Bison Prepper: March 2016

Thursday, March 31, 2016

certain peace of mind

CERTAIN PEACE OF MIND

I know it seems counterintuitive but once you submit to the Dark Side, once you know with a certainty that We Are All going To Die A Horrible And Elongated Death, you can sit back and relax. This isn’t really all that much of a conundrum, because it is fear of the unknown we fear, not fear itself. It is the uncertainty and anticipation of the unknown that causes stress, not the actual event ( even if unpleasant ). If you are going to the dentist for the first time, for instance, you fear the pain. But subsequent visits, even if you know that the pain you are going to suffer is unpleasant, are not nearly so bad ( they are still certainly NOT looked forward to, but they aren’t as feared as much ). Plus, say they come out with a better procedure. Less pain is involved. You can almost dismiss the severity of visits now, the pain being so much less it ends up being so much better. I am very nervous about heights. Once as a kid we were visiting Carlsbad Cavern and I completely freaked out on the spiraling staircase, even though it was caged in. Since then, I’m no damn fool and avoid heights when possible, and I certainly don’t do something idiotic like go skydiving, parasailing or ballooning, but I also can handle the issue much better than before.

This is not to say you conquer fear by repetition. You just aren’t paralyzed by it. And there are other ways of dealing with fear. With heights, you almost don’t have any choice but to deal with it in some way. If I’m going over a bridge, if I’m too close to the edge I still get that “testicles retracting into the torso” feeling. But what else can you do but deal with it? Some things I feared I just discount. Test anxiety, for instance. What I did to deal with that was to start not caring. I needed to pass tests to pass High School? Fine, I don’t care what my grade point average was, I’m not going to college ( I think mine was a B- and that was without trying hard except in those subjects I enjoyed ). You need to go before a review board to get an NCO rank to stay in the service to retire? Fine, I don’t want to stay in, anyway. All a bunch of politically correct office politics. A review board for civilian law enforcement? I went through a couple, despite my fears, and they were just as bad as expected. Fine, I’m not cut out to be a LEO anyway. No need to fake interest anymore ( it should be noted that this was decades ago when the cops weren’t so trigger happy and you had more of a fear of when to use deadly force ).

Now, as far as The End Of The World, let me tell you by personal experience, more education on the subject does nothing to dispel worry or fear. The exact opposite in fact. Ignorance is indeed bliss. The more I learned, the scarier it got. You can’t educate yourself to understanding without finding out you were an ignorant twat before and yes, you are going to friggin die. Before, it was so easy. Some food storage and some guns and a reasonable plan of action and, poof, you are saved! Ah, the good old days of beginner prepping. Now, I know, you know, and Ross Perot knows that we are all indeed very much humped. Survival odds are way down. Not that I’m all that concerned now. Past fifty years of age, even in good health ( far less in poor ), and every day is a bonus ( you can’t even count of money to save you through medicine anymore, the industry so chocked with greed and desperation-which is probably why the VA looks so much better nowadays. There was never the profit motive there and in the private sector, from insurance to pharmaceutical to hospitals, the profit motive has almost completely crowded out the altruism and compassion, making government health care shine in comparison ), I’m not overly fond of day to day survival odds, never mind the Apocalypse.

But, conversely, the more you know and the more afraid you become, the easier it is to see the inevitable acceptance. All you have to do is say, yep, there is no way out and we WILL die unnaturally. Now that removes the uncertainty of the unknown. You KNOW what will happen. No more wishful thinking we can kick the can down the road. No more hoping beyond hope that something will come along to bail us out. You know it is End Game, period. As long as you hope, you are panicking, desperately looking for a solution. Once all hope is gone, you can relax. You sleep okay. Perhaps not the sleep of the just, but you have less stress than normal. I mean, I don’t mind knowing a bullet to the head is in store for me. I don’t worry about eating or getting through winter, those things are taken care of. But there is no escaping the crowds unless you Go Hermit. I will bug out, and have help, but I’m not convinced I can avoid all the crowds. So, I know my fate ( even as I’ll fight to avoid it-I’m not fatalistic ). And I look forward to getting to shoot some of the bastards first. I have a lifetime of repressed hostility and while I’m materially prepped to survive a long time, I’m also mentally prepped to go out fighting with a smile on my face. We are all going to die, so go out with style and without worrying about it too much.

END

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Wednesday, March 30, 2016

money ain't but a thing 3 of 3

MONEY AIN’T BUT A THING 3

Let me give you an analogy to help illustrate why having too much money to prep with is dangerous ( I’ll take credit for the comparison, the original idea which I don’t mind stealing was all on a loyal minion ). Every once in a blue moon when the planets align and all the gods convene in committee and decide to honor my Baby Jesus’ most favored status ( I’m talking like all at once I get my twice yearly Google Ad payment at the same time minions pile on Christmas donation love whilst I get one of those rare third paychecks in a month AND someone’s uncle dies and they can’t think of any better use of the windfall than to just send it to me for craps and giggles ), I have even too much for me as far as book money budget goes. Rather than re-read descriptions and comments on every potential book, plus disciplining myself to wait just a bit longer of lusted after books until they fall in price, I just throw caution to the wind and splurge and buy way too many books that turn out to pretty much suck and be a waste of money.

Sound familiar? How many prep items did you buy on a whim or more likely in another panic that stare back at you from their shelf space and mock you? Literally call out to you in a derisive voice, questioning your parentage and intelligence? Don’t get me wrong, any prep item that can be used is better than an idle company chit note. No, it is the problem of what isn’t on the shelf instead. I don’t know if your nipples harden and your sphincter tingle when you caress your AR-15, but the emotion I would feel is disgust in myself that I could have had a V-8 instead. That, PLUS three Lee-Enfield rifles and three thousand rounds of ammunition and some bayonets ( obviously I’m talking about pre-2006 availability/prices ). A case of MRE’s, two weeks of Spartan rations, is now up to $85. In wheat, that is almost a years worth of food ( assuming free storage containers ).

Notice I’m talking about poor peoples shopping remorse. Rich preppers can piss away as much money as they’d like. More power to them, at least some of their ill gotten gains are making it back to middle class business owners ( and don’t throw class warfare into my face-the simple fact is that the majority of rich humps are gaming the coercive monopolies system and getting a slice of a stolen pie. Made your money in real estate? Think that makes you a free market capitalist? The bankers and governments artificially inflate real estate prices to benefit themselves, and all you are is a parasite living off the skimmed cream. Hang your head in shame, bitch! ). If you ONLY have $85 for prepper food, rather than it being #1 of 25 purchases, you choose wisely and buy the wheat. If someone hands you a $100 bill and doses it in gasoline and holds an unstruck match ( how most people act when they get extra money ), you’ll run to the nearest gun store and buy that case of MRE’s with nary a problem.

As a recently commenting minion and myself can both brag on, we make very little money and have great lives. Humpers making six times our income, if in debt, might drive a shiny car and sip a pretty frothy Starbucks caffeinated drink every morning, but have absolutely zero quality of life. It is bad enough they have to run faster on their gerbil wheel every year just to stay in place, but that is always compounded by extreme stress at the very real possibility that their job security is tenuous at best and more likely closer to “every payday is a potential pink slip day”. Me? I work 25 hours a week ( I’d like it to be 20, so I could earn under the Obammy HealthCare Penalty Minimum, but I can’t finagle that less of hours ). I have stress three months a year during the Demon Christmas Season but the rest of the time I’m semi-retired, almost every day I put more hours into reading or writing than I do earning a paycheck. I have ZERO debt, not even a cell phone contract. Would I give it up for running a company, having a trophy wife with all necessary expenses that entails and having a lavish prep budget? Your ass I would. I don’t worship money.

Divorce yourself from the deity Mammon and you’ll be amazed at the freedom. She is an evil entity. Or not. Whatever. I’m going to my recliner to read for three or four hours. Enjoy the rest of your eleven hour work day.

END

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

money ain't but a thing 2 of 3

MONEY AIN’T BUT A THING 2

Acquiring money isn’t a very wise skill set to cultivate. Sure, right now money is valuable in that you eat with it ( even if you are completely self-sufficient in food production, and yeh, good luck with that, the old trick of taxes paid in money rather than in-kind pulls your ass into the Beasts grasp. The ancient Chinese first pulled this nonsense, forcing peasants into cash crop production rather than subsidence ones and this was little help when famine came along-it‘s hard to get many calories from silk or jute. This complete disdain towards your subjects is emulated perfectly by our East Coast Blue Blood Yankee scumbag rulers ) but money itself isn’t able to function without trade. Without trade on a wide scale basis, you don’t need money, but trade over long distances is impossible without it. And what do you need for trade? Anyone? Bueller? A monopoly on violence to police that trade. Who does that? Centralized government. How can a government grow to reach that point? Through a surplus of energy. What is going to be scarce to non-existent in the near future?

Surplus energy. Come on, people, this isn’t all that hard. If I can figure it out, it has to be elementary. Why will surplus energy be scarce in the near future? The money we use has lost its monopoly on trade as the energy surplus contracts. The monopoly on violence can’t be re-won as its issuer is not only broke but impotent. Our new inability to win wars in the energy production areas means, simply, we’ve lost the ability to police trade. As food production input decline meets overpopulation, Gore Warming crop failures and energy decline, more areas become failed states ( like the once nation just south of us-profit from corn ethanol is more important than spending a bit of money investing in stability for our neighbor, and if that doesn’t tell you all you need to know about our own spiral towards being a failed state, I don’t know what will ) and more instability both increases our loss of control of violence to police trade, so any other contender imperial power will also have issues taking over that role. So even with energy in the ground, expect less extraction due to out of control violence, failing economies and infrastructure damage from war.

All this simply to point out, contraction and decentralization is our future, which most likely sees a long dark age where money is barely used if at all. If you spend most of your life only learning how to earn money, control money and utilize money, you are not very good in a situation without money. If the future has no money, what good are you? And that is the far future. In the immediate future, what makes you believe your own government will even honor their own currency? Really? Because they have? Ever hear of a thing called the Continental? The colonies first currency during the fight for independence. Completely and utterly worthless from hyperinflation by wars end. How about FDR’s post-election gold confiscation which saw the immediate devaluation by 40% of the paper currency it was exchanged for. You don’t remember the double digit inflation from the 1970’s? How much of the middle class was thrown under the bus in 2008 to bail out the bankers? How many countries have already had bail-ins? You don’t think we are next?

Money only has value while its issuer plays by the old rules. But guess what-the issuer ain’t our FedGov, and they are bad enough as far as being parasitic divine rulers willing to kill you slowly or quickly to further their interests. The Federal Reserve, that privately held central bank, has already changed the old rules. You are holding zombie currency and don’t even want to acknowledge it. Why would you want to hold even more? Because it buys more pretty baubles you think will become a talisman to protect you? You already show lack of judgment in worshiping and lusting after zombie currency, and you think you’ll make the right choices exchanging that extra money for survival gear?

Right. More next article.

END

Monday, March 28, 2016

money ain't but a thing 1 of 3

MONEY AIN’T BUT A THING

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note: a huge thank you to the mystery minion who sent #10 cans of storage food ( again! ). Consider your readership dues paid for the next year.
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I was motivated to write this article from a combination of two minions comments, one some time ago and one recently. So props to you, yo! The first was that the more money a prepper had, the more they were likely to piss it away and have less to show for it whereas a poor prepper thought out each purchase and ended up with better preps, cheaper. The second comment was that by being out of debt he was living a much higher quality of life than others making far more money ( but being in debt ). There was actually a third comment, about how well an LEO position paid in my old home town, which also lit a fire under my subconscious to come up with this article idea, which is just a mash-up of two or three ideas. Money ain’t but a thing, yo. It doesn’t do you as much good as you think, either in this life or in preparing for another.

Money is a tool to be used. Not an end to itself. A hammer, by itself, is a clever steel shape. But not even very aesthetic. It isn’t a piece of art to admire. It only gains value when you use it as a tool. Money should only be valued for its use as a tool ( a substitution for barter to reward labor ). Yet most people, and I mean like 99% of folks in a modern society, place a mystical religious icon value to it, to be valued for itself rather than what it can accomplish. We are a nation ( or a globe ) consumed daily with the worship of the false idol of money for monies sake. We always claim it is a valuable tool, but then we act like the tool itself is more valuable than what it accomplishes. A hammer will always have use as a tool, even if we run out of steel nails. Money, on the other hand, is a company chit only good for use at the company store, and only good as long as the company doesn’t go bankrupt. Which they all do.

Fun filled fact. The worlds longest running company lasting something like 1500 years. That is not a typo-one thousand five hundred ( although, note, I might be off a smidge here as I’m going by memory ) years. The first government subsidized temples in Japan were built by them, and even right before bankruptcy they still built the odd one or two. This construction company ran uninterrupted all those years, through violent civil wars and complete economic disruptions, and then finally succumbed a few years ago. NO company on earth lasts anywhere near as long, and they usually don’t even outlive empires, which are rather fragile things themselves.

All that money you lust after, it has value as a barter facilitator right up to the moment your economy bites the big one. Then it isn’t even worth much as toilet paper. If my best buddy in the whole wide world, someone I trust with my life, came to me and said, hey, I want you to pay me gold for a stack of promissory notes which I’ll redeem every payday, with interest ( and he worked at a good paying job which was very dangerous ), I think I would tell him to kiss my ass. His word is solid, but his ability to pay is compromised. That is the money in your wallet. Good as gold, until the day it ain’t. Yet people act like money is the most important thing in their lives. Romances are built on it, marriages flounder on it, up to half of all waking hours are devoted to acquiring it. Otherwise intelligent people stress over not having an excess of it ( nobody wants too little of it, unable to feed and shelter themselves, but everyone worries about not having far more than that minimum ).

Now, I’m the last one to throw a stone in a glass house, accusing others of materialism. I don’t buy a whole lot of preps ( or perhaps I do compared to others spending far more on shelter and transportation ), as I’m pretty well squared away even if you can never stop as you never have enough of everything, but I buy the heck out of reference books. It is a sick addiction, and I can’t even convince myself that it is even an investment anymore. I still learn something new every day, and gaining knowledge is never a waste, but I could learn the same with free library books and the Internet. At this point, I’m collecting dead tree trophies. So, we all buy too much crap, then convince ourselves it is to beat inflation or to invest with a soon to be worthless currency, or it is for the End Of The World ( same as investing, one could argue ). These are not invalid arguments, but they are also cop-outs at times. I’m not even worried about what I’ve spent, but more about having to go cold turkey and suffer withdrawals.

So even someone who cares very little about money can fall for its Siren call. Sure, when I was a young punk ass teenager, I fixated on money as I had very little ( I tried working a weekend job but there was the transportation issue as well as the free time issue and I felt it wasn’t worth it ). And when I joined the military I pissed it all away on nothing of substance. But by then I had read and re-read and read a couple of more times ( the beer budget was always competing with the book budget in those days, and I didn’t have a huge library so I kept reading the goods ones over ) Long’s book on living without a salary and I realized my initial disdain for work was correct. And I’ve had an uneasy relationship with money since. It was a good thing I didn’t love it more than life itself, since the evil demon spawn of Lucifer took almost all of it for twenty years ( in working 33 years I’ve seen about 10 years worth of my pay ).

More Tomorrow.

END

Friday, March 25, 2016

grandpappy's prepping 5 of 5

GRANDPAPPY’S PREPPING 5

Let me start this segment out by reminding you that while all different firearms are a tool that is specifically designed to do a different thing, you can’t afford to own them all. Pure and simple. It is much wiser to minimize the types of guns you have and maximize the ammunition for them, since in the near future there will be weapons aplenty with an ammo scarcity. So it doesn’t matter how spectacularly a certain firearm performs its task. Minimize gun and maximize ammo. Improvise, adapt and overcome. Now that that is out of the way, let’s start debunking gun needs.

A great place to start is the rimfire. I wouldn’t recommend them. The guns are at least fifty percent higher ( I don’t include WalMart Specials- don’t trust your life on their products. Store wide the quality is crap, so why take a chance? ). Which isn’t as important as the fact that the ammunition is ridiculous. For the price of a 9mm reload, you get one underpowered round. Why do you want it, under those circumstances? When rimfire was too cheap to care about, when you could go plinking every weekend, they were fine. You could stockpile ten thousand rounds for the price of a Rugar 10/22. It made sense to make a rimfire your “forever gun” arsenal ( you’d still be armed while all your enemies had bows and arrows, primitively made flintlocks or just rusted chunks of rebar-even with a 100 yard gun you would have the tactical advantage in most instances ). But the rimfire was the pinnacle of Oil Age industrialism and that age is currently in the middle of ending. The price has been too high for too long-for 99% of us-to think of it as a viable alternative any longer. Sure, if you could spare the extra grand for ammo, if you just bite the bullet and spent the money as it will soon be useless anyway, fine. Better rimfire with all its problems than cash in the bank. But who has an extra thousand they don’t need? For most of us, it is just too little gun for too high a price.

Pellet guns are toys. They are toys for boys training for bigger and bader guns. But guns will eventually be an endangered species. At most, we get flintlocks up and running, but black powder is not ballistically similar to smokeless and hence I see little application for pellet guns as trainers. Not enough to stockpile and repair them. The super deluxe multiple-shot units might be wonderful, but their range barely rivals a rimfire. Let the boys use slingshots and small bows and rocks to hunt the rats, and train them on the actual weapons they will use.

Bows and crossbows are great hunting weapons and might actually be what we end up with for future weapons ( depending on the scarcity of nitrates and energy for forging when we consider the viability of black powder ). Bows for range and volume of fire, crossbows if your troops are only afforded minimal training. But you don’t need to buy them now unless you plan on training enough with them to be one of your primary weapons. Buy the books on making them, instead. A MUCH better investment for you and your heirs. I have a couple of the PVC books and a few primitive tech ones.

Shotguns have a rather limited application. They are great if you live in dense woods, as then all you need is a stockpile of primers and a decent stock of shells. You can stay armed even without lead and with black powder. The ammo is cheap since there is no to minimum brass used ( remember that pesky copper Peak I keep telling you about? ). If your terrain supports it, and this is your primary weapon, great. Good choice. If you only have one for interior home defense, I’d have stuck with a pistol. But if you already own one, okay. You could do worse as they are the easiest to reload primitively. Eventually, of course, the plastic will grow brittle and split, but even then you should hopefully still have the base to glue paper to. You could do worse. But if you live in other places, if the short range of the weapon will endanger you, pass on this. It is an intimidating close range weapon, great for bushwacking, but I’d prefer distancing myself from others.

Carbines. If you have ranges not too far removed from ideal shotgun use, a carbine is a great idea. If you have hundreds of yards to reach out, why do you think you need a carbine? Like the shotgun, it was designed for close ranges. It doesn’t matter if an AK has a twelve inch spread at 250 yards, the thing is a carbine designed for that mythical thirty yard encounter range. In modern combat, the Infantry are heavy weapon support troops. They aren’t marksmen. In the Apocalypse, you have no heavy weapons. Your shots matter. In close urban and dense wood and jungle, all you need are carbines. And if you have that carbine, due to close fighting ranges, by definition you don’t need a longer distance thirty cal. Pick one or the other.

If you DO need a battle rifle, you DON’T need a carbine. Your one rifle will suffice for both roles. I’ve read the justification that on long range patrols you need to conserve weight. Sure, if Uncle Obammy’s Army issued your equipment and you are a pack mule. A pack mule so over burdened you can’t move silently or observe what is around you. The survivalist should be true light infantry, with only a few pounds more than the weapon and a short issue of ammo. The militaries focus on shaving weight from ammo is stupid, as they give you an anemic round requiring two to three hits to take down the target, negating any advantage. Then, they overburden you with all the other crap you don’t need. Why shave off three pounds from the rifle when you carry an extra thirty? Remember, you are NOT a soldier, you are a survivalist. You are better off, nine times out of ten, doing not what they do but the exact opposite. A thirty cal is a superior weapon for a fighter who wishes to survive the fight. You needn’t ever shoot at its extreme ranges to utilize its potential. Just being skilled at the 300 to five hundred yard range will serve you very well.

You choose, bolt or semi. But if you have one thirty cal rifle, either one, why do you need another? If you have a bolt, and are shooting from 300 yards, why do you need a semi? The bolt will give you a good enough rate of fire, considering you are in survival/defensive/ambush mode. If you have a semi, why are you concerned with having a bolt? For that extra one half inch accuracy? Why? Unless you are a true sniper, and if so, why do you have a semi if you are worried about that thousand yard shot?

As for pistols, choose your poison, if at all. You are either a revolver guy, or not. Why have both? A pistol is a last ditch weapon, if you even feel you need one ( if you have a war surplus rifle, a bayonet might be all you need for a back-up ). I prefer the revolver for simplicity, dearth of spare parts, novice friendly, forever-load-and-forget, and cheap price. Of course, pistols have their place. But not necessarily are they needed in addition to a rifle. If you only have a pistol, and your ranges are short, and if you are practiced, you don’t need a rifle to go along with it. Pistol ammo is cheap, far better reloading as it is a straight case and capable of being reused longer and light weight. Cops do quite well, just being armed with pistols. Just either make it your primary, or don’t worry overly much about having one, if you can’t afford both.

One last word, on getting a flintlock rifle. Prices have shot up to unaffordable levels. You are much better off just buying as much in the way of reloading supplies for your modern firearm. Or, if you are concerned with the longer term, go full bore Stone Age/Scavenger Age bower ( primitive tech with arrowheads scavenged metal for the best of both worlds ) and forego firearms completely. If your terrain will allow it, and you are nomadic. Remember, firearms only defeated the Mongols ( and/or their descendents/replacements ) from defensive positions. If you aren’t attacking with bows, you needn’t worry so much about higher tech weapons. The Amerindians didn’t lose to superior weapons, they lost to superior population and resources, a situation I don’t find feasible after the collapse.

That is more than enough. Be cool.

END

Thursday, March 24, 2016

grandpappy's prepping 4 of 5

GRANDPAPPY’S PREPPING 4

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note: very short movie review. "The Big Short" is even better than the book, and that was darn good. I even loved Steve Carell's performance and usually he causes me to skip any movie he is in ( "The Office" persona of his ). Warning: must be a bit of an economics/financial nerd to enjoy.
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We all make fun of corporations with their politically correct posturing, their retarded slogans like “there is no ‘I’ in ‘team’” and their insistence on the myth of the effectiveness of multi-tasking ( and if you aren’t making fun of all this ridiculousness, you should be ). Multitasking is stupid, and a close first cousin marriage baby of “specialization is for insects”. Sorry, Heinlein, you were one of the best science fiction writers out there ( even if juvenile specialized ), a wonderful flag bearer for survivalism and libertarianism, but you went a bit off the rails here and there like when you thought birth control meant sibling intimate relationships were okay and when you led most of us astray with the insect quote ( I know I did an article on that at one time, but where it is escapes me-sorry, I’m a writer, not an editor. Clerical details are beneath me and my glorious hair ). You could be a generalist prior to the Industrial Age, and you should have been. But since then it is multitasking to the point you can’t master any one skill. I have nothing against being an amateur generalist ( even though I concentrate on the social studies, so it is just being a broader specialist ) but far too many people think that generalizing makes them masters of far more than is realistic.

Owning too many firearms has somewhat of the same effect. Not to a severe degree, as recoil and trajectory and mechanical function crosses platforms, but when you try to master too many different firearms you are sabotaging advanced skills in one to work on another. As firearms use will quickly become a lifesaving device rather than a sporting event, it behooves you to focus and try to specialize to the best of your ability and improve your odds to the point your skill set surpasses the Average Bear. Your average shooter is probably going to be-at least at first before they are all killed off-a rich prick making up in equipment what they lack in skills. They are the type that buy the illusion of skill. I own a crap load of knives but have little idea how to properly wield them in a fight ( which is why I prefer bayonets as their reach improves my untrained odds ). I buy them because they are better than nothing, they are so cheap it is ridiculous and because their primitive post-apocalypse replacements will be so inferior. But I don’t pretend I’m skilled in their use. I don’t own an AR or Berretta and consider myself an urban ninja warrior. My point is that if you aim at training and skill rather than equipment, you’ll most likely have the odds in your favor as the legions of untrained Yuppies are unleashed upon each other with their overabundance of weapons types. Picture a group of cubical warriors, all soft bellies and balding domes, comically bitch slapping each other in some kind of amateur competition boxing trying to convince themselves they are weekend warriors. Now dress them in Tommy Tactical gear and attach all the gear with plastic weapons. Those are most likely your foes ( just beware the redneck lurking in the bushes-he’ll know how to actually fight ). Wasn’t there a quote somewhere about fearing the man with only one gun as he knew how to use it?

Not being able to afford too much gun(s) can hence be advantageous to you. You are able to concentrate and specialize. The more guns you think you need, desperately attempting to master every tool for every situation, might just work against you. Now, some of you might have spent a lifetime shooting and can do quite well across the whole spectrum. But not your average guy. They are poor. And if you’ve specialized in whatever job pays enough to inject plastic into your plastic Barbie trophy wife, and since by definition those bitches are never satisfied with what should be enough already, you devote most of your efforts and energy towards those skills. You might just be able to squeeze a few firearms into the budget, but don’t confuse possession with profession. It would really behoove you to minimize and specialize just like in your paying job. Even if you have money, you don’t have time. Most just don’t have money, but plenty of time. Devote it to specializing rather than acquiring.

The next, and last, installment will question each weapon and debunk its absolute necessity in a battery ( probably what you have been waiting for all along-but, hey, I made it a double length issue and you are welcome ).

END

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

grandpappy's prepping 3 of 5

GRANDPAPPY’S PREPPING 3

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note: a very short review of Creekmore's new book "The Prepper's Guide To Surviving The End Of The World As We Know It". It is a newbies book. Perhaps one of the better ones, true, and there are hundreds of far, far worse ones out there, but a complete new to the field persons guide, nonetheless. I found nothing new or exciting, and I found a lot of too brief coverage on almost everything. If you don't plan on trying to convert someone to the Dark Side Of Survivalism, and use this as a Trojan Horse disguised as a gift I see no need for you to buy this book.
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So, you earn far less with costs higher ( ignore the current slight dip on some things, as that is just Over Capacity/Shrinking Demand, no more credit offered by the banks due to derivatives fear and loathing in Manhattan. Once the lower prices wipe out most competition the prices will rise-and don‘t expect that to take long as everybody was already overextended and weak from the last eight years of Greater Depression. If you see a deal, as long as it doesn‘t require debt, You Buy NOW! And that is not even accounting for any sudden PetroDollar collapse ). You have no option but to cut all expenses, to include prepping. Why is prepping on credit stupid? Because the economy implodes first, not the law and order infrastructure. Live within your means rather than dreaming beyond them. And most prepping “essentials”, to include survival batteries, are dream level insanely expensive and not necessary. Yes, if you were Grandpappy, indeed you could have all the toys you wanted. But since you ain’t, you can’t. Deal with it by embracing the new normal, not by squealing like a first day prison bitch and denying it is happening ( “make the bad men go away!” ).

Read almost any article or book on survival batteries and you “must” have a semi-auto battle rifle, a thirty caliber bolt rifle ( some even try to throw in a fifty cal, but that isn’t universal so I won’t include that ), at least one assault carbine, a shotgun, at least one auto pistol, a rimfire rifle and a rimfire pistol. That is six different types of weapon if you don’t absolutely positively need both thirty cal long arms. Now add in pellet guns, black powder, non-registered antique and any bow weapons. At least ten different weapons. Now, we all know that two is one and one is none, so every weapon needs multiples. And since semi-automatic weapons are de riqueur, you need at least five times the ammunition as “normal“, so expect a huge expense there. And of course, let us not forget that a Democrat might be elected so you must buy dozens and dozens of magazines for each individual firearm. Good friggin Golly Molly! We are talking some serious bucks regardless of who you are, running the gamut from “Holy Sweet Baby Jesus, even penny pinching and bargain basement sales, I still need to sell the first born to white slavers AND liquidate my house”, to “only The Donald can afford this”.

The too glib answer to this problem was always, “buy a little at a time”. Every time I hear this advice from an author when it pertains to food I get an overwhelming urge to liquidate my assets, higher a private detective, find the author, travel to their home, and then either castrate or attach a chastity belt around them so they can not repopulate the Earth with their moronic offspring. Can you guarantee something very, very bad can’t happen tomorrow, rendering your advice idiotic? Of course you can’t! Even after Katrina and Fukishama? Are they willing to personally stock your larder as insurance their advice is correct ( they can take your beginning food and you get their fully stocked pantry-why not? You have plenty of time! ), in case the PetroDollar collapses tomorrow or the Saudi oil processing plant is bombed by terrorists? Of course they aren’t! Everyone has heard the “better a bird in hand than two in the bush”. What do you think it means? Two birds are better than one bird ( harkening back to a time you ate birds ), but a flock would be even better. But you’ll never catch a flock, nor even any birds over yonder in a bush. The one bird you’ve already killed and stuffed into a pie is guaranteed supper. The bush birds are just wishful thinking and fantasy. Just like all that food you think you might be able to buy one day. Just like all those guns you think you can purchase sometime in the dim future.

How about the saying “defecate in one hand and wish in another and see what fills up faster”? That means your wishes don’t mean a damn thing. An unwanted, smelly crap has more intrinsic value than your wishes. You can wish for more food when you are starving and wish for more specialized weapons when you need them, but you might as well soil yourself, dig into your britches, and proudly wave around your fecal smeared fingers. What is on those digits holds more worth than your airy-fairy pre-collapse plans to “do better in my preps, soonest”. Continued tomorrow.

END

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

grandpappy's prepping 2 of 5

GRANDPAPPY’S PREPPING 2

The reason your grandpappy could prep with twenty acres with a log cabin and grow his own food and have an arsenal and other such niceties was because there was half the population around as there is now. Half. Think about how much nicer it would be if half the people were after more real estate, half the people were in line for more jobs. Far less people competing for far more resources. Now, since resources were busy being consumed as population grew, there is an exponential drop in availability. Okay, sure, perhaps computers and firearms ( not counting war surplus ) might be cheaper adjusted for inflation ( you don’t even need to adjust for inflation with computers-my first Mac was $3500 and this five year old MS model was $350. My newest was only $200. But this one I’m typing on, if adjusted for inflation, would be like $75 ) but pretty much everything else is far lesser quality for far more money, if even available ( try finding an all metal Tonka truck as big as they used to be-I don’t know why but that damn truck sure stuck in my mind all these decades ).

Your father took a big drop in standards of living, but with a combination of putting the wife to work and maxing out his credit, he could both live middle class and prep like your grandpappy. You, on the other hand, those close enough to retirement to taste it even as you know the tantalizingly close sweet taste will turn to ashes soon, you are, not to put too fine of a point on it, pretty good and humped. Most of you, never having lived in prosperous times ( as in, the new normal was SNAFU ), probably never fully bought into the middle class dream ( as redefined as being in debt until you died ) and most likely probably mostly escaped the housing bubble induced equity underwater as property taxes doubled middle class wipe-out ( unlike most of the rest of the population ). Which doesn’t mean you have the resources to prep like your father. It just means you have some resources available, unlike the rest of the former middle class, to prep. IF you prep smart rather than try to follow most of the advice out there, by authors desperately trying to convince themselves that their hollow empty Yuppie lifestyle still has some mileage left on it.

Now, I know you are all confusingly scratching your heads. Didn’t Jim just now say firearms had beaten inflation over the decades? Didn’t he claim this series was going to be on the economics of a survival battery? Why doesn’t he ever get to the point instead of making us wait for days? Why can’t my hair look as good as his? Good questions, all. First off, your hair sucks because you hardly have any left. I’m from solid genetic stock and am smarter and prettier than you. Sorry. It’s like asking why a poodle can’t make bigger turds ( it would, if you fed it MRE’s, but it might kill the poor bastard in the process ). And, yes, I do love to carry on for some length. You should meet me in person-I barely shut up ( which is why the wives don’t mind me reading, for the break ). Also, everyone else is busy shortening their writing so there is more room for ads on their blog, and I ain’t like most other people. But to the main point. Yes, firearms, although certainly NOT their ammunition, are cheaper than ever ( again, excluding war surplus ). But your wages are down, as are your hours. And everything else is skyrocketing in price. You can only afford LESS guns, not the same and certainly not more.

Back when my wages were half, I could buy a used AR-15 for what new ones cost now. My rent was one quarter, though, as was my food. Houses were one tenth. Property taxes were lower by percentage. Cars were one third. That is all those other pesky Must Have expenses. And having a kid? Free, then, with an entry level management job ( no college required ) with medical as a perk. Now, if you are even offered insurance, you spend a few months wages on the insurance and then a few more on a deductible payment. This is not some old dude bemoaning it cost more than a quarter to get a kid to mow his lawn ( not that I would pay one of the fat lazy coneheads anything to mow the lawn. They can rot, and I’ll push the mower with a walker before I pay them anything other than a smack upside their head and a boot up their ass ), but an illustration how much in wages all costs have escalated. Your earnings don’t come close to your old purchasing power. Less earnings, less disposable income. And so less of everything, even those things that cost the same. Continued next article.

END