Medical Concerns- Primarily Before the Collapse

A worldwide or at least national pandemic is certainly a threat to be a catalyst for a collapse, especially with the availability of air travel today. In fact, some people go on medical vacation to places like Costa Rica and India just to get treatment that would be cost prohibitive or not even available here in the states. And you know what they say about hospitals,...as much as they exist to treat and heal people, they also pose a risk of contracting diseases that you've never even heard about.

The biggest pandemic threat appears to be from type A influenza or a modified version which jumps ahead of our capability to get a handle on. Already health authorities are predicting a very cold winter and the requisite infections that come with it.

Of course, our common vaccine is basically a three way vaccine that combines different flu strains with H1N1 bird virus. This is giving way to a new type of vaccine that also contains Type B flu strain, but, thankfully will not contain any strain of the swine virus.

So where is the threat? One threat is that these vaccines have not be tested thoroughly, especially against follow on, later disease like cancer. Another threat is that many of us believe these vaccines degrade our immune system as opposed to enhance them. There are many conversations about the flu vaccine being impotent. I think the impotency aspect is due to the vaccines having the reverse effect on people,.......not protecting us, but degrading our immune systems. I have not had a flu shot, nor has my family had a flu shot in 15 years. We remain healthy while friends of ours continue to hope on the vaccine doing them so some - and they get sick.

Now on anti-biotics.

I don't know how many preppers are stocking anti-biotics for the collapse. Practically, the only way you could do so and not run into Federal violations would to get legitimately precscribed anti-biotics then not use them, instead opting to stocking these anti-biotics for later. Even then they will only be good a few short years after the expiration date.

Certainly there is a danger of not having anti-biotics for the major infections after the collapse, when medical support and medications will much less available, if available at all. Another danger related to anti-biotics is a pre-collapse danger related to the over use of anti-biotics.
There are many of us that fear that use or over use of anti-biotics also degrade our immune systems....and not just for a short time either.

A good article on over use of anti-biotics recently came out of the Wall Street Journal On-line, with the article title: "Antibiotics Do's and Don'ts Doctors Too Often Prescribe 'Big Guns'; Impatient Patients Demand a Quick Fix".

In short, the WSJ article said that "Doctors aren't only handing out too many antibiotics, they also are frequently prescribing the wrong ones." As recent studies have shown that doctors are overprescribing broad-spectrum antibiotics, sometimes called the big guns, that kill a wide swath of both good and bad bacteria in the body. Instead, narrow-spectrum antibiotics, like penicillin, amoxicillin and cephalexin, can usually clear up many infections, while targeting a smaller number of bacteria.

Professional organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, and public-health groups such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are pushing doctors to limit the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics. Among the most common broad-spectrum antibiotics are ciprofloxacin and levofloxacin—a class of drugs known as fluoroquinolones—and azithromycin, which is sold by one drug maker under the brand name Zithromax, or Z-Pak.

Overuse of antibiotics, and prescribing broad-spectrum drugs when they aren't needed, can cause a range of problems. It can make the drugs less effective against the bacteria they are intended to treat by fostering the growth of antibiotic-resistant infections. And it can wipe out the body's good bacteria, which help digest food, produce vitamins and protect from infections, among other functions.

In a July study published in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, researchers from the University of Utah and the CDC found that 60% of the time physicians prescribe antibiotics, they choose broad-spectrum ones. "There is overuse of broad-spectrum antibiotics both in situations where a narrower alternative would be appropriate and in situations where no therapy is indicated at all," said Adam Hersh, assistant professor of pediatrics at University of Utah and a study author.

The study, which relied on a public database with information on nearly 240,000 visits to doctor's offices and emergency departments, said illnesses for which doctors choose the stronger antibiotics include skin infections, urinary-tract infections and respiratory problems.

A similar study of children, published in the journal Pediatrics in 2011, found that when antibiotics were prescribed they were broad-spectrum 50% of the time, mainly for respiratory conditions.

Both studies also found that about 25% of the time antibiotics were being prescribed for conditions in which they have no use, such as viral infections.

"This is upward of 30, 40 million prescriptions a year. And on top of it, these are conditions where antibiotics aren't justified—coughs, colds, bronchitis—and the majority of the antibiotics prescribed are the broad-spectrum antibiotics," says Dr. Hersh, also a co-author of the Pediatrics study.

When doctors don't know exactly what type of bacteria is causing an infection they may prescribe a broad-spectrum antibiotic. Ordering up a test to isolate the source of the bacteria can take a day or two to get results. Waiting can risk the infection spreading. Patients also may be in discomfort and not willing to wait.

Experts say broad-spectrum antibiotics are best used for more severe conditions, such as when a child or adult is in the hospital or has already had multiple courses of antibiotics that didn't work. Someone at risk for infection with resistant bacteria because of repetitive or prolonged antibiotic exposure, such as recurrent ear infections, might also fare better with a broad-spectrum drug.

Charles Cutler, an internist near Philadelphia, says women with recurring urinary-tract infections frequently request broad-spectrum drugs like ciprofloxacin because it is what they know. But the over prescription of such drugs has created a lot of resistant infections, he says. It can take 48 hours for a test to determine what is causing a urinary-tract infection and "doctors and patients don't want to wait 48 hours," says Dr. Cutler, who is chairman of the American College of Physicians' Board of Regents.

Bronchitis is another illness for which antibiotics are often overused, says Lauri Hicks, medical director for the CDC's "Get Smart: Know When Antibiotics Work" program. Eighty percent of the time patients come into a doctor's office with acute bronchitis they will be prescribed an antibiotic, and usually a broad-spectrum one, she says. "Bronchitis in someone who's otherwise healthy typically gets better on its own," she says.

Doctors say it can be difficult to tell a bacterial infection from a viral one. A general rule of thumb with sinus infections is to hold off on the early use of antibiotics but consider using them if symptoms persist. Infections like bronchitis, which is mostly caused by a virus, and pneumonia are usually diagnosed by listening to lungs with a stethoscope. If there is doubt, X-rays can often tell the difference.

Experts say patients should question their doctors about the use of antibiotics —both whether they are warranted and why a particular type is chosen.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has emphasized the importance of judicious use of antibiotics. The group this year updated guidelines for treating sinusitis and ear infections to help physicians determine which illnesses will respond to antibiotics and which type of antibiotic to prescribe. Both updates recommended the narrow-spectrum amoxicillin as a first- line treatment when antibiotics are warranted.

Resistant bacteria are often present in the body in small numbers to begin with but are crowded out by other bacteria that are more susceptible to antibiotics. When a person takes an antibiotic, it kills off the susceptible bacteria, allowing the resistant bacteria to grow more easily, says Dr. Hersh.

Jeffrey Gerber, a pediatric infectious-disease specialist at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, recently led a research team exploring whether doctors' prescribing habits could change. The researchers looked at 18 primary-care pediatric offices. In half of the offices, doctors received on-site education about prescribing guidelines for some common infections: pneumonia, strep throat and sinus infections. Narrow-spectrum antibiotics were recommended for all three conditions. The other offices didn't receive any guidance.

"After 12 months we saw overall a nearly 50% reduction in broad spectrum or off-guideline prescribing for these conditions" in the intervention group of offices compared with the control group, Dr. Gerber said. The study appeared in the June issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. He said the researchers are currently examining what effect the change in prescribing habits had on illness control, cost and other outcomes.

So what's our course of action? Being in the best health you can; utilize good sanitation measures - stocking lots of soap and anti-septics; and, have a clear procedure for handling refugees that will invariably find you unless you are in some remote Bug Out location. Even then, plan on how you are going to segregate and assess these potential virus carrying threats to your group.

Survival Gardening Information

I have written a lot of the need for gardening - farming skills in the coming collapse. I have not written any on the "how to's" as I am pretty lame as to producing my own food through growing crops. I have had some small success and many failures. But this is a necessary journey in order to develop some experience to employ when it counts for real.

A couple of good information sites I recently found are:

Building a Small Greenhouse

I have a greenhouse kit, but right now it stays packed up ready to be transported out to our  Bug Out site during a controlled or planned bug out.  But I would not hestiate to construct it if we needed to stay Bugged In and supplement our stored food using my large supply of stored seeds to grow some vegetables.


Fertilizer

Although I have not yet read this book, it will be on my order of next Amazon order. 

Amazon's review: 
In his insightful new book, Holy Shit: Managing Manure to Save Mankind, contrary farmer Gene Logsdon provides the inside story of manure-our greatest, yet most misunderstood, natural resource. He begins by lamenting a modern society that not only throws away both animal and human manure-worth billions of dollars in fertilizer value-but that spends a staggering amount of money to do so. This wastefulness makes even less sense as the supply of mined or chemically synthesized fertilizers dwindles and their cost skyrockets. In fact, he argues, if we do not learn how to turn our manures into fertilizer to keep food production in line with increasing population, our civilization, like so many that went before it, will inevitably decline.


Making your own fertilizer and compost.  Another is this video on organic gardening by making compost.






And yet one more site, in fact an excellent site, pertaining to feeding yourself in the coming collapse is FoodStorageAndSurvival, which posted this information on Dandelions. Dandelion is one of the most recognizable and widespread edible plants. You know that weed that pops up in your yard every spring with its sunny yellow flowers? That lovely yellow flower that then turns into a ball of fluff attached to seeds that get blown across the yard/town/nation by the wind and small children? Well, they are not just weeds, the entire dandelion plant is edible. Here is how to cook dandelion roots.

1. Gather dandelions. Be sure you are gathering from a source that has not been sprayed with herbicide. Younger dandelions are best as the older roots can become woody. The dandelion usually has one long tap root, so you may need to dig down a bit to get as much of the root out as possible.

2. Wash and trim. Trim off the plant tops and any small side roots.

3. Peel the roots. You can peel them with a sharp knife, or peel them like beets using the boiling water method. Put the roots in boiling water for about 2 minutes, then remove them and put them in cold water. Then the peels slip off easily.

4. Cut them into pieces if desired. You can slice them into button sized pieces or leave them long, whatever is more appetizing to you. If the roots are woody, I would suggest leaving them long and then you can strip the tender part of the root off the outside of the woody core as you eat them.

5. Boil the roots 7-10 minutes until they are soft.

6. Season and serve warm. I put salt, pepper, and butter on mine.

I am constantly reminded that I am in the electronic age, but I can't help but like hard copy books for references. While an iPAD or Kindle type device can store a lot of information, I tend to want books as my primary refernce library. In a perfect world, a person would have both. These are some of my favorite books for survival collapse based gardening and farming.

Are State Militias Preparing?

I was sent this article, 14 United States Governors: Prepare State Militia Defenses, To Be Ready Against Obama’s Rogue Federal Forces!, and asked what I thought of it.

I haven't been able to confirm. We know that the federal government can call up and federalized state national guard units and it seems there would be too many indicators if this was true as the article professes.

Obama fearing a revolution against him by the states, has moved swiftly by nationalizing nearly all National Guard Forces in multiple states; Georgia, Alabama, Kansas, Minnesota, Tennessee, Virginia, Louisiana, South Carolina – to name a few. The Governors of the Great States of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia still have under their Command-and-Control the State Defense Forces to go against U.S. Federal forces should the need arise. Also important to note: There are NO U.S. laws prohibiting National Guard troops from also joining their State’s Defense Forces. This dilemma occurred during the Civil War with many “citizen soldiers” choosing to serve their states instead of the Federal Government.

Obama is angered by the several State Governors who have reestablished “State Defense Forces.” These forces are described as: “State Defense Forces (also known as State Guards, State Military Reserves, State Militias) in the United States are military units that operate under the sole authority of a state government; they are not regulated by the National Guard Bureau nor are they part of the Army National Guard of the United States. State Defense Forces are authorized by state and federal law and are under the command of the governor of each state. State Defense Forces are distinct from their state’s National Guard in that they cannot become federal entities.”

Mr. Obama is fearful of these State Defense Forces, in that he does not have control of said forces, and with the U.S. Military stretched to near breaking from multiple deployments and theatre actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, these State military forces would be under the direct command and authority of the Governors in which states have said forces. In essence, the Governors would have “de facto control” of the United States.

The The Future Not Bright - More Reasons for the Impending Economic Collapse

From an article by Michael Synder, called "35 Facts To Scare A Baby Boomer", posted on the The Economic Collapse Blog, hich is a really good source for,..well,...news, predictions and reasons that we face a economic collapse.



If you have some people you are dripping prepping to, and we all know some of those people. Peeople who are can't stand by themselves,...people on the fence on gun issues, or just don't see the need for "military style" weapons in the hands of the common citizenry,....people who have maybe three days food in their house. Anyway,........without further ado, Michael Synder's excellent article.

If you want to frighten Baby Boomers, just show them the list of statistics in this article. The United States is headed for a retirement crisis of unprecedented magnitude, and we are woefully unprepared for it. At this point, more than 10,000 Baby Boomers are reaching the age of 65 every single day, and this will continue to happen for almost the next 20 years. The number of senior citizens in America is projected to more than double during the first half of this century, and some absolutely enormous financial promises have been made to them.

So will we be able to keep those promises to the hordes of American workers that are rapidly approaching retirement? Of course not. State and local governments are facing trillions in unfunded pension liabilities. Medicare is facing a 38 trillion dollar shortfall over the next 75 years. The Social Security system is facing a 134 trillion dollar shortfall over the next 75 years. Meanwhile, nearly half of all American workers have less than $10,000 saved for retirement.

The truth is that I was being incredibly kind when I said earlier that we are "woefully unprepared" for what is coming. The biggest retirement crisis in history is rapidly approaching, and a lot of the promises that were made to the Baby Boomers are going to get broken.

The following are 35 incredibly shocking statistics that will scare just about any Baby Boomer...

1. Right now, there are somewhere around 40 million senior citizens in the United States. By 2050 that number is projected to skyrocket to 89 million.

2. According to one recent poll, 25 percent of all Americans in the 46 to 64-year-old age bracket have no retirement savings at all.

3. 26 percent of all Americans in the 46 to 64-year-old age bracket have no personal savings whatsoever.

4. One survey that covered all American workers found that 46 percent of them have less than $10,000 saved for retirement.

5. According to a survey conducted by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, "60 percent of American workers said the total value of their savings and investments is less than $25,000".

6. A Pew Research survey found that half of all Baby Boomers say that their household financial situations have deteriorated over the past year.

7. 67 percent of all American workers believe that they "are a little or a lot behind schedule on saving for retirement".

8. Today, one out of every six elderly Americans lives below the federal poverty line.

9. More elderly Americans than ever are finding that they must continue working once they reach their retirement years. Between 1985 and 2010, the percentage of Americans in the 65 to 69-year-old age bracket that were still working increased from 18 percent to 32 percent.

10. Back in 1991, half of all American workers planned to retire before they reached the age of 65. Today, that number has declined to 23 percent.

11. According to one recent survey, 70 percent of all American workers expect to continue working once they are "retired".

12. According to a poll conducted by AARP, 40 percent of all Baby Boomers plan to work "until they drop".

13. A poll conducted by CESI Debt Solutions found that 56 percent of American retirees still had outstanding debts when they retired.

14. Elderly Americans tend to carry much higher balances on their credit cards than younger Americans do. The following is from a recent CNBC article...

New research from the AARP also shows that those ages 50 and over are carrying higher balances on their credit cards -- $8,278 in 2012 compared to $6,258 for the under-50 population.

15. A study by a law professor at the University of Michigan found that Americans that are 55 years of age or older now account for 20 percent of all bankruptcies in the United States. Back in 2001, they only accounted for 12 percent of all bankruptcies.

16. Between 1991 and 2007 the number of Americans between the ages of 65 and 74 that filed for bankruptcy rose by a staggering 178 percent.

17. What is causing most of these bankruptcies among the elderly? The number one cause is medical bills. According to a report published in The American Journal of Medicine, medical bills are a major factor in more than 60 percent of the personal bankruptcies in the United States. Of those bankruptcies that were caused by medical bills, approximately 75 percent of them involved individuals that actually did have health insurance.

18. In 1945, there were 42 workers for every retiree receiving Social Security benefits. Today, that number has fallen to 2.5 workers, and if you eliminate all government workers, that leaves only 1.6 private sector workers for every retiree receiving Social Security benefits.

19. Millions of elderly Americans these days are finding it very difficult to survive on just a Social Security check. The truth is that most Social Security checks simply are not that large. The following comes directly from the Social Security Administration website...

The average monthly Social Security benefit for a retired worker was about $1,230 at the beginning of 2012. This amount changes monthly based upon the total amount of all benefits paid and the total number of people receiving benefits.

Could you live on about 300 dollars a week?

20. Social Security benefits are not going to stretch as far in future years. The following is from an article on the AARP website...

Social Security benefits won't go as far, either. In 2002, benefits replaced 39 percent of the average retirees salary, and that will decline to 28 percent in 2030, when the youngest boomers reach full retirement age, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

21. In the United States today, more than 61 million Americans receive some form of Social Security benefits. By 2035, that number is projected to soar to a whopping 91 million.

22. Overall, the Social Security system is facing a 134 trillion dollar shortfall over the next 75 years.

23. As I wrote about in a previous article, the number of Americans on Medicare is expected to grow from 50.7 million in 2012 to 73.2 million in 2025.

24. Medicare is facing unfunded liabilities of more than 38 trillion dollars over the next 75 years. That comes to approximately $328,404 for each and every household in the United States.

25. Today, only 10 percent of private companies in the U.S. provide guaranteed lifelong pensions for their employees.

26. Verizon's pension plan is underfunded by 3.4 billion dollars.

27. In California, the Orange County Employees Retirement System is estimated to have a 10 billion dollar unfunded pension liability.

28. The state of Illinois has accumulated unfunded pension liabilities of more than 77 billion dollars.

29. Pension consultant Girard Miller told California's Little Hoover Commission that state and local government bodies in the state of California have 325 billion dollars in combined unfunded pension liabilities.

30. According to Northwestern University Professor John Rauh, the latest estimate of the total amount of unfunded pension and healthcare obligations for retirees that state and local governments across the United States have accumulated is 4.4 trillion dollars.

31. In 2010, 28 percent of all American workers with a 401(k) had taken money out of it at some point.

32. Back in 2004, American workers were taking about 30 billion dollars in early withdrawals out of their 401(k) accounts every single year. Right now, American workers are pulling about 70 billion dollars in early withdrawals out of their 401(k) accounts every single year.

33. Today, 49 percent of all American workers are not covered by an employment-based pension plan at all.

34. According to a recent survey conducted by Americans for Secure Retirement, 88 percent of all Americans are worried about "maintaining a comfortable standard of living in retirement".

35. A study conducted by Boston College's Center for Retirement Research found that American workers are $6.6 trillion short of what they need to retire comfortably.

So what is the solution? Well, one influential organization of business executives says that the solution is to make Americans wait longer for retirement. The following is from a recent CBS News article...

An influential group of business CEOs is pushing a plan to gradually increase the full retirement age to 70 for both Social Security and Medicare and to partially privatize the health insurance program for older Americans.

The Business Roundtable's plan would protect those 55 and older from cuts but younger workers would face significant changes. The plan unveiled Wednesday would result in smaller annual benefit increases for all Social Security recipients. Initial benefits for wealthy retirees would also be smaller.

But considering the fact that there aren't nearly enough jobs for all Americans already, perhaps that is not such a great idea. If we expect Americans to work longer, then we are going to need our economy to start producing a lot more good jobs than it is producing right now.

Of course the status quo is not going to work either. There is no way that we are going to be able to meet the financial obligations that are coming due.

The federal government, our state governments and our local governments are already drowning in debt and we are already spending far more money than we bring in each year. How in the world are we going to make ends meet as our obligations to retirees absolutely skyrocket in the years ahead?

What is going on in Detroit right now is a perfect example of what will soon be happening all over the nation. Many city workers stuck with their jobs for decades because of the promise of a nice pension at the end of the rainbow. But now those promises are going up in smoke. There has even been talk that retirees will only end up getting about 10 cents for every dollar that they were promised.

78 Survival Skills Everyone Should Know

This is an article written by Jeremy Knauff on "How to Survive It.com"

While I applaude his workmanlike efforts to build a survival skills task list, this list is not complete as Jeremy admits. I don't think one person could build a complete list,...at least not in a short period of time. I decidely to post Jeremy's list and add my own, in italics, as his tasks generated thoughts of my own. Undoubtably the readers of this will have many more.

Jeremy's aticle:

Survival is based largely on two things: a positive mental attitude and knowledge. With those two covered, you can make up for any lack of tools. Knowledge doesn’t break, wear out, and short of forgetting a thing or two, you generally can’t lose it.

Below, I’ve compiled a list of skills I think everyone should know. This is by no means a “complete” list because there is always room to learn more, and the more you know, the greater your chances of survival. But this will give you a solid foundation and a far broader skill set than most people. Everyone should know how to:

Drive a stick shift. Jump start a car; siphon or procure fuel from a disabled/abandoned vehicle.
Swim. Make an improvised flotation device.
Start a fire without matches or a lighter. Use flint and steel, a magnesium fire starter, a magnifying glass and the bow method to build a fire.
Build a garden
Use herbal remedies
Produce beer/wine
Build your local community. Develop an early warning system(s) and communications methods within your neighborhood.
Tan leather
Cure/smoke meat
Make soap
Construct animal/fish traps. Construct and emplace booby traps and early warning devices.
Make activated charcoal
Survive hypothermia. Recognize and treat Hot and Cold weather injuries.
Properly load a backpack
Conduct basic repairs (home, auto, equipment, etc.)
Operate a ham radio. Develop and use a radio brevity code system.
Defend yourself without a weapon
Identify surveillance
Build a rainwater collection system
Weld
Accurately fire an arrow
Dehydrate food.
Construct snowshoes
Build a raft with a tarp
Navigate using the stars. Navigate with a compass (dead reckoning); read a map (terrain features and marginal information; perform intersection and resection using a compass and a map.
Right an overturned raft Build with stone/brick (basic masonry)
Cut down a tree with an ax
Forage for food. Identify edible (and poisonous plants).
Sew and/or make clothing
Pilot a boat
Shoot a firearm accurately. Be able to disassmble, clean, assemble and perform a functions check on firearms. Be able to perform remedial actions on stoppages.
Find water
Utilize camouflage. Build a single fighting position. Build mutually supporting fighting positions. Build a camouflaged and concealed observation/listening post.
Construct a pond
Can food
Ski
Dig a latrine
Build with wood (basic carpentry)
Determine authenticity of gold and silver
Rappel
Follow a trail/tracking. Sterilize your trail - employ counter-tracking measures.
Use less-lethal weapons (baton, stun gun, pepper spray, etc.)
Metal working (blacksmith)
Lose a tail
Operate power tools
Construct a splint. Build a field expedient litter.
Open a can without a can opener
Drive a motorcycle
Construct a net
Identify animals by tracks and/or scat
Patch a tire. Fix a flat by plugging a tire.
Reload ammunition
Build a bow and arrow
Administer first aid. Perform CPR; Treat for a gunshot wound; emplace a torniquet; treat a sucking chest wound;
Identify venomous snakes. Treat for poisonous snake bite.
Accurately fire a slingshot
Make candles
Raise fish (for food)
Distill water/alcohol
Hot wire a car
Cook without a stove. Build a solar oven.
Survive heat injuries
Raise livestock
Find tinder
Create fertile soil. Develop a compost system.
Make charcloth
Properly store food
Survive a riot
Sharpen a knife
Butcher livestock. Field dress and butcher wild game.
Purify water
Make leather products (sheathes, holsters, boots, etc.)
Hunt and fish
Cast bullets
Maintain a bee hive
Use hand tools
Tie a knot. Be able to tie these knots: square knot, bowline and clove hitch


On his site, Jeremy advertises: "Are there any skills you think should be on this list? Let me know (in the comments box below)." Go to the link and give him some suggestions.

Is FEMA Stocking up on Survival Food?

From an article by Shepard Abellas on Intellihub.com titled, "Survival Food Company Urgently Contacted By FEMA – Is a War Or Disaster Looming?"

Not that I'm buying into this right now,...it could be as simple as spending end of the year funds. The way the government agencies work is that they budget funding before the fiscal year and through the next fiscal year they may not need nor purchase what they budgeted for, leaving excess money. And another thing about government agencies,...they do not turn back money as the next year they'll get less. Kinda counter productive wouldn't you say?

Anyway, I'll let the readers decide for themselves about any spending by FEMA, wasteful or nefarious as it may be.

The Article:

Recently my friend who owns a preparedness and survival food company was contacted by FEMA and the questions might scare you. My friend Matt, the owner of MyPatriotSupply.com was contacted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) by way of email, leading on that something is ready to pop off.

Matt being the patriot he is immediately contacted me with this disturbing news. He even provided screenshots of the actual email sent by a FEMA representative. The names and revealing information have been blurred out.

Matt of MyPatriotSupply.com wrote, “here we are, August 2013 and FEMA once again is trying to buy up large stockpiles of food. And they don’t want anyone to know it, and they want to take immediately delivery… I’ve studied history. That is what got me into preparedness in the first place. History has shown us time after time that those who depend on the government to come to their aid during a disaster are the ones waiting the longest for help. Sometimes help never comes…or comes too late.

I do not believe these critical emergency food supplies should be in the hands of the government, stored in some secret warehouse only to be brought out and distributed to their own agencies first, with the rest of us getting table scraps long after we need it.

These life-saving meals belong in the hands of people like you and me. This is why I declined the opportunity to sell to the Department of Homeland Security.

But let’s not forget the most important part of this: Why the sudden sense of urgency? What do they know that we do not?

I’m not one to cry that the sky is always falling, but when DHS/FEMA make a move to quietly buy up emergency food supplies and ask how much we can ship within 24 hours…I think this is far enough outside the realm of what is “normal” to beg some questions.

Fortunately I’ve been in this business long enough to predict what happens next. One or more of the other “survival companies” out there will inevitably see a chance to make a quick buck from Uncle Sam (which is really paid for by us, the taxpayer). This could create a run on many of the core raw ingredients used by emergency food makers that will cause a ripple effect throughout the industry as supply chains become bottle-necked handling the FEMA/DHS request.”

This is extremely disturbing to know.

What is the government gearing up for? A major disaster or war they know is coming?

I myself don’t want to be left in the dark.

Matt’s Preparedness Website here:

More on Community Organization for the Collapse

Anonymous left a new comment on your post Green Beret versus Doomsday Prepper: "I don't really disagree with this story. But I don't agree that 400 neighbors is necessarily better then going it alone. I can assure you some of those 400 neighbors don't like you and some want what you have. If you think politics and human greed will suspend itself until the crisis ends you are wrong. The difference will be that you will have enemies within AND outside. You will not know who is your friend. Those people who openly dislike you are probably harmless while those who dislike you but put on a fake front will probably do you harm. The lady down the street with three kids and a husband thrives on drama and enjoys turning one person against another. That middle aged quiet guy is infatuated with your wife and thinks if he could eliminate you he would have a chance with her. That sullen guy that never talks much is still pissed at you for parking in the street a year ago in a spot he thinks is for him alone. Some of these people will do you harm directly or indirectly and you probably won't see it coming. "

UrbanMan's reply:" I do not disagree with you. Most of us that have ever been involved with some sort of Mil or LE team would rather have a small team of trained and trusted individuals as opposed to having dozens of individuals with suspect motives and character.

Let's say you decide to Bug In. If you make no effort to develop your neighbors into at least a loosely based group for mutual support, then you face, potentially, a much larger close threat. Again, I agree with your supposition that you would have neighbors who dislike you, even hate you and want what you have be it supplies, weapons,...or as you put it "your wife". (side note: he would have no idea what he would be getting into!).

I think there will be several categories of people in your possible Survivor Group:

1. People who would gladly welcome leadership and assistance in the confusing chaos of the collapse. These people may initially be the least useful, but you would need the manpower to do everything from main observation posts and checkpoints; construct necessary things; garden and grow crops; procure and/or filter water; procure (scrounge) necessary items.

2. People who will worthless. Not able to do anything, but expect someone to take care of them because we have bred that into our population the last 50 years. You may be able to make some of the types marginally useful, but the trick is to not let them such up resources at a ratio that far exceeds their contribution.

3. There will be people who disagree with most or everything you would be trying to do such as establish OP/LPS, checkpoints, develop teams to garden, procure, etc. They may be disagreeing out of fear, or out of some character flaw like wanting status and power. There will be people who are jealous of you and your "stuff". There will be people who may exploit the situation to bully or harass or even sexually assault women. You would have to deal with these people in order to develop the bigger team. Use your "spidy sense" in detecting these people if their overt actions and words don't expose them first. Hunkering down by your lonesome, in my mind is not an option.

Let's just say, worst case scenario, you don't do any team building, ......don't interface with your neighbors,.......or anything. Then the collapse starts. Let's say it's an oil boycott, followed quickly by a stock market collapse and within days food deliveries to groceries and stores are drying up and the local government basically collapses as hyper inflation hits. Going to your nearest neighbors, the ones you think are approach-able and asking how they are doing and make some suggestions on security, protection, water storage, food stocks could only build rapport and enhance your standing with them. At a minimum they could become eyes and ears for you enhancing your security.

I have a bunch of FRS radios that I can give out to my neighbors, albeit at the right time, so we can communicate. I can replace their batteries periodically with my solar powered re-chargeable systems. If a neighbor makes comms with me saying he has some suspicious people lurking about, my choices are to address the potential or actual threat now or to wait until they try and loot my house. Me and mine? We're being pro-active.

Who knows maybe your neighbors have some skills that will augment your survival plan. Maybe the old lady down the street grows tomatoes and cans them. Maybe there is a young couple across the street wit hthe husband being a welder and his wife a practical nurse.

It is much better knowing all this before the collapse. It would makes organization much easier knowing your neighbors, having rapport, building respect between you and them now as opposed to when the collapse and therefore panic hits.

You are absolutely right about be wary of the shitheads, but you'll have to deal with them in order to build that community survival group for the benefit of all. Afterall, you can always Bug Out if need be.

The Cause of the Economic Collapse

We think, talk, plan and prepare a lot on the possibility or probability of some sort of economic or societal collapse. We discuss the indicators and the effects but never really mention the cause. That's probably because in some form or fashion that cause of the collapse will be politicians and our government. Through negligence, apathy, greed, idealogy, or even just plain stupidity the march continues to diminish our standard of living, our freedoms, and all this certainly makes the collapse look much nearer.

Here is another another article, called "Stupid to Tyranny", sent to me by a reader and written by William Horning on Constitutional Thinking. This article begins to lay out the argument,......

“The two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole world and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought.” George Orwell.

When you are either stupid, uninformed, or not thinking clearly, you don’t realize the time bombs are ticking for our country. Even the tea parties fall into one of these categories.

Professor Steven Yates wrote on America “Ticking Time Bombs” which could take down the country. First time bomb is political correctness, which is taught in the schools and promoted by the media. The government is the real problem, not whites, as it stirs up racial tension. The Zimmerman case was misreported from the start and improperly handled in court.

The second time bomb is Obamacare. “Its purpose … is to centralize sick care, fatten the profits of both Big Pharma and Big Insurance, and very possibly find a legal way of dealing with an aging population that will eventually break the Medicare and Social Security banks.” One researcher figures that the monthly health costs for a family of four will go up anywhere from 2-4 times.

While costs skyrocket, the quality of care will disintegrate. Patients over 70 had better not have anything major happen. Eventually care will be denied as they get an aspirin and a ride home. Cost cutting will demand it.

Our third time bomb is the employment situation. Full time jobs are declining and part time jobs are increasing. John Williams (www.shadowstats.com), a statistician/economist points out that the true unemployment rate is between 23% and 24%. It just isn’t so obvious due to government benefit programs. In addition, underemployment is growing. The outlook for improvement is not very good.

The fourth problem is the financial markets. The stock market is approaching record highs while the national debt approaches $17 trillion. The American people bailed out the banks that are making a killing while our economic health is declining. This situation won’t last.

Please note that all of these problems are created or allowed to happen by government. Our Criminal Congress, along with state legislatures, continues to make laws killing jobs, sovereignty, freedom, and honest government. We no longer have representative government. Our elected crooks only care about the power and rewards of being in office, not the Constitution.

The answer is to replace them with constitutional representatives. Devvy Kidd has written an article, “If You Ignore the Upcoming Primaries, We’re Toast.” I said the same thing months ago. The primaries are where constitutional conservatives can replace established Rhinos/Neocons. Tea Parties need to listen to this warning.

There are only approximately five months to prepare for the primary campaign. Instead of preparing, tea parties are doing stupid things, wasting time listening to current congressmen/state representatives, etc. They should be educating their members on the issues and how to recruit more members.

In 2010, 23 Tea Party Republicans were elected to the U.S. House, but most of them caved in right away voting to raise the debt limit, so candidates need education also. Tea Parties (or similar groups) should be recruiting candidates for every possible office. They should be planning a strategy to put the maximum number of “boots on the ground” and give financial support for the candidates.

I want to suggest that constitutional conservatives brush up on what real pastors believed at the time of the American Revolution. Then, they should get with their pastors and straighten them out. If that’s not possible, get out of that church. The churches are supposed to be leading our revival, but they are silent. Alexis de Tocqueville, searching for the secret to America’s success on his visit, stated that not until he entered the church did he learn, “why America was great and free, and why France was a slave.”

Today, we’re all slaves, because our churches are not engaged or are apostate. While 78% of Americas claim to be Christian, as Bradlee Dean, a preacher and talkshow host states, “effeminate hirelings have infiltrated the pulpits” and instead of preaching against sin, “they are attempting to cover it with false grace.” If we clean up our churches, we could have a strong force behind our push to restore

Green Beret versus Doomsday Prepper

An article posted month back on the Daily Sheeple, written by Sobert Gummer, titled "Why You Should Think Like A Green Beret Instead Of A Doomsday Prepper". Visit his website often as he has some good article posted there.

This was sent to me by a reader who commented that he too believed in his Bug In plan as long as he can, and to work on developing his local suburban neighborhood into a post collapse survival team. Obviously any grouping of people will be much better off with the more work they can put into team building prior to the collapse, but sometimes this is not always viable. Not every neighborhood has a Home Owners Association which is a ready made organization, useful to communications and coordinating efforts. In lieu of an HOA, a neighborhood watch committee would be the next step and a ready made reason to walk the neighborhood and meet the dwellers. Anyway, great article by Sobert Gummer.

There is a disaster coming and you have a decision to make: Is it better to live like a rat in a hole (a bunker) or to network with your neighbors and organize your local area of operation? Sure, it’s a loaded question but it brings up an interesting point: That even the lone wolf can’t survive long by himself. We are social pack animals by nature and the stronger we make our local “pack” the better our chances of survival.

I’d rather have a local neighborhood of 400 organized, motivated individuals defending an area and watching each other’s back than to go it alone in a ten foot corrugated pipe buried in the middle of nowhere. And if we agree on this point, then it makes perfect sense to look at the Green Berets for inspiration.

The Green Berets are the U.S. Special Forces elite commandos who get dropped behind enemy lines and are tasked with organizing the local or indigenous population toward a specific goal. They are smart, motivated and trained in tactics that make them extreme force multipliers. This should be your goal as a prepper, because surviving alone is too big of a job. The days of “Liver Eatin’” Johnson, where a mountain man could live in the back country for years at a time, wasn’t even a high survivability endeavor back in the 1800′s. The odds that one man or even a small family can, “face it alone” are very slim. Sure, you might get lucky and pull it off, but personally I prefer to play the odds. And if we look at history, the odds on survival as part of a community are much greater than going it alone– which is why communities formed in the first place.

In a disaster scenario where there is No Rule Of Law (sidenote: See NutNFancy’s excellent Youtube video on WROL: Without Rule Of Law) there will be a power vacuum. People will be scared and afraid and this is where we as preppers need to be ready to step up and provide leadership. People will only huddle in their homes for so long and if an organizational structure isn’t set up quickly to utilize your neighborhood’s strengths and resources, then you may lose them forever.

First Things First

One of the first things that a Green Beret unit will do when deployed to an area is to set up an operational base in friendly territory that serves as both an operational and administrative focal point. The operational base is used for:

■Planning and Direction of Operations
■Communications Support
■Intelligence Support
■Logistical Support
■Briefing and Staging
■Infiltration
■Liason and Coordination
■Training
■Administration

Can you imagine setting up an operational base similar to what the Green Berets use by organizing your neighbors– perhaps at a local elementary school– and how it could be an asset in helping your community get through a Without Rule Of Law scenario?

Let’s compare two scenarios contrasting how modeling the Green Berets would work out much better for you and your family than modeling the typical character as portrayed on the Doomsday Preppers TV show:

A Tale Of Two Preppers

Timmy The Tool: Timmy has modeled his prepper plans in a similar manner to what he’s seen on the TV shows, including a buried corrugated pipe bunker that he’s stocked with two years worth of food for himself, his wife and his two kids, Timmy Jr. (9) and Susie (4).

Timmy lives in a non-descript suburban neighborhood in Bacon, Georgia. He doesn’t socialize or interact with any of his neighbors and the one’s who have made an effort to get to know him report that he is somewhat anti-social and odd.

When the balloon goes up, Timmy packs his wife and kids into his Chevy Suburban and gets on the road toward their buried bunker in the middle of nowhere. The trip is uneventful and Timmy hides his Suburban under a camouflage net and then ushers his family into the bunker.

Everything seems to be going swell the first night. But after seven days of living underground in a 10 foot by 40 foot bunker the kids won’t stop fighting and Timmy’s wife Helen is starting to show signs of emotional strain from being cooped up for so long without outside social interaction.

By Week 2 the radio stops working and Timmy can’t find where he put the backup radio. He’s now got a short temper and blames his wife, who’s close to the end of her fuse and can’t stop crying. Timmy’s daughter, on the other hand, has stopped communicating and their son spends most of his time escaping into books and has developed a strange cough. His wife is now begging Timmy to let them return to their home in the ‘burbs. But Timmy knows they must stay in the bunker in order to survive. It’s the only way at this point.

Two more weeks into the Crunch and Timmy’s wife has had enough. The boy is virulently sick and the antibiotics that Timmy had stored don’t seem to be helping. Their daughter has stopped eating and Timmy’s wife finally gives him an ultimatum: She’s taking the kids and returning to their home in the suburbs with or without him. Timmy weighs his options and decides that he can’t let her and the kids venture back to their house unprotected so he grudgingly packs their Chevy Suburban for the drive home. Or what’s left of their home. Looters have destroyed their neighborhood and most of the houses have burned to the ground because nobody organized the neighborhood into a defensive force that could have prevented the looting. Unfortunately, Timmy and his family will never make it home to see the wreckage because the highways are either closed or have been converted into ambush “kill zones” by marauding gangs before the military can restore order.

Meanwhile…

Ralph The Realist has adopted a different approach based on what he learned in the military as a Green Beret. Instead of withdrawing from his community he has taken proactive steps to deal with a “No Rule Of Law” scenario. Ralph is good friends with both the president of the neighborhood HOA and the principal of the nearby elementary school. Along with his wife and a couple of other friends of a similar mindset they have formed a prepper group and had begun taking action before the Crunch. Including storing ten 55-gallon drums of rice, wheat, beans and pasta in an unused storage shed at the local elementary school.

When news of rioting and societal breakdown begins to reach maximum velocity, Ralph and his group each begin to reach out to other friends and neighbors who – to no one’s surprise – are now very concerned about the current state of affairs, too. Many are open to taking action but nobody has a plan… except for Ralph and his group.

After the power grid goes down, Ralph’s prepper buddy, the president of the HOA, calls a neighborhood meeting and they discover that many of their neighbors have excellent skills that will help them survive the Crunch: One is a trauma nurse. Another is a welder. The guy down the street is a doctor and an avid hunter and there are several retired cops who live one block over.

Ralph asks for volunteers to form a neighborhood watch and almost everybody volunteers. They makes plans to barricade access to the neighborhood using old cars and RVs and set up a defensive perimeter. With roughly 150 families in their neighborhood there are more than enough adults with firearms experience to stand watch in shifts.

When Ralph’s son develops a strange cough, his wife takes her rifle and walks to the doctor’s house, a block over. She does not have to worry about leaving her house unattended since the “neighborhood watch on steriods” (hat tip: Rawles) is keeping the riff-raff out. The doctor correctly diagnoses her son’s cough and prescribes the right antibiotic. She then leaves her daughter to play with the doctor’s daughter for a few hours. The little one is coping with the Crunch as if it was a free day home from school: Fun!

After a week, Ralph’s son is feeling much better. His wife is happy and she has formed a gardening club with some of the other women on her block.

Three weeks later, Ralph receives word that things are still pretty crazy outside of their neighborhood. They’ve had a couple of gun fights when looters tried to gain access to their neighborhood but nobody was hurt. Word quickly spreads among the undesirables to leave Ralph’s neighborhood alone.

Everyone is coping reasonably well when a expedition group from another neighborhood proposes a trade of fish antibiotics (which can be used by humans) for some extra ammunition. The doctor advises Ralph that it would be a good trade, and since Ralph’s neighbor has a reloading press in his garage, they’re in no fear of running low on ammunition.

After another month, the military is finally able to get things under control and rule of law is restored.

A tale of two preppers: One a complete failure for adopting an ill-thought Lone Wolf strategy and the other successful after organizing his local neighborhood to withstand the perils of a Without Rule Of Law scenario.

About the Author: Sobert Gummer is the author of Sobert Gummer’s Survival Prepping For Hard Times web site. He has lived and traveled to some of the most dangerous cities in the world and has recently returned from living in South America where he fought off a home invasion with nothing more than a machete, married an Indian woman and had his head held over a fire by a Costa Rican witch doctor. He’s now back in the United States and prepping earnestly for an uncertain future while praying for the best. His latest book, Dogs For Preppers is now available at Amazon.com for your Kindle or Kindle app.

18 Similarities Between The Last Financial Crisis And Today

By Michael Snyder on The Economic Collapse Blog, posting an article with the title "It Is Happening Again: 18 Similarities Between The Last Financial Crisis And Today"

#1 According to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch equity strategy team, their big institutional clients are selling stock at a rate not seen "since 2008".

#2 In 2008, stock prices had wildly diverged from where the economic fundamentals said that they should be. Now it has happened again.

#3 In early 2008, the average price of a gallon of gasoline rose substantially. It is starting to happen again. And remember, whenever the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. has risen above $3.80 during the past three years, a stock market decline has always followed.

#4 New home prices just experienced their largest two month drop since Lehman Brothers collapsed.

#5 During the last financial crisis, the mortgage delinquency rate rose dramatically. It is starting to happen again.

#6 Prior to the financial crisis of 2008, there was a spike in the number of adjustable rate mortgages. It is happening again.

#7 Just before the last financial crisis, unemployment claims started skyrocketing. Well, initial claims for unemployment benefits are rising again. Once we hit the 400,000 level, we will officially be in the danger zone.

#8 Continuing claims for unemployment benefits just spiked to the highest level since early 2009.

#9 The yield on 10 year Treasuries is now up to 2.60 percent. We also saw the yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries rise significantly during the first half of 2008.

#10 According to Zero Hedge, "whenever the annual change in core capex, also known as Non-Defense Capital Goods excluding Aircraft shipments goes negative, the US has traditionally entered a recession". Guess what? It is rapidly heading toward negative territory again.

#11 Average hourly compensation in the United States experienced its largest drop since 2009 during the first quarter of 2013.

#12 In the month of June, spending at restaurants fell by the most that we have seen since February 2008.

#13 Just before the last financial crisis, corporate earnings were very disappointing. Now it is happening again.

#14 Margin debt spiked just before the dot.com bubble burst, it spiked just before the financial crash of 2008, and now it is spiking again.

#15 During 2008, the price of gold fell substantially. Now it is happening again. #16 Global business confidence is now the lowest that it has been since the last recession.

#17 Back in 2008, the U.S. national debt was rapidly rising to unsustainable levels. We are in much, much worse shape today.

#18 Prior to the last financial crisis, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke assured the American people that home prices would not decline and that there would not be a recession. We all know what happened. Now he is once again promising that everything is going to be just fine.

Are the American people going to fall for it again?

Add to Michael Synder's points is that the stimulus from the Fed's printing money and dumping into the market is or has to stop at some point. Everything Bernanke makes a comments about slowing or stopping the fiat currency printing, the markets go crazy in a bad way. Not that I have any trust in the market financials anyway. They are hocus pocus.

The welfare rolls continue to grow. We are on target for 1/3 of the American population to be on welfare and this is not counting Social Security Insurance or Disability. Add to the underfunded state and muncialaity retirement costs from cities like Detroit going bankrupt, and there will be many more, is ading to the population rosters of financially strapped and therefore at risk.

How to Plan For Any Disaster

How to Plan For Any Disaster - a mainstream financial planning article from Money.com it seems like more and more mainstream venues are talking about some sort of collapse preparation.  The value of this article is that it can serve as a "bridge" for someone who is not prepping at all, as opposed to the "go for broke', total planning and prep process for the coming collapse.

Many of us have people, be it family, friends or neighbors, who we are reluctant to expose our preps to.  Simply copying this article and sending or printing and passing out to these people can get them to thinking and prepping at some level, so when the collapse occurs and we end up taking some of these people in, absorbing them into our group, they will be more of an asset.  

Best case scenario is that someone you give this article will ask you questions.  Of course, you may have to give guarded answers as an OPSEC precaution, but is may result in another American who is better prepared to face the multiple possibilities of SHTF,....and maybe a family membr or friend who is less of a burden on you come SHTF. 

How to Plan For Any Disaster
Disasters disrupt life in unimaginable ways, making those affected much more vulnerable to secondary disasters — the kind caused by criminals. I’ve been through a number of earthquakes and lost a home to Hurricane Sandy. I know how all-consuming the aftermath can be.

Wildfires, tornadoes and other natural disasters seem to be happening more and more these days. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warns that the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season will be “above normal and possibly extremely active.”

The danger and chaos that inevitably follow a natural (or for that matter — man-made) disaster, create opportunities for predators, who seem to slither out from under the rocks to prey upon their victims: identity thieves, burglars, snake oil salesmen disguised as home improvement contractors and fraudsters claiming to be raising funds to help ease the pain.

Plan Ahead

We can and have learned from past disasters that meaningful preparation can pay big dividends in helping people deal with and recover from the unimaginable. Here are some suggestions that might help you weather the disaster.

Have a family emergency disaster plan. Disasters can strike with little or no warning at any moment of the day. It is quite likely that many families are not together. Parents can be either at work or at home. Kids can be at school. Family members can be running chores or away on business trips or vacations. Therefore, you should develop a communication plan that establishes who you contact and when you contact them in the event of an emergency. You should also agree upon primary and secondary meeting places.

Keep emergency numbers handy for key support functions and home utilities. Create a list of all emergency service phone numbers, as well as those for your utility companies that provide electric power, natural gas, water and telephone services. Know where your shut-off switches and/or valves are for these services and how to shut them down. In event of a pending or significant disaster, turning off the electric, gas and water utilities — if it can be safely done — can help prevent secondary fires, explosions and internal flooding to your residence.

Make copies (front and back) of the documents that confirm your identity and allow you to buy what you need. Birth certificates, driver’s licenses and passports; Social Security, voter’s registration and medical insurance cards; credit and debit cards. Also, make sure you have the customer service information for financial institutions and credit card companies as well as your credit and debit card numbers so you can contact them immediately and arrange for credit and debit card replacement in the event they are lost. You may wish to store this information in an encrypted file so that you can access it online. In the physical world, you may want to store a copy of these documents either in a waterproof container that can be secured in a safe place or scan them onto a password protected, encrypted USB drive that you always carry with you.

Consider remote electronic data storage for irreplaceable documents or photographs. If you have some irreplaceable or historical documents, trust and estate documents such as wills and Powers of Attorney or special family photographs, consider scanning them onto a disk and/or storing them in an accessible online electronic vault.

Record model and serial numbers for your big-ticket items. For insurance and property identification purposes, record the model and serial numbers for items such as your flat screen televisions, computer equipment, cameras, audio gear, musical instruments, or other valuable personal belongings. It is wise to photograph these items as well in order to prove possession and store the photos on disk and/or in an electronic vault so they can be easily retrieved.

Assemble a “crash kit.” Pack a small suitcase or duffel bag with items such as sensitive documents, your wallet, purse, ATM and credit cards that you will need to grab in an emergency in order to secure them AND have 24-hour access to cash or purchasing power if needed. Also have your house, office and car keys close at hand. They may well provide access to secondary shelter.

Have a survival kit ready to go. Pack a separate bag with flashlights (LEDs preferred for battery life), extra batteries, a portable radio, a sharp utility knife, toilet paper, several bottles of water and energy food bars, a couple of lighters or match books, a portable first aid kit, other supplies and (of great psychic value) a few pairs of socks and underwear. Remember that you may well have to travel fast and light so be selective.

Keep your cell phones charged and bring chargers with you in the event of evacuation.

Consider utilizing the available special notification and alert features offered by many banks, credit and debit card issuers that will notify you via email or text when an unusual transaction occurs in one of your accounts – this is a good practice regardless of disaster planning.

If You Are a Disaster Victim

Protect important information and documents. Whether you’re in a shelter, staying with friends or crashing on your family’s couch, never let the documents that can authenticate you leave your sight.

Be proactive and check your credit report by visiting AnualCreditReport.com. Consider adding an initial security alert to your credit report. For more information go to the websites of each of the three major credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian and Trans Union). Monitoring your credit scores regularly, using a free service like Credit.com’s Credit Report Card, can alert you to a problem if you have an unexpected drop.

Ask the post office to hold your mail until you return home. If it appears that you will be unable to return home for an extended period of time, you may even consider getting a post office box. This will keep thieves from finding sensitive materials that are left in your mailbox.

Store sensitive documents in an encrypted email account that you can access if needed.

When filing claims with insurance, if you did not do so before the disaster, ask if your policy provides identity theft assistance and what are the parameters of your coverage.

Check your credit card and bank accounts online daily. In the event you detect unauthorized or questionable activity, immediately contact the appropriate financial services provider.

In the Aftermath of a Disaster

Be alert to the fact that there are many unscrupulous people who will look to take advantage of a disaster. Be on guard for:

Fly-by-night contractors asking for advanced payments for board-up and/or repair work. Scam operators looking to obtain personal or financial information from you under the pretext of helping you or being “an official” from an emergency assistance agency – like FEMA, or an insurance adjuster, investigator, etc.

Thieves and looters roaming impacted neighborhoods.

Individuals soliciting funds door to door, in public areas, or via the Internet claiming to assist the victims.

While this information is helpful, it is not exhaustive. Furthermore, you can take every step outlined above and still be a victim because you will never really know where all your information has landed. That said, there is no substitute for preparation and remaining cautious and alert before, during and after a disaster.

U.S. Military Prepares for Global Unrest Amid Climate Fears

Op-Editorial piece featured on-line, written by Marlene Cimons of Climate Nexus for LiveScience, and brought to my attention by a reader who stated that "if the military is planning on contingencies missions for global warning chaos, surely they have to be planning contingencies for economic collapse, martial law, etc, etc." Well, James you are right about the military having contingency plans for about everything. These are called OPLANS. Doesn't mean the military wants to execute these plans, just being prepared.


Though Earth's shifting climate evokes many images, civil unrest usually isn't one of them. Yet, a warming planet could have a profound impact on national security, both in the United States and abroad. This time, the threat isn't from terrorism or a single enemy, but from natural disasters occurring on an unprecedented scale.

Acts of nature fueled by a warming climate — for example, floods and prolonged drought — may lead to disrupted migration, food and water shortages, and other public health crises — which, in turn, could prompt civil and political instability. Those impacts would pose a particularly profound threat for people in countries with fragile governments, including key U.S. strategic interests.

This threat has Pentagon officials worried enough to speak out and to invest in research to better understand the relationships among conflict, socioeconomic conditions and climate. The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) plans to use the data to predict future threats and develop ways to cope with them.

Under its highly selective Minerva social-science program, the DOD has awarded researchers at the University of Maryland a three-year, $1.9 million grant to develop models that will help policymakers anticipate what could happen to societies under a range of potential climate-change scenarios.

"It's likely that physical and economic disruptions resulting from climate change could heighten tensions in sensitive areas of the world," said Elisabeth Gilmore, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland's school of public policy and the study's lead researcher. "The environmental changes from climate change can have important effects on our well-being and security. We need to better understand these interactions."

Her team plans to use statistical models and case studies to identify the best predictors of climate-related conflict, and then use the data and a novel simulation method to generate forecasts of conflict over a range of socioeconomic and climate-change scenarios. Finally, the project will identify a range of military and policy interventions that could reduce the occurrence of climate-related civil conflict.

The Pentagon has been concerned about the national security implications of climate change for quite some time, and military officials have continued to speak out about them.

For example, Navy Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III, who leads the U.S. Pacific Command, repeatedly has warned of the national security dangers of climate change. In fact, earlier this year, he said global warming was "the most likely thing ... [to] cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about."

In 2007, CNA, a Pentagon-funded think tank that conducts in-depth research and analysis, released a report from a panel of retired senior military officers and national security experts who predicted that extreme weather events prompted by climate shifts could disrupt the U.S. way of life and cause already weak governments to fall, particularly in many Asian, African and Middle Eastern nations where marginal living standards already exist.

Moreover, the report warned that the United States may find itself drawn into these situations to help provide stability before conditions worsen, before they are exploited by extremists or after a conflict has begun. Even stable governments, like the United States' and those of nations in Europe, could be pressured to take in large numbers of immigrants and refugees as drought increases and food production dwindles in Latin America and Africa, the report added.

Some researchers have suggested that framing climate change as a threat to national security and public health, rather than to the environment, might make the issue more relevant and meaningful to many conservative Americans and others who tend to deny or dismiss it. But, surprisingly, recent research published in Climatic Change by Teresa Myers of George Mason University and her colleagues indicated that such seems to make those individuals angry.

The researchers weren't sure why this approach elicited an angry response, but they wonder whether the climate-change deniers resented an attempt to connect national security — an issue they care about — with climate change, an issue they tend to dismiss. Or, they may have been upset with the researchers for presenting claims about global warming and national security they did not think were authentic or credible.

Instead, perhaps the doubters should read the words of retired U.S. Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, chairman of CNA's military advisory board and the U.S. Army's former chief of staff. He seems to believe that enough scientific evidence of climate change's impact exists to be sobering — and that it deserves the U.S. government's attention.

"We seem to be standing by —and, frankly, asking — for perfectness in science,"' Sullivan wrote in the 2007 CNA report. "People are saying they want to be convinced, perfectly. They want to know the climate-science projections with 100 percent certainty. Well, we know a great deal, and even with that, there is still uncertainty. But the trend line is very clear. We never have 100 percent certainty. We never have it. If you wait until you have 100 percent certainty, something bad is going to happen on the battlefield. That's something we know. You have to act with incomplete information. You have to act based on the trend line. You have to act on your intuition sometimes."

Survival Ammo and Guns

I received this e-mail from a reader: "I am 63 year old man, widower, with my child and grandchildren living across the country, so I am pretty much by myself. I don't want to be anyone's patsy so I am getting somewhat ready for a real bad scenario where the society turns south. I live on a fixed budget but am pretty dang frugal and have stocked alot of food, mostly canned and dry goods. I'm a little short in the guns column having just a .357 magnum revolver, a 9mm handgun and a .30-06 hunting rifle. But for the life of me I can't find any ammunition. I'd like to get another rifle like an M-1A or AR-15,...I used both in Viet Nam,...but damn sure don't want to get a gun and have no ammunition for it. Do you think I absolutely need a military style rifle? Do you think the ammunition shortage will soon pass?"

UrbanMan replies:  There are indications that some ammunition supplies are coming back slowly.  I know several people that check daily if not twice daily on ammunition availability in a wide rnge of stores,..gun stores, chain sorting good stores and Wal-mart.  I say get ammo when and where you can - I would not wait for the deals.

Look for the on-line ammunition distributors such as Natchez Shooters Supply, Ammo-Man, Cheaper Than Dirt, Sportsmans Guide, even Cabelas. 

I hope you know that you can shoot .38 Special in your .357 magnum revolver.  If not, then add that to your list to look for as well.  If you can join a Civilian Marksmanship Program approved gun club, you can be a CMP member and order .30-06 ammunition directly from the CMP.  It may take 6 months or longer, but a case of ammunition being delivered by UPS one day is a nice suprise. 

Yes, I would obtain the excellent M1A1 or an AR platform if you can afford it.  You'll need more than just the gun.  A good supply of magazines - I would consider a dozen to be minimally sufficient.  Probably a magazine carrying method such as an assault vest or magazines pouches at least.  I would also consider a good 12 gauge pump shotgun as well   That would complete a good survival-SHTF-collapse battery of firearms in my mind.

Some people are creating innovative ways to track and find ammunition supplies.  One such site is Ammo-can.net  .  There is a new web application that is making finding local sources of ammo easier during the current ammo shortage.  The developer say's "Contrary to popular belief, many retailers are getting ammo shipments on a regular basis right now. It’s just that ammo is selling approximately 30-50 times faster than it was prior to December, so at any given time shelves are likely to be empty.

If you have a lot of time on your hands you can travel to your local Wal Mart or other retailer everyday and check their stock and hope you get lucky.  Ammo-can.net has near real time availability of ammo for most Wal Mart stores. It doesn’t look like the website is 100% perfect yet, but it does seem to work. According to the site, my local Wal Mart had limited stock of 9mm Winchester ammo. I went right down to the store and low and behold, there was a box of 9mm.

Note, you may have to hit the Force Check link to get the most accurate stock levels. After you run the Force Check you have to wait about one minute for the page to refresh. "

6 Facts that Foretell the Slide Into A Economic Collapse

Statistics from Kyle Becker on the Independent Journal Review, in an article titled "6 Economic Stats That Will Make You Wanna Cry." Copy and send these to your friends who do not think things are bad enough to have a SHTF plan. Or at least try and figure out how are you going to pay bills and buy food once the food crisis hits, government goes broke, hyper inflation sets in, and this country generally slides into the third world status that we seem to be heading for.

1. 101 Million Food Aid Recipients

"The number of Americans receiving subsidized food assistance from the federal government has risen to 101 million, representing roughly a third of the U.S. population.... That means the number of Americans receiving food assistance has surpassed the number of private sector workers in the U.S.." [CNS News, July 7th, 2013]

2. 54 Straight Months of 7.5% Unemployment or Above

"Since January 2009, when Barack Obama was inaugurated as president, the United States has seen 54 straight months with the unemployment rate at 7.5 percent or higher, which is the longest stretch of unemployment at or above that rate since 1948"... [CNS News, July 5th. 2013]

3. Long-Term Unemployment

"Of the 11.8 million jobless Americans in June, 4.3 million had been out of work six months or longer. There were 1 million fewer long-term jobless than last year, but their ranks remain way above the previous high-water mark of 2.8 million in 1983." [Huffington Post, July 5th, 2013]

4. Labor Participation Rate

"The number of people not in the labor force which in March soared by a massive 663,000 to a record 90 million Americans who are no longer even looking for work... And even worse, the labor force participation rate plunged from an already abysmal 63.5% to 63.3% - the lowest since 1979! [ZeroHedge, April 2013]

5. Disability Recipients

"The total number of people in the United States now receiving federal disability benefits hit a record 10,962,532 million in April, which exceeds the 10,815,197 people who live in the nation of Greece." [CNS News, May 2013]

6. Poverty Rate Skyrockets

Finally: "As the president began the first year of his second term, the U.S. poverty rate rose to a level not seen since the 1960s... The Census Bureau says that 50 million Americans, roughly one in six — almost 17% — are living below the poverty line... apparently 20% of the nation's children are living in poverty." [IBD, April 2013]

Bear Grylls on Survival Myths and Mistakes

Whenever the discussion about Bear Grylls comes up, people are heavily opinionated about him. I actually like his shows, but I remember it's still a show, however one could learn something from watching. While wilderness survival skills may be a secondary importance to building a survival team, stocking for SHTF and having a Bug Out plan, the benefit of such survival skills is that it can give you the confidence of being able to survive on your own with practically nothing, albeit the point of preparation is to ensure that never happens!

This is an article posted on a Yahoo travel site and also announces Grylls new television show.

Myth 1: One of the most common myths is that if your car breaks down in the desert, you should walk away and try to find help. That is not a good idea—people die because of it! Thinking it’s only a few miles to the nearest town, they’re found dead two or three miles from their car because they underestimated how brutal and tiring the desert can be.

Stay where you are, make yourself safe, and wait for rescue.

Myth 2: People think that because water is clear and free-running in a mountain stream, it’s fine to drink it. In actuality, you don’t know what’s in that stream. There could be a dead animal upriver!

Clear, clean-looking fresh water isn’t necessarily safe to drink. You should always boil water before you drink it to make sure you don’t get giardiasis, which can make you throw up or give you diarrhea. Clear water isn’t necessarily clean water, and beware of mountain streams.

Myth 3: Another common myth is that if you’re lost for any length of time, you’ve got to find food. That really isn’t true, and you can actually survive for weeks and weeks without it.

Your priorities should be finding shelter and water, especially since in most places you’ll be dead in three days without water. Eating food will also dehydrate you faster, so focus on getting water before food.

ROOKIE MISTAKES

I made my first rookie mistake was when I was about 8. I was with my dad in the mountains when a storm came down, and we thought, “Oh, we know the way back down the mountain, we’ll just head down.” But we couldn’t see where we were going and we ended up heading the wrong way.

We spent the whole night wandering around, absolutely exhausted, disoriented, and very cold.Finally, by good fortune, we stumbled across a little trail and eventually found a way back. The lesson there is if there’s a blizzard, don’t try and beat it. Concentrate on making yourself safe and getting out of the wind; find shelter however you can. It’s the same in a desert sandstorm. People push on in sandstorms thinking they can find a way out when in reality they’re never going to beat it and should focus on staying sheltered and safe.

One of the biggest mistakes I see is when people with egos write checks their bodies can’t cash. A classic example is when people get summit fever. They get close to a mountain and when they run out of time and energy, they push on even when the signs are saying they should turn back. They end up stuck in the mountain in the dark or dropping off the mountain the wrong way because they get too tired. Summit fever is a very dangerous problem; it kills people on mountains because they start breaking their own rules.

Often, people make a rookie mistake by going off on their own on what they think is a simple hike, and they don’t tell anyone where they’re going or when they’ll be back. Even a nice, easy hike can turn very ugly if you get lost or twist an ankle and no one knows you’re missing or where to look for you. No matter how modest the trek, tell people where you’re going and when you’re due back. That way, you know that there will be help coming if you don’t return.

(Photo: Paul Drinkwater/NBC)Another dangerous rookie mistake is when people underestimate how debilitating altitude and the effects of altitude sickness can be. Everything is worse and more extreme at high altitude; you’re fighting dehydration, altitude sickness, the cold, and the wind. An action that’s totally straightforward to perform at sea level can become impossible at high altitude. High up in the mountains I’ve seen people—myself included—reduced to crawling on their hands and knees along something you’d just run up at sea level. Survival and even simple actions become much harder at high altitudes.

Sometimes, though, you need to break your own rules and trust your instincts. A good adventurer knows when to do that and when not to. There have been times while we’ve been filming when it was right to push on through a storm, and then there have been times when it seemed right to follow a steep mountain ravine down a path and it actually turned out to be pretty precarious and dangerous.

You have to give yourself a large margin of error, at least in the wild. You’ve got to anticipate the worst, and consider that if you or someone else gets injured you need to be able to still carry out your decision. And take your time to make that decision, because the repercussions of your choices are ones that you’ll be living with for a long time.

Ultimately, though, the best way to learn survival methods comes from seeing and doing. And if you don’t want to go through the experience yourself, you can see rookies learn how to survive by trial and error and deal with the consequences of their mistakes by watching “Get Out Alive with Bear Grylls” on NBC, Monday nights at 9.

Not Prepared: 17 Signs That Most Americans Will Be Wiped Out By The Coming

From an article sent to me, written by Michael Synder, called - Not Prepared: 17 Signs That Most Americans Will Be Wiped Out By The Coming Economic Collapse

The vast majority of Americans are going to be absolutely blindsided by what is coming.  They don’t understand how our financial system works, they don’t understand how vulnerable it is, and most of them blindly trust that our leaders know exactly what they are doing and that they will be able to fix our problems. As a result, most Americans are simply not prepared for the massive storm that is heading our way.

Most American families are living paycheck to paycheck, most of them are not storing up emergency food and supplies, and only a very small percentage of them are buying gold and silver for investment purposes. They seem to have forgotten what happened back in 2008. When the financial markets crashed, millions of Americans lost their jobs. Because most of them were living on the financial edge, millions of them also lost their homes. Unfortunately, most Americans seem convinced that it will not happen again. Right now we seem to be living in a “hope bubble” and people have become very complacent.

For a while there, being a “prepper” was very trendy, but now concern about a coming economic crisis seems to have subsided. What a tragic mistake. As I pointed out yesterday, our entire financial system is a giant Ponzi scheme, and there are already signs that our financial markets are about to implode once again. Those that have not made any preparations for what is coming are going to regret it bitterly. The following are 17 signs that most Americans will be wiped out by the coming collapse…

#1 According to a survey that was just released, 76 percent of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. But most Americans are acting as if their jobs will always be there. But the truth is that mass layoffs can occur at any time. In fact, it just happened at one of the largest law firms in New York City.

#2 27 percent of all Americans do not have even a single penny saved up.

#3 46 percent of all Americans have $800 or less saved up.

#4 Less than one out of every four Americans has enough money stored away to cover six months of expenses.

#5 Wages continue to fall even as the cost of living continues to go up. Today, the average income for the bottom 90 percent of all income earners in America is just $31,244. An increasing percentage of American families are just trying to find a way to survive from month to month.

#6 62 percent of all middle class Americans say that they have had to reduce household spending over the past year.

#7 Small business is becoming an endangered species in America. In fact, only about 7 percent of all non-farm workers in the United States are self-employed at this point. That means that the vast majority of Americans are depending on someone else to provide them with an income. But what is going to happen as those jobs disappear?

#8 In 1989, the debt to income ratio of the average American family was about 58 percent. Today it is up to 154 percent.

#9 Today, a higher percentage of Americans are dependent on the government than ever before. In fact, according to the U.S. Census Bureau 49 percent of all Americans live in a home that gets direct monetary benefits from the federal government. So what is going to happen when the government handout gravy train comes to an end?

#10 Back in the 1970s, about one out of every 50 Americans was on food stamps. Today, about one out of every 6.5 Americans is on food stamps.  UrbanMan's note:  I believe this figure is actually 1 in 5 Americans.

#11 It is estimated that less than 10 percent of the U.S. population owns any gold or silver for investment purposes.

#12 It has been estimated that there are approximately 3 million “preppers” in the United States. But that means that almost everyone else is not prepping.

#13 44 percent of all Americans do not have first-aid kits in their houses.

#14 48 percent of all Americans do not have any emergency supplies stored up.

#15 53 percent of all Americans do not have a 3 day supply of nonperishable food and water in their homes.

#16 One survey asked Americans how long they thought they would survive if the electrical grid went down for an extended period of time. Incredibly, 21 percent said that they would survive for less than a week, an additional 28 percent said that they would survive for less than two weeks, and nearly 75 percent said that they would be dead before the two month mark.

#17 According to a survey conducted by the Adelphi University Center for Health Innovation, 55 percent of Americans believe that the government will come to their rescue when disaster strikes.

Just because you are living a comfortable middle class lifestyle today does not mean that it will always be that way. If you doubt this, take a look at what is going on in Greece. Many formerly middle class parents in Greece have become so impoverished that they are actually dumping their children at orphanages so that they won’t starve…

Scores of children have been put in orphanages and care homes for economic reasons; one charity said 80 of the 100 children in its residential centres were there because their families can no longer provide for them.

Ten percent of Greek children are said to be at risk of hunger. Teachers talk of cancelling PE lessons because children are underfed and of seeing pupils pick through bins for food.

If the U.S. economy crashes and you lose your job, how will you and your family survive?UrbanMan's note:  Many Military Civilian worker are asking themselves this same question as sequestration has reduced their hours and pay 20%,  Next Government fiscal year is supposed to be worse.

Will you and your family end up homeless and totally dependent on the government for your survival?

Get prepared while there is still time. If you do not know how to get prepared, my article entitled “25 Things That You Should Do To Get Prepared For The Coming Economic Collapse” has some basic tips, and there are dozens of excellent websites out there that teach people advanced prepping techniques for free. So there is no excuse. You can trust that Ben Bernanke and Barack Obama have everything under control, but as for me and my family we are going to prepare for the giant economic storm that is coming.

I hope that you will be getting prepared too.

UrbanMan's note:  If you are reading my site and others, then you are probably not in this group of Americans ill prepared for any emergency.  But nonetheless, this article coulds serve  to motivate you just a little further.