Buy Strategically

We’ve all seen the grocery stores and how food and other items are flying off the shelves. It’s clear that people are panicking and grabbing everything they can, sparking runs on things like toilet paper.

This is apparently not going to stop anytime soon, as it appears that many of the same people are returning to the store over and over again, hoarding things, rather than just buying what they need for the foreseeable future.

I think it’s important to note that these people are considerably different than preppers in that they are panic buying, rather than building a well-reasoned stockpile.

There’s also a lot of them doing it at the same time, rather than doing it over a long period of time, gradually building their stockpile.

It is this rush to buy, which is causing the current shortages.

Things quickly reached a point where the panic was fueling itself. People who went to the store for a few basic necessities saw what was happening and started buying, motivated by the empty shelves they were seeing.

We must keep in mind that there is no shortage of food or even toilet paper. The apparent shortage has come about because of this panic buying.

The supply chain is being stretched beyond the breaking point, as truckers are working overtime to rush the product to the store’s shelves and make up for the buying frenzy that’s going on.

Related: When Grocery Stores Go Empty; A Back Door Shopping Strategy

If there’s anything you need, that you don’t already have, the early morning, when the stores first open, is the time to get it.

Many stores have shortened their hours so that they can use the night shift to clean and restock. So the shelves are the most full they’re going to be first thing in the morning, before the rush hits. Of course, that rush starts hitting as soon as they open the doors.

While the president has called for a two-week lockdown, on the advice of the CDC, chances are that that time frame will be extended.

Some self-proclaimed “experts” are claiming that the lockdown will extend as far as June. But these are all guesses, as the president and his closest advisors don’t know what they’re going to do yet.

They’re waiting to see what results in the current lockdown has and then from there try to project what will happen if they continue the lockdown and what will happen if they don’t.

With that in mind, it only makes sense to increase your stockpile, if you don’t already have enough.

That raises the question of “What should you be stockpiling?” There’s no question that this crisis is different than those we have all prepared for.

So does it make sense to follow those rules? Or are there new rules which apply to this situation?

The answer to that is actually rather simple. While the current pandemic is very similar to a number of other disaster scenarios we’ve all talked about, there is one overriding difference that affects everything… we have electric power. So our refrigerated and frozen food isn’t going to go bad.

Related: If I Could Only Stockpile 10 Foods

With that out of the way, what foods should you be stockpiling? I’m going to limit myself to just food items here, as I think we all know we need hand sanitizer and rubbing alcohol.

Many of the grocery chains and big box stores are limiting the purchase of a long list of items that they are currently running shortages on.

This means that part of our buying strategy is going to have to be to make sure we buy those items when we can; banking them for the day when we can’t get them but need them. We don’t need to go overboard with that, but we want to make sure that we have what we need.

Personally, my wife and I have decided that we are not going to add to the problem by buying more than what we need.

While I could buy six months’ worth of food, I’m not. I’m limiting myself to what I need to get through the next month or two. But we are constantly reevaluating the situation and may make adjustments to that, as we see necessary.

Related: $100 Walmart Prepper Food Run

There are a few items I wouldn’t bother stockpiling, more than your normal usage:

Related: Remove This From Your Stockpile Immediately

Whatever you do, take the time to think it through. You and have had the luxury of time to mentally prepare for a crisis, unlike the rest of the people out there.

We don’t need to panic and we don’t need to follow the herd instinct. Rather, we’re the ones marching to the beat of a different drum; that of the prepared.

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Thank you.

I have also been going to the smaller grocery stores, such as Asian and Latino stores in my town. I have found some great produce and staples at both. Plus farm stands, there was plenty of food at my farm stand, it was somewhat open air, so prob healthier than an enclosed store! Was able to add to my dried rice and beans there. Plus some restaurants have added grocery items to sell to help them stay open. All great ways to support your local economy while getting what you need. I am avoiding normal grocery stores whenever I can.
One thing in place of bread are tortillas! You can use them for quesadillas, wraps and tacos. Both stores I went to in the last week had plenty on hand.
Stay healthy friends!

Flatbread is also an acceptable substitute for bread. Easy to make at home, flour, water, salt I think some oil and fry in a pan.

I would definitely add flour, sugar or honey and yeast. Decided to learn to bake bread during this time. I know, I know, this is a basic skill that I should have mastered a few decades ago, but at least am taking your advice and working on those skills. Always blew it off because Walmart here has a day old section where you can buy a baguette for 60-70 cents. Anyway, I was appalled that it was so hard to find yeast. Went to two stores on the way to Walmart yesterday as they were out of yeast at the time I put in my pickup order for no perishables. No yeast at the first two stores. However, I had put in the order on Sunday and when I went in to Walmart to buy perishables the shelves were full. They are making a Herculean effort here to stock. My son says that stores went to what is called just in time warehousing. Stores don’t have as big areas in back anymore and even warehouses are not as large or as full. Saves a lot of money on real estate and the cost of storing products. Will try flatbread as I really like it and Rising is not an issue. Sure there is a YouTube out there to show me how. Great idea! Love the banana idea!

Gov: Do you ferment sourdough or grain? We get a layer of good yeast on it. It can be frozen till needed. Or, use some liquid from a jug where the grain vinegar is bottled.
I was a bad boy. Went shopping and forgot to pick up a bushel of corn! That gets ground in the blender. Same with rice that was fermented for Asian noodles. niio

Make your own sourdough starter if you can’t find dried yeast. It’s as easy as mixing flour and water.

RayK: and usually tastes better than plain yeast. We make a lot of Asian, and the rice noodles are made of partially-cooked rice then fermented for 6 weeks or more. It produces rice beer, then rice wine vinegar. both dough and vinegar can be stored at room temps. niio

Yeast was invented in a laboratory & causes cancer. The natural fermentation process is long & is a bit challenging. Please make sure the flour is not bleached as it causes holes in the Pancreas! God helps if you ask , seek, knock!

Surely: The Bible mentions yeast/leavening. Raw yeast is bad. Cooked, like in bread and beer, it raised the protein level much higher. Some wild strains are toxic, but store-bought is bred, a plant, for good quality and health. peace

It is actually quite comical that a preppier forum would refer to people as hoarders like the MSM does. Wife and I have what we need and have helped others to get what they need. Grew up living this way so it really is not a big deal. Where we got caught a little short is Lysol spray. Only had 1 can. But we have 2- gallon jugs of Lysol cleaner so we can make our own.

Even the food bank here which is usually laser-focused on basic food is asking for toilet pepper and cleaning supplies. I’m not sure that hoarding is necessarily always the problem. Think about it- people generally use their employer’s tp all day. Now you need a lot more at home. And we are doing much more sanitizing so that multiplies the cleaning products needs as well.

That is a good point, Govtgirl. Working folks use the toilet at work and use the t.p. at work. Now they are home all day and employer furnished t.p. is not available. So they are hitting the retail stores. Lots of larger employers use commercial sanitary supply house that deliver case lots of toilet paper, paper seat covers and paper towels. Or else they contract with a janitorial company to keep those items stocked and the janitorial company buys from the commercial supply house.

Commercial sanitary supply houses usually do not deal in cash sales or walk-on trade. They may have an emergency will-call area for some of their accounts but that is rare.

I don’t think what I am doing is hoarding as compared to what some folks are doing now. I buy one package of toilet tissue each month that Costco has it on sale. They have it on sale about every other month. Wife and I don’t use a whole package in two months, so we slowly accumulate it over time.

I see a significant difference in that kind of stockpile acquiring than dashing out and buying six packages at one time in the face of some kind of emergency.

Perhaps I have the wrong philosophy, but I tend to think my kind of buying doesn’t upset the market place whereas binge buying for lack of a better term does upset the market place.

If everyone bought as I do, everyone would have adequate supplies without any disruption of the supply chain.

I have found by empirical testing that wrapping bananas completely in saran wrap will keep them fresher much longer than sitting in the open air. Now, by much longer, I don’t mean like six week or something. So far the bananas that I have tested are two weeks old and the skin is still clear as if I had just gotten fresh ones in the store. The inside has ripened so that the flesh is soft but it definitely is not as soft as a week old banana used to be.

We consume two bananas a day in our household, so I am a frequent buyer of that fruit. It has been a source of amazement to me. Bananas for the left coast come in at a port about ten miles from our house, yet the bananas in Goodland Kansas were in better shape than the bananas in the stores in our town. We must get what is left over after all the good stuff has been shipped to Kansas and Utah or Montana.

I noticed that Trader Joe’s was wrapping paper around the stalk end of its organic bananas, so I thought I would try that. That did nothing for the bananas they got overripe in five days just as if they had not been wrapped.

So I thought I would try the whole wrap idea. I have only done it twice so far, but I am highly pleased with the results. I even did it on a bag of Costco bananas which I have heretofore avoided buying because they turned very quickly. The last batch I wrapped were Costco bananas and I probably will be buying their bananas hereafter.

Just thought I would pass that little tidbit along. I don’t have any long term empirical testing to reinforce my test, but I intend to continue to wrap the bananas.

As to how I do it. I cut a generous piece of saran wrap and completely envelop the whole banana, taking care especially to make sure both ends are wrapped. I press out all the air I can from the wrap and twist the ends to seal them off. Bananas are not the easiest item I have ever wrapped and the wrapping I do would not pass muster in a Japanese department store where gift wrapping is a true work of art. But it is effective. I am after results, not beauty.

I have tried many methods to extend the shelf life of bananas. I bought the yellow bag that is supposed to extend the life of bananas (buzzer sound) didn’t work.

I tried different temperatures in the produce drawer in the fridge — turned them brown quicker.

I tried hanging them. If there was a difference it was too subtle for me to notice.

Freezing fresh fruit like bananas (or in my case, we like chunk pineapple) is a way to go. Just peel them before they get very ripe, put them on a cookie tray in the freezer until they are frozen and transfer them to a zip lock bag. Tasty in a smoothie, eat like a popsicle or make banana bread.

ChickLady: If you like stuffed peppers, clean and freeze whole. Stuff while frozen, and bake. Ever had chili stuffed peppers? Leftover chili with a little corn meal. One large can of tomato juice, seasoned to taste, over the peppers. roast till the peppers are done. they should give a lot more flavor is allowed to blacken a little on the top. You can melt cheese over them when done. We do that to make cherry bombs, too, those small round hot peppers, but deep fry. niio

You can eat those hot little ones?! Impressive!

Gov: right off the bush! Mmm, sweet! Old, old fam favorite. I get sneers because habaneros give me the hiccups. A niece in Germany, raised there, loves cherry bombs. She eats them then chases her boyfriend around the apartment threatening to kiss him. he started eating them, but the mild ones and developed resistance, but still runs. Now she’s raising chimoyo because they like the cold summers.

Chiltepins make cherries look mild. Years ago, when working on a ranch, I thought one of pack horses (we were repairing lines, wire fences) had hydrophobia. He had the trembles, drooled, and was in pain. One of the Mexicans, an older bro, edged up to him and started to laugh. He eats the chili! The horse was ground tied and found a chiltepin bush and helped himself. We had to tie him away from them and then ate most 🙂 niio

I make jalapeno sausages, cut the cap off a jalapeno and carefully hollow out the inside with a thin sharp knife. Mix goat cheese, finely chopped sweet onion, pepper, garlic powder, and cumin and stuff it in the pepper, fix the cap on with toothpicks and grill it. Good!
Chiltepins are usually sold labeled as chili pequin or chili petin, they are hot hot hot but one of the great flavors in the wide world.
Red had a link recently to a seed company that featured some good looking cultivars of it, but all sold out! Just have to wait for the birds to plant a couple in the flower beds soon, it is also called bird pepper cause they poop the seeds everywhere.

Mike: You do know how to cook. Poppers on the plate, beef steak, refired beans on the side. Chilis should be dead ripe because then, roasting makes them sweet. If you like ice cream, clean the chilis after roasting, mince, add to ice cream, fire and ice.

Yeah, down here we exchange seed like that. the drought and ants wiped out a lot of wild stuff, and chilis are one. when chiltepin are ripe, it’s hard to keep the kids off them, let alone birds. Man, but I get near a bush and I graze 🙂 niio

I wouldn’t stock up, but I do replenish my stock just as I would during ordinary times. I don’t know how long this theater of the absurd will last, but I don’t want to get to 90 or 120 days and find out that it is going to continue on because some other intervening EMERGENCY has appeared on the horizon and find that I am starting to run short.

I won’t overbuy, but I definitely intend to keep my supplies at present levels.

I buy water from the water store on a regular basis as the water we have from municipal sources is of low quality. I intend to continue to replenish my water supplies because I don’t know if the water store is going to stay open. When my daughter bought water for me the last time I replenished she said the clerk in the store was worried because someone he knew who was the same age as he had just died from CoVD19. The water store owner may want to stay open but his employees may force him to close if they all quit because what they are making isn’t worth the exposure which is what the clerk expressed.

You, of course, are free to choose whatever course you are comfortable with. You may choose not to make grocery runs due to the exposure and rely on your stock on hand.

You may choose to do what I have outlined as my course of action.

You may choose the truly altruistic course and deplete your stockpile so that others who have not had the foresight to do what most of the readers of this list have done, and that is prepare for such an exigency.

Or you may choose to follow the really high road and share what you have with your elderly neighbors so that they don’t have to make grocery runs.

I’m a really old fart and I figure if they have lived as long as I have, they should know better than to only keep the bare minimum on hand. What’s the point in hanging around this long if you haven’t finally picked up a few clues and prepared yourself for what you know is inevitable. As the motto for one preppier website says, “It’s not a question of if but when.” I would add “And how bad?”

BONUS
Long Term “Prepper”

The wife and friends –
Hmmmm – finally had to admit “I” was right all along.:)

Did I just get Smarter or was I already ?
Both I guess.

My hope is I don’t “need” the 5k rds of ammo of each type I have. And my skills as a Competition Shooter.

This is how the rest of America feels about us. But what they do not realize is that we stock up on the sly. My spouse is ticked at me because I did not see the hoarding coming on as it started here in the middle of March. I told the spouse that you always say I am being ridiculous, spouting off about the end of the world. But the spouse always leaves the room before I can say As We Know It.
The spouse now says that we should have listened but I tell them that it is too late now. But we did find an interesting channel on Youtube last night. It was called Quartinne (Lockdown) Munchies by Sam The Cooking Guy about using up what you have in your pantry, freezer, refrigerator, or your stockpile that is getting old. It is a pretty good show. Some combinations I haven’t thought of yet.

In defense of your wife, my husband is almost always right too. I can tell you, it’s pretty annoying. : )

Gov: My nickname is the Professor 🙂 But, manners usually indicate a person waits to be asked or at least hinted at. niio

I went to Walmart on Saturday between 9 and 10 am. And they were really stocked backup. They didn’t have toilet paper. And only single pack paper towels. And only brown eggs. But bread and meat cases were full stocked. The only thing i couldn’t get that I wanted were eggs. And I really didn’t need them. ANd there weren’t many people there. So I think it’s starting to calm down some in my area of South FL. As you stated we have power and I have a freezer of meats. I got just what I needed for the week. And my $5.00 prepper stash I spend each week.

What’s wrong with brown eggs? I was raised on farm fresh white eggs. Now I have my own chickens and they all lay brown eggs. But, the taste is the same. I’m just curious why you prefer white.

I have found that brown eggs have thicker/sturdier shells than white eggs, therefore do not get damaged as easily. I only buy brown eggs now, given a choice. And since I started trying to eat “cleaner” food a few years go, we buy the “cage-free” eggs. We don’t normally go as far as buying the organic eggs because of the drastic price difference.

Ya know, brown eggs taste the same as white eggs, as olive green, as pink, as blue. . . I have a flock of backyard chickens and get all those egg colors from my different breeds. Now is a good time of year for us because the girls are popping out LOTS of eggs. Except. . . the elderly couple I sell eggs to (now have 5 dozen!) I won’t sell to until I am certain I’m not a carrier and I didn’t leave the virus on the eggs I collect each day. We don’t eat that many eggs and this time of year is great for us as I can buy the yearly “extras” for my birds with the sale of their eggs. Not sure now what to do with the eggs. Maybe freeze them? Out of a flock of seven we are averaging about five eggs a day. Someone forgot to inform my hens there’s an epidemic. . .

Freezing is always an option. My son lives in London. They sell eggs there on the shelf. No refrigerating. He said we here wash them off which removes some of the protection? I’m sure you know about all this, but it was amazing to us.

@Chicken Lady,
Could you spray those eggs with a chlorine and water mixture to kill any virus?

TSN: Mom used to wah dity eggs, and only those, in a white vinegar solution. That’s supposed to kill any salmonella, which is pretty tough to get rid of. Chlorine would go thru the shell and make the eggs taste like that. niio

No, Red is right. That’s not a good idea. The egg shells are semi-porous and anything you rinse the egg with has a high possibility of getting inside. While being a good disinfectant, chlorine is also a poison. The eggs have a protective coating that is deposited last before leaving a hen’s body referred to as the “bloom”. The bloom is what makes eggs shelf stable. However, if you wash the eggs or even get them accidentally wet, the bloom is washed off. It is there to prevent disease from crossing the shell barrier and infecting the developing chick. Sometimes I do have to clean the shells off because the same place a hen pushes an egg out is also where she poops. Doesn’t happen often, but sometimes they get dirty. Or sometimes she will have dirty feet and get the egg dirty that way. Doesn’t happen often. Usually I leave the eggs alone and wash them right before using them. Of course, if I sell them they need to be clean as well. And, yes, white vinegar on a paper towel is what I use to clean the egg shell with. They are shelf stable a couple weeks if left unwashed.

ChickLady: I was taught that if the hen lays dirty eggs, it’s genetic and can be controlled by not hatching her eggs. Also, for those who don’t know, eggs must be kept away from any strong smells because of the porousness of the shells. niio

Nah. I think you were given a piece of misinformation. It occasionally happens with ALL my birds, but only once in awhile. They poop out of the same hole the egg comes and sometimes they end up releasing poo at the same time they lay an egg. Mostly the eggs get dirty because the hens have been out kicking in the wet dirt looking for bugs and worms and come in to lay eggs and manage to get their feet on the eggs. Most of the time the eggs are clean – maybe one out of ten needs wiped off. And one out of 100 is really gross because of the poop on it and that I don’t bother trying to save. But, yes, they can collect strong smells because they are semi porous.

ChickLady: Accidents do happen. That’s why we put training pants on little kids and liberals. But, years ago, the USDA came down hard on hatcheries to get rid of hens that lay egg with manure on them. Today, it’s rare, but home flocks, where people hatch their own, it’s can happen. We had a small commercial flock and if eggs were stained (leghorns) and someone caught it, we were cocked. the home flock, mixed breeds, eggs were hatched under banty hens. But because we huckstered those eggs, no hen that made a habit of messing up her eggs was kept. Those were free range and spent most days in the cow pasture. when they were allowed in in the morning, they were locked in a pen till laying was done. Old age in hens will do it too. You know your flock, and I’m just sayin’.niio

Red, that makes sense. And I think the key phrase you used was “made a habit.” Thankful none of my birds have made a habit of it. I couldn’t in good conscience sell eggs like that – even if I did clean them up. I would know what had been on the outside and wonder if I had contaminated them by cleaning them, but not cleaning would have left them contaminated as well. Anyway, I enjoy your history lesson. I’m still new to this thing of raising critters and growing my own greens (about four years now.) I have found it quite enjoyable and think it’s great connecting with those who have much more history.

Ch.Lady: when I was a kid, we raised a lot of chickens. the eggman, the buyer we contracted with, came around once a month. We got, if I remember, a penny a dozen more per dozen because we had a cold cellar. Some stored their eggs in the feed room. the eggs were still good. If the eggs were dirty, Mom washed them in white vinegar. Sorry, I don’t know how strong, but not full strength or it weakened the shell. If it kills salmonella, I doubt corona would stand a chance. Ask the county the ag rep.Eggs here went from 1.49/dozen to close to 4 bucks. Up in Pennsylvania, one sister said she hasn’t seen eggs in the store for several weeks, so you’re not alone worrying about spreading the chicom flu. To freeze eggs, coat an ice tray with a little oil, then one egg per section. when frozen, they can be stored in the tray till needed if wrapped tightly. Eggs can be whipped and frozen in containers, as well. there’s a wide variety of ways to store while eggs with isinglass, oil, other things, but we just keep them in the fridge. They can be stored in the cold for several months. some people freeze them whole in freezer bags, but the shell cracks, but the egg is good. just take out what you need and thaw. If whipping them for cooking, thaw in a colander. niio. I want to get some partridge rocks 🙂

Our dog protected my flock of chickens but after he died, other dogs and wolves killed all of my chickens! I miss my fresh eggs and it’s been hard to find eggs recently. I just found 9 dozen eggs and I am wondering what method you would recommend for storing them? In the past, I have coated them with lard and salt, or in oil, and I have read about storing them in lime water of about 1 cup lime to 1 gallon of water. Do you know if the egg would have the same flavor and constitution for baking after stored in lime water? What method do you recommend out of the refrigerator and freezer? Thank you!

That sounds right. But, wolves? They usually avoid people. Coyote is a lot different, even thriving in cities. New York cleans out dozens of them each year from Central Park. Where were your roosters? We always bought straight run, then picked the least aggressive cockerel. the others were either made into capons or sold to people who like tough chicken (Asians, Hispanics, and so on). The roosters had to deal with stray cats, dogs (including a trio of feral German shepherds), black bears, and hawks. the birds went where they wanted to i the afternoon, including the brush. Most family-oriented breeds are Rocks and Americana.

Eggs get stored in the fridge. they can be kept a month or more there. We’ve had them for 3 months, but that’s getting iffy. Best bet is use ice cube trays, coat with a little oil, and freeze the eggs in them.

Isinglass is supposed to be the best way, but the others work, as well. do not wash them! We never used the lime, so I can’t say. Best bet, ask ClergyLady. She’s been doing the impossible for decades. We always had plenty of eggs because we buy in bulk if we don’t have a flock. And here, the complainers got a rule passed to stop people from owning chickens in the village. I ought to get some hens and tom turkey to entertain their pre-dawn mornings 🙂 niio

I was talking to someone who said actually we had wolves reintroduced into this area a few years ago and we have both coyotes and wolves. I have seen both. It is more rural where we are. We are close to forest service and the reservation. Can I search for your posts?

poppy: Look for ClergyLady, first. LLC, too.I’m not certain how, but chuck might know. I live in Zone 9 A, and that’s a lot different from yours. ClergyLady lives east of you in N. Mexico, Zone 6. She wrote this.
https://www.askaprepper.com/how-i-survived-alone-for-10-months-living-off-the-land/
That’s as close as I can get how-to look up a post. niio

poppy: Might interest you.
https://www.thedodo.com/why-and-what-wolves-kill-1054006165.html
From AZ.
https://www.azgfd.com/wildlife/speciesofgreatestconservneed/mexicanwolves/

Oops I misspoke. I meant coyotes killed my chickens.

Coyotes are bad, Indians call him eater of souls, eater of infants. wolf, tho, likes him for a fuzzy chew toy, but wolves when protected, tend to be as bad. Like the saying goes, Wolf is sacred, yes, but everyone is better off when wolf understands he makes nice fuzzy underwear, too.
I hope you’re well-stocked. Farmers are complaining they have to plow under crops because they can’t take them to market. They’re talking of killing flocks of hens and broilers for the same reason. niio

It’s quite fun to feel safe and secure having a fully stocked pantry. Not a hoarders stash but an adequate supply to support us. Restock can happen when we or someone else needs to shop and can buy for multiple families.

I’m glad we started taking the prepper advice back when the traitors infesting our government allowed an ineligible person to usurp the Presidency of the USA!

We don’t really need anything now, and we are well prepared for the coming Armed Revolution too!

Thank-You “Ask A Prepper”! You have been invaluable to the survival of REAL Americans!

You must be speaking of Trump. Aka antichrist. The leader that refused to listen to scientists until the virus was already here. The one who cut the department that was the watchdog for pandemics from his whitehouse staff. The same one who cut CDC funding. The one who states he has no responsibility for any of this. Who won’t even use his ability to make companies charge fair prices for masks and ventilators Instead the states and hospitals have to out bid each other and pay double fair market value for needed equipment. His God is one of money. I called this early January but the leader of our country did not. And now we are dying.

While socialist thinking is that government has all the answers and can provide a cure for all ills, real life experience teaches those who can face cold facts that government interference rarely solves the problem and in a great many cases actually aggravates it.

I have been getting e-mails from a conservative think tank recently and their position is “price gouging” is the free market answer to undersupply and hoarding.

My first reaction was that they were wrong and government interference was needed to prevent hoarding and price gouging, but let me cite an example from one letter writer.

During the run up to a hurricane arriving in his town, he delayed stocking up on needed groceries. The local supermarkets were devoid of milk. There was none to be had. In desperation he drove to WalMart. The regular milk refrigerator was bare but he noticed that the premium milk had milk in the reefer. As he went to get a half gallon he noticed a hand written sign that said the milk was now three times the regular price which would have put it at about $12 a half gallon. He thought about it a minute and said, “What the heck, I don’t have milk. I need it for the kids.”

However, when he went to check out, the cash register rang it up at the regular price of $3.99 a half gallon. It appeared that the store manager or someone who knew what they were doing eliminated hoarding with the simple expedient of marking the milk at a much higher price even though the price actually charged was the regular price.

So the conservative economists for the publication insist that “price gouging” will solve two problems. Hoarders won’t buy so much at the much higher price and folks who really need it will buy only as much as they need at the higher price, thus assuring a supply for a wider number of customers. I would add a policy of “No Refunds Whatsoever” at the store level would also go a long way toward limiting excess sales without a lick of government intervention.

The second part of the theory is that manufacturers seeing that the price of their product is escalating and there is more demand will increase production to meet demand and reap extra profit for the added expense of adding a extra shift or paying overtime or arranging expedited shipping or any number of extra services to service a market that provides extra profit. Whereas a government mandate to produce more product at a limited profit provides little incentive to increase production or even to obey the mandate.

An interesting theory. The comment I read some place else apart from the article and I don’t remember the source now because it was some time ago I read about the milk and the article on price gouging and free markets just appeared on Friday tends to bear out the theory of allowing prices to rise to reflect demand. Had Costco raised the price of their toilet tissue to $15 or $20 per package with no refunds I know as sure as I am writing this that a lot of folks would have passed on those four extra packages of t.p. and some folks who were just about out would have paid the price because they in fact needed it but there would have been plenty to go around. Limiting the number of packages of an item is self-defeating as all that happens is that some will make multiple trips or have family members make purchases of the limited item. The real limiter is how much the stuff costs. $12 for a half gallon of milk? Ha! Don’t need it that badly.

Just some food for thought in response to Mo gigi’s diatribe about government intervention. It has been my experience over a long lifetime that all governments very seldom get it right. They take a short term problem and turn it into a long term disaster.

Mo you don’t know/…

If the CDC hadn’t focused for years on “gun control” and “social justice,” it would have been better prepared for coronavirus PANDEMIC

Wednesday, March 18, 2020 by: JD Heyes
Tags: badhealth, badmedicine, badscience, budget, CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, coronavirus, corruption, covid-19, Ebola, federal agency, gun control, infections, left cult, Obama Administration, outbreak, pandemic, stupid, Wuhan coronavirus

Image: If the CDC hadn’t focused for years on “gun control” and “social justice,” it would have been better prepared for coronavirus PANDEMIC

(Natural News) The major problem with continually growing the size of the federal government is that eventually, it becomes so large it begins to do things it was never intended to do.

At the same time, the various agencies tasked with certain functions begin to operate outside of their mandates and/or purposes at the time of creation. One such agency is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Mind you, the formation of an agency specifically designed to help the country prepare for and guard against major health emergencies was a necessary and resourceful use of tax dollars. Advanced nations tend not to survive for the long haul if the cannot detect and prevent things that threaten their survival.

The CDC was initially founded for that purpose — to monitor, detect, and prevent pandemics while assisting in the research of potential viral and bacterial threats as well as responding to them when they struck.

But over the years, the agency branched into other areas of ‘research’ that were wholly inappropriate for, and unrelated to, its core mission.

As reported by Big League Politics, the CDC is once again coming under scrutiny over its initial responses to the outbreak of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19). But “examining what they devote their limited resources toward shows that the anger that has developed toward the bureaucracy is well-deserved.”

The site further reports:

Journalist Daniel Greenfield noted in FrontPage Mag that the CDC has focused on liberal causes du jour rather than their mandate of actually keeping Americans safe from legitimate public health crises.

Greenfield noted that one of the social justice causes that have been pushed by the CDC are unconstitutional gun control schemes.

Greenfield, in noting that the CDC has a $6.6 b billion budget, “messes up” the one job it has “every time.” (Related: CDC coronavirus test kits distributed all across America found to produce false negatives due to failed test kit reagents.)

The last time the CDC sprang into action over an outbreak was six years ago during the Ebola crisis. At the time, Greenfield notes, CDC guidelines led to medical personnel becoming infected with the virus to avoid a quarantine and then interact with Americans until they demonstrated “undeniable symptoms.”

Transgender beauty pageants?

Greenfield added there weren’t any protocols in place for treating potentially infected people which resulted in a wider spread of the disease inside the United States.

He adds:

At the height of the crisis, confidence in the CDC fell to 37%. Meanwhile, CDC personnel had managed to mishandle Ebola virus samples, accidentally sending samples of the live virus to CDC labs. And the heads of the health bureaucracy blamed the lack of funding for their failure to have an Ebola vaccine.

The self-quarantine measures being used today in response to the coronavirus outbreak “are partially a response to the lessons of the Ebola disaster,” writes Greenberg.

But during the Ebola emergency, Democrats attempted to shift blame away from King Obama and onto Republicans (of course) for cutting the CDC’s budget. But, as Greenfield asks, “where do those billions for the CDC actually go?”

“Among other things, pushing gun control,” he writes, noting further that the awful budget deal passed in December even allocated $25 million to CDC and the National Institutes of Health to study ‘gun violence.’

What else? Greenberg points out that the agency established to research, prepare for and fight pandemics has blown billions on things like a visitor’s center with Japanese gardens, a massive gym, a transgender beauty pageant, and the promotion of bike paths.

These are not good, productive uses of CDC funds and they don’t do anything to help the agency prepare for and carry out its core set of missions.

So is it any wonder why the agency either takes too long to respond when the occasional deadly bug makes its way to U.S. shores or does so in a way that is completely ineffective?

I so agree with you Grumpy!!!

What I really minded is when we had so many illegals coming in to this country and many were released into the country with illnesses. That is not disease control.

Gov: Every 2 years, a new plague. That’s control, but not what we need. It points directly at the dems as pandemic-rats, as plague bearers.When they couldn’t find one to panic voters under BO< they brought in Ebola. niio

Hi, red. One good thing about this virus is that it has slowed us down, given us time to think. So I read what you wrote and, for the first time, understood what you are saying.
The articles on this website are very practical, but when we respond to them, being mostly of a conservative bent, we veer off on a protest on the ties that bind us, that in our stupor we have allowed our government to put on us.
This virus could, I’m almost afraid to say it, but WILL, be used to constrain us further. Some constraints will be placed by well-meaning people who don’t intend any harm and many others by those who do want to take away more freedom.
Your comment and those being made by other articulate writers here such as LCC are not just tangents. For me, they have started to raise a lot of questions and concerns.
1. How can we stop the government from moving us to a cashless society where every transaction is recorded?
2. Why should there be CCTV everywhere and trafficams noting where I drive and when?
3. Now that we have precedent, how can we prevent loss of freedom of movement and right to assemble in the future?
4. How can we avoid further intrusions medically when there are elected officials calling for everybody to get tested or to be injected with a vaccine in order to be allowed to go to work, board a plane or for the good of the herd?

In general, what can we do to prevent this event from being used by officials, well-meaning or not, to take us one giant step closer to totalitarianism?

Gov: My replies are based on history. We’ve been on a long downhill slide for generations. The DNC and nazism are strongly entangled and have been since Joe Kennedy demanded FDR make the US a nazi nation. Now soros and the wealthy neolibs have taken over the DNC. Hitler sent close to a half-million SS and Gestapo out to nations favorable to Nazism. Stalin took in hundreds and sent many to Mao. Franco of Spain, a Nazi, scattered them in hispanic nations. Mexico took many. Argentina did as well. We’re still fighting WWII and often because so many came to the US. Soros is still wanted for war crimes in his homeland but the dems protect him.

You lose one right, the next is easier to lose. No, I agree people should not have met. But, people are rebelling against the socialism and greed of the left. This lockdown is a practice session to see what works and what doesn’t. Next, they’ll have to force a control over the net to stop the flow of information. Hillary the Beast said it takes a village to raise a child. Look at places like Carlyle Indian School as a training camp for how to control and devastate a population.

When I do something outside, I always have to keep in mind the blue-noses who file complains. A neighbor who’s disabled was trying to repair his truck. It sat too long and the blue-noses complained and filed on him. He sold it to stop the complaints. People who have a few chickens for pets are always on the watch for people spying on them. Why is it illegal to own a small flock of chickens in this village, but you can own a flock of parrots? PETA, at least in part. The wealthy who don’t like livestock around. No one even knew this was the law till someone filed a claim against a family with a small flock.

1) diligence.
2) You’d need a lawyer to stop the spying. Form a group to protest. Use their own ways against them. Spying is illegal, even where a local government allows it. A group of ex-cons in Kali years ago would meet to talk about jobs and families, how to help each other. They would have a few beers. A small group of FBI agents were spying on them. It’s illegal for cons to meet, let alone have alcohol, and the feds arrested them for it. One con’s brother or cousin was a lawyer, and demanded to know where their warrant was to spy on the men. The judge threw it out. I don’t know of a case where CCTV and cams were allowed in court after a lawyer protested it as illegal.
3) Teach! Old injun saying, Friends don’t let friends vote liberal. Study Nazism and see how close it is to the DNC. Share that and provide backup. I constantly tell atheists and gays they’re nuts for voting for the DNC. The DNC supports Islam because Hitler said if I believed in a god, I would be Muslim. Muslims hate both gays and atheists, and most strikes in the West have been against those two groups. When their eyes are opened to the truth, most people will run from the DNC. We talk constantly to ‘college injuns’ who hatre whites because of things that happened. We point out the dems did most of it, and still are today. That Monsanto and the PRI went together to cause famines, and soros is a major stockholder in Monsanto. Gates wants DDT back, but Gates owns it. Gates is 100% dem. Most people who hate him don’t know that, or that he’s a friend of Hillary’s.
4) Watch for the next pandemic. The news media won’t because it took the Wiemar Republic, forced socialism, famine, cannibalism, and hate to bring Hitler into the picture. People are saying openly that impeachment was a cover for what dems knew was coming. The ani, American Indians, have said that from the git-go. We keep notes, we discuss with people around the world. If a vaccine come along that works, use it. NYC is burying people in mass graves. A lot of bacterial infections and some viral can survive a long time in an airless environment. Wars have been won using corpses as ammunition in early germ warfare.
5) Again, always watch. Look. Listen. Develop a case and use it. Most politicians are frightened of losing any power, and even a small protest can net good results. The bird with the biggest mouth gets the worm. The rest go hungry.

Thanks, red. Good advice. Will pay attention.
Looked up Carlyle Indian School. I had never heard of it. Very long Wikipedia article. While Wiki isn’t the last word in research, if you read between the lines, the horror comes through.

HAHAHAHAHAHA You are delusional…You have no viable suggestions..Typical lefty blame blame blame…Oh you must have forgotten about Swine Flu under Obama 60 million infected, 300,00 hospitalized and over 1000 dead before he lifted a finger.. Trump stopped travel to and from China immediately…Oh and he was an xenophope and a racist….You might re read what “Left Coast Chuck” said about you socialists depending too much on Government any Government to rescue them…Get busy. Be active. Be part of the solution and quit bitching….Shut up ! There is no government provided utopia.

Rocky: Over 12,000 died from H1N1 and the news media ignored it. that came from china, too, as have at least a half-dozen plagues. I have a pix of Henry Ford saying, Any who think the government taking complete care of them is good need only look to the American Indian. No guns allowed, no food or it was spoiled, no housing tho promised, bad, not just poor medical care. Kids kidnapped and sent hundred of miles away to boarding schools where rape and beatings and suicide were common. Call it practice for what the neolibs want now for all of us. niio

Rocky: Remember what Ford said, Those who think the government can take care of them need only look at the American Indian.

Socialized medicine never worked and never will. Forced sterilization, drug abuse, alcoholism. and so on. niio

I am 58 years old. I have yet to see the Govt. help yet. Look at how FEMA messed up in NO after Katrina? People right now as I write this in IA are still waiting for their Feds to help them after flooding a year ago. These are political hacks. They are unaccustomed to leading or making decisions. The only way it gets solved is using the military. Why you blame the President is well beyond me. Why does the MSM not criticize the fact that so many of our products are made in China? Why do you no criticize that? Do you believe anyone in the govt would have done this any differently? Read what I said above. It is not Trumps fault that you failed to prepare yourself and your family. I love the term “hoarders” used all over on this site. People who thought ahead are far wiser than those who did not. Period. This includes hospitals, homes, local goats. State govts. Etc I take care of my family like the Bible says I should. Instead of yet another shiny car and the payments, we put away for this type of situation. Drive my cars for 15-18 years. Do not care about “flash” and spending money foolishly to “feel good”. Perhaps Mo you should change your ways and “hoard” instead of blowing it on stuff you cant afford. Perhaps the rest of America should do the same

I am sure that my paycheck will not keep up with the inflationary prices that are sure to happen because of the stimulus. For a family of 2, I am stocked well enough to ride out this lock-down, even if it lasts much longer than we actually anticipated (which is different than what we were told). However, my comfortable stock is dwindling faster that expected due to teenage grandchildren staying with me.

I am afraid that if the virus doesn’t kill me, and the stress doesn’t finish me off, then I will either be in the nut house or the big house. While I should take steps to increase my stock, I have chosen to do gardening. What the heck.. I have 2 grandkids that should be more than willing to assist in growing food for survival, that is, if I can get them off of their phones long enough to actually do some work.

I don’t want to lose the ability to communicate with people, but if one more fight/argument erupts over those damn cell phones, my 2 “wonderful” grandkids will really learn what it is like to have to survive without.

Anyone else realizing they underestimated what was going to happen during a “2 week” quarantine period? I knew I would have to take care of the grandkids during this, but I remember what life was like for me at that age. These 2 still act like they are about 6 years old, but when I was their age, I didn’t DARE talk back to parents/grandparents, and sleeping in was NOT an option. Farm work had to be done, and if there was nothing left to do on the home place, I was transported to help the grandparents.

It might be considered “cruel & unusual punishment” or blackmail, bribery or larceny, but have you considered sneaking into their bedroom in the morning, while they are “sleeping in,” and sneaking back out with cell phones in hand? They get them back for a specific length of time in the evening, (possibly 1 hour?) after chores and work are done… and after some educational time, too, a la homeschooling. Might be a good time to introduce them to American History or Civics lessons, or some PoliSci, namely discovering the history & results of Socialism. Or maybe some light reading, starting with “Atlas Shrugged.” If you don’t have a pair of hard copies, you should be able to find a digital version on line for a fairly reasonable price and you can download Nook and Kindle apps for
free. If you ave Amazon Prime, you can “borrow” up to 5 (? might be more) books at a time for free.

They get to chat on their phones for 5 mins after reading for 30 mins or per chapter. Make it a reward system. After all, school would ordinarily still be in session. They shouldn’t be wasting their time paying games and chatting with their friends on their phones. They should be improving their minds… it sounds like they need the challenge. Make sure they answer some questions before getting their chat time. It will mean some extra work for you but will also give you a reason to sit back and read (or re-read) the book. Might provide an interesting topic for dinner conversation. They don’t get to use their phones for fun until after a stimulating dinner each evening and the phones get locked in the gun safe until the next day’s chores are done.

Just an idea. It will either achieve the desired results or convince them that they want to go back home to Mom & Dad’s ASAP. Or you can send them here to Texas. I have lots of work that needs to get done on the ranch and nobody to help us do it. And we don’t have a cell signal around here, except for wifi calling. No public transportation, either, and we are 25 miles from the nearest town. Plus it would be no skin off my nose if they decided I was a “mean old lady.” I’m no related to their parents. 😁

Sbel: Atlas shrugged is on YouTube movies. We learned to read and write like Mom and Dad did, sitting on your parents’ lap doing it with them. You probably learned, then taught that same way. No cell phones around then, and no TV till after supper. Radio was optional (meaning for the parents, not the kids :). niio

Red – I have the book on my Nook and we have all 3 movies on disc. I prefer to read a book first, then watch the movie if they produce one. Many times, you will miss the nuances if you only watch the movie.
In the case of Atlas Shrugged, changing the cast partway through the trilogy of movies was distracting.
For students, I think they should be required to read the book first. For one thing, it improves their reading abilities and comprehension, and for another, I feel that watching the movie first or instead is taking the lazy route. The kids these days are glued to their screens, expecting instant gratification in every endeavor. Make them actually work for things and they will appreciate the results more. Reading the book also exercises their imaginations and develops their visualization capabilities. And it takes longer than watching a movie. That makes for more evenings with dinner conversation and discussions. If they watch the movies, you are only going to have 3 nights of conversation. If they have to read the book, that can get stretched out to 2 weeks, maybe more, depending on how fast they read and for how long at a time. Since it looks like this situation is going to stretch out for another month, that gives them plenty of time to finish the book and get a good grasp of the details.

Who is John Galt? 🤔

Sabel: Always read the book first! All too often, I turn a movie off because it has nothing to do with the book its based on. The Bourne movies are a rare opposite.

My parents loved Ayn Rand 🙂 We learn to love books because our parents do. It’s been quite a while since reading her, but the movies are good. Atlas Shrugged I and II, yes, but have not yet heard of a third movie based on her politics. I’ll have to go over her work in film and see.

Galt is the protagonist in the book and movie 🙂 I better know that. I write!

Regarding friends and family. I am starting to not look like such a nutcase now. Before CoVD19 it was, “Dad’s starting to get a little senile with his end of the world stuff.”

Now it’s “Gee, Dad, thanks for the nitrile gloves. We didn’t have any. Thanks for the IPA too.”

My another relative is going to stop by any day now when his t.p. situation reaches uncomfortable quantities.

HaHaHa, self-satisfied gloating. Guess there are going to be some new preppers in the Peepuls Dimokratik Republik of Kallyforniya At least one new shooter who is busily learning how to load a pump shotgun without looking. Quite a switch from “Eek ! it’s a gun.” to, “I want that puppy where it’s easy to access.”

Chuck: good one! Eek, it’s a gun! Oh my god that’s funny.
I have to say, tho, where I was raised, Penna and here, women think a hint of gun smoke on a man is sexy. Throw in a military uniform and he’s in danger of being raped. And, there’s nothing sexier than a babe driving a truck with a rifle in the rear window. 🙂 Glad the kids are opening up to reality! niio

Much thanks. Arizona will shut down tomorrow at 5 PM for up to a month. Because we’ve not been shopping much, we’re low on meat, but that’s about it. It might be best to order on-line rather than run 45 miles and find shelves emptied by hoarders. Donno, but a nice long drive might be good, too. there are people who can’t get out and about easily who would appreciate that ride. niio

Red: If you are going to be offering rides to folks, I would take some health precautions to protect yourself. I would wear a mask and nitrile gloves and after I dropped the folks off at their homes, when I reached home, my first stop would be the washing machine where I would wash the clothes I had worn in hot soapy water. If you won’t have many nitrile gloves, I wash them with hot soapy water also.

I haven’t experimented with an N95 mask to see if it will retain its easy breathing qualities after it has been sprayed with IPA after wearing. I am going to conduct that experiment tomorrow after I get back from my run to Winco and Costco. I will post my findings either here or under the article about decontamination which appeared last week.

Take care of yourself, buddy, your life experience is too valuable to be lost to some stupid Chinese disease.

chuck: thanks for the advice. I have a mask, but rarely use it. Washing is ingrained from cooking and so on. Not touching the face is, as well, from helping sickly folks. Gloves are a non-no. Even wearing leather or mittens, my hand break out. Psychosomatic, maybe, but that’s ingrained, as well. Of course, summer driving down here, a lot of people use oven mitts 🙂 You be careful. You’re important to us. Let me know how the mask works. ! niio

What is IPA? How do you sterilize your N95 mask with IPA? I was thinking of putting my n95 mask in a quart jar with a lid in the sun to sterilize it. What are your thoughts about that method? Thank you!

IPA is India Pale Ale, a sort of beer. My son in London is boiling his N95s to sterilize. I understand this is very effective for sterilizing them, but supposedly the masks lose some of their effectiveness?

Whoops! My ignorance is showing! I think they mean isopropyl alcohol.

Yeah! I figured that out too! (Just a little embarrassed — I use it all the time!

Let me know if you agree with my assessment or not.
ie you know better or more?

I am In my mid 70’s.
I have been a long term Prepper – 10yr now +/-.
I have prepared for say a Level 4 Event.
(No food, gas, water, power, etc)
The one thing I do Not have is EMP Protection – ie Level 5 event.

EMP – Electro Magnetic Pulse – Either Solar or Nuclear – Fries all electronics.
Including most automobile ignition systems.

On the scale of “Disasters/Events” I consider this as say Level 1 or 2. On a scale of say 1-5.

I don’t see this getting much worse than say Level 2.

Level 1 Being – Pandemic but slow rolled with a projected end time. Some Disruptions in services, goods available, movement etc.
Still access to Stores, gas and most services, car- etc. – albiet limited.

Comfortable at home with Power, water, heat/air, phone, Net, etc.However – Understanding – tragically, people “are” dying.

Level 5 – EMP, Nuke War, etc
No power, no water, no food, no gas, all electronics “Fried”, etc.
Bodies in the streets. Martial Law or worse.
Monetary system crashed. Gold/Silver and Goods/Skills as Barter.

Back to the way I grew up in the Mountains – hunt your food with a gun. Firewood for heat & cooking. Lanterns for light.

Lastly I wonder what nation will come out of this as the most powerful.

We “were”/probably still are but I wonder if we will still be.

China (As reported) Now has “Their” pandemic under control. Hmmm.

Defender: Same here, mountain raised but while very rural, a lot of city people in summer, then back in winter. Most were cool, but some looked on us, especially kids, as prey.
I think Level 2 but maybe not as bad. Realistic politicians are trying to minimize damage done by the news media ignoring this till it was too late, and to stop us from becoming another Wiemar Republic.
china does not have a hold on this. Wuhan alone is missing 23,000+ people. At this time, a deadlier version of the bird flu is supposed to be moving in the population. this is from an ex-CIA field officer. It correlates to what I was told by others. Stay safe, please stay healthy.
1. During the Sino-Japanese War in the 1930s, the Japanese used its bio weapons of shingella and the plague against the Chinese. 
This was not the first time that China had experienced the effects of bio weapons.
The British had used opium to great effect during the 1860s. Not a bio weapon specifically, but certainly a weapon of mass disruption which created more than 20 million addicts at the time. 
2. After WW2, China started its industrialisation programme. 
They also started a bio defence programme. 
In 1985, they signed an international bio weapons treaty, confirming that they were now a fully-fledged manufacturer of bio weapons. 
The Chinese insisted that such production was for defence purposes, although their programme was spread across more than 50 centres throughout the country. 
3. In the 1990s, Chinese weapons sales took a dive because the Gulf War had demonstrated the superiority of US weaponry and technology. The Chinese looked at other weapons to fill the gap. 
4. Soon, the Chinese started exporting their bio weapons technology to Iran and other pariah States in the Middle East. 
5. In 2003, a coronavirus outbreak named SARS occurred in a province in Southern China. 
A vaccine was found and the spread of the disease was controlled. The incident looks remarkably like a test case. 
6. In 2005, following the Second Gulf War, genuine Intelligence reports indicated that China had transferred bio weapons technology to Iran and continued to do so until at least 2010.
7. In 2013, a coronavirus outbreak named MERS occurred in Iran, although the first case was recorded in neighbouring Saudi Arabia. 
The disease was lethal and the true number of deaths was not released. 
Interestingly, no figures about the rate of infection were broadcast to the world population. 
Another controlled test case? 
8. In 2019, a coronavirus outbreak named COVID occurred in another province in China. 
The locations of both coronavirus outbreaks in China (2003 and 2019) were in places that had bio weapons labs called Institutes of Virology. 
Apparently, the head of the Institute in Wuhan had spent a decade at the University of North Carolina studying the coronavirus. 
9. The spread of COVID-19 in China was contained with a loss of life similar to the number of US deaths on 9/11. 
Initially, reported infection rates were high, although no Victim X was ever identified.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world has followed the similar protocol of lock down (Wuhan has a population of 11 million) but extended it countrywide. 
The economies of some of these countries are fragile and upheld largely by cheap Chinese imports. 
Think of this as using Rohyphnol on a victim before raping them. 
10. Consider that there are three types of warfare: conventional, asymmetrical and CBRN. 
The Chinese could not take on the US using the first two and lacked the Chemical, Radiological and Nuclear (CRN) capabilities of the third option. 
But it had the Biological capabilities. 
Therefore, a reasonable conclusion is that China is waging a war against other economies using a weapon of mass disruption. 
By understanding this, we can do more than wash our hands of the problem. 

I agree with your comments. I saw that 21 million cell phone accounts were cancelled in China, and some suspect that was the real number of deaths vs the fake reported deaths there. What do you think we will experience? I think we will have high inflation with our dollar worth less. I am concerned about my 401K losing money as the stock market loses too. My financial adviser said these things come in cycles and to ride it out. I don’t have that much time until I retire or to wait for the market to recover. I would like to hear more of your thoughts on being prepared financially for the future with all these stimulus funds. Is there a way to search for your comments specifically? Thank you.

poppy: all we can do is wait and pray. Trump is trying, but the pandemic-rats want power back to hide what they do. When Arizona raised the minimum wage, cost of living rose with it.that’s all dems know, the Wiemar Republic, which set things up for Hitler to take the nation.I’m in the same boat as you. Keep foodstocks up, get more chickens and keep a rooster.

Word is out China is making a lot of funeral urns. niio

You summed up things very straight.

A couple things I didn’t see listed were 1) staples like flour, sugar, baking powder etc. then check out some of the recipes online for muffins or other breads and 2) some sort of fermented food. The gut is where our immunity starts and one of the best ways to keep it healthy is to eat fermented foods every day. My preference is Kimchi. I went to a restaurant supply store and purchased a two gallon jar. It keeps in the fridge. But there are other possibilities like kefir, kombucha, saurkraut etc. Even good dill pickles in brine! For that matter, learn to culture your own food. Many veggies can be cultured in a salt solution inexpensively. Garlic gets much more mellow and goes down easy – as well as being a good antiviral in itself. So I got a big bag of peeled cloves and am fermenting them as well in a Ball canning jar. In times like these live food is essential. Check out the website “Cultures for Health” for some good information and recipes.

ChickLady: ! while we’re not wild over kimchi, we do make Asian noodles the old way. Wash rice twice, soak overnight, partially cook it. When cool, it goes in a food grade bucket and covered to ferment for 6 weeks or so. Koreans ferment it for 6 months. Wet grind. the water is now rice wine vinegar.
Baking powder, no. Why buy when it’s cheaper to make and won’t sit around going bad? https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/glossary/baking-powder

The “RUN ON GUNS”

Since there has been a “run” on guns and ammo –
a lot of people now have them but have no Training.

1ST – You Must know and follow these Safe Handling Rules:
1 – Assume All Guns are Loaded
2 – Know your Target and what is Beyond
3 – Keep your Finger Off the Trigger
4 – Never point at anything you Don’t want to Destroy.

If you plan to use it for Self Defense, it takes
a Lot more then you think.

For Actual/Real Self Defense – You MUST
get further Training in Gun Handling and Use.

Most “Don’t even know what they Don’t Know”.
And most of it is vary dangerous.
Most “think” they can just Draw, Point and Shoot.
Uh – No.

I compare it to buying an airplane and with no
training and thinking you can land it safely.
You need Training in the Tactics, Techniques
and Procedures you don’t know.

Defender: You make good points. Buying a gun and a box of bullets doesn’t make one a shooter, despite urban legends that say all U.S. males are experienced firearms experts.

Or buying a high powered sports car thinking you are a hot shot driver and going out and killing yourself almost immediately.

There was an infamous lawsuit brought here in Kallyforniya where this young man with more money than sense went to a dealership and purchased some kind of high powered sportscar. He talked the talk so the salesman thought he knew what he was doing.

Well, he might have talked the talk but he sure didn’t walk the walk. He killed himself within a week exceeding all reasonable speeds. His parents sued the dealership claiming that they should have know better than to sell a car to a 20 something just because he had the money.

I don’t know how the lawsuit turned out, probably settled because unfortunately, most of the time it is cheaper to settle a case than to go to trial where the plaintiff’s attorney is working on a contingency basis. That’s what the attorneys count on — they will pick up some cash just for filing the lawsuit and associated papers.

As a matter of fact, I think that little know actor who killed himself driving on public streets as he portrayed driving in either a TV show or a motion picture is in the same posture. His “heirs” are suing the car company for selling him the high powered car he killed himself in.

More examples of failing to accept responsibility for one’s own actions so prevalent today.

Our local Walmart and the grocery store were both cleaned out of baking supplies last week. While I struck out at the grocery store, my DH found a 5# bag of all-purpose flour at the Dollar General next store. Not a name brand but I don’t bake very well so I don’t enough about it to be picky. He left the only other bag they had on the shelf for the next person to grab. We did manage to grab some corn meal and various muffin and cornbread mixes at Walmart but the pickings were slim.

I inherited a bread machine. Guess I should get around to practicing with it except that we have cut down on gluten so we aren’t eating much bread.

Sabel: We use the blander to grind mesquite and grain. It can handle the bean seeds, and they’re like iron. Also, cornmeal and rice. Oats usually comes out silken. While its not as fancy as regular flour, it works. I’d rather homemade cornmeal. That you get whole grain for $5 a bushel (60lbs) niio

First, what is IPA? The IPA I am familiar with comes in a brown bottle, is cold, foams when you pour it, and tastes great on a hot day!

Second, don’t eat whole grains. They are not good for you, and yoou generally can’t grow your own. Go for high fiber veggies instead, and proteins. Fat meat is best, lots of energy! Just ask the Eskimos and other Arctic Indian tribes!

Third, how big a garden does it take to support two people year round? Thinking about the worst case scenario. 🙁

Haha, a garden that big is called walmart. I been pulling weeds all day…

I never pull them except for entertainment value 🙂 the shovel cuts off the roots below ground level and that kills them. the roots die and that adds to soil carbon, humus. That breaks down slowly, but roots from garden plants will follow it deep to find lost fertility. Good news! the chicory that survived two summers is ready to bloom. God willing, chicory will become out latest invasive weed. but, doubt it. Grazers will take it off at ground level and hogs root to China to get it all out. It’s a little cool out, barely topping 80 today, but it’s summer! niio

Aw Red, the weeds on this old prairie would break your heart. They survived thousands of years of grazing and fire, then a couple centuries of intensive agriculture. Spray ’em with 2,4 D or gylphosphate and they die back to the 1st root node and come rushing back. Dig ’em out, sure, but some of them you have to dig 3 feet down. I have eliminated every danged weed in my vegetable gardens by organic means, but the soil is so chock full of seeds that live for decades they’ll all be back by May. Shoot, I’d be better off eating the weeds…

Mike: soil banked seeds need light to sprout. Grazing is how they thrive, fire only clears off the dead and the riffraff. Some can survive hundreds of years underground. New England colonists found that out when they cleared, then tilled. Crabgrass all over, and they cursed it, but it was good graze, made good hay, and hogs love the roots.

Cardboard is a good mulch even Bermuda grass has problems with. Mesquite will not punch thru it. Cover with a ‘pretty’ mulch so the Misses doesn’t complain and you’re set for the season. I don’t bother much about weeds. If they’re eatable, they stay. If not, the shovel knocks them out. That leaves the roots to die which adds carbon to the soil, making the soil more drought hardy.

I have chicory! Goes well with bacon sweet and sour dressings. These plants survived 2 years now 100+ degree heat and drought, and one is going to seed. Family up east thinks I’m nuts, but transplants from up there are green with envy. 🙂

Gramps: True! All traditional Native American diets are high-fat, high meat, low on carbs, as much fruit as possible and often that’s part of the meat dish (chilis, and so on). Unlike most of the world, we lived a lot longer–then discovered wheat. Meat meant good health. Japanese love meat and eat the fat first because it’s healthy to do that. niio

To help these long lines to line up to get into the supermarket. There is a suggestion just make a list of what you want before you getting get your items and get out of the store very fast so it would help to move the line more fast.

Then on the list, code each item with a number for the area of the store it is in. So, for example, 1 is produce, 2-sodas, dairy, bread and paper, 3 for canned goods, 4-pharmacy, 5- frozen foods. That way you can shop even quicker and no running to back of store because you didn’t get butter when you were back there.
Also, if you are talking about Walmart and they have grocery pickup, preorder all your non-perishables. They bring it out to the car and then you just go in for the fresh stuff. Saves me hours.

Breakfast is the most easiest thing to prepare, is much better to prepare your breakfast yourself done getting frozen breakfast

Food stocking up can I dems are still good after the expiration date for at least 6 months

Food stocking up can I dems are still good after the expiration date

It would be a big break if the government could help with the property tax of some house owners especially in some states that the federal government does not pay for schooling those states property taxes are very high

I just went on the fed education website. It said that 83% of the money for education comes from state and local, 8+% from Feds and 8+ % from private. I don’t believe there are any states where the Feds don’t contribute, though their contribution is small.

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