WTSHTF, Thought #2

Civilization is Just a Thin Veneer. In the absence of law and order, men quickly revert to savagery. As was illustrated by the rioting and looting that accompanied disasters in the past three decades, the transition from tranquility to absolute barbarism can occur overnight. People expect tomorrow to be just like today, and they act accordingly. But then comes a unpredictable disaster that catches the vast majority unprepared. The average American family has four days worth of food on hand. When that food is gone, we'll soon see the thin veneer stripped away.

Just stuff on my mind

The brands of financing and banking running amok amid the suspension of law and justice is just like a killer virus that the human body is defenseless against.  But remember, "Mother Nature" has something in store - she always does - she never disappoints...

The avant-garde is no corpus. It merely lies in shock after an unfortunate bout with its own petard. It feigns sleep but one eye glitters and an involuntary twitch in the corner of the mouth belies a suppressed snicker. The giggle of coming awake at one's own funeral dressed in atomic TV beatnik furniture. A mutant with a mission.
There are twenty years left in the twentieth century. Twenty years to reap the rewards and calamities that have been put in motion in this period. At this time a current of aesthetic function is emerging: the inevitable culmination of concepts and experiments pioneered and conducted in this century. We declare society an amusement park and one to be dead reckoned with.
 

Looks like Wyoming is getting ready for WTSHTF

House Bill 85 passed on first reading by a voice vote. It would create a state-run government continuity task force, which would study and prepare Wyoming for potential catastrophes, from disruptions in food and energy supplies to a complete meltdown of the federal government.
The task force would look at the feasibility of Wyoming issuing its own alternative currency, if needed. And House members approved an amendment Friday by state Rep. Kermit Brown, R-Laramie, to have the task force also examine conditions under which Wyoming would need to implement its own military draft, raise a standing army, and acquire strike aircraft and an aircraft carrier.
The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. David Miller, R-Riverton, has said he doesn’t anticipate any major crises hitting America anytime soon. But with the national debt exceeding $15 trillion and protest movements growing around the country, Miller said Wyoming — which has a comparatively good economy and sound state finances — needs to make sure it’s protected should any unexpected emergency hit the U.S.

Several House members spoke in favor of the legislation, saying there was no harm in preparing for the worst.

Nuclear talks fail...

(Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday it had failed to secure an agreement with Iran during talks over disputed atomic activities and that the Islamic Republic had rejected a request to visit a military site.

The failure of the two-day meeting may hamper any resumption of wider nuclear negotiations between Iran and six world powers and add to rising tension with the West, which has stepped up sanctions on the major oil producer in recent months.

The collapse of the dollar will be the single largest event in human history. It is a mathematical certainty that it will collapse. It will either be an outright default as the increasing interest on the debt becomes too large to even pay the minimum payment. Or, the more likely scenario, that we will pay our debts with worthless money into hyperinflation.

Possible Scenario WTSHTF

Retreat ideas for WTSHTF

Advantages of Isolated Retreats:

More room for gardening, pasturing, and for growing row crops.
Lower house and land prices. (More for your money.)
Better for a total wipeout “grid-down" scenario when virtually everyone will be out of work. (Hence the local payroll will be a non-issue.)
You can stock up in quantity with less fear of the watchful eyes of nosy neighbors.
You can test fire and zero your guns at your own property.
You can build with non-traditional architecture (earth sheltered, for example.)
You can set up more elaborate antenna arrays--and other things that would look odd in town.
Better sanitation in the event of a “grid down” situation.
You can hunt on your own land.
A place to cut your own firewood.
You can keep livestock.
You can make ballistic and anti-vehicular upgrades.

A “dog run” chain link fence around your house won’t look too out of place.
Virtually unlimited fuel storage. (Consult your county and State laws before ordering large gas, diesel, heating oil, and propane tanks.)
Much lower risk of communicable diseases. Particularly important in the event of a biological warfare attack—but only if the bug is spread person-to-person rather than airborne.

So much for the dollar...

Politicians and bankers are borrowing our money with no intention of paying it off. Politicians hope to be safely dead by the time it hits the fan. This year alone America is going to be running a deficit of 1.3 trillion dollars. Most people do not really even grasp how much a trillion dollars is. One trillion dollars. If you spend one million dollars each and every day from now on, back to the time of Jesus’ birth, you could not spend one trillion dollars. Right now America’s debt is approaching 15 trillion dollars, which are numbers used for astronomy. How is America going to earn that? With Facebook and Twitter corporations? Our industrial base is gone. Entitlements of fixed forced payments are a large and growing section of it.

G.O.O.D. Vehicle Advice

To my way of thinking, a proper "crash bar" for a truck is just a very heavy duty bumper + brush guard with the addition of an extra piece of heavy steel stock welded on vertically (parallel with the radiator) in the center of the brush guard. It should extend from the bottom of the brush guard (or grille trim, whichever is lower) to a height where its top end is parallel with the top of your truck's hood. (BTW, I don't recommend extending anything below your front grille trim, because it would degrade the "approach angle" of you truck. That could cause a nasty hang up when crossing narrow gullies off road.) A piece of very heavy gauge (Schedule 80) 4" diameter pipe works fine as the actual impact-dealing/bearing "crash bar". (So does a section of railroad track, but IMHO that is a bit too obvious for pre-TEOTWAWKI times.) Your local welding shop should be able to handle the welding mod for you.

If its "bug-out" time...are you ready?

 For the wise survivor, the following will likely be useful in a survival bug-out situation:

1  -carry a weapon if you can, but remember your weapon will not solve most survival issues.
2  -If your gear is not with you at work or vehicle it is around 50% likely you will not have it if you need it.
3  -Never let your fuel tank drop below half.
4  -Cary cash and maybe a spare credit card sealed in plastic on your person sealing it may help you remember it is an emergency reserve.
5  -Ham radio stays up when most other forms of communication go down.
6  -A good 12VDC-to-120VAC (or 220VAC in some countries) inverter will allow you to charge batteries phones and run small power tools if your car is the only power source
7  -Keep photocopies of important documents in sealed packages.
8  -A bicycle (folding bike is ideal) is a good item to keep in your trunk.

Lovely To See You Again, My Friend

You heard it from me...

“If they can not address [the financial crisis] in a credible way I believe within perhaps 2 to 3 weeks we will have a meltdown in sovereign debt which will produce a meltdown across the European banking system. We are not just talking about a relatively small Belgian bank, we are talking about the largest banks in the world, the largest banks in Germany, the largest banks in France, that will spread to the United Kingdom, it will spread everywhere because the global financial system is so interconnected. All those banks are counterparties to every significant bank in the United States, and in Britain, and in Japan, and around the world. This would be a crisis that would be in my view more serious than the crisis in 2008….”

How much is a Trillion Dollars?

What's a trillion dollars?
A trillion dollars = $1,000,000,000,000.
That's 12 zeroes to the left of the decimal point. A trillion is a million million dollars.

The U.S. government spends more than the entire Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Australia, China and Spain combined. If you laid one dollar bills end to end, you could make a chain that stretches from earth to the moon and back again 200 times before you ran out of dollar bills! One trillion dollars would stretch nearly from the earth to the sun. It would take a military jet flying at the speed of sound, reeling out a roll of dollar bills behind it, 14 years before it reeled out one trillion dollar bills.