets us to how this plays out on the 5G battlespace and it’s a doozy.
Levi Strauss IPO to raise as much as $587 million, but we have a simple question: What offload the company to the public and why now? They’ve been in business since 1873, so after 46-years they go public? Like the old Hollywood acting school line, we have to ask “What the motivation?”
Although they sometimes take an editorial bent we don’t appreciate, there’s a good article in Time on this whole global climate silliness that just drip with wryrony: Want to Stop Climate Change? Then It’s Time to Fall Back in Love With Nuclear Energy, Soon, everyone will be fighting with everyone else over Everything and the Tower of Babel (the modern internet) will be self-collapsing again.
Meantime, Amsterdam’s First National Climate Change March Draws 40,000 People. Maybe if they’d call it a “Weather March” (which would be more honest….) we could get excited about it.
Speaking of end times, our 72-year cycle wars are just ahead so keep an eye on past columns. Indo-Pak war is due to light off this year so reading Pakistani, Indian troops trade fire in Kashmir, killing 1 is no surprise.
Neither, a few years further along is seeing the Russian defense ministry boasts about revived military power.
Up? No, down…No, Up at Tesla: Russian defense ministry boasts about revived military power. (I want to get on the Joe Rogan show so I can light up nationally, lol…)
OK, Dow’s set to drop almost 200 now, again largely due to the Boeing crash (Ethiopia) but other segments seem solid, so we shall see…
Write when you get rich (or on this first DST day, when you wake up…)
george@ure.net
George -what a beaut this AM, truly have U put the art in retarted statements. .”life savings in a faraday cage/ garbage can”.
Cryptos have uniquely identifiable code per each “coin” – whether the power is on or not. Coins not on the internet currently, but in cold storage (hodl), Do Not Exist – period – unless or until they are “connected” again.
US dollar accounts, US Treasuries, banks, insurance cos, brokerage accounts – all are GONE when the power goes out – Good luck “proving” and “taking back” ownership with paper hard copies of accounts and their contents – what a joke!
Sovereign Governments can’t get even repatriate their own GOLD TODAY!, good luck “repatriating” your $ in the future when the power comes back up. The Bankers love us fellow citizens sooo muuch.. it should No problem dealing with financial institutions getting credit back where credit is due, once the power comes back up.Bwahahahaha
You skipped over the whole point:
Let’s think the unthinkable for a moment: Lights out, web down forever.
The ONLY people who will be able to “trade” any virtual currency are those a) with a laptop and b) some means to exchange their BTC or whatever for something of value (food).
Fungibility is critical: You can’t “eat gold” but it has a history as a “no wiring needed” storehouse of value.
On the other hand, if I have 245 silver 1 ounce rounds in a power down world and all you have it a computer with hash codes on it, I’m willing to gamble that I will be able to get some food with mine.
Point is, you will need to find someone WITH food AND a computer who is willing to trade.
I think we’ll be eating better than cyrptos, but this is what makes life a horse race.
I have a long dark comment on the ongoing grid-down thread:
Most of our US economic engine is utterly and absolutely dependent on the power grid. The grid itself is becoming dependent on internet communication infrastructure. Oh, but you argue, the power grid is backed up by elaborate UPS systems, and their communication systems are being upgraded to the same levels of security as other industries. This is where the dominoes start to emerge. The same communication and security systems which protect internet service providers, financial institutions, medical institutions and industrial control systems are now being incorporated into the power grid and power generation infrastructures, and sanitation infrastructure. It is now theoretically possible for one cyber-event to cripple all in one shot.
Won’t the government stop that ? Here’s a clue:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/12/us/nsa-shadow-brokers.html
Note that the name of the NSA counterintelligence wing mentioned in the article is the Q group. Sounds familiar, huh? Maybe a national emergency proclamation extended the Q group’s reach to government corruption and human trafficking intelligence.
Most UPS systems will stay up for no more than 72 hrs. Those backed up by power generators might extend that by a week. But the gas stations and distributors all have back-up generators, right? Wrong again. Having been through multiple hurricane evacuations, I have seen that the gas stations close when the electricity goes down. Hospitals close after a few days, as well. Water and sewage treatment shut down. All financial and commercial businesses shut down. TV, radio and web go silent. The few stores which stay open have all their shelves emptied. All the frozen food in most homes and all grocery stores has to be thrown out. Unlike a hurricane scenario, in a national, or international grid down scenario, there is no place to run to.
Okay, but let’s say that cyber-attack scenario is really a crock, even with purloined US government hacking tools in play. There are plenty of EMP scenarios with the same effect.
If a major grid restart hasn’t begun within 72 hours, the social and economic infrastructure start to break down. Within ten days, a simple restart becomes improbable, and the looting starts in earnest. Within 30 days, well, I suggest you read some of Selco’s material for that. Beans, bullets and (water) buckets become the real economic issues. Some silver coins might fight off the tax collector if it goes on long enough, but after a while, trade by barter takes over. I suppose you could make a good slung-shot with a roll of gold coins, but I’m not sure what value a cyber-coin would be.
@ Chet underscore, underscore.
A few good reads are
1 seconds after by John Matherson
The little black book of Violence by Lawrence A. Kane and Kris Wilder
Lucifers Hammer, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
And i Highly recommend
Lights Out, by David Crawford
^^^^ Highly! highly! recommend this book!!!!! Cant state that enough.
And
Pattiots by James Wesley Rawles
Patriots is a really good story and easy read. Also provides really good technical details and reasons what for and why, combat stragies etc. Etc. Even though it is a fictional book.
To all the rest of you, IF you have to have only one book after the Shtf? Get this one!!!!!
The Encyclopedia of Country living. by Carla Emery. Sasquatch Books. (Get the Ninth or later edition.) Its 845 pages, covers everything from butchering chickens to pickling to root cellering to 15 different ways to make zucchini. Plus thousands upon thousands of plants that are all around ya that you can eat that grow wild, that have nutrients.
if you are poor and dont have much money??? Get 3 things.
#1. Save up and get a Berkie water filter. No clean water, no you. You can go a month without food if ya have too, but no agua? No you.
#2 get a really good knife, like a gerber.
#3. Really good pair of boots.
If ya cant afford a gun and the norman supply chain. Lol
Uhem Mormon. Lol every good Mormon should have 5-7 years of food stashed in the house. Its in the Mormon hand book. Lol
What n___ describes (below) is a situation that all good engineers try to avoid, it’s called a ‘single point of failure’ where a single bolt or link in a chain causes a catastrophic incident. This is the inevitably the result of centralization: of government, of electric power, of the internet, etc.
As an example at the beginnings of electric power all generation and distribution was very local. As power usage increased larger generating units were brought on-line usually in a power plant setting. At a certain point (late 40’s early 50’s) a need arose to ‘help each other out’ during outages (whether scheduled or not) and this led to the installation of inter-plant ‘tie lines’. increasing generating capacities, operating steam pressures and temperatures to achieve better thermal efficiencies (for years I did lead control system startup on many once-through steam generators with unit capacities between 585 – 1,300 gross megawatt generation utilizing pulverized coal, heavy fuel oil and natural gas). The tie-lines also grew in capacity and voltage (500 KV was typical of the larger ones, some are now at 750KV).
With the advent of Nuclear (pronounced nu-q-ler by the idiots) another problem reared its head – these are essentially base loaded and you can’t ‘swing’ these units to meet system needs like you can with the non-nuke (whomever said a little nukie wouldn’t hurt anyone wasn’t talking about this kind of nukie, or was that nook… never mind, LOL). This placed additional stress on the tie-lines to meet system loads. Bring on Jimmy Carter’s PURPA (Power Use Regulatory Power Act permitting the selling excess private electric power back to the utilities). I would mention solar or wind in a power plant setting but these are such a small percentage of the total I will only mention one thing – VOLTAGE REGULATION!
In a standard generating situation voltage is regulated by the simple adjustment of the field voltage to the rotating field element, simple is good and is reliable. How is voltage controlled on a commercial wind or solar farm? A basic search of the internet will show the unbelievable complexity of how this is done, it’s a wonder how any of this works, I don’t think it does and if it wasn’t for government (taxpayer) subsidies it wouldn’t exist.
At some point, I’m not sure when, all of these tie-lines were renamed “the grid”. It used to be that the individual power producers through agreements and contracts took care of enhancements and maintenance as well as interconnections, substations, etc.; but it grew too complex, so the Independent Systems Operator (ISO) was created.
Yet more and more centralization always creates instability and fragility which develops into an unreliability situation. I’m not convinced that it would take much of a EMP or other event to cause large and lasting power disruptions. This does not have to be caused by an enemy (of which we have many) but as George has mentioned many times could be a Carrington event, or something elas.
Al…absolutely.. “How is voltage controlled on a commercial wind or solar farm?”
It is a nightmare.. that is one reason I support smaller systems way easier to maintain and regulate.. and yes they work.
I don’t have the documents right now.. but a few years ago.. when I was thinking about putting solar up. the deciding factor came with the death of my mother.. when we were sitting there at the wake my brother said something profound.. he said isn’t it sad that at the end of your life all you have left is a couple of boxes of assorted crap, a few photographs and the memories of what you stood for..
my mother was the last in our family whose roots went back to before the revolution.. and when she passed DAR was notified of her passing..
as my wife and I were driving home we started to discuss this.. and I thought heck till I got sick what do the kids have to remember of me.. I was gone working.. basically working day and night to try and give them the things they needed.. there weren’t any extensive vacations no coffee around the table or lawn darts.. it was work then work ..my sleep was an egg timer.. I did a deep relaxation that I had learned in the military.. the only real luxury I had was my books.. and I did that during my break times and driving by listening to audio books..
My wife.. basically the same story..
anyway we walked in all sad.. turned on the tube.. and there on a local channel was the round table the PUC and the heads from three different power companies along with the commentator.. and they were basically saying that in x years that no matter what even if they didn’t have to provide one watt more that rates would have to go up around five hundred percent.. we flipped the channels.. and there was the president checking out a solar plant where they made ribbon cells.. at a penny a watt and the president making a comment that this is the future of america.( by the way.. legislation made this plant close and now they make them all in china). my wife and I flipped back to the round table listened to what they had to say and we both agreed that this should be our mission. to show our kids and grand kids that this is the future of america.. we signed the agreements etc.. but.. there wasn’t any regulations for small wind or small solar.. none only for the big systems.. I did research and discovered that due to area and population they embrace small solar and wind in Europe so we got together and penned out a small system regulations using many of the regs they use in europe..
our system went up.. then I was shocked..I had bought the BS that was being told to everyone.. the first month we had a meter that would spin backwards LOL.. anything we didn’t use was sent back to be sold by the power company to my neighbors.. I was shocked.. and I got a huge thrill out of watching the meter click back ten KW every day.. now that would be several times a day since my system is quite a bit bigger.then the power company called up and said hey you cannot have a meter that goes backwards..( they would have had to pay us ) . we actually make two to three times more power than we consume in a days time.. I don’t believe that we should be paid for the excess.. that would be what about five hundred a year in wholesale power.. instead I want the power company to sell that power.. that anyone wanting to put up a small scale solar or wind be exempt from increase in power costs for a ten year period..( the period they assume that it will take to pay it off.. I don’t know.. but the last 3kw I put up after company rebates and tax incentives was way less than a grand for the equipment) I can blow that much at a buger joint or coffee shop..
the power company came by three times a week for several months checking the system.. then one day the head of the power company showed up at my door and we sat down.. he was shocked that it worked as good as it does.. I mentioned.. you bought your own bs.. I bought it to till I put the system in.. then we talked about why the company doesn’t embrace it instead there is so much stuff discouraging it.. yup.. as much or more than DJT gets.
Last year the new ceo of the power company and I was talking and he was saying their plans to build a huge solar farm that it was mandatory.. I told him I thought he should rethink that go smaller.. give the incentives to the home owners.. etc.. but they won’t do that..
instead ..my friends dad has a farm.. they have six big turbines on that farm he gets 2500.00 a month per wind turbine with a thirty year lease.. on the land.. they have wire coming out of that thing that should be enough of an image to discourage that..go small..
a guy not to far from me after seeing my setup.. put up this monster of a wind turbine.. we had a big discussion on it.. I told him in five years it would be down.. maintenance and equipment should be what he should be thinking on.. it was up four years and now it is gone.. he should have put up several smaller systems… but heck you can buy kids books and send them to school but you can’t make them learn anything..
now how did they do for the price increases.. my system paid for itself in five years.. I didn’t even give any thought to the last setup.. my hook up was right on one set college kids came by.. second one a friend stopped over and grandkids.. if I can talk my wife into it we will start expanding..
base rate for just the wires being hooked up to the house.. from the power company.. is about what we paid during winter months when we decided to put the firs set up.. not considering power consumption..
if.. IF every household in our state put a system up without being compensated the power company would have another seven hundred plus MW per hour potential to sell to some place else..enough to generate enough capital to pay off the debt for the coal fired plant and any other coal fired plants they should need in the future..
there isn’t anything free.. five years after I put our system up I had some irate guy come buy and complain about how when I put my system up it was going to cause all sorts of issues to his home and he would need to hire electricians come by and fix it all because it was going to be a hazard to everyone.. I asked when did the electricans come by.. when you start it up.. I said… I had been using it for five years now.. oops no issues to your home.. the biggest issues I have is I want a way to cut power automatically in the event of a hazardous spike in line voltages..
I have nothing against coal.. heck I heat our house with it.. I do with nuclear power.. we don’t have near enough knowledge of it yet.. we think we do but we don’t.. and what do you think we will do with the spent fuel.. bury it in the southwestern outback where they are burying it now.. that isn’t a solution and blasting it into outer space that isn’t a solution either..not to mention that almost all of the reactors are build on fault lines LOL.. that one took real brains.. or enough money to convince them to build them there..
https://www.ft.com/content/db87c16c-4947-11e6-b387-64ab0a67014c
https://www.currentargus.com/story/news/local/2018/03/26/new-energy-fuel-waste-nuclear-storage-texas-new-mexico-facility/454677002/
this would be a brilliant idea.. LOL..
https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-02/can-we-dispose-radioactive-waste-volcanoes
and considering Fukishima and the ongoing troubles there.. How much of japan will die because of stupidity.. and how bad will it affect the PNW.. a few years ago there was a lot of concern that was quieted quickly…
N—- if the grid went down and the computer gone…I would have to learn how to use my slide rule all over again.. I already discovered i can’t do mol’s or logs in my head anymore.. LOL…
still having issues to the missing buck in 3 times 10
3 guys out stop off for a quick meal at the diner.. the only one there is the owners kid the owner had to run next door.. they ask what is the buffet.. the kid doesn’t know.. so he says ten dollars so each of the three guys give a ten dollar bill..
the guys sit down and start to eat.. the owner comes back and the kid tells them.. well I wasn’t sure so I told them ten dollars. Oh no the cost is 8.33 so the cost would be 25 for the three guys here is five dollars go give it back.. the kids takes off.. not knowing how to divide five dollars between three guys he sticks two dollars in his pocket.. gives each guy a dollar.. so each guy paid nine dollars..
well three times nine is 27.00 and the 2.00 he stuffed in his pocket making the total of 29.00 where did the other dollar go
I came across an interesting related article:
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613054/cybersecurity-critical-infrastructure-triton-malware/
Recall how Stuxnet spread globally:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet
This suggests that the most dangerous cyber-attack would be by retaliatory attack code that inadvertently escapes into the wild rather than confining itself to a selected mark.
“What’s the motivation? for Levi Strauss?” As a Second Amendment advocate, I believe that Levi Strauss is going public to get their hands on funds to protect themselves since their ”Net cash provided by operating activities” has started to turn down.
2016 2017 2018
$306.6M $525.9M $420.4M
Just as Dick’s Sporting Goods has seen their sales and profits drop significantly after going anti-gun, the same thing is happening to Levi sales.
When Levi Strauss delivers a statement, on September 4, 2018, that they have decided to:
“Everytown Business Leaders for Gun Safety: We are partnering with Everytown for Gun Safety and executives from the business community, including Michael Bloomberg, to form a coalition of business leaders who believe that business has a critical role to play and a moral obligation to do something about the gun violence epidemic in this country.”
They have spit in the face of every gun owner in the country. We are putting our money where it is welcome and that’s why my latest purchase of blue jeans was at Cabela’s and it wasn’t stamped Levi.
Wranglers still OK?
Leeham News is the best site for aviation related analysis. They will be first to report the tech of what failed in this Max. Their analysis of the previous crash was the best.
When Boeing increased the size of the engines for the Max, they changed the aircraft’s pitch stability. To compensate, they added a servo loop to put the nose down in certain conditions–without adequately disclosing this to the pilots. Faulty angle of attack sensor readings turned on this nose-down servo, and this is what the Lion Air pilots fought all the way down to the sea. This “feature” crashed the plane and killed 189 people.
https://leehamnews.com/
Since nobody can prepare for all possibilities for indefinite (long) periods of time, each person needs to decide what disasters they will acknowledge as being (for them) UNsurvivable. We have decided at what level we will not even try to prepare beyond for. We have focused instead upon being as complete as we reasonably and affordably can for those imaginable events which we may face, and to equip and provision to handle those well.
We’re “of a certain age,” and not quite as physically powerful and indefatigable as we once were, and we’ve had our Days In The Sun. So there are limits to personal performance that were once not there.
We’re happy with where we are and reasonably confident in Sigma Three territory. Sigma Five is for the younger and richer folks.
I just read on whatfinger.com about the radical group that is handling AOC. Might be worthwhile to look at. I knew someone was pulling her strings.
Right about the “now” for any of you reader who want to look beyond a mere “outage” of electrical power, check out the book “Dies the Fire”. In fact it’s the first installment of an entire series that tracks what happens when the physics (no not psychics) of Earth somehow “change” and electric power NO LONGER WORKS! Adding insult to injury, gunpowder also no longer works! It’s well-written and goes into great detail on how the survivors cope with being thrown back to 15th century living.
“wryrony: Want to Stop Climate Change? Then It’s Time to Fall Back in Love With Nuclear Energy, ”
My opinion…no,No. No
Nuclear energy is not the answer. In our brilliance of technology we have only just started to get an idea.. Scratching the surface so to speak.. It would only set us up for a few minor fukishima events.
Instead use some of the technology that has been buried so many years just to keep profits high.. Embrace and push solar wind.
In a true catastrophic situation.. We don’t need all the crap we presently hold as desirable. Go back to simpler living.
Alot is said about the grid down, SHTF, civil unrest, marshal law, WWIII, brown shirts, tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanos, and now red shirts. Its so endlessly exhausting.
My two cents is the stores are NOT stocking up. They are putting on shelves what they get and not much is in the back shelves. They can supply the initial panic and with not much left, guard against theft and potential lose. Wake up folks, prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Don’t wait for shock and aw to come pounding on the door.
Cynthia.. we already have the beginnings to a lot of that.. brown shirts..( see something say something)
civil unrest.. we already have the beginnings to that as well.. Marshal law.. well not yet but .. I have seen UN convoys twice now..( why UN in the USA.. don’t we have a military..see it is easier to send in someone from another area or country to take control than to have your nephew.. the lessons of the civil war..)
Stores.. bigger stores have a daily truck.. smaller stores get three trucks a week.. many don’t carry backstock from what I have been told by store managers..
IF a SHTF scenario did hit.. the shelves would be cleaned out in a few hours..
Food storage.. a full pantry.. the lessons from the last depression. the people that went through that had a full pantry.. I knew what my mom and dad went through.. my dad and his experiences.. he had to basically raise his sister at a very young age…. say what you will about Al Capone.. the evil gangster but what a lot didn’t know is he had a good side and the support of the community.. he started school lunchs, morning milk.. and to families in the neighborhood he overseen if they didn’t have anything and had kids.. there was a truck that came by dropping a box of food at the door step for the kids.Even now.. some of the best places to go out at are in areas under direct control where no one pulls a crime that isn’t sanctioned… that is something you don’t read about in the history books that Al had the boys drop off necessary food or supplies kept the heat on for an old couple or a young one with children food at the door. ( because of that and how he was able to control so many ..there have been laws made where many states have a rule that they won’t cut the heat in winter.. we have the snap program and school lunch program to stop the soup kitchen lines now a breakfast menu for kids. These good Samaritan rules are to help those that cannot afford these things ( the mission food here says they actually feed more kids than homeless)but to stop someone like Al from getting support of the masses in their communities) (“Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.”
— Henry Kissinger).. you only hear about the evil Capone did.. my mother their neighborhood stood together.. many times only making a dollar or two a week to survive.. many lost their homes and ended up living in cardboard shanties..we would call them tent cities.. have your house paid off in full.. you may be living there to.. oh wait even if you do.. what about taxes.. oops.. guess all of us could loose our homes..
after meeting a guy that lived in a dumpster.. and a guy that went to retire from the military only to discover that the records department has misplaced some of his records.. the congressman has his best man working on it for a couple of years now.. he in turn lost his home sleeps in the backseat of his car in a stores parking lot..
got me to thinking.. heck I sure in the heck won’t sleep in the backseat of my car.. I would build a cardboard house first.. LOL.. and I bought these just in case..
https://www.amazon.com/Browning-Camping-McKinley-Degree-Sleeping/dp/B0034VR8OS/ref=sr_1_19?keywords=-40+degree+cold+weather+sleeping+bag+with+hood&qid=1552404553&s=gateway&sr=8-19
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JPF44DJ/ref=sspa_dk_detail_0?psc=1&pd_rd_i=B07JPF44DJ&pd_rd_w=KDy30&pf_rd_p=80559f3c-f83b-49c1-8a72-40f936e9df7a&pd_rd_wg=JIGIS&pf_rd_r=4XVKFND7ATVR4PFK5GW0&pd_rd_r=3543a3ff-44dc-11e9-9c9f-af1670280f8f
Many years ago I’ve read that we, in the civilized world, all could live in paradise if it were not for the few very “ influential people” that do not want this to be ;-(.
Problem a) is that there are just too many people on our globe and we cannot do anything about it at the present time.
Problem b) is our current monetary system that needs changing, pronto!! We need a fixed monetary supply, adjusted for population growth, with reasonable stable interest rates. Most of our current economic problems would be solved. However, that returns us to the “clique of very influential people” who don’t want this to happen, because ……………………………………………….
If sound money and honest banking/accounting practices were reinstated, the system would heal itself. It’s just that simple.
Banks use special accounting practices. When banks make a loan, it does not reduce the amount of their reserves. They create that money out of thin air they loan out, then collect the interest until they collect the principle as well. The assets of the largest banks in the USA consist not of deposits, but paper investments like derivatives, CDO’s etc. Their value is determined by whatever the bank says, not by the market value of this paper. Formerly, banks were required to determine this value by mark to market values every quarter.
Business cycles are caused by usury (interest). Compound interest increases the amplitude and frequency of the cycles. The rule is under compound interest changes either increase at an increasing rate (geometrically) or they decrease at an increasing rate. Without compound interest the changes are arithmetic and move in straighter lines, the trend curves have to be drawn in.
Since the USA population grows at minimum 3% per year, any upward movement in economic numbers less than 3% is actually a decline, it’s why Americans are becoming poorer each year. This is primarily offset by selling cheaper, lower quality goods to the people, and debasing the currency.
Any economic change less than 2% is meaningless. If you understand statistics, any calculated statistic has a possibility of a 2% error in either direction.
Government statistics are simply fodder for the sheeple and the algo’s which do the vast majority of transactions of the stock and bond markets. Did you know that the AI feeding the algorithms read the financial media and listen to the talking heads as part of their input for decision making?
Once real economic statistics are used, like ShadowStats for employment, and the Chapwood index for inflation, the USA has been in a recession since 2007 and has never come out of that recession. If you attempt to run a business by using the government numbers your business will fail. It’s also why USA households are going bankrupt in increasing numbers.
Andy really needs to check his info sources on the food storage in Mormon homes. Latest “guidance” is for a mix of perhaps 14 days emergency plus 90 days of normal diet items where permitted by local laws. Long term storage of basics for a year or two remains a long term goal for nearly everyone, more observed in the absence than in the presence (maybe 5%). (I work in a Home Storage Center, so I get a clear view of who is actually doing anything)
Isolated references to “well-to-do” family level food planning for families living in isolated areas that refer to 5 – 7 years storage are very rare, usually refer to a multi generation family situation, not a single individual, and most assuredly don’t reflect the reality experienced by most.
Bottom Line: Do not expect to use any Mormon family food storage as a substitute or Quick Shop for your needs, that is your own responsibility to plan for and obtain. (Home Storage Centers products are sold to all, church membership is not a factor) Jus’ sayin’