I see alot of back and forth on the internet assessing the probability of Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosive (CBRNE) events being the catalyst for a collapse. I assess this is less likely than either a gradual or dynamic economic collapse, but still possible. UrbanSurvivalSkills.com possess very basic knowledge in this area and feels that Urban Survivalists can take some steps to protect against some of the likely agents, be it military grade weapons or some type of commercial contaminant, however the required technology, equipment, and expertise to be exceptional prepared and protected is far outside the scope of most Survivalists.
It is always prudent to have Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) such as protective (gas) masks, extra filters, protective suits, gloves, and decontamination material, such as bleach on hand. The ability to seal the air input into your home or residence may be crucial as well.
Over the next few weeks and months, we will post some information on CBRNE Threats, particularly chemical and biological threats.
VX Nerve Agent
First symptoms of exposure (skin contact) may be muscular twitching or sweating at the area of exposure followed by nausea or vomiting. Some of the early symptoms of a VX vapor exposure a runny nose, tightness in the chest with shortness of breath, and pinpoint pupils.
Treatment would include first removal of the liquid agent from the skin before moving the person out of the contaminated area. Begin decontamination by washing the contaminated areas with household bleach and flushing with clean water. After decontamination, the contaminated clothing is removed and skin contamination washed away.
An individual who has received a known nerve-agent exposure or who exhibits definite signs or symptoms of nerve-agent exposure should immediately have the nerve agent antidote drugs atropine, pralidoxime (2-PAM), and diazepam injected. In several nations the nerve agent antidotes are issued for military personnel in the form of an auto-injector such as the United States military Mark I auto-injector.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Largest Financial Crisis in History is Looming
Previously unknown to UrbanSurvivalSkills.com is the The National Inflation Association (NIA) which is an organization that states they are dedicated to preparing Americans for hyperinflation and helping Americans not only survive, but prosper in the upcoming hyper-inflationary crisis.
NIA believes the largest financial crisis in history is ahead of us as a direct result of the U.S. government unwilling to accept a much needed recession. We are now at a point where our national debt is impossible to pay off. Due to rising interest payments on our national debt, it is unlikely the U.S. will be able to balance its budget ever again. Foreigners will eventually stop lending the U.S. money and the Federal Reserve will most likely have to print the money to fund our deficit spending out of thin air.
Article and Movie Trailer from the National Inflation Association
Inflation to Make All Americans Billionaires By 2020
One of the Federal Reserve's original stated purposes was to manage the nation's money supply through monetary policy that provides for stable prices without inflation or deflation. Shocking just about the whole world except for NIA members, the Federal Reserve this past week shifted its purpose from being an inflation fighter to now being an inflation advocate. Charles Evans, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, is now saying that inflation in the U.S. is too low and the Federal Reserve needs to publicly declare a new goal of having inflation that is much higher than its informal 2% target. William Dudley, President of the New York Federal Reserve, is calling current low levels of U.S. inflation "a problem" because "it means slower nominal income growth".
Dudley believes "slower nominal income growth" is unacceptable because it "means that less of the needed adjustment in household debt-to-income ratios will come from rising incomes. This puts more of the adjustment burden on paying down debt." In other words, he wants to monetize our debts by printing so much money that all Americans are earning enough income to pay back their debts. NIA fears that one of the unintended consequences of such a policy will be an insurmountable currency crisis; this will lead to a U.S. societal collapse with class warfare, millions of Americans starving to death, and a return to a barter based system that will last until we can come up with a new form of workable government based on sound money that is backed by gold and silver.
When our government creates inflation with the goal of generating higher incomes, the real incomes of Americans always decline dramatically. Inflation never creates wealth, but instead mis-allocates resources that would have went towards productive purposes if the free market was allowed to operate. During periods of high inflation, no matter how fast incomes rise nominally, they never keep pace with rising gold prices. (Try to picture Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe trying to keep pace in a race against Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt.)
Back in 1970, the median family income in the U.S. was $9,870. During the next decade, the U.S. government created unprecedented amounts of inflation, which led to the median family income rising in 1980 to $21,020 for a gain of 113%. Gold was only $35 per ounce in 1970, but rose to a high in 1980 of $850 per ounce for a gain of 2,329%. One year of income in 1970 would have bought 282 ounces of gold, but one year of income in 1980 would have only bought 25 ounces of gold. Priced in gold, families saw their real incomes decline during the 1970s by 91%.
On July 19th of this year, with everybody in the mainstream media warning Americans about the threat of deflation, NIA predicted that the Federal Reserve was, "quietly getting ready to implement 'The Mother of All Quantitative Easing'". NIA said that, "come this October, Bernanke is likely to shoot up his largest ever dose of quantitative easing." Then on July 28th with gold down to $1,158 per ounce and silver down to $17.63 per ounce, NIA sent out an alert entitled, "Gold and Silver Capitulation is Near" in which we said, "The sentiment on gold and silver has abruptly changed to the negative like nothing we have ever seen before and to us this means the big move to the upside is right around the corner."
NIA called the bottom on gold and silver perfectly. Since July 28th, gold and silver have both risen 34 out of 49 days, with gold rising by 16% and silver rising by 30%. Many people are asking us when precious metals are going to dip. Although gold and silver will make many dips in the years to come, NIA is never going to make an attempt to predict these short-term, temporary dips. It is far too risky and dangerous to sell gold and silver with the hope of buying back on a dip. Those who actively trade gold and silver, usually go long the U.S. dollar while they are waiting for a dip. There will come a time when the U.S. dollar crashes, with gold rising hundreds or even thousands of dollars in a day, and silver potentially doubling or tripling in value in a day. Trust us, you do not want to be on the wrong side of the trade on that day. NIA is focused on the long-term risk of hyperinflation and is not concerned about short-term volatility.
NIA believes that if the Federal Reserve doesn't reverse course immediately, we are on a direct path to all Americans becoming billionaires by the year 2020, if not much sooner. Being a billionaire in dollars won't mean anything. The wealth of Americans later this decade will be calculated based on how much gold and silver they own. We are at the beginning stages of a massive worldwide rush out of the U.S. dollar and into gold and silver.
Gold, at a new all time high of $1,344 per ounce, is still very undervalued. If gold's total bull run from its 2001 low of $256 per ounce equals a percentage gain of 2,329% (just like the 1970s) we will see a gold price of $6,218 per ounce. Silver, at a new 30-year high of $23 per ounce, is still an absolute steal. Just like NIA predicted, the gold/silver ratio has declined in recent months from 70 down to 58, but is still well above the historical average of 16. In our opinion, because silver has been undervalued for so long with artificially high gold/silver ratios, once JP Morgan is forced to cover their naked short position in silver we could see the ratio decline to an artificially low level as low as 8. Therefore, if we see $6,218 per ounce gold, we wouldn't be surprised to also see $777.25 per ounce silver.
Dudley's solution to our current economic crisis is to "find ways to increase the amount of stimulus we currently provide via our balance sheet." This is pure insanity. Bush's $200 billion stimulus sent oil prices to $147 per barrel, Obama's $800 billion stimulus prevented massive price deflation (that would have made cost of living in America a lot more affordable) during a period of rapidly rising unemployment, and now the Federal Reserve believes even greater stimulus will fix our economy. Dudley is calling for the Federal Reserve to purchase $500 billion in bonds, but the Federal Reserve's real quantitative easing will be much greater. Dudley doesn't want to steal the show from Bernanke. He must allow Bernanke to be the one who first suggests the "genius" idea of having quantitative easing of $1 trillion or more.
The truth is, the exact amount of the Federal Reserve's short-term purchases is absolutely meaningless. Keep your eyes on the big picture and remember that if the Federal Reserve's treasury purchases aren't enough to create massive price inflation in the short-term, they will continue to unleash even larger doses of quantitative easing. Our gut feeling is that we are practically at the point where the U.S. economy is about to overdose on any further quantitative easing. A "Meltup" is currently taking place, exactly like NIA predicted in our documentary 'Meltup' that was released on May 13th (it has now been viewed by over 808,000 people).
We may be forced to soon change our hyperinflation forecast from the years 2014-2015 to as soon as the year 2012. NIA has long been predicting ever since its first documentary 'Hyperinflation Nation' that besides gold and silver, we would see inflation most in agricultural commodities. During the month of September alone we saw huge gains in agricultural commodities like soybeans +9.5%, rice +10%, corn +12%, orange juice +13%, cotton +17.5%, and sugar +19.3%.
All countries are now in a war with each other to have the weakest currency, with the false belief that having a strong currency destroys their export markets. When history looks back to the time period we are currently in, our world leaders (especially our elected representatives in Washington) will be considered the most incompetent and corrupt in world history. NIA's new documentary being released later this month will expose the U.S. societal collapse from a perspective that has never been addressed before by anybody in the media. NIA's co-founders are currently on their way to Kingston, NY, to interview Gerald Celente, the most accurate trends forecaster of all time. His interview in 'Meltup' was widely considered to be the most insightful and eye-opening economic interview to ever be a part of any documentary and his interview in our new documentary promises to be even better.
NIA believes the largest financial crisis in history is ahead of us as a direct result of the U.S. government unwilling to accept a much needed recession. We are now at a point where our national debt is impossible to pay off. Due to rising interest payments on our national debt, it is unlikely the U.S. will be able to balance its budget ever again. Foreigners will eventually stop lending the U.S. money and the Federal Reserve will most likely have to print the money to fund our deficit spending out of thin air.
Article and Movie Trailer from the National Inflation Association
Inflation to Make All Americans Billionaires By 2020
One of the Federal Reserve's original stated purposes was to manage the nation's money supply through monetary policy that provides for stable prices without inflation or deflation. Shocking just about the whole world except for NIA members, the Federal Reserve this past week shifted its purpose from being an inflation fighter to now being an inflation advocate. Charles Evans, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, is now saying that inflation in the U.S. is too low and the Federal Reserve needs to publicly declare a new goal of having inflation that is much higher than its informal 2% target. William Dudley, President of the New York Federal Reserve, is calling current low levels of U.S. inflation "a problem" because "it means slower nominal income growth".
Dudley believes "slower nominal income growth" is unacceptable because it "means that less of the needed adjustment in household debt-to-income ratios will come from rising incomes. This puts more of the adjustment burden on paying down debt." In other words, he wants to monetize our debts by printing so much money that all Americans are earning enough income to pay back their debts. NIA fears that one of the unintended consequences of such a policy will be an insurmountable currency crisis; this will lead to a U.S. societal collapse with class warfare, millions of Americans starving to death, and a return to a barter based system that will last until we can come up with a new form of workable government based on sound money that is backed by gold and silver.
When our government creates inflation with the goal of generating higher incomes, the real incomes of Americans always decline dramatically. Inflation never creates wealth, but instead mis-allocates resources that would have went towards productive purposes if the free market was allowed to operate. During periods of high inflation, no matter how fast incomes rise nominally, they never keep pace with rising gold prices. (Try to picture Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe trying to keep pace in a race against Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt.)
Back in 1970, the median family income in the U.S. was $9,870. During the next decade, the U.S. government created unprecedented amounts of inflation, which led to the median family income rising in 1980 to $21,020 for a gain of 113%. Gold was only $35 per ounce in 1970, but rose to a high in 1980 of $850 per ounce for a gain of 2,329%. One year of income in 1970 would have bought 282 ounces of gold, but one year of income in 1980 would have only bought 25 ounces of gold. Priced in gold, families saw their real incomes decline during the 1970s by 91%.
On July 19th of this year, with everybody in the mainstream media warning Americans about the threat of deflation, NIA predicted that the Federal Reserve was, "quietly getting ready to implement 'The Mother of All Quantitative Easing'". NIA said that, "come this October, Bernanke is likely to shoot up his largest ever dose of quantitative easing." Then on July 28th with gold down to $1,158 per ounce and silver down to $17.63 per ounce, NIA sent out an alert entitled, "Gold and Silver Capitulation is Near" in which we said, "The sentiment on gold and silver has abruptly changed to the negative like nothing we have ever seen before and to us this means the big move to the upside is right around the corner."
NIA called the bottom on gold and silver perfectly. Since July 28th, gold and silver have both risen 34 out of 49 days, with gold rising by 16% and silver rising by 30%. Many people are asking us when precious metals are going to dip. Although gold and silver will make many dips in the years to come, NIA is never going to make an attempt to predict these short-term, temporary dips. It is far too risky and dangerous to sell gold and silver with the hope of buying back on a dip. Those who actively trade gold and silver, usually go long the U.S. dollar while they are waiting for a dip. There will come a time when the U.S. dollar crashes, with gold rising hundreds or even thousands of dollars in a day, and silver potentially doubling or tripling in value in a day. Trust us, you do not want to be on the wrong side of the trade on that day. NIA is focused on the long-term risk of hyperinflation and is not concerned about short-term volatility.
NIA believes that if the Federal Reserve doesn't reverse course immediately, we are on a direct path to all Americans becoming billionaires by the year 2020, if not much sooner. Being a billionaire in dollars won't mean anything. The wealth of Americans later this decade will be calculated based on how much gold and silver they own. We are at the beginning stages of a massive worldwide rush out of the U.S. dollar and into gold and silver.
Gold, at a new all time high of $1,344 per ounce, is still very undervalued. If gold's total bull run from its 2001 low of $256 per ounce equals a percentage gain of 2,329% (just like the 1970s) we will see a gold price of $6,218 per ounce. Silver, at a new 30-year high of $23 per ounce, is still an absolute steal. Just like NIA predicted, the gold/silver ratio has declined in recent months from 70 down to 58, but is still well above the historical average of 16. In our opinion, because silver has been undervalued for so long with artificially high gold/silver ratios, once JP Morgan is forced to cover their naked short position in silver we could see the ratio decline to an artificially low level as low as 8. Therefore, if we see $6,218 per ounce gold, we wouldn't be surprised to also see $777.25 per ounce silver.
Dudley's solution to our current economic crisis is to "find ways to increase the amount of stimulus we currently provide via our balance sheet." This is pure insanity. Bush's $200 billion stimulus sent oil prices to $147 per barrel, Obama's $800 billion stimulus prevented massive price deflation (that would have made cost of living in America a lot more affordable) during a period of rapidly rising unemployment, and now the Federal Reserve believes even greater stimulus will fix our economy. Dudley is calling for the Federal Reserve to purchase $500 billion in bonds, but the Federal Reserve's real quantitative easing will be much greater. Dudley doesn't want to steal the show from Bernanke. He must allow Bernanke to be the one who first suggests the "genius" idea of having quantitative easing of $1 trillion or more.
The truth is, the exact amount of the Federal Reserve's short-term purchases is absolutely meaningless. Keep your eyes on the big picture and remember that if the Federal Reserve's treasury purchases aren't enough to create massive price inflation in the short-term, they will continue to unleash even larger doses of quantitative easing. Our gut feeling is that we are practically at the point where the U.S. economy is about to overdose on any further quantitative easing. A "Meltup" is currently taking place, exactly like NIA predicted in our documentary 'Meltup' that was released on May 13th (it has now been viewed by over 808,000 people).
We may be forced to soon change our hyperinflation forecast from the years 2014-2015 to as soon as the year 2012. NIA has long been predicting ever since its first documentary 'Hyperinflation Nation' that besides gold and silver, we would see inflation most in agricultural commodities. During the month of September alone we saw huge gains in agricultural commodities like soybeans +9.5%, rice +10%, corn +12%, orange juice +13%, cotton +17.5%, and sugar +19.3%.
All countries are now in a war with each other to have the weakest currency, with the false belief that having a strong currency destroys their export markets. When history looks back to the time period we are currently in, our world leaders (especially our elected representatives in Washington) will be considered the most incompetent and corrupt in world history. NIA's new documentary being released later this month will expose the U.S. societal collapse from a perspective that has never been addressed before by anybody in the media. NIA's co-founders are currently on their way to Kingston, NY, to interview Gerald Celente, the most accurate trends forecaster of all time. His interview in 'Meltup' was widely considered to be the most insightful and eye-opening economic interview to ever be a part of any documentary and his interview in our new documentary promises to be even better.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Urban Survival Firearms - Urban Handgun
UrbanSurvivalSkills.com received the following question concerning Urban Firearms and handguns in particular: I am in a Survival Group of eleven people, 5 couples and one individual. We are all in white collar professions. Our group objective is to mutually support each other, either from different location if possible, or to band together at one of the group’s house. Four of us live in condos, three in apartments and two in stand alone houses. We have discussed how we can complement each other and have developed a “buy” list, limited to what each vehicle will hold.
We are concentrating on stocking food, mainly dry staples, mainly packaged dry meals and some canned goods. One of our couples does some shotgun shooting, but for the most part we don’t have any firearms. It is unrealistic to expect that each of us will buy a military rifle. We have talked about all of us buying handguns for protection, thinking that handguns for all and the couple shoguns we’ll have available should be good enough. Herein lies my questions: Should we try and standardize on one handgun? Or is it just sufficient for everyone to own a handgun regardless of being all the same. We are having a get together prior to Thanksgiving and I would like to broach this subject with the group. Thank you”.
UrbanMan’s response: It sounds like you are taking the lead to get a Survival Group organized. I commend you for that. This may become a dripping process, where you incrementally push the group towards prudent survival preparation.
I'll answer your question about standardizing your survival group’s handguns first. Yes, it would be prudent for all members of your survival group to possess the same handgun. Ammunition compatibility and the ability to interchange magazines (if it is a semi-automatic pistol as opposed to a revolver) is another advantage. The time needed to familiarize and train members on different handguns is also reduced. Having said that, the first rule of a gun fight is to have a gun. Therefore if survival group members already have a handgun, I would not think that buying new handguns to ensure standardization would not, repeat, would not be your first priority.
The second rule is not to bring a handgun to a rifle fight. You mentioned a couple survival group members having shotguns. You did not mention having any rifles. Handguns are a poor substitute for long guns and designed primarily as a secondary or defensive weapon. Shorter barrels, shorter sight radius’ and smaller cartridges at less velocity all make them ineffective at longer ranges. If you think that handguns will be sufficient because of the shorter engagement ranges of your present and planned urban survival environment then you are missing several points on long guns.
Having a long gun, meaning a rifle or carbine, shooting more powerful cartridges than a handgun allows you not only longer engagement ranges, but the ability to punch through soft cover like wooden walls, car doors, etc. Magazine fed long guns such as AR type rifles,.e.g..M16, AR15, M4, etc. provide detachable magazines with high capacities which would serve you and your survival group well if attacked by larger groups of bandits or mobs.
Long guns would also you to hunt and procure larger game animals. Maybe even the presence of a larger survival group equipped with long guns would make you appear to be a harder target and therefore may be a deterrent to being attacked. So when you say “It is unrealistic to expect that each of us will buy a military rifle”, you may want to consider at least a couple military type long guns within your group.
I hope you are “cross loading” you supplies and material, so that if one couple in your group does not make it to one of the houses if/when you re-locate and consolidate, then you won’t be missing key components of your urban survival equipment.
I also hope you are planning a Bug Out to a safe location outside of the urban environment for if/when that situation comes about and the need to leave develops. I hope I answered your question well enough. I did not list or otherwise suggest a standard handgun, as I think long guns are more important.
We are concentrating on stocking food, mainly dry staples, mainly packaged dry meals and some canned goods. One of our couples does some shotgun shooting, but for the most part we don’t have any firearms. It is unrealistic to expect that each of us will buy a military rifle. We have talked about all of us buying handguns for protection, thinking that handguns for all and the couple shoguns we’ll have available should be good enough. Herein lies my questions: Should we try and standardize on one handgun? Or is it just sufficient for everyone to own a handgun regardless of being all the same. We are having a get together prior to Thanksgiving and I would like to broach this subject with the group. Thank you”.
UrbanMan’s response: It sounds like you are taking the lead to get a Survival Group organized. I commend you for that. This may become a dripping process, where you incrementally push the group towards prudent survival preparation.
I'll answer your question about standardizing your survival group’s handguns first. Yes, it would be prudent for all members of your survival group to possess the same handgun. Ammunition compatibility and the ability to interchange magazines (if it is a semi-automatic pistol as opposed to a revolver) is another advantage. The time needed to familiarize and train members on different handguns is also reduced. Having said that, the first rule of a gun fight is to have a gun. Therefore if survival group members already have a handgun, I would not think that buying new handguns to ensure standardization would not, repeat, would not be your first priority.
The second rule is not to bring a handgun to a rifle fight. You mentioned a couple survival group members having shotguns. You did not mention having any rifles. Handguns are a poor substitute for long guns and designed primarily as a secondary or defensive weapon. Shorter barrels, shorter sight radius’ and smaller cartridges at less velocity all make them ineffective at longer ranges. If you think that handguns will be sufficient because of the shorter engagement ranges of your present and planned urban survival environment then you are missing several points on long guns.
Having a long gun, meaning a rifle or carbine, shooting more powerful cartridges than a handgun allows you not only longer engagement ranges, but the ability to punch through soft cover like wooden walls, car doors, etc. Magazine fed long guns such as AR type rifles,.e.g..M16, AR15, M4, etc. provide detachable magazines with high capacities which would serve you and your survival group well if attacked by larger groups of bandits or mobs.
Long guns would also you to hunt and procure larger game animals. Maybe even the presence of a larger survival group equipped with long guns would make you appear to be a harder target and therefore may be a deterrent to being attacked. So when you say “It is unrealistic to expect that each of us will buy a military rifle”, you may want to consider at least a couple military type long guns within your group.
I hope you are “cross loading” you supplies and material, so that if one couple in your group does not make it to one of the houses if/when you re-locate and consolidate, then you won’t be missing key components of your urban survival equipment.
I also hope you are planning a Bug Out to a safe location outside of the urban environment for if/when that situation comes about and the need to leave develops. I hope I answered your question well enough. I did not list or otherwise suggest a standard handgun, as I think long guns are more important.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Urban Survival Equipment - Merrell Boots
UrbanSurvivalSkills.com received a comment on the Reader's suggestions for Survival Equipment: "Anonymous said...The Merrell Boots are great! I own a pair of the Sawtooths for the woods and I wear the Merrell World Guides during the day when working. I also have a pair of Danners, but never wear them anymore because the Merrell's hold up very well and are comfortable."
UrbanMan replies: Roger on your like of Merrell Boots. The Sawtooths have been replaced, by some, with several waterproof versions, but are still excellent boots. I also find them more comfortable than my Danners and other military style boots plus they don't scream military or police. This makes wearing 5.11 tactical pants alittle less eye catching.
Merrell makes a slew of different styles, suitable for many different Survival applications,....cold environs and wetlands as well.
UrbanMan replies: Roger on your like of Merrell Boots. The Sawtooths have been replaced, by some, with several waterproof versions, but are still excellent boots. I also find them more comfortable than my Danners and other military style boots plus they don't scream military or police. This makes wearing 5.11 tactical pants alittle less eye catching.
Merrell makes a slew of different styles, suitable for many different Survival applications,....cold environs and wetlands as well.
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