Preparing For The Challenges Ahead
By: Tom Chatham
It is common place today to hear of people living paycheck to paycheck. If so many people are living so close to the edge one must ask why? There are many reasons why someone might be in financial distress but one looming question remains. If they lack sufficient funds to live as they do, why do they continue on that path?
It has become evident to me that many people live paycheck to paycheck because they choose to. It seems that many people today decide what standard of living they want and start living it. They get the home, car, clothes, jewelry and other items they view as their birthright. Then they try to find a job that will pay for it all. They are basically doing things ass backwards.
In a normal world a person gets a job and builds a life around what they can afford. They live within their means in other words. This includes having sufficient funds for emergencies so they can continue on for a while if something happens to disrupt their income. This is the way most responsible people have always lived.
Today is different. Most people have never had a good role model to teach them how to handle money. The banker controlled media has led them to a life of debt and despair. The people have been conditioned to spend everything they can get their hands on and then spend any credit they can get. Even though they have been conditioned to live like this they make a conscious effort to do it.
To get off this debt cycle they only need to want to. Many people are paying a lot for monthly rent or mortgage and cannot afford it. They do not have much control over what someone wants them to pay for rent but they can control where they decide to live. Just like they can decide what car to buy and what they buy at the store. Their choices determine how much they have left at the end of the month. Show me someone living paycheck to paycheck and I’ll show you something they pay for and do not need or are overpaying for.
There are people living in some cities right now paying more for monthly rent than I spend on all of my living expenses all year, and that is not an exaggeration. And I am not talking about rich people in expensive homes, just ordinary people in ordinary apartments.
Most people like to live near their jobs for an easy commute but their jobs are usually located in expensive areas that house a lot of working people. The landlords know what people in that area make so rents are adjusted to get the most they can. The ordinary person just tries to get a place as cheap as they can which is usually more than they can really afford.
Instead of doing this they have the option of choosing a longer commute allowing them to get a place in a less expensive area. There are people in my area that work in D.C. every day. That is a 100 mile drive each way every day. They do this because they can earn more money and live in an area with a low cost of living. It takes a lot of dedication to do that but it can pay off in a big way over time.
While it is understandable for someone making $15k – $20k a year to have financial difficulty, there are a lot of people making $40k – $100k a year also living paycheck to paycheck that should not have to. These people are struggling now when things are fairly good but it won’t take much of a drop in the economy for them to go negative. That day is fast approaching and if they do not get their financial house in order now, they may not be able to later and that will force them to change their living habits causing a lot of pain along the way. It is better to do it now while it can be done with minimal pain.
Posted in Commentary, Economics
By: Tom Chatham
We have often heard the predictions that the currency system will be reset at some point when the bankers can no longer keep the current ponzi scheme going. The current scheme involves the ability of the bankers to convince the population that pieces of paper rolling off a machine or digits created on a computer screen are real wealth. The education system has been successful in that regard.
Very few people actually understand what real wealth is or anything about economics. They have been led to believe that these things are too complicated for them to understand and it should be left to the experts. These same experts get richer as everyone else gets poorer. That is the way they have rigged the system.
Resetting the system and taking these con artists out of the loop can be as easy as refusing to accept paper or electronic money and only accepting gold and silver for payments. This sounds crazy on the surface but it is not impossible to do and it must be done before they can transition completely into electronic payment systems. Once they transition into electronic payments they will be able to control everything you do and buy.
If they do not want you to own guns or ammo they can simply ban all of these types of transactions. If they do not want you to buy gold or silver they can ban those transactions. If they do not want you to stockpile food they can limit how much you buy from week to week. With no way to buy outside of the electronic system, you will be totally under their control even more than you are now.
The simple way to bypass the control mechanisms meant to control you is to have a medium of exchange that is universal so it cannot be controlled by any one person or group. Many people see the block chain system as a good way to go because it is secure but there is something you need to keep in mind. This system requires the use of electronic systems to process and transmit these digital units. Those who control the electronic systems control the flow of digits. You may have a wallet full of coins but if you cannot connect to the person you want to trade with, how much are they really worth?
A system that cannot be controlled by anyone has been around for millennia. That system is gold and silver. The free market constantly adjusts the value of these metals when they are used as money. They are time tested and proven methods of exchange and stores of wealth.
A population that wishes to rid itself of the corrupt money makers has only to begin using gold and silver as the primary means of exchange. To be useful these metals must be present in sufficient quantities to act as an exchange mechanism in society. This means that individuals must exchange some of their fiat currency for these metals while they still can. With as little as two ounces of gold and twenty ounces of silver per household, the population of an area would have the quantities necessary to transition to a pure monetary system. At current prices three thousand dollars per household would set the population free of bankers and rigged monetary systems.
While this much gold and silver may not sound like very much you need to remember that since 1913 the dollar has been devalued by over 97%. The value of this much gold and silver one hundred years ago was quite substantial for a household to have. With the elimination of inflated currency the prices of goods can return to their real value in terms of gold and silver.
The only thing standing in the way of a new monetary system based on gold and silver is the population itself. The lack of understanding by the average person will ultimately doom society to the poverty and loss of freedom defined by fiat currencies. Until this changes, society will continue to suffer at the hands of those who control the production and flow of currency.
Posted in Economics, Preparedness
By: Tom Chatham
Those that have been following events for several years know they are under attack by an enemy that has no face and means to do them great harm. Nothing less than their sovereignty and freedom is at stake. Absolute control over people and resources is the ultimate goal.
People need to understand that the bankers need to collapse everything and leave the population in want of resources and supplies. Just like after a natural disaster when the government shows up to provide help to those that have lost everything, the bankers want to show up after the population has lost everything in a collapse, to be their savior and gain control of everyone by offering resources in exchange for compliance.
There are several actions you can take to prevent these people from gaining control over your life.
You must be able to feed yourself-
You must have a home to live in that you own free and clear-
You need to be your own energy company-
You need to be your own bank-
You need to be able to defend what you have-
You need to have skills to operate your own business-
You need to promote a community based economy-
To put it simply, you need to get out of their game and start your own. Remember, the house always wins.
The bankers can only win the game if people are dependent on the elite for everyday necessities. The bankers have created a society of dependent people that they can exploit. They can only continue to exploit people as long as they are dependent on the bankers for the things they need. Once this dependence is broken the bankers lose much of their control on society. This dependence is broken by people who can provide their own necessities.
Early Americans were largely self sufficient in many things which prevented the bankers from controlling everything. Most people used barter to get the things they needed and bankers have no control over barter transactions. They also have little control when gold and silver are used in cash transactions. These people tried several times to build a central bank in the U.S. but were thwarted. Once the bankers created the FED in 1913, they had the mechanism to control the people.
The bankers and politicians can only win if they have absolute control over you and your family. They can only do this by controlling your access to the things you need and must get from others. By maintaining control over these things yourself, you retain that control and rob them of that power.
In many ways, freedom is a result of self sufficiency. The less you depend on others, the more freedom you have to make your own choices in life. People who make their own choices are difficult to control and once people realize they can live without the bankers and government entities the collective power of these entities falls away. The future will be either a collective society where government controls everything you do every minute of the day or it will be a free society where people make their own decisions and take responsibility for what happens. What people do today to free themselves from the control of the bankers, will determine what world we will live in tomorrow.
Posted in Economics, Preparedness
By: Tom Chatham
With the recent release of reports from government agencies that warn of potential risk from long term grid failure, it is only prudent to evaluate your readiness for potential problems in our future. Catastrophic events have a habit of showing up unannounced.
When the population is capable of caring for itself following an event, it frees up government assets to devote to fixing the problem rather than taking care of the population. As we have seen in the past, even in the best cases, government assets cannot provide everything the population wants following an event. They can only provide the most basic needs and this decreases in proportion to the number of people that require assistance.
When something happens and you have resources to provide for your needs, you automatically have more options at your disposal to work your way through the problems. This provides you with the freedom to act in your own best interests and not be a pawn to others. Those that are dependant on others for their needs are at the mercy of those providing those necessities.
The recent NIAC report expresses a need for community enclaves where people can hunker down while the problems are being fixed. These enclaves would encompass things such as schools, hospitals and other community assets that are necessary to continue providing necessities to the community. Enclaves that can provide medical needs, water, sewer services, communications and security are just some of the things that can allow a population to weather an event with the least amount of discomfort.
The ability of community enclaves to care for the local population allows the government to deploy available assets to fix the problem rather than provide for the daily needs of the population. This can greatly enhance the ability to fix the problems in a timely manner without the disruptions that can occur when the population is demanding resources that the government may not have. Community self care is one of the basic functions that civil defense units were once tasked with. The loss of a national civil defense program has left the nation vulnerable at the local level and has security implications for the whole nation. The community enclave idea harkens back to the civil defense era of preparedness.
In the event of a nation wide event, the federal government has no way to care for the nation as a whole. The resources are simply not there, at least not at the national or state level. The resources stored by the government are based on a disaster of small scale and limited duration. The government also depends on the ability to pull resources from the private sector in an emergency. An event that disrupts transportation systems would also prevent distribution of the resources that are available at storage locations.
Communities have the ability to store the necessary resources on an individual basis that can allow the nation to recover. Individuals that store supplies help to spread out the cost of resources and provide redundancy and durability to the supply chain. A government warehouse that is destroyed or looted will provide no help to the many who are counting on it but the loss of a few individual storage units can be absorbed on the whole.
The shift from a local civil defense posture to a government operated system has left the population vulnerable to events that could otherwise have far less consequences for the population if they maintained the resources to deal with it locally on an individual basis. The community enclave allows the local group to benefit from the technical expertise of individuals such as doctors, law enforcement, firemen, electricians and plumbers to provide the essential services that the whole group needs while individuals provide the basic supplies their families need.
The ability of communities to remain stable during an event makes the nation as a whole much stronger and less likely to fall into chaos should other events emerge that can compound the situation. There are those in the world that are always eager to use any situation to prey on society for their own benefit. This can be individuals, groups or even nation states seeking expansion and resources.
We have the resources available at this time to prepare for future unknowns but it is up to each individual to make these preparations. Once an event unfolds it is too late to acquire what you need in any quantity. What you have when it unfolds is what you will have to work with for the duration. At this time the vast majority of the population is unprepared for any serious national crisis and without a refocus of our efforts to individual preparations, the nation as a whole will suffer and depending on the event, may not survive.
Posted in Commentary, Preparedness
By: Tom Chatham
The whole universe operates in cycles. Just as the seasons change on a regular basis, all other things change on schedule as well. A person is born, they go to school, they get a job, they get married and buy a home. Later they have children, buy a bigger home, send their children to school and save for retirement. Their children grow and leave home, they get a smaller home and retire. These are predictable cycles most people go through in life but never pay much attention to.
Knowing that these cycles occur can give a person an idea of what to prepare for in the future. We know that the national debt doubles about every 8 years. We know that the economy goes into a recession every 6 to 8 years. We know that the FED manipulates the economy with money printing and interest rates. We know politicians spend money we don’t have to get reelected. We know from history that these things eventually cause problems that we must deal with as individuals.
When we realize these things we can make plans to deal with these problems before they happen and limit the affects they have on us. The problem is that most people do not see these things coming because they are kept occupied with other trivial things and they have short memories. Then when these disruptions occur they are caught seemingly unaware and suffer for it. To be aware is to be prepared.
We are coming to the end of many different cycles at once and the disruptions that will occur will be larger and more disruptive than anything most people have ever had to deal with in their lifetimes. We appear to be coming to the end of a 300 year economic cycle. When long term cycles end they tend to be very disruptive. More so than regular short term cycles. It also appears we are coming to the end of long term weather cycle. The last time we had as few sun spots as now was during the little ice age from around 1645 to 1715. Global cooling can cause serious problems for food production and people need to be aware of that. When taken in combination these two things can be more serious than the great depression. And keep in mind these are only two of the cycles that are about to come to an end. We are potentially looking at a change in the cycles of war, society, philosophical beliefs, world leadership and morality.
It is difficult to give specific dates when certain things may happen but we know these things happen within certain periods of time so to be aware of this provides you with the ability to see the future in some respects and prepare for the disruptions that will ultimately occur. And keep in mind that these disruptions will occur just as surely as the changing of the seasons. You cannot stop it but you can prepare for it.
Between now and 2032 we will see many changes that will affect the way we live. These changes will be very disruptive and in some cases very deadly depending on where you live and how well prepared you are to weather the changes. Getting to the other side of the gulf will require you to be flexible and adapt to the changing times. There is no one best way to prepare for these changes. Your preparations will depend on who you are, what you know and what you are capable of doing to tailor a plan that will work best for you.
While these changes may happen over the next decade which sounds like a long time right now, you need to remember that many changes in the past seem like instant changes to us looking back. The fall of Rome, the little ice age, the civil war, the great depression and WWII were substantial periods of time for those living in those times but have been reduced to little more than footnotes to modern society. In the grand scheme of things, a decade or two is just the blink of an eye so do not be lulled into complacency by any seemingly long timelines.
We measure everything as a period of time. Time is a measure of change. The changes we are about to experience will define the future and in a few hundred years become another footnote to history but to those that must live through these coming times it will be a struggle for survival and a search for some meaning to it all. Things are constantly changing, but not always for the better.
Posted in Commentary, Economics, Preparedness
By: Tom Chatham
The consumer culture most Americans have grown up in has left them with a distorted sense of what being rich is. To someone making $20K a year someone making $50K is rich. To someone making $50K a year a person making $150K a year is rich. The problem is that most people, even many of those making over $100K a year, are living paycheck to paycheck. This is due to the conditioning people have had over the decades. No matter how much they make they are conditioned to spend all of it.
If they have a nice place and suddenly start making a lot more money, they instinctively look for a bigger, more expensive place to live. People adjust their spending to how much money they have, not necessarily how much they need. This ultimately leaves them perpetually broke or near it.
There are people living on less than $20K a year with a good quality of life even though they are considered poor. It’s all a matter of priorities. You need to decide what is important to you and make that your life’s goal, not necessarily making a larger paycheck. More money provides you with more opportunities in life but do not confuse that with a better or happier life simply because of the money.
Wealth is what you are able to keep, not what you are able to make. When you start looking at money in this way you will be able to reduce your spending to needs and have more savings to use later. I personally know someone who inherited 50 million dollars and all of it was gone in a few years with nothing to show for it. Would you consider this person rich or poor? He had more cash at one time than most people make in a lifetime but what does that matter now? Once it leaves your hands it is no longer your wealth but someone else’s.
You may buy something like a new pair of shoes that cost a lot and they may make you feel good for a while but if you only wear them a few times then throw them in the closet never to be worn again, how much were those shoes worth to you in the long term? When you are thinking about buying a new piece of equipment to make your work faster and easier, if you are not going to do something useful with the extra time you will have you need to ask if the new equipment is actually worth it.
When you start asking these kinds of questions before every purchase you may find you can not justify making the purchase and skip it. You do not need to eliminate every want you may have you just need to curb them to keep your spending manageable.
Retirement is a relatively new concept. People take it for granted today that at some point they can stop working and they will still have the money they need to pay for things. That is only possible for many because of government programs that provide for them. If those programs ever stop, those depending on them will have nothing to fall back on. Even if you are supposed to get money from a retirement account or pension plan, if those funds are lost for any reason you will never see them. Those funds are worth nothing to you until they are actually in your hand. Having money saved that is actually in your hands will guarantee you have something to pay for your needs and can help you sleep at night.
When you reduce your spending to needs you have more money to save for some future time when you may be desperate and need it. The end of the world does not have to be a full blown economic collapse or WWIII. If you lose your job and cannot find another one it may very well feel like the end of the world if you can no longer pay your bills or buy food.
When you save you are essentially providing the means to pay for future needs out of present earnings. If you find yourself unable to work at some point in the future it will be essential that you have the means to provide for your needs. This can only be guaranteed through savings. Future promises of payments cannot be guaranteed by any means. A regular program of savings can accumulate over time to provide the safety net you will eventually need. Keeping that money safe and preventing the loss of purchasing power over time is also essential but that is a topic for another time.
Posted in Economics, Preparedness
By: Tom Chatham
Many people are now lamenting about how hard it is to maintain their former economic status. They have less money and more bills than ever. They cannot seem to figure out how they got in this situation. If only things would get better then everything would be alright they think. Nothing ever gets better until you stop and realize where your problems are coming from and make meaningful changes.
As I have said before, most people get into a financial situation and try to go on living as normal until they eventually run out of resources. Only then do they try to come up with a plan to deal with their problems. But by then, they have no resources left to help them fix their problems and are left with very few options. It is important to realize you have a problem while you still have the resources to effect a change. This is a very basic premise that eludes most people.
If you want to maintain a sustainable economic status that allows you a good quality of life you need to mold your living conditions around the resources you have available now and not what you think you may have in the future. If you have more money in the future to upgrade to a bigger home then great but if you own an expensive home now and the economy or your economic status changes, you may be stuck with what you have and cannot afford as many have found in the recent past.
When my father worked on the river he had a fiberglass boat with thick foam between the hulls. You could literally fill it with water until it ran over the sides and it would not sink. When your life and well being depend on something to float, it is good to be unsinkable. This is how you need to design your life. You need to surround yourself with the means to be unsinkable when others are drowning.
This means you need to make sound financial decisions about how you live. We all want nice things in life but when you go deep into debt to get them you are effectively tying a huge weight around your neck that can drown you if things suddenly go wrong. To prevent this you need to make conscious decisions about how to deploy the resources you have available.
1) Stop spending more than you make every month – The modern generation wants everything right now. Life moves faster now in many ways and people do not want to wait for anything. Having everything right now comes with a price. You will never get ahead if you are constantly in debt all of the time just so you can have it right now. Saving money, even a small amount, will provide you with capital to take advantage of opportunities in life. It will also provide you with funds to live on during emergencies when income or banking services are cut off for any reason.
2) Live in a home you can afford – Everyone wants to live in a nice home that shows how successful they have been in life. If you are currently living in a nice home with a large mortgage you need to ask yourself , can I really afford this? If not you really need to consider moving into a smaller home, preferably one you own free and clear. If this means you need to sell your current home and move into a small cottage then so be it.
3) Drive a car you can afford – Most people like to get a new car every few years. If you can afford it there is no problem but if money is tight you need to live within your means. An older car can save you not only on purchase price but on insurance, taxes and repair costs. If driving a newer car is a status symbol to you consider getting a classic car to drive. A classic Mustang or Camaro can be stylish and economical.
5) Produce more of what you need – One way to help you live within your means is to produce some of the things you use on a regular basis. This can mean producing some of your own food, fuel for your car or energy for your home. Every dollar you save is worth more than a dollar in purchasing power because you do not have to pay taxes on the money you do not have to earn in the first place.
6) Buy used and save – One way to get ahead is to buy used items instead of buying new. Furniture is a good example. Some older furniture is better made and will last longer than much of what you find today. Older furniture is also a better store of value than much of the mass produced stuff today. Antiques not only hold their value better but can be the status symbol you desire.
7) Learn to save money every week – The act of saving will help you stay within your budget. It does not have to be a lot. Even saving two dollars a week in a jar is a good start. Once you get in the habit of saving every week you may find yourself wanting to save even more.
8) Only maintain a few credit cards for emergency use – Credit cards are very convenient but they can dig a serious hole for you to climb out of if not used properly. They can help you build up your credit and provide a little extra during emergencies but paying lots of interest simply reduces the amount of money you will have for other things you need. If you go around paying twice as much for everything in life because of high interest you will ultimately have much less to show for all of your hard work.
9) Store your wealth in a medium that holds its value – Even if you expect some type of payment in the future you still need to put aside some funds just in case. If the entity providing you those funds fails for some reason, you could easily lose all of the money you were expecting. In a similar manner, storing your wealth in a bank is a gamble these days. Its about as safe as storing it with your alcoholic neighbor and his drug addict wife. You need to store excess wealth in a form that holds its purchasing value such as precious metals and keep them in your possession.
10) Don’t lose money – This may sound obvious but it never really occurs to most people until it is too late. Any investment of your money is an investment of your labors so you need to insure any investment will not be a losing one. Breaking even is ok but make every effort to make sure you do not invest in a losing proposition. There is always someone willing to separate you from your hard earned money for their own benefit. This includes friends and family members.
There are many more tips that can help you to get ahead and stay ahead in life but these are some of the most important and most basic. When you spend your time working for pay you are converting your time and labor into money. If this money is wasted then in effect your time and labor was wasted. If that is the case then you would have been just as well off sitting home doing nothing.
Everyone wants to have instant success today. The days of starting at the bottom and working up by saving are lessons never learned by today’s younger generation. The money printing by bankers has created easy credit that has trapped many in a revolving door of debt they cannot get out of by modern living standards. The only way to beat this debt trap is to live as older generations have and live within your means until you have the means to improve your living conditions. Only then will you be truly successful in life
Posted in Economics, Preparedness
By: Tom Chatham
Those who dismiss the dark ages as an anomaly or never learned about them to begin with may get a chance to relive them. The economic forecast for the future is getting no better and many still cling to the hope that everything will go on as always. Hope is good but it should not prevent you from preparing for uncertain times. If a new dark age engulfed the world it would not be pretty as a review of the past can show.
Feudal lords ruled the land with an iron fist and everyone else was a serf. Money was hard to find. Life spans were short. The climate made growing food difficult or impossible depending on where you lived. Life was hard and the future looked bleak.
People relied on ox carts and horses and the streets were muddy open sewers. Some people may challenge the thought that we could ever devolve to such a state again but the stories coming out of San Francisco regarding the condition of their sanitation challenged streets would make even a skeptic think twice.
An economic or societal collapse does not have to mean the end of civilized society. A community that can come together in bad times can survive. The problem we now have is that certain forces in society are working hard to tear down the framework that would allow communities to come together. The bonds of religion, nuclear families, political beliefs, morality and patriotism have been attacked by those that seek to destroy the similarities we have and open the door for anarchy following some nation wide event.
If you knew that in the next few years the economy would crash like never before, everyone would become impoverished, life would become more difficult and the resources you depend on would be difficult to get, what would you do today to make that transition easier and less disruptive in your life?
If the world suddenly fell into another dark age I would rather be in a position to become a feudal lord than a needy serf dependant on the goodness of others. That does not mean you need to become an evil person taking advantage of others, it merely means you can be the glue that holds the community together. How you prepare for the many unknowns in our future will determine what your capabilities will be and how well you get by. It will also determine what you can do for others that you enlist into your kingdom.
It is important to remember that many of the ills in society emanate from peoples minds and not always from environmental problems. People can create horrors for society that rival the worst nature can produce and they can do it with a smile while thinking they are doing something great for posterity. In many ways we are our own worst enemies.
When societal shifts come there are certain things you can do to minimize the dangers and sufferings of your family. Simply having some extra food stored, a means of energy production that you control, a means of defending yourself, a few rolls of silver coins and the moral conviction to do the right thing can make all of the difference in getting you to the other side of whatever perils may come your way.
A dark age can take many different forms. The things that can define a dark age are the sufferings of the population for want of food, freedom, security, sanitation, morality and hope for the future. It takes a person with vision for the things that can be to hold the community together and lead them to a new prosperity. It will take many leaders to see society through the difficult days we face and emerge with the freedom and prosperity we are capable of as a people.
A dark age does not have to be the end but can be a rebirth of the ideals we hold dear that have proven successful in raising people up from poverty to live the American Dream. It seems inevitable that a collapse of some sort is in the offering. It is the result of the massive damage done to the economy by mismanagement of the currency and moral decline imposed on the population by intellectuals who live in a fantasy world.
We control the environment we live in and only we can fix the problems we have allowed to fester for decades. Fixing the problems will either be a simple and peaceful endeavor or it will be a violent and bloody one. Either way, the problems will be resolved, and what we are left with will be our endowment to the future.
Posted in Commentary, Preparedness
By: Tom Chatham
When people are sitting around making lists and deciding what they need to survive or just get by in the future there is one thing they need to give great thought to. Energy is the basis of everything. Energy takes many forms such as food, electricity, liquid fuels, mechanical, nuclear, solid fuels, solar and wind to name a few. Without it your body will not function, you will have no light, no heat, no transportation or communication. Energy is the foundation of everything humans do in this world. Without energy in its many forms we cannot live.
If you can produce enough energy you can do just about anything. You can live deep underground, live on the moon or even in space. You can heat your home, produce light to see, grow food, power vehicles and radios, produce goods from raw materials and power equipment to keep you alive.
Most people do not think about this very often because they can simply walk outside and feel the warm sun on their skin, do numerous tasks and even feed themselves as a result of this energy from the sun. They can do many things without modern technology because the sun provides the energy to do it. Knowing how to generate and utilize the various types of energy allows you to survive in many different environments. Here is one example to think about to show you what I mean.
In the movie The Road, the earth is consumed by an environmental disaster that leaves the world in a cloudy haze, leaving it cold and dead. The survivors wonder around looking for any type of sustenance they can find including each other.
Even under the circumstances given these people still have the ability to produce energy. Energy means life. Nuclear power would still work under these circumstances especially in navel vessels. Even though all of the trees seem to be dead, they can still be burned for fuel. As long as water falls from the sky hydroelectric power will still work. Where you have power generation you have the means to provide heat and light to grow food. You only need the knowledge and skills to do it.
In a survival situation, especially an extreme one, having an energy source that allows you to live is very important. That is one reason why knowledge and skills are so important to many preppers. Knowledge and skills allow you to construct a new living environment following an event and energy plays a major role in that. It is idiotic to walk around like the survivors in The Walking Dead, with no food, water, equipment or transportation when there are resources scattered all around you that can be utilized.
Simply burning wood can provide you with energy to run a vehicle, produce power for lighting and communications and produce heat for cooking. With sufficient energy you can grow food, produce clothing, distill water, even provide fresh air and refrigeration. Energy is the key to living and the more knowledge you have in producing and controlling it the more likely you are to survive long term. The types of energy produced and the ways you utilize them are entirely up to you when your survival is in your hands. The more energy you can produce, the better your living standard is likely to be.
When an abnormal event occurs that can bring civilization to a screeching halt, the energy you have available to you will determine if you survive or not. Energy in all of it’s forms is something most people never think about until it is too late. It does not matter if it is the sun, wind, hydro, wood, oil, bio fuels, coal or thermoelectric. You need to be ready to utilize what you have available when the time comes. Your ability to create and utilize the energy available to you is your ability to live.
Posted in Preparedness, Technology
By: Tom Chatham
The west line theory states that the shipping center of the world moves in a westward direction slowly over the centuries. It started in the mid east and has moved west through the Mediterranean, Europe, North America and now sits over Asia. A shipping center usually implies a production center as well giving that area great wealth. The U.S. was the previous shipping and production center in the world. We now find ourselves on the back end of prosperity and all that it entails.
We are not the first nation to find ourselves in this position. Those nations that came before us had to deal with a slower, smaller economy following the westward shift of the line. We must now do so as well. Understanding this phenomenon allows people to adjust their lifestyles to maintain a good standard of living. To ignore this natural process is to invite much suffering and chaos into your life as everything changes around you while you remain static expecting things to continue as usual.
For those that are waiting for prosperity to return to the U.S. as it once was, you will not see it unless you are still here several centuries from now. You can not turn back the clock and reverse a process such as this. You must learn to understand it and adjust to it. Having a slower, smaller economy is far from a death sentence. Americans are accustomed to a great deal of abundance that is now seeping away until equilibrium is achieved. By understanding what is happening we can equalize the process at a level we find comfortable.
A good standard of living can be had by most Americans in the future if we adjust our thinking and return to a more sustainable level of living that we can maintain without excessive money printing. As I have stated before, a person can live comfortably on about $10,000 a year and have a standard of living equal to someone making $40,000 a year living an excessive lifestyle. That may sound crazy to many people but it is true. How you live and spend your money has a lot to do with your standard of living but that fact is lost on most people.
For those that have an open mind and want to understand this, it falls upon you to look ahead and plan for the leaner economic times ahead. Those that do will have a much easier time living a normal life. Those that do not make the difficult decisions now will likely find a tent city in their future as many people now deal with in many once prosperous cities.
There are many things you can do to prepare for this leaner economic future. For one thing housing is too big and expensive today for most to afford. Having a small plot of land and a small home on it makes good economic sense. Building a 16’ x 32’ home with a basement and second story will provide you with a home over 1,500 sq. ft. but is cheaper to build due to the smaller foot print. It is cheaper to build up than out. Providing your own power with solar or wind makes good economic sense today as electricity rates continue to rise and solar and wind equipment continues to fall in price. Growing at least some of your own food makes sense as well as inflation begins to climb and transportation costs increase.
Having an older paid for vehicle is cheaper in many cases. An older paid for vehicle requires less expensive insurance and eliminates a monthly car payment not to mention cheaper property taxes. Depending on how much you drive and how much of a do it yourself person you are you might even be able to produce most of your own fuel. There are average people today that use wood gas for their pickup truck or bio diesel for their car made from used vegetable oil they process themselves.
A little bit of time and effort on your part can pay huge dividends if you simply put some thought into how you live today and how you want to live tomorrow. A major change in our economic future is now taking place and it will occur whether you want it to or not. Making plans now to survive in a slower economy will provide you with the best chance to maintain a normal existence in the future. A slower economy is guaranteed at some point if the west line holds true but a possible full blown economic collapse due to excessive money printing would make your future plans even more important.
Posted in Economics, Preparedness
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