E-mail received recently: "I am concerned about the humongous ammunition purchase by the Government (non-military). I saw reports about how much ammunition they use a year and the figures did not add up. If they use 15 million rounds in one year, it would take over 100 years to use the 1.6 billion rounds they are buying. What are you thoughts as to the Government preparing for a crackdown? I have also read reports of tractor-trailer trucks transporting loads of signs that read 'Martial Law in Effect". All this is stunning and scary news. Interested in what you have to say."
UrbanMan's comments: First of all, I have seen nothing of Martial Law signage. Sounds like an internet legend to me unless there are some verifiable sources. Second of all, the Government does have some plans for internal civil operations to quell disturbances and react to terrorist attacks, just like they have contingency plans to invade about every country of the face of the earth. This is what they do,...create "what if" plans. And it is concerning that it seems like the government has taken the stand that it is okay to kill American citizens outside and inside of this country using drones or other means. But I don't think the large ammuniton purchase is in preparation for civil war or whatever.
Here is an the report from Fox News about the large ammunition purchase by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS):
The Homeland Security Department wants to buy more than 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition in the next four or five years. It says it needs them -- roughly the equivalent of five bullets for every person in the United States -- for law enforcement agents in training and on duty.
Published federal notices about the ammo buy have agitated conspiracy theorists since the fall. That's when conservative radio host Alex Jones spoke of an "arms race against the American people" and said the government was "gearing up for total collapse, they're gearing up for huge wars."
The government's explanation is much less sinister.
Federal solicitations to buy the bullets are known as "strategic sourcing contracts," which help the government get a low price for a big purchase, says Peggy Dixon, spokeswoman for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Ga . The training center and others like it run by the Homeland Security Department use as many as 15 million rounds every year, mostly on shooting ranges and in training exercises.
Dixon said one of the contracts would allow Homeland Security to buy up to 750 million rounds of ammunition over the next five years for its training facilities. The rounds are used for basic and advanced law enforcement training for federal law enforcement agencies under the department's umbrella. The facilities also offer firearms training to tens of thousands of federal law enforcement officers. More than 90 federal agencies and 70,000 agents and officers used the department's training center last year.
The rest of the 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition would be purchased by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal government's second largest criminal investigative agency.
ICE's ammunition requests in the last year included:
- 450 million rounds of .40-caliber duty ammunition
- 40 million rounds of rifle ammunition a year for as many as five years, for a total bullet-buy of 200 million rounds
- 176,000 rifle rounds on a separate contract
- 25,000 blank rounds
The Homeland Security ammo buy is not the first time the government's bullets purchases have sparked concerns on the Internet. The same thing happened last year when the Social Security Administration posted a notice that it was buying 174,000 hollow point bullets.
Jonathan L. Lasher, the agency's assistant inspector general for external relations, said those bullets were for the Social Security inspector general's office, which has about 295 agents who investigate Social Security fraud and other crimes.
UrbanMan again: A friend of mine in one of the largest federal law enforcement agencys told me that if everyone agent/officer shot every firearms qualification (very unlikely), and received their maximum ammunition allocation, that they would expend 12 million rounds a year. This is not counting the academy training, nor the high levels of ammuntion expended by their tactical units. This is only one agency so the 15 million rounds a year is extremely low counting all the federal law enforcment agencies.
While I don't think the government is planning on a need for this ammunition in the streets of America, a secondary effect of such a large ammunition buy may just result in much less ammunition so the preppers can get any. The shrill cry for draconian gun control also had an effect in ammunition stocks in gun stores, sporting goods stores and on-line sources becoming scare.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Monday, February 25, 2013
Potential Devastating Solar Super Storm
A solar 'superstorm' is coming and we'll only get 30-minute warning,...they cause devastation, occur every 150 years, and the last one was in 1859. This is an article by Steve Connor on the Independent.co.uk news and science site.
A solar "superstorm" could knock out Earth's communications satellites, cause dangerous power surges in the national grid and disrupt crucial navigation aids and aircraft avionics, a major report has found. It is inevitable that an extreme solar storm – caused by the Sun ejecting billions of tonnes of highly-energetic matter travelling at a million miles an hour – will hit the Earth at some time in the near future, but it is impossible to predict more than about 30 minutes before it actually happens, a team of engineers has warned.
Solar superstorms are estimated to occur once every 100 or 200 years, with the last one hitting the Earth in 1859. Although none has occurred in the space age, we are far more vulnerable now than a century ago because of the ubiquity of modern electronics, they said. "The general consensus is that a solar superstorm is inevitable, a matter not of 'if' but 'when?'," says a report into extreme space weather by a group of experts at the Royal Academy of Engineering in London.
In the past half century, there have been a number of "near misses" when an explosive "coronal mass ejection" of energetic matter from the Sun has been flung into space, narrowly bypassing the Earth. In 1989 a relatively minor solar storm knocked out several key electrical transformers in the Canadian national grid, causing major power blackouts.
Similar solar storms significantly increased atmospheric radiation levels in 1956, 1972, 1989 and 2003, the experts found. Professor Paul Cannon, who chaired the academy's working group on solar storms, said that the Government should set up a space weather board to oversee measures aimed at minimising the impact of solar storms. "A solar superstorm will be a challenge but not cataclysmic. The two challenges for government are the wide spectrum of technologies affected today and the emergence of unexpected vulnerabilities as technology evolves," he said. "Our message is, 'Don't panic, but do prepare'. A solar superstorm will happen one day and we need to be ready for it. "Many steps have already been taken to minimise the impact of solar storms on current technology… We anticipate that the UK can further minimise the impact," he added.
Minor solar storms hit the Earth on a regular basis, but these are far less powerful than the 1859 event named after the British astronomer Richard Carrington, which was the last true solar superstorm. A similar event today would put severe strain the electricity grid, where transformers are particular vulnerable to power surges, as well as degrading the performance of satellites, GPS navigation, aviation and possibly the mobile phone network, particularly the new 4G network, which relies on GPS satellites for timing information. "Satellites are certainly in the front line of a superstorm. They are part of our infrastructure and we have concerns about their survival in a solar superstorm," said Keith Ryden, a space engineer at Surrey University.
A solar "superstorm" could knock out Earth's communications satellites, cause dangerous power surges in the national grid and disrupt crucial navigation aids and aircraft avionics, a major report has found. It is inevitable that an extreme solar storm – caused by the Sun ejecting billions of tonnes of highly-energetic matter travelling at a million miles an hour – will hit the Earth at some time in the near future, but it is impossible to predict more than about 30 minutes before it actually happens, a team of engineers has warned.
Solar superstorms are estimated to occur once every 100 or 200 years, with the last one hitting the Earth in 1859. Although none has occurred in the space age, we are far more vulnerable now than a century ago because of the ubiquity of modern electronics, they said. "The general consensus is that a solar superstorm is inevitable, a matter not of 'if' but 'when?'," says a report into extreme space weather by a group of experts at the Royal Academy of Engineering in London.
In the past half century, there have been a number of "near misses" when an explosive "coronal mass ejection" of energetic matter from the Sun has been flung into space, narrowly bypassing the Earth. In 1989 a relatively minor solar storm knocked out several key electrical transformers in the Canadian national grid, causing major power blackouts.
Similar solar storms significantly increased atmospheric radiation levels in 1956, 1972, 1989 and 2003, the experts found. Professor Paul Cannon, who chaired the academy's working group on solar storms, said that the Government should set up a space weather board to oversee measures aimed at minimising the impact of solar storms. "A solar superstorm will be a challenge but not cataclysmic. The two challenges for government are the wide spectrum of technologies affected today and the emergence of unexpected vulnerabilities as technology evolves," he said. "Our message is, 'Don't panic, but do prepare'. A solar superstorm will happen one day and we need to be ready for it. "Many steps have already been taken to minimise the impact of solar storms on current technology… We anticipate that the UK can further minimise the impact," he added.
Minor solar storms hit the Earth on a regular basis, but these are far less powerful than the 1859 event named after the British astronomer Richard Carrington, which was the last true solar superstorm. A similar event today would put severe strain the electricity grid, where transformers are particular vulnerable to power surges, as well as degrading the performance of satellites, GPS navigation, aviation and possibly the mobile phone network, particularly the new 4G network, which relies on GPS satellites for timing information. "Satellites are certainly in the front line of a superstorm. They are part of our infrastructure and we have concerns about their survival in a solar superstorm," said Keith Ryden, a space engineer at Surrey University.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
The Economic Impact of a War Between Japan & China
Global economists are keeping their eyes glued to the Asia-Pacific region, where a bitter feud is brewing between two of the world’s most powerful nations over a small collectivity of islands in the East China Sea. The Chinese government argues that a treaty signed during the first Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) conferred ownership of the islands to China. Japan has long disputed these claims, and today argues that the islands are integral to its national identity.
The argument came to a head last September, when a boycott of Japanese products led Chinese demonstrators to target fellow citizens who owned Japanese cars. Three months later, the situation escalated when when Japanese jets confronted a Chinese plane flying over the islands; no shots were fired, but the act of antagonism has set a troubling precedent between the military forces of both nations.
The conflict between China and Japan has put the United States in a precarious position: if a full-scale war were to erupt, the U.S. would be forced to choose between a long-time ally (Japan) and its largest economic lender (China). Last year, China’s holdings in U.S. securities reached $1.73 trillion and goods exported from the U.S. to China exceeded $100 billion. The two countries also share strong economic ties due to the large number of American companies that outsource jobs to China.
However, the U.S. government may be legally obligated to defend Japan. In November, the U.S. Senate added an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that officially recognizes Japan’s claims to the disputed islands; the U.S. and Japan are also committed to a mutual defense treaty that requires either country to step in and defend the other when international disputes occur. Not honoring this treaty could very easily tarnish America’s diplomatic image.
The countries of the Asia-Pacific region are collectively responsible for 55 percent of the global GDP and 44 percent of the world’s trade. A major conflict between the region’s two largest economies would not only impose a harsh dilemma on U.S. diplomats, but also have a significant impact on the entire global economy. It is in every nation’s best interest that the Chinese and Japanese settle their territorial dispute peacefully.
You can also go to the On Line MBA article and read or download the transcript from the video below.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
The Horrifying Collapse of America Predicted
Chris Hedges saying "Brace yourself,...the American Empire is Over and the Descent is going to be Horrifying". Mr Hedges paints a terrible picture on the decline of America, why it is happening and how it is irreversible. While some of Hedges says I personally disagree with, it is really irreflutable that debt, corruption, over burdening and heavy handed government and simply incompetence has doomed this country.
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Why Survivalist's Should Buy Silver
This is a good common sense and straight forward article on why you should have silver in your Survival "portfolio", along with foods, gear, firearms and ammunition, and of course, a PLAN. This is from GE Christenson, aka the Deviant Investor. Preppers should consider bookmarking his site and refer back to it from time to time or subsribe to e-mail updates as I will.
Why Buy Silver?
• Silver has no counter-party risk. It is not someone else’s liability. Silver Eagles or Canadian Silver Maple Leaf coins are recognized around the world and have intrinsic value everywhere. The same is NOT true for hundreds of paper currencies that have become worthless, usually because the government or central bank printed them to excess to pay the debts of governments that did not control spending.
• The price of silver in US dollars since the year 2001 has been strongly correlated with the ever-increasing official national debt of the United States. Read $100 Silver! Yes, But When? I doubt that anyone believes the national debt will decrease or even remain constant over the next four years. We have every reason to believe that it will increase by well over $1,000,000,000,000 per year for many years. If the national debt is rapidly increasing and it correlates, on average, with the price of silver, then we can be reasonably certain that the HIGHLY VOLATILE price of silver will increase substantially over the next few years.
• Silver has been used as money (medium of exchange and a store of value) for over 3,000 years. In most cultures, silver has been used for daily transactions far more often than gold. I have read that the word for “money” is the same as the word for “silver” in many languages.
• In the United States silver was used as money – coins – until the 1960s when inflation in the paper money supply caused the price of silver to rise sufficiently that silver coins were removed from circulation. Do you remember silver dollars? They contained approximately 0.77 ounces of silver. Currently the US Mint produces silver eagles which contain 1.0 ounce of silver – and cost approximately $35.
• Argentina has devalued their currency several times and has dropped eight zeros off their unbacked paper money in the past 30 years. The United States has not dropped any zeros from dollars, but it took approximately one-half of one dollar to buy an ounce of silver 100 years ago, while it takes over 30 in today’s reduced value dollars. It took about 20 dollars to buy an ounce of gold 100 years ago and it takes over 1,600 dollars to buy that same ounce of gold today. There are many more dollars (paper and electronic) in circulation today compared to 100 years ago. Hence the prices, measured in declining value dollars, for silver, gold, wheat, crude oil, bread, coffee, and ammunition is MUCH larger.
• Throughout history the prices of gold and silver have increased and decreased together, usually with gold costing 10 to 20 times as much as silver. A historical ratio of 15 or 16 is often quoted and that places the current ratio, which is in excess of 50, as relatively high. Since Nixon “closed the gold window” on August 15, 1971 and allowed the dollar to become an unbacked paper currency that could be created in nearly unlimited quantities, the gold to silver ratio has ranged from a high of approximately 100 to a low of approximately 17. There is room for silver prices to explode higher, narrowing the ratio to perhaps 20 to 1. When gold reaches $3,500 (Jim Sinclair) and subsequently much higher in the next few years, and assuming the ratio drops to approximately 20 to 1, the price of silver could approach $200 per ounce, on its way to a much higher number, depending on the extent of the QE-Infinity “money printing,” panic, hyperinflation, and investor demand.
• If you think a silver price of $200 per ounce is outrageous, I suspect you would find near universal agreement among most Americans. But is a national debt in excess of $16,000,000,000,000 less outrageous? If unfunded liabilities are included the “fiscal gap” is, depending on who is calculating it, approximately $100,000,000,000,000 to $220,000,000,000,000. For perspective, that places the unfunded liabilities of the US government at approximately $700,000 per person in the United States. Is $700,000 unfunded liability (debt) per man, woman, and child more believable than a price for silver of $200?
It seems likely that the populace will eventually realize that:
• Government spending is out of control and will not be voluntarily reduced.
• “Printing money” or debt monetization (QE) is necessary and inevitable in order to continue funding the excess spending of the US government. More money in circulation means a declining purchasing power for the dollar. The decline is likely to accelerate at some time in the future.
• The real value of our savings and retirement diminishes as the dollar declines in value.
• People will panic and shift into real assets to preserve their purchasing power. (There is no fever like gold fever!)
• That panic will cause gold, silver, and many other real assets to drastically increase in price, as measured in devalued dollars.
• It is better to be early than late if a panic-moment is about to arrive.
• Silver is less expensive per ounce than gold and more available for purchase than gold, particularly for middle-class westerners. An investment into silver is likely to appreciate more than a similar investment in gold.
What Do You Believe?
• Do you believe that excessive spending and debt will be reduced?
• Do you believe that the decline in purchasing power of the dollar over the last 100 years will suddenly reverse?
• Do you believe that congressional promises for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and government pensions will be broken?
• Do you believe the Federal Reserve will continue to print the money to pay for those promises?
• Do you believe your savings and retirement are totally safe in paper investments denominated in dollars?
• Do you believe, as history indicates, that paper money eventually devalues to zero while gold and silver retain their value?
• Do you believe that the world will suddenly stop using silver, instead of finding new uses for it every year?
Would you rather trust silver coins in a safe place or paper money and political promises? Most people will do nothing to protect their financial future.
Why Buy Silver?
• Silver has no counter-party risk. It is not someone else’s liability. Silver Eagles or Canadian Silver Maple Leaf coins are recognized around the world and have intrinsic value everywhere. The same is NOT true for hundreds of paper currencies that have become worthless, usually because the government or central bank printed them to excess to pay the debts of governments that did not control spending.
• The price of silver in US dollars since the year 2001 has been strongly correlated with the ever-increasing official national debt of the United States. Read $100 Silver! Yes, But When? I doubt that anyone believes the national debt will decrease or even remain constant over the next four years. We have every reason to believe that it will increase by well over $1,000,000,000,000 per year for many years. If the national debt is rapidly increasing and it correlates, on average, with the price of silver, then we can be reasonably certain that the HIGHLY VOLATILE price of silver will increase substantially over the next few years.
• Silver has been used as money (medium of exchange and a store of value) for over 3,000 years. In most cultures, silver has been used for daily transactions far more often than gold. I have read that the word for “money” is the same as the word for “silver” in many languages.
• In the United States silver was used as money – coins – until the 1960s when inflation in the paper money supply caused the price of silver to rise sufficiently that silver coins were removed from circulation. Do you remember silver dollars? They contained approximately 0.77 ounces of silver. Currently the US Mint produces silver eagles which contain 1.0 ounce of silver – and cost approximately $35.
• Argentina has devalued their currency several times and has dropped eight zeros off their unbacked paper money in the past 30 years. The United States has not dropped any zeros from dollars, but it took approximately one-half of one dollar to buy an ounce of silver 100 years ago, while it takes over 30 in today’s reduced value dollars. It took about 20 dollars to buy an ounce of gold 100 years ago and it takes over 1,600 dollars to buy that same ounce of gold today. There are many more dollars (paper and electronic) in circulation today compared to 100 years ago. Hence the prices, measured in declining value dollars, for silver, gold, wheat, crude oil, bread, coffee, and ammunition is MUCH larger.
• Throughout history the prices of gold and silver have increased and decreased together, usually with gold costing 10 to 20 times as much as silver. A historical ratio of 15 or 16 is often quoted and that places the current ratio, which is in excess of 50, as relatively high. Since Nixon “closed the gold window” on August 15, 1971 and allowed the dollar to become an unbacked paper currency that could be created in nearly unlimited quantities, the gold to silver ratio has ranged from a high of approximately 100 to a low of approximately 17. There is room for silver prices to explode higher, narrowing the ratio to perhaps 20 to 1. When gold reaches $3,500 (Jim Sinclair) and subsequently much higher in the next few years, and assuming the ratio drops to approximately 20 to 1, the price of silver could approach $200 per ounce, on its way to a much higher number, depending on the extent of the QE-Infinity “money printing,” panic, hyperinflation, and investor demand.
• If you think a silver price of $200 per ounce is outrageous, I suspect you would find near universal agreement among most Americans. But is a national debt in excess of $16,000,000,000,000 less outrageous? If unfunded liabilities are included the “fiscal gap” is, depending on who is calculating it, approximately $100,000,000,000,000 to $220,000,000,000,000. For perspective, that places the unfunded liabilities of the US government at approximately $700,000 per person in the United States. Is $700,000 unfunded liability (debt) per man, woman, and child more believable than a price for silver of $200?
It seems likely that the populace will eventually realize that:
• Government spending is out of control and will not be voluntarily reduced.
• “Printing money” or debt monetization (QE) is necessary and inevitable in order to continue funding the excess spending of the US government. More money in circulation means a declining purchasing power for the dollar. The decline is likely to accelerate at some time in the future.
• The real value of our savings and retirement diminishes as the dollar declines in value.
• People will panic and shift into real assets to preserve their purchasing power. (There is no fever like gold fever!)
• That panic will cause gold, silver, and many other real assets to drastically increase in price, as measured in devalued dollars.
• It is better to be early than late if a panic-moment is about to arrive.
• Silver is less expensive per ounce than gold and more available for purchase than gold, particularly for middle-class westerners. An investment into silver is likely to appreciate more than a similar investment in gold.
What Do You Believe?
• Do you believe that excessive spending and debt will be reduced?
• Do you believe that the decline in purchasing power of the dollar over the last 100 years will suddenly reverse?
• Do you believe that congressional promises for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and government pensions will be broken?
• Do you believe the Federal Reserve will continue to print the money to pay for those promises?
• Do you believe your savings and retirement are totally safe in paper investments denominated in dollars?
• Do you believe, as history indicates, that paper money eventually devalues to zero while gold and silver retain their value?
• Do you believe that the world will suddenly stop using silver, instead of finding new uses for it every year?
Would you rather trust silver coins in a safe place or paper money and political promises? Most people will do nothing to protect their financial future.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
SHTF and Chaos Just A Little Bit Closer
This week is no different that the last 52 finding the world in turmoil, perhaps just a bit more as the U.S. Economy continues to degrade and all of us are just a little closer to a Economic Collapse than ever before.
Greater chances of a multi-nation war in the Middle East closing off as much as 25% of our oil imports. Israel crossed in Syrian air space to attack Syrian troops. Syrian rebels, backed in part by Al Qaida, took the side of th Syrian government who has been massacring them. When, not if, but when the Syrian rebels succeed in driving Assad from power, Israel will have a much more hateful enemy on their northern border.
Prior to the attack Iran stated that any attack on Assad and Syria is an attack on Iran. It doesn't matter that Iran did nothing yet in retaliation for the Israeli strike, this makes Iran much more likely to plunge the Middle East and some of our oil imports into chaos with terrorist and/or nuclear strikes on Israel. Add in the Syrian chemical weapons threat and the situation is dire.
North Korea and Kim "Baby Face" Jong-un are planning another nuclear test. China is bashing about Japan and threatening conflict over a series of islands in the South China Sea. A shooting war here, even short lived, could be a global economic collapse trigger.
Then you have the situation in the United States,.......
2012 4th Quarter Gross Domestic Product data showed that the economy slowed or contracted to 0.1% growth. Furthermore, the previous 3rd Quarter growth was adjusted to 1.5%. It is very troublesome that multiple sessions of money printing, called Quantitative easing, has failed to stimulate any growth. Exports and consumer confidence are way down as well. Discretionary spending cuts of over $1 Trillion due to the "sequestration" and the large tax burden being placed on the people courtesy of obamacare with a 10%+ health insurance premium hikes all spend doom and gloom for the future. Not the far off future, "let's kick the can down the road aways" future, but the very near future.
This past years drought, adding to the recent agricultural woes combined with the predictions of continued drought and poor harvests add to the concerns over very high food prices and diminished availability. Many are expecting food riots, especially if Federal entitlement cuts reduce food stamp and welfare output.
And then the threat of internal turmoil, to what extent nobody really can even guess. But on the smaller scope, the factors of (probable) sociology-ethnic trouble over the Supreme Court soon reviewing Obama's birth certificate and social security card for authenticity makes upheaval in major cities,....Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, St Louis and others seem like a distinct possibility. The socialist bent threats or plans to enact some sort of weapons ban or even confiscation bring a dire future into focus.
Lastly, if Congress doesn't pass a budget, the Pentagon will have to absorb $46 Billion in spending restrictions for this fiscal year. Overall, the military will furlough 800,000 civilian workers for up to 22 days each throughout the rest of the FY, and, lay off 46,000 temporary and contract employees. Secretary of Defense Panetta said, "These steps would seriously damage the fragile American economy,......". Imagine what the sequestration will do if the Military has to reduce forces putting tens of thousands of service members out on the street?
Greater chances of a multi-nation war in the Middle East closing off as much as 25% of our oil imports. Israel crossed in Syrian air space to attack Syrian troops. Syrian rebels, backed in part by Al Qaida, took the side of th Syrian government who has been massacring them. When, not if, but when the Syrian rebels succeed in driving Assad from power, Israel will have a much more hateful enemy on their northern border.
Prior to the attack Iran stated that any attack on Assad and Syria is an attack on Iran. It doesn't matter that Iran did nothing yet in retaliation for the Israeli strike, this makes Iran much more likely to plunge the Middle East and some of our oil imports into chaos with terrorist and/or nuclear strikes on Israel. Add in the Syrian chemical weapons threat and the situation is dire.
North Korea and Kim "Baby Face" Jong-un are planning another nuclear test. China is bashing about Japan and threatening conflict over a series of islands in the South China Sea. A shooting war here, even short lived, could be a global economic collapse trigger.
Then you have the situation in the United States,.......
2012 4th Quarter Gross Domestic Product data showed that the economy slowed or contracted to 0.1% growth. Furthermore, the previous 3rd Quarter growth was adjusted to 1.5%. It is very troublesome that multiple sessions of money printing, called Quantitative easing, has failed to stimulate any growth. Exports and consumer confidence are way down as well. Discretionary spending cuts of over $1 Trillion due to the "sequestration" and the large tax burden being placed on the people courtesy of obamacare with a 10%+ health insurance premium hikes all spend doom and gloom for the future. Not the far off future, "let's kick the can down the road aways" future, but the very near future.
This past years drought, adding to the recent agricultural woes combined with the predictions of continued drought and poor harvests add to the concerns over very high food prices and diminished availability. Many are expecting food riots, especially if Federal entitlement cuts reduce food stamp and welfare output.
And then the threat of internal turmoil, to what extent nobody really can even guess. But on the smaller scope, the factors of (probable) sociology-ethnic trouble over the Supreme Court soon reviewing Obama's birth certificate and social security card for authenticity makes upheaval in major cities,....Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, St Louis and others seem like a distinct possibility. The socialist bent threats or plans to enact some sort of weapons ban or even confiscation bring a dire future into focus.
Lastly, if Congress doesn't pass a budget, the Pentagon will have to absorb $46 Billion in spending restrictions for this fiscal year. Overall, the military will furlough 800,000 civilian workers for up to 22 days each throughout the rest of the FY, and, lay off 46,000 temporary and contract employees. Secretary of Defense Panetta said, "These steps would seriously damage the fragile American economy,......". Imagine what the sequestration will do if the Military has to reduce forces putting tens of thousands of service members out on the street?
Monday, February 11, 2013
Enhanced 5.56mm Round?
UrbanSurvivalSkills received an e-mail from Hank asking if we had any information on the military replacing the M855 5.56x45mm standard issue round? Hank said he did not know what the name (designation) would be but had heard that this new round was much more powerful and accurate than the older cartridge currently in service.
UrbanMan Replies: Okay Hank, I pinged several old friends of mine and this is what they tell me:
There is a new round and it is called the M855 Enhanced Performance Round (EPR). I had not previously heard about it and my sources have not seen it, have not shot it, nor been issued it, but have heard about it.
Apparently it is a hotter round, well over 3,000 feet per second muzzle velocity, which also means the chamber pressures will be greater and the barrels will burn out faster. And just because a round is faster, it does not mean it is more accurate - in fact, when pushing the velocity issue and increasing chamber pressures, usually the accuracy suffers.
The accuracy claim may simply be a (surmised) enhanced hit probability at the longest ranges due to the higher velocity. But again, more than velocity factors in accuracy,....bullet weight, bullet design, rifling and rate of twist in the barrel, and several more factors are involved.
This new EPR round is supposed to be able to penetrate 3/8ths inch of steel at 400 meters. I am told that Special Operations will not be using this new round, but continues to use the old M855 62 grain (SS109) and a newer round called the SOST (for Special Operations Science and Technology) or sometimes called the OTMRP (for Open Tip Match Rear Penetrator) and goes by the Navy designation Mk318 MOD 0.
These new 5.56mm rounds are all designed and built at least partially due to widely believed and reported poor performance of M855 62 grain in soft tissue. Soldiers and Marines shooting skinnies with the M855 62 grain round would often experience over penetration meaning alot of the buller energy was leaving the target. Sometimes this is called an ice pick type of wound. And as you'll remember, stopping power is based somewhat on how much energy of the bullet strike stays in the target.
Rather than going to a different caliber, such as the excellent 6.8mm SPC, the military decided to minimze costs of re-barelling, new magazines, etc. and attempted to make a better round given the parameters of the 5.56 x 45mm cartridge.
For my 5.56mm (.223) guns, I'm happy with the variation of ammunition I have available for them. There are things more important than the bullet configuration or weight such as a person's ability with the firearm.
UrbanMan Replies: Okay Hank, I pinged several old friends of mine and this is what they tell me:
There is a new round and it is called the M855 Enhanced Performance Round (EPR). I had not previously heard about it and my sources have not seen it, have not shot it, nor been issued it, but have heard about it.
Apparently it is a hotter round, well over 3,000 feet per second muzzle velocity, which also means the chamber pressures will be greater and the barrels will burn out faster. And just because a round is faster, it does not mean it is more accurate - in fact, when pushing the velocity issue and increasing chamber pressures, usually the accuracy suffers.
The accuracy claim may simply be a (surmised) enhanced hit probability at the longest ranges due to the higher velocity. But again, more than velocity factors in accuracy,....bullet weight, bullet design, rifling and rate of twist in the barrel, and several more factors are involved.
This new EPR round is supposed to be able to penetrate 3/8ths inch of steel at 400 meters. I am told that Special Operations will not be using this new round, but continues to use the old M855 62 grain (SS109) and a newer round called the SOST (for Special Operations Science and Technology) or sometimes called the OTMRP (for Open Tip Match Rear Penetrator) and goes by the Navy designation Mk318 MOD 0.
These new 5.56mm rounds are all designed and built at least partially due to widely believed and reported poor performance of M855 62 grain in soft tissue. Soldiers and Marines shooting skinnies with the M855 62 grain round would often experience over penetration meaning alot of the buller energy was leaving the target. Sometimes this is called an ice pick type of wound. And as you'll remember, stopping power is based somewhat on how much energy of the bullet strike stays in the target.
Rather than going to a different caliber, such as the excellent 6.8mm SPC, the military decided to minimze costs of re-barelling, new magazines, etc. and attempted to make a better round given the parameters of the 5.56 x 45mm cartridge.
For my 5.56mm (.223) guns, I'm happy with the variation of ammunition I have available for them. There are things more important than the bullet configuration or weight such as a person's ability with the firearm.
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Second American Civil War
This article, titled "Second American Civil War" came from a site called Crime File News and was sent to me for comment. I'll let this article stand until the end, then I will make my comments.
How the Impending Second American Civil War Will Play Out:
During the Clinton Administration tyranny came in the form of the 1994 ban on new sales and manufacturing of certain common firearms. They did not try and outlaw or confiscate the ones already possessed by Americans.
Soon there were two serious incidents of violent resistance. There was the Waco Branch Davidians standoff and massacre followed by the bombing of the Oklahoma Federal Building. The anger of millions of Americans boiled over they as removed an unprecedented Leftist members from Congress in the midterm elections.
Under the Obama Administration not only are the Leftists desperately trying to establish a far more restrictive gun ban they are now poised to seize the 401 K retirement accounts of millions of hard working Americans to prop up the Ponzi Scheme we call Social Security. Many Americans would consider this an act of war, at least the ones that have set aside savings for retirement.
The National Defense Authorization Act was obviously created to use against any Americans that disagree with the Obama Administration. When Conservative Americans begin to disappear it won’t come without serious retaliation.
Today’s America has never been so deeply divided. Instead of state borders, Americans are divided by the boundaries of the larger urban areas. The large Leftwing inner city urban areas are nearly all completely surrounded by Constitution loving Conservatives. Should a massive insurrection break out the large concentrated urban areas would be crushed in a hurry.
The inner-city entitlement addicted people have no self-reliance skills, internal food, and water or fuel sources. They are tightly concentrated in geographic areas. During an insurrection they’d soon be fighting among themselves for survival.
The suburban folks are somewhat more self-sufficient, and likely to have survival staples. They will be able to trap or shoot small game when normal food supplies are interrupted. The will also get support from others away from the cities.
Next we have the rural areas that are solidly self-sufficient and politically Conservative. They control nearly all of the nations food, fuel and water. Starving off the urban areas would be very easy. Additionally millions of well-trained military veterans live in these politically conservative areas. Needless to say there are no shortages of arms and bomb making resources throughout the vast areas of rural America. The population there has the skills and discipline to use them.
The federal government would watch the loyalty of the alphabet police and the military to the Obama Administration become seriously strained. Adolph Hitler insured loyalty by letting his upper echelon SS members keep a great deal of the spoils of their conquests. Will American law enforcement and military allow themselves to be similarly corrupted? Certainly some will.
Right now all over America, churches, VFW halls along with American Legion Halls are loaded with veterans and concerned Conservatives. Many of them have been quietly making contingent civil war plans.
Conservatives have stockpiled millions of weapons and billions of rounds of ammunition over the last four years. They can be counted upon to already have solid plans in place to disrupt federal government operations, the courts and wipe out any collaborating alphabet police.
State and local police will begin picking sides. This scenario would bring the greatest bloodbath this continent has ever seen. The large urban areas would fall hard along with their starving entitlement zombies.
Even with all of the technology it will be impossible for the urban areas to inflict significant damage to vast rural areas especially without food, water, arms and fuel.
The inner-city people have some handguns. The people in the rural areas have those too but they’re backed up with millions of rifles and shotguns. The arms, ammunition and military hardware manufactures are all located far from the Leftist controlled cities.
The American Leftists would soon beg Communist China to send their troops and military resources.
With any luck tyrannical Leftist leaders will be dangling from scaffolds everywhere before that happens. We must remember history, only three percent of American participated in the Revolutionary War. Determined Conservative Americans don’t have to accept government Tyranny. They just have to get serious and make Tyranny personally very expensive for rogue government politicians and their appointed bureaucrats.
UrbanMan's Comments:
"Soon there were two serious incidents of violent resistance. There was the Waco Branch Davidians standoff and massacre........" this makes it sound like the Branch Davidians sprung forth from the Clinton assault weapons ban. The Davidians were nothing more than weak minded people being controlled by a loser psychopath. The Government based it's warrant on feeble grounds that the legal AR-15 parts that the Davidians were buying were being converted to selective fire M-16 rifles. The ATF also fabricated documentation that the Davidians were operating a Meth lab therefore qualifying for military advisory and support assistance due to the drug nexus. While I'll cry no tears over people who abuse children or allow that they be abused, the Government was simply wrong at Waco on so many accounts. They paid a price as four ATF agents were killed during the warrant service attempt.
The Oklahoma bombing was not resistance to a tryanical government, it was out right murder.
"........Leftists desperately trying to establish a far more restrictive gun ban they are now poised to seize the 401 K retirement accounts of millions of hard working Americans to prop up the Ponzi Scheme we call Social Security." While liberal, left wing elements of the government are very obviously trying to establish a very restrictive gun ban - they pretty much succeded in the State of New York - there is nothing on the table in Congress or publically out of the White House to confiscate privately owned 401K plans. There is no use fanning these rumors until if/when it comes true.
"Right now all over America, churches, VFW halls along with American Legion Halls are loaded with veterans and concerned Conservatives. Many of them have been quietly making contingent civil war plans. " Wow, what a claim. I have never heard that from anyone. I would say while that many veterans and other people would give their lives rather than have freedoms taken away, pubic planning for civil war in churches and veterans groups is certainly not going on, and if it is, it is a small density effort.
My final comment is that this article was way over the top. With a Federal attempt to ban weapons and accessories like New York did, there would be 24 to 30 states nullifying those laws not to mention court challenges, etc. The current administration, certainly far left, knows this and would not trade their ability to govern, by pushing the anti-gun agenda too far. If they do, it will paralyze the rest of government for the next two years if not four.
How the Impending Second American Civil War Will Play Out:
During the Clinton Administration tyranny came in the form of the 1994 ban on new sales and manufacturing of certain common firearms. They did not try and outlaw or confiscate the ones already possessed by Americans.
Soon there were two serious incidents of violent resistance. There was the Waco Branch Davidians standoff and massacre followed by the bombing of the Oklahoma Federal Building. The anger of millions of Americans boiled over they as removed an unprecedented Leftist members from Congress in the midterm elections.
Under the Obama Administration not only are the Leftists desperately trying to establish a far more restrictive gun ban they are now poised to seize the 401 K retirement accounts of millions of hard working Americans to prop up the Ponzi Scheme we call Social Security. Many Americans would consider this an act of war, at least the ones that have set aside savings for retirement.
The National Defense Authorization Act was obviously created to use against any Americans that disagree with the Obama Administration. When Conservative Americans begin to disappear it won’t come without serious retaliation.
Today’s America has never been so deeply divided. Instead of state borders, Americans are divided by the boundaries of the larger urban areas. The large Leftwing inner city urban areas are nearly all completely surrounded by Constitution loving Conservatives. Should a massive insurrection break out the large concentrated urban areas would be crushed in a hurry.
The inner-city entitlement addicted people have no self-reliance skills, internal food, and water or fuel sources. They are tightly concentrated in geographic areas. During an insurrection they’d soon be fighting among themselves for survival.
The suburban folks are somewhat more self-sufficient, and likely to have survival staples. They will be able to trap or shoot small game when normal food supplies are interrupted. The will also get support from others away from the cities.
Next we have the rural areas that are solidly self-sufficient and politically Conservative. They control nearly all of the nations food, fuel and water. Starving off the urban areas would be very easy. Additionally millions of well-trained military veterans live in these politically conservative areas. Needless to say there are no shortages of arms and bomb making resources throughout the vast areas of rural America. The population there has the skills and discipline to use them.
The federal government would watch the loyalty of the alphabet police and the military to the Obama Administration become seriously strained. Adolph Hitler insured loyalty by letting his upper echelon SS members keep a great deal of the spoils of their conquests. Will American law enforcement and military allow themselves to be similarly corrupted? Certainly some will.
Right now all over America, churches, VFW halls along with American Legion Halls are loaded with veterans and concerned Conservatives. Many of them have been quietly making contingent civil war plans.
Conservatives have stockpiled millions of weapons and billions of rounds of ammunition over the last four years. They can be counted upon to already have solid plans in place to disrupt federal government operations, the courts and wipe out any collaborating alphabet police.
State and local police will begin picking sides. This scenario would bring the greatest bloodbath this continent has ever seen. The large urban areas would fall hard along with their starving entitlement zombies.
Even with all of the technology it will be impossible for the urban areas to inflict significant damage to vast rural areas especially without food, water, arms and fuel.
The inner-city people have some handguns. The people in the rural areas have those too but they’re backed up with millions of rifles and shotguns. The arms, ammunition and military hardware manufactures are all located far from the Leftist controlled cities.
The American Leftists would soon beg Communist China to send their troops and military resources.
With any luck tyrannical Leftist leaders will be dangling from scaffolds everywhere before that happens. We must remember history, only three percent of American participated in the Revolutionary War. Determined Conservative Americans don’t have to accept government Tyranny. They just have to get serious and make Tyranny personally very expensive for rogue government politicians and their appointed bureaucrats.
UrbanMan's Comments:
"Soon there were two serious incidents of violent resistance. There was the Waco Branch Davidians standoff and massacre........" this makes it sound like the Branch Davidians sprung forth from the Clinton assault weapons ban. The Davidians were nothing more than weak minded people being controlled by a loser psychopath. The Government based it's warrant on feeble grounds that the legal AR-15 parts that the Davidians were buying were being converted to selective fire M-16 rifles. The ATF also fabricated documentation that the Davidians were operating a Meth lab therefore qualifying for military advisory and support assistance due to the drug nexus. While I'll cry no tears over people who abuse children or allow that they be abused, the Government was simply wrong at Waco on so many accounts. They paid a price as four ATF agents were killed during the warrant service attempt.
The Oklahoma bombing was not resistance to a tryanical government, it was out right murder.
"........Leftists desperately trying to establish a far more restrictive gun ban they are now poised to seize the 401 K retirement accounts of millions of hard working Americans to prop up the Ponzi Scheme we call Social Security." While liberal, left wing elements of the government are very obviously trying to establish a very restrictive gun ban - they pretty much succeded in the State of New York - there is nothing on the table in Congress or publically out of the White House to confiscate privately owned 401K plans. There is no use fanning these rumors until if/when it comes true.
"Right now all over America, churches, VFW halls along with American Legion Halls are loaded with veterans and concerned Conservatives. Many of them have been quietly making contingent civil war plans. " Wow, what a claim. I have never heard that from anyone. I would say while that many veterans and other people would give their lives rather than have freedoms taken away, pubic planning for civil war in churches and veterans groups is certainly not going on, and if it is, it is a small density effort.
My final comment is that this article was way over the top. With a Federal attempt to ban weapons and accessories like New York did, there would be 24 to 30 states nullifying those laws not to mention court challenges, etc. The current administration, certainly far left, knows this and would not trade their ability to govern, by pushing the anti-gun agenda too far. If they do, it will paralyze the rest of government for the next two years if not four.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Effects of Gun Ban Proposals
UrbanMan's comments: I have been getting report after, e-mail after Pm on the prices from all over. It is crazy. Good thing most of us, and those reading this, probably have plenty of both AR type rifles or something suitable for protection and enough ammunition to last. Some friends of mine from Arizona and Texas are telling me they can't buy .223 ammunition in any of the sporting good stores. Another told me P-magazines for AR's were going for $100 each,.....$100 each!! I bought mine for around $12 each. And yet another gent told me that AR prices at a gun show were $2,700 to $3,600. All because of some anti-constitutionalists want to take away our guns! Here is one account that was forwarded to me by a friend:
......AR15's went from $1000 to $3000 in a few hours. .223 caliber ammo went from $300 to $900 in the same time period. There is absolutely nothing left of any quality at the wholesale level. I mean zero. People are completely freaked out. I cannot tell you what it was like on my way out the door. Completely out of control.
I personally don't think anything will make it through the House or the Senate. This will be done via executive order. Legal or not. It will be challenged in court, but will have about the same outcome as the Health Care Bill challenge. I have been in the weapons industry for over 30 years now and never seen anything like this. I wonder about all of these people buying weapons, ammo, and magazines. I seriously doubt that many know how to effectively use them defensively, much less offensively. They just think they need them because someone told them that they are not going to be able to buy them anymore. Kind of like a Cabbage Patch Doll going on sale on Black Friday.
The powers that be have a game plan. Plain and simple. They cannot execute the game plan until we are disarmed. There are a series of steps that will take place to achieve that goal. They have already played many of those cards out behind the scenes unknown to most. Did you know that you cannot import a gun part or round of ammunition into this country that meets their description of "non-sporting' anymore? What does that mean? There are about a thousand more regulations in place that most have not a clue exist.
The next card to play is one that they are mulling around now. That will be the requirement that you register you weapon (assault or not) with them for your safety. No charge at first of course. Next will be ammunition (via taxes) and magazine control. After they get a handle on that, they will simply make it a Federal offense to own them. They will not come around and pick them up. That will be too dangerous. They will just prosecute you when they catch you with them. There will be a few people made example of and that will take care of the masses.
Some of this will be done via random road check points and routine traffic stops. The game plan will be executed by DHS, TSA and local law enforcement that agrees to comply. The FEDS will use the almighty dollar as a carrot to entice them to cooperate. Now the massive purchases of ammunition, arms and armored vehicles by DHS, TSA and the existence of those FEMA Camps should start to make more sense to you.
I often hear some say they will hide or bury their weapons. If you do that, you might as well not have one. It would be worthless then. I am starting to wonder how many of the NRA guys really mean what they say, "Pry it from my cold dead hands." I would venture to say that most would cut and run at the first sight of authority. Take that and the fact that we are completely unorganized and you will start to see that we are very vulnerable. Internet and telecommunication control starting make more sense to you now?
We are not quickly approaching uncharted waters, we are in them. Like I said before, you are going to have to decide whether you are a man (or woman) or not, just shortly. When I look around at most customers, I suspect that is typically not the case.
One has to spend a lot of time to decide whether or not to comply. End of story. This is my country, not theirs.
I think back a few years ago, when I was having dinner with a "seasoned" combat vet who was a gun ship pilot during the Vietnam War and he said something that has always stuck with me. "Give up your weapons and you are a dead man". The look in his eye and the tone of his voice always stuck with me.
I know what I think I have, but then I have not had to confront anyone that demanded that I disarm myself until now. Especially someone employed by my government with a gun and handcuffs. It does however; make me take another long look at a poster I have on the wall in my office of an unarmed person kneeling at the edge of a ditch filled with dead bodies during WWII being shot in the back of the head by a German Nazi officer.
Monday, February 4, 2013
Why the Collapse is Certain
While the following is a little bit of a long and some what technical read, it is the most concise article that I have read on why a Economic Collapse is a certainty.
December 15 2012: Some pretty ugly markets for 2013, our debts are too large to ever be paid, Europe's economy is terminal, Spain and Greece are basically in default, the complete breakdown of moral justice flys into high gear in the US, outright looting of the US Treasury going on, the new year will only bring us closer to the fiscal cliff and closer to going over it......this is the lead in from an article, called 2013 The Final Act, by Bob Rinear for the International Forecaster Weekly.
Mr. Rinear's view:
If you have been with us for any length of time you know that I've been claiming that 2013 will probably usher in some pretty ugly world markets. I've called it everything from a massive roll over to an outright crash. Naturally I have to have some "reason" to believe this, and I figure that today is as good as any to discuss the "why's" of it all.
Frankly I have no idea if the big crash will occur in 2013, 2014 ,2015 or what have you. No one truly knows the future. But, I do know that enough things are already in process that the big crash is a mathematical inevitability. We have gone over the edge, we can't walk it back. Now it's simply a matter of waiting on the Grand Finale.
So what is it that is so egregious, that we're going to be facing this economic implosion? The simple fact that you're reading our letter means you already understand the unsustainable debt loads we're under. You're smarter than the average person because frankly most people hear the word debt and shrug it off as some form of abstract concept. Well it is neither abstract nor ignorable. It is real, it has grown to outlandish proportions, and it cannot be repaid. Ever. The single greatest transfer of wealth the planet has ever seen is in full swing, it cannot be reversed and it will play out.
Some are simply too stupid to "get it". Yeah, I know that I'm not supposed to call someone stupid, but let’s just cut the air of PC for a while shall we? There are three subsets of folks when you are talking about the economic situation we all find ourselves in. The first class is either ignorant of the situation, or if they are aware of it, are just not smart enough to understand the ramifications. The next set knows full well what is really going on and have tried to secure themselves from the ravages of it. The final set, are those that "benefit immediately" from this situation, and don't give a rats ass about the consequences in the future. Most of our politicians fall into that category.
Let us consider Europe for a moment. The situation concerning Spain, Greece, Italy, Portugal and the other Club Med Countries is already terminal. There's no way to fix it. The relatively "good" economies such as Germany are being taxed to support the bad economies. As we speak there are more than 6 regions that want to "break away" from this nightmare. The Scots are holding a referendum to vote on the concept of breaking away from the UK and going their separate way. The cries to "stop the madness" will continue to rise and there's a very good possibility that Spain, Greece and possibly others will NOT be part of the Euro by the end of 2013. The great Socialist test tube experiment of joining 17 different "tribes" each with its own unique customs and languages, has indeed failed. Unfortunately, when it does dissolve, that will not be the end of the nightmare. See...the debts will still be there.
Spain has basically defaulted. Greece has defaulted. Yet to keep Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan from having to pay up on Credit default swaps, the ISDA has changed the language. They're calling it "collective and selective default" thus not requiring GS to have to pay up. Likewise they looked at Greece and said that because their bonds would have Salvage asset value, it’s not a default. Excuse me? When you create a Credit default swap, the deal goes like this... You want to buy Greek Bonds paying 7%, but you're afraid they might default and not pay you. So, you go to GS and buy a credit default swap. GS is basically selling you an insurance Policy. For a 1% "fee" they basically say that if Greece defaults, we'll make you whole. But you also have to agree to give GS the physical bonds. That's the "swap" part of the deal. GS gets the bonds because in any default there is some "salvage" value. Well, Spain and Greece have both defaulted and all the ISDA did was "fix it" so no one had to pay CDS payouts. How criminal does it get? Very.
So, part one of my theory of a pretty big market shake up is that the possibility of "Some - all" of the Euro zone to fly apart in 2013 is very real. Now, the ISDA (International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc.) has been able to keep their buddies at GS and JPM happy by not activating Credit default pay outs. But can they pull that off when the Euro dissolves? How many hundreds of billions are written against these bonds? If just "half" of them are forced to pay out, can GS and JPM find that much money? Does that spur another round of US bail outs because they're "too big to fail?" What I'm basically saying is that just because Europe is "way over there" and according to Jim Cramer "you don't shop at Europe".... their problems are rooted right here in the good ole US. Pension plans, Insurance companies and many other every day businesses have ties to Euro zone debt. Remember this in particular...if global activity causes the US interest rates to rise by just 3%, economic Armageddon would ensue. Yes you read that right. A 3% rise in interest rates implodes our entire system. Could the failure of Europe have that effect? It is possible.
Here in the US, we see something that can only be likened to as "get all you can while we're still solvent". The instance of outright fraud, the complete breakdown of moral justice is now in high gear. John Corzine took a billion dollars from Customers, money that was NEVER intended to be comingled with the firms’ money and lost it/stole it. He walks a free man, heck... he might even open another fund. Solindra was NEVER going to produce a single green product. Never. It was a shell company backed/owned by political "friends" that were given half a billion dollars and in less than a year, padlocked down. It was a scam, a complete "inside job". No charges, no one goes to jail. All in all, 26 supposedly "green" companies took taxpayer money, and folded like a cheap camera. Why did they need taxpayer money in the first place? Because they were scams. They could never attract private money because no one would lend to them. But hey, if you have a brother in law in Congress... then you get millions to play with and eventually steal.
PFG went belly up after regulators there found that just like MF GLobal (Corzine's outfit) they had mingled about 200 million worth of customer funds and lost it/blew it/stole it. Well it wasn't lost. It wasn't badly traded away. It was stolen in a Bernie Madoff like ponzi fashion.
Sentinel comes to mind next. After their customers sued in high court because Sentinel took customer money that by CONTRACT and by CHARTER had to be segregated. Kept separate...not mingled with the companies money for investment...Sentinel did just that. They comingled customer funds with their own, stole some, lost some, etc... But here's where the Concept of morality, justice and any believe in a rule of law goes right down the crapper... the Court sided with Sentinel. That's right and I wrote a lot about it when it happened. Our justice system is now made up of on the take criminals, not upholders of law and justice. They said that even though Sentinel promised not to co mingle customer funds with their own, doing it because they thought it would make the customers even more money was just a good intention gone wrong, nothing more. Are you kidding me?
So we have outright looting of the Treasury going on, and no one goes to jail. We have financial companies stealing customer funds and its swept under the rug. We have a judicial system that is now a farce, a bought and paid for circus. Shall I go on? You bet. Because our problems are no longer just "there's too much debt". Now our problems are considerably more wide spread.
Day after day we've had to endure all this talk about the fiscal cliff, and the bickering between the White House and the Congress. Please understand this... Cliff or no cliff, deal or no deal... the system will fail and fail horribly. Do NOT think that just because they reach some late hour deal that all is well and we can go on partying like it's 1999... it would be a colossal mistake. Yes we'd get a short term market boost on the news, but it doesn't fix or change anything. I repeat, our problems can NOT be fixed. ( Okay I take that back, yes our problems could be fixed if our Government did absolutely everything right...from opening all our lands to drilling and exploration, to getting rid of the insane laws of the EPA, to getting rid of the miles of red tape that stands in the way of opening something as insignificant as a lemonade stand, to opening 12 new refineries so we could have 2 dollar gas, to blah blah blah....as you see, it isn't going to happen).
This week, on Dec 11 and 12 the FOMC met concerning monetary policy. Remember folks, operation twist ends at the end of the year. If they had just let that expire, we would go from 80 billion a month being used to buy up treasuries and manipulate the interest rates... to "just" 40 billion. Well, just like a junkie needs ever more junk, credit markets need ever more bogus dollars. So, they announced they'd buy up 45 billion a month of Government paper, with money printed out of thin air. Just ponder that for a second. The 45 billion a month in QE4, which will go on top of the 40 billion a month in QE3.. we're talking about 85 billion a month which is $1.02 trillion a year. This is about a 14-15 trillion dollar economy and the FED is injecting one trillion straight into it...out of thin "AIR". 7% of our 14 trillion dollar economy is Bernanke's printing press. Can you say inflation? Can you say hyper inflation? Start practicing, its coming.
Consider something for a moment. Since Bernanke launched his ZIRP plan (Zero interest rate policy) We have seen an explosion in the amount of businesses that are using repo's and reverse repo's to create cash flow. In years gone by, a brokerage firm for instance, would deposit its customers account money in 90 day T bills. For instance in January of 2007, those notes were paying 5.1%. Most folks don't know this, but the bulk of most brokerage income was NOT generated by trading commissions. Nope, it was by buying reasonably safe 90 day Government paper. When Bernanke took rates to virtually zero, all these places had to scramble to come up with some way to replace that missing cash.
Well, as you all know, you don't get big returns without big risk. So, what most of these outfits have turned to is the repo/reverse repo market. Don't just think it was Corzine, or PFG or Sentinel. It's just about every bank, every brokerage, every insurance company, every union pension plan, etc. There are now so many derivatives and CDS's, that the exposure rates are mind boggling. You've seen me post the charts. JPM has "assets" of say 1.5 trillion. (customer deposits) but their exposure to derivatives is 48 Trillion. The leverage factor is insane. This goes for Citi and Goldman and Banc of America, etc etc etc. Consider for a moment Goldman Sachs. If you look at “assets on deposit” versus derivative exposure, they’re at a leverage rate of over 400 times. Am I to believe the world just continues along on its merry path and none of these over the counter derivatives go bump in the night?? Sorry, no can do.
What I'm saying is this... all of this junk is coming to a head. They can't hide it any more, they can't disguise it any more. One really big black swan event, one really crazy event and the cascade goes exponential. The problem however is that you cannot react to it. Consider this.. 77% of all trades now are "Algo's" meaning computers buying and selling to each other via high frequency trading. Virtually every one of those programs is written to go "no bid" in the event of a Black swan event. What do you do if one day something wicked has happened (lets just say an atomic bomb goes off)... in seconds the entire market would go no bid. You want to sell your shares/options/futures etc... but there's no bid. No one to buy them. What happens to all the CDS's, the Reverse repo's that are sitting on "off balance sheet" ledgers when something outside "normal" hits? The entire system will lock up, and fail.
We are there. We are 3 interest rate percent from a lockup. We are one black swan event from a lockup. We are one Eurozone disaster from a lock up. We are already AT the period where firms are sweeping customer accounts, to make up for bad bets, and many more will happen. Will all this happen in 2013? I don't know. But I do know that each and every day we march another inch closer to that swan, to that interest rate spike, to that "outside the bell curve" disaster. To the day YOUR money is no longer at your brokerage, it was stolen/lost. But unlike years gone by where you could call a human and find answers and solutions, now it's all computers. Algo's. Programs. My guess is that the market will start to sniff out these very real possibilities this coming year and begin fading off in advance of it.
So, what do you do? First off there's nothing perfect. I can't sit here and tell you that gold will make everything fine. I can't tell you silver will make everything fine. I can't say land, or cattle or trees or anything else will get you through this unscathed. But I feel fairly confident that you will be MUCH better off having your money in something physical, than in slips of paper with dead Presidents on them. I personally believe that having your "wealth" in gold, silver, property, weapons, ammo, trees, livestock, etc..is considerably better than having a computer entry at your bank. Think about it folks. Your supposed wealth is nothing more than computer digits. The MONEY is not there. Your bank does NOT have your money. Your mutual fund doesn't have your money. They've taken that money and bought swaps, repo's, sovereign debt, you name it. All you have in your possession is a statement that "says" you have "X" amount of money. But you really don't and neither do they. To me that's a very scary thing. One I don't like being part of in this bizarro economic atmosphere.
2013 has the ability to be very unsettled for all the reasons I just outlined. It might not all unfold in 2013, it could be 2014...but the point is this...it's coming. It cannot be stopped. As ugly as those words are, they are a mathematical certainty. Just like I learned after living through Sandy, being prepared is key. Get yourself prepared.
December 15 2012: Some pretty ugly markets for 2013, our debts are too large to ever be paid, Europe's economy is terminal, Spain and Greece are basically in default, the complete breakdown of moral justice flys into high gear in the US, outright looting of the US Treasury going on, the new year will only bring us closer to the fiscal cliff and closer to going over it......this is the lead in from an article, called 2013 The Final Act, by Bob Rinear for the International Forecaster Weekly.
Mr. Rinear's view:
If you have been with us for any length of time you know that I've been claiming that 2013 will probably usher in some pretty ugly world markets. I've called it everything from a massive roll over to an outright crash. Naturally I have to have some "reason" to believe this, and I figure that today is as good as any to discuss the "why's" of it all.
Frankly I have no idea if the big crash will occur in 2013, 2014 ,2015 or what have you. No one truly knows the future. But, I do know that enough things are already in process that the big crash is a mathematical inevitability. We have gone over the edge, we can't walk it back. Now it's simply a matter of waiting on the Grand Finale.
So what is it that is so egregious, that we're going to be facing this economic implosion? The simple fact that you're reading our letter means you already understand the unsustainable debt loads we're under. You're smarter than the average person because frankly most people hear the word debt and shrug it off as some form of abstract concept. Well it is neither abstract nor ignorable. It is real, it has grown to outlandish proportions, and it cannot be repaid. Ever. The single greatest transfer of wealth the planet has ever seen is in full swing, it cannot be reversed and it will play out.
Some are simply too stupid to "get it". Yeah, I know that I'm not supposed to call someone stupid, but let’s just cut the air of PC for a while shall we? There are three subsets of folks when you are talking about the economic situation we all find ourselves in. The first class is either ignorant of the situation, or if they are aware of it, are just not smart enough to understand the ramifications. The next set knows full well what is really going on and have tried to secure themselves from the ravages of it. The final set, are those that "benefit immediately" from this situation, and don't give a rats ass about the consequences in the future. Most of our politicians fall into that category.
Let us consider Europe for a moment. The situation concerning Spain, Greece, Italy, Portugal and the other Club Med Countries is already terminal. There's no way to fix it. The relatively "good" economies such as Germany are being taxed to support the bad economies. As we speak there are more than 6 regions that want to "break away" from this nightmare. The Scots are holding a referendum to vote on the concept of breaking away from the UK and going their separate way. The cries to "stop the madness" will continue to rise and there's a very good possibility that Spain, Greece and possibly others will NOT be part of the Euro by the end of 2013. The great Socialist test tube experiment of joining 17 different "tribes" each with its own unique customs and languages, has indeed failed. Unfortunately, when it does dissolve, that will not be the end of the nightmare. See...the debts will still be there.
Spain has basically defaulted. Greece has defaulted. Yet to keep Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan from having to pay up on Credit default swaps, the ISDA has changed the language. They're calling it "collective and selective default" thus not requiring GS to have to pay up. Likewise they looked at Greece and said that because their bonds would have Salvage asset value, it’s not a default. Excuse me? When you create a Credit default swap, the deal goes like this... You want to buy Greek Bonds paying 7%, but you're afraid they might default and not pay you. So, you go to GS and buy a credit default swap. GS is basically selling you an insurance Policy. For a 1% "fee" they basically say that if Greece defaults, we'll make you whole. But you also have to agree to give GS the physical bonds. That's the "swap" part of the deal. GS gets the bonds because in any default there is some "salvage" value. Well, Spain and Greece have both defaulted and all the ISDA did was "fix it" so no one had to pay CDS payouts. How criminal does it get? Very.
So, part one of my theory of a pretty big market shake up is that the possibility of "Some - all" of the Euro zone to fly apart in 2013 is very real. Now, the ISDA (International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc.) has been able to keep their buddies at GS and JPM happy by not activating Credit default pay outs. But can they pull that off when the Euro dissolves? How many hundreds of billions are written against these bonds? If just "half" of them are forced to pay out, can GS and JPM find that much money? Does that spur another round of US bail outs because they're "too big to fail?" What I'm basically saying is that just because Europe is "way over there" and according to Jim Cramer "you don't shop at Europe".... their problems are rooted right here in the good ole US. Pension plans, Insurance companies and many other every day businesses have ties to Euro zone debt. Remember this in particular...if global activity causes the US interest rates to rise by just 3%, economic Armageddon would ensue. Yes you read that right. A 3% rise in interest rates implodes our entire system. Could the failure of Europe have that effect? It is possible.
Here in the US, we see something that can only be likened to as "get all you can while we're still solvent". The instance of outright fraud, the complete breakdown of moral justice is now in high gear. John Corzine took a billion dollars from Customers, money that was NEVER intended to be comingled with the firms’ money and lost it/stole it. He walks a free man, heck... he might even open another fund. Solindra was NEVER going to produce a single green product. Never. It was a shell company backed/owned by political "friends" that were given half a billion dollars and in less than a year, padlocked down. It was a scam, a complete "inside job". No charges, no one goes to jail. All in all, 26 supposedly "green" companies took taxpayer money, and folded like a cheap camera. Why did they need taxpayer money in the first place? Because they were scams. They could never attract private money because no one would lend to them. But hey, if you have a brother in law in Congress... then you get millions to play with and eventually steal.
PFG went belly up after regulators there found that just like MF GLobal (Corzine's outfit) they had mingled about 200 million worth of customer funds and lost it/blew it/stole it. Well it wasn't lost. It wasn't badly traded away. It was stolen in a Bernie Madoff like ponzi fashion.
Sentinel comes to mind next. After their customers sued in high court because Sentinel took customer money that by CONTRACT and by CHARTER had to be segregated. Kept separate...not mingled with the companies money for investment...Sentinel did just that. They comingled customer funds with their own, stole some, lost some, etc... But here's where the Concept of morality, justice and any believe in a rule of law goes right down the crapper... the Court sided with Sentinel. That's right and I wrote a lot about it when it happened. Our justice system is now made up of on the take criminals, not upholders of law and justice. They said that even though Sentinel promised not to co mingle customer funds with their own, doing it because they thought it would make the customers even more money was just a good intention gone wrong, nothing more. Are you kidding me?
So we have outright looting of the Treasury going on, and no one goes to jail. We have financial companies stealing customer funds and its swept under the rug. We have a judicial system that is now a farce, a bought and paid for circus. Shall I go on? You bet. Because our problems are no longer just "there's too much debt". Now our problems are considerably more wide spread.
Day after day we've had to endure all this talk about the fiscal cliff, and the bickering between the White House and the Congress. Please understand this... Cliff or no cliff, deal or no deal... the system will fail and fail horribly. Do NOT think that just because they reach some late hour deal that all is well and we can go on partying like it's 1999... it would be a colossal mistake. Yes we'd get a short term market boost on the news, but it doesn't fix or change anything. I repeat, our problems can NOT be fixed. ( Okay I take that back, yes our problems could be fixed if our Government did absolutely everything right...from opening all our lands to drilling and exploration, to getting rid of the insane laws of the EPA, to getting rid of the miles of red tape that stands in the way of opening something as insignificant as a lemonade stand, to opening 12 new refineries so we could have 2 dollar gas, to blah blah blah....as you see, it isn't going to happen).
This week, on Dec 11 and 12 the FOMC met concerning monetary policy. Remember folks, operation twist ends at the end of the year. If they had just let that expire, we would go from 80 billion a month being used to buy up treasuries and manipulate the interest rates... to "just" 40 billion. Well, just like a junkie needs ever more junk, credit markets need ever more bogus dollars. So, they announced they'd buy up 45 billion a month of Government paper, with money printed out of thin air. Just ponder that for a second. The 45 billion a month in QE4, which will go on top of the 40 billion a month in QE3.. we're talking about 85 billion a month which is $1.02 trillion a year. This is about a 14-15 trillion dollar economy and the FED is injecting one trillion straight into it...out of thin "AIR". 7% of our 14 trillion dollar economy is Bernanke's printing press. Can you say inflation? Can you say hyper inflation? Start practicing, its coming.
Consider something for a moment. Since Bernanke launched his ZIRP plan (Zero interest rate policy) We have seen an explosion in the amount of businesses that are using repo's and reverse repo's to create cash flow. In years gone by, a brokerage firm for instance, would deposit its customers account money in 90 day T bills. For instance in January of 2007, those notes were paying 5.1%. Most folks don't know this, but the bulk of most brokerage income was NOT generated by trading commissions. Nope, it was by buying reasonably safe 90 day Government paper. When Bernanke took rates to virtually zero, all these places had to scramble to come up with some way to replace that missing cash.
Well, as you all know, you don't get big returns without big risk. So, what most of these outfits have turned to is the repo/reverse repo market. Don't just think it was Corzine, or PFG or Sentinel. It's just about every bank, every brokerage, every insurance company, every union pension plan, etc. There are now so many derivatives and CDS's, that the exposure rates are mind boggling. You've seen me post the charts. JPM has "assets" of say 1.5 trillion. (customer deposits) but their exposure to derivatives is 48 Trillion. The leverage factor is insane. This goes for Citi and Goldman and Banc of America, etc etc etc. Consider for a moment Goldman Sachs. If you look at “assets on deposit” versus derivative exposure, they’re at a leverage rate of over 400 times. Am I to believe the world just continues along on its merry path and none of these over the counter derivatives go bump in the night?? Sorry, no can do.
What I'm saying is this... all of this junk is coming to a head. They can't hide it any more, they can't disguise it any more. One really big black swan event, one really crazy event and the cascade goes exponential. The problem however is that you cannot react to it. Consider this.. 77% of all trades now are "Algo's" meaning computers buying and selling to each other via high frequency trading. Virtually every one of those programs is written to go "no bid" in the event of a Black swan event. What do you do if one day something wicked has happened (lets just say an atomic bomb goes off)... in seconds the entire market would go no bid. You want to sell your shares/options/futures etc... but there's no bid. No one to buy them. What happens to all the CDS's, the Reverse repo's that are sitting on "off balance sheet" ledgers when something outside "normal" hits? The entire system will lock up, and fail.
We are there. We are 3 interest rate percent from a lockup. We are one black swan event from a lockup. We are one Eurozone disaster from a lock up. We are already AT the period where firms are sweeping customer accounts, to make up for bad bets, and many more will happen. Will all this happen in 2013? I don't know. But I do know that each and every day we march another inch closer to that swan, to that interest rate spike, to that "outside the bell curve" disaster. To the day YOUR money is no longer at your brokerage, it was stolen/lost. But unlike years gone by where you could call a human and find answers and solutions, now it's all computers. Algo's. Programs. My guess is that the market will start to sniff out these very real possibilities this coming year and begin fading off in advance of it.
So, what do you do? First off there's nothing perfect. I can't sit here and tell you that gold will make everything fine. I can't tell you silver will make everything fine. I can't say land, or cattle or trees or anything else will get you through this unscathed. But I feel fairly confident that you will be MUCH better off having your money in something physical, than in slips of paper with dead Presidents on them. I personally believe that having your "wealth" in gold, silver, property, weapons, ammo, trees, livestock, etc..is considerably better than having a computer entry at your bank. Think about it folks. Your supposed wealth is nothing more than computer digits. The MONEY is not there. Your bank does NOT have your money. Your mutual fund doesn't have your money. They've taken that money and bought swaps, repo's, sovereign debt, you name it. All you have in your possession is a statement that "says" you have "X" amount of money. But you really don't and neither do they. To me that's a very scary thing. One I don't like being part of in this bizarro economic atmosphere.
2013 has the ability to be very unsettled for all the reasons I just outlined. It might not all unfold in 2013, it could be 2014...but the point is this...it's coming. It cannot be stopped. As ugly as those words are, they are a mathematical certainty. Just like I learned after living through Sandy, being prepared is key. Get yourself prepared.
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Collapse - The Movie
A new movie on DVD is coming out for our collapse preparation pleasure,...simply called "Collapse", this movie defines what they mean when they say "Collapse - happens to every civilization". The following release and movie trailer will give you an idea on the direction of the movie, or you can go to the web site and see the same as well as some movie reviews - if they mean anything. And even though I hope they are wrong when they same Collapse is now inevitable, I'll be buying and watching the movie myself.
Americans generally like to hear good news. They like to believe that a new president will right old wrongs, that clean energy will replace dirty oil and that fresh thinking will set the economy straight. American pundits tend to restrain their pessimism and hope for the best. But is anyone prepared for the worst?
Meet Michael Ruppert, a different kind of American. A former Los Angeles police officer turned independent reporter, he predicted the current financial crisis in his self-published newsletter, From the Wilderness, at a time when most Wall Street and Washington analysts were still in denial. Director Chris Smith has shown an affinity for outsiders in films like American Movie and The Yes Men. In Collapse, he departs stylistically from his past documentaries by interviewing Ruppert in a format that recalls the work of Errol Morris and Spalding Gray.
Sitting in a room that looks like a bunker, Ruppert recounts his career as a radical thinker and spells out the crises he sees ahead. He draws upon the same news reports and data available to any Internet user, but he applies a unique interpretation. He is especially passionate about the issue of peak oil, the concern raised by scientists since the seventies that the world will eventually run out of fossil fuel. While other experts debate this issue in measured tones, Ruppert doesn't hold back at sounding an alarm, portraying an apocalyptic future. Listening to his rapid flow of opinions, the viewer is likely to question some of the rhetoric as paranoid or deluded, and to sway back and forth on what to make of the extremism. Smith lets viewers form their own judgments.
Collapse also serves as a portrait of a loner. Over the years, Ruppert has stood up for what he believes in despite fierce opposition. He candidly describes the sacrifices and motivators in his life. While other observers analyze details of the economic crisis, Ruppert views it as symptomatic of nothing less than the collapse of industrial civilization itself.
Americans generally like to hear good news. They like to believe that a new president will right old wrongs, that clean energy will replace dirty oil and that fresh thinking will set the economy straight. American pundits tend to restrain their pessimism and hope for the best. But is anyone prepared for the worst?
Meet Michael Ruppert, a different kind of American. A former Los Angeles police officer turned independent reporter, he predicted the current financial crisis in his self-published newsletter, From the Wilderness, at a time when most Wall Street and Washington analysts were still in denial. Director Chris Smith has shown an affinity for outsiders in films like American Movie and The Yes Men. In Collapse, he departs stylistically from his past documentaries by interviewing Ruppert in a format that recalls the work of Errol Morris and Spalding Gray.
Sitting in a room that looks like a bunker, Ruppert recounts his career as a radical thinker and spells out the crises he sees ahead. He draws upon the same news reports and data available to any Internet user, but he applies a unique interpretation. He is especially passionate about the issue of peak oil, the concern raised by scientists since the seventies that the world will eventually run out of fossil fuel. While other experts debate this issue in measured tones, Ruppert doesn't hold back at sounding an alarm, portraying an apocalyptic future. Listening to his rapid flow of opinions, the viewer is likely to question some of the rhetoric as paranoid or deluded, and to sway back and forth on what to make of the extremism. Smith lets viewers form their own judgments.
Collapse also serves as a portrait of a loner. Over the years, Ruppert has stood up for what he believes in despite fierce opposition. He candidly describes the sacrifices and motivators in his life. While other observers analyze details of the economic crisis, Ruppert views it as symptomatic of nothing less than the collapse of industrial civilization itself.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
West Point Tracks "Right Wing" Threats
I received this article from a friend working for the government who believes there is a trend for the federal government to look at Americans in the conservative, small government, pro guns rights groups as potential threat groups. If this is true, then it is disturbing. Even more alarming is the report about the U.S. Military, in this case the U.S. Military Academy stepping clearly into the law enforcment realm by studying what they term "threat groups" inside this country.
The below is the article from The Blaze:
The Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point released a study Tuesday warning against American “far right” groups including the “anti-federalist” movement and strong limited government activists.
The report, titled “Challengers from the Sidelines: Understanding America’s Violent Far-Right,” posits that in recent years, and especially since 2007, “there has been a dramatic rise in the number of attacks and violent plots originating from individuals and groups who self-identify with the far-right of American politics.”
The analysis, conducted by West Point professor and CTC director of terrorism studies Arie Perliger, noted that his study “concentrates on those individuals and groups who have actually perpetuated violence and is not a comprehensive analysis of the political causes with which some far-right extremists identify.” He added that an in-depth look at the data provided addresses three crucial questions:
(1) What are the main current characteristics of the violence produced by the far right?
(2) What type of far-right groups are more prone than others to engage in violence? How are characteristics of particular far-right groups correlated with their tendency to engage in violence?
(3) What are the social and political factors associated with the level of far-right violence? Are there political or social conditions that foster or discourage violence?
The West Point professor said anti-federalists “espouse strong convictions regarding the federal government, believing it to be corrupt and tyrannical, with a natural tendency to intrude on individuals’ civil and constitutional rights. Finally, they support civil activism, individual freedoms, and self government. Extremists in the anti-federalist movement direct most their violence against the federal government and its proxies in law enforcement.”
Perliger also identified limited government activists as belonging to one of three categories: “a racist/white supremacy movement, an anti-federalist movement and a fundamentalist movement.”
According to the Washington Times, the report also draws correlation between mainstream conservatism and what it dubs the violent “far right.” The study then goes on to laud liberals as forward-thinking while maintaining that conservatives harbor a more archaic mindset.
“While liberal worldviews are future- or progressive -oriented, conservative perspectives are more past-oriented, and in general, are interested in preserving the status quo,” the report states.
“The far right represents a more extreme version of conservatism, as its political vision is usually justified by the aspiration to restore or preserve values and practices that are part of the idealized historical heritage of the nation or ethnic community.”
Citing a reported 350 “attacks initiated by far-right groups/individuals” in 2011, the analysis characterizes the liberal-democratic system as inclusive and “designed to emphasize civil rights” while far-right ideology inherently “excludes” minorities.
UrbanMan's comment: 350 attacks? Are you kidding me? I'd like to see what they list as far-right attacks. Also disturbing is the comments about a liberal (politically system) emphasizing civil rights when there is a huge call to take away substantial 2nd amendment rights while the right (conservatives) are characterized as basically racists.
Perlinger’s study, however, has not gone without meeting a degree of criticism. Speaking to the Times, a Republican congressional staffer slammed: “If [the Defense Department] is looking for places to cut spending, this junk study is ground zero.”
He added that the Combating Terrorism Center should be focused on radical Islam and, at the least, publish a companion report underlying the dangers of left-wing terror groups like “the Animal Liberation Front, Earth Liberation Front, and the Weather Underground.”
The CTC describes itself as “one of the leading academic institutions devoted to the study of terrorism” whose research is informed by three core components including” studying emerging threats, challenging conventional logic and offering counter intuitive insights.”
UrbanMan's comment: I have the greatest respect for the military and all those who serve in the government who are risking their lives to protect this country. The military in particular enjoys much respect and credibility with the American people. Recent comments from retired General McCrystal about Americans should not be allowed to own AR's, this West Point study, and the previous posted article about the military puting down a "tea party" rebellion as alarming to say the least.
The below is the article from The Blaze:
The Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point released a study Tuesday warning against American “far right” groups including the “anti-federalist” movement and strong limited government activists.
The report, titled “Challengers from the Sidelines: Understanding America’s Violent Far-Right,” posits that in recent years, and especially since 2007, “there has been a dramatic rise in the number of attacks and violent plots originating from individuals and groups who self-identify with the far-right of American politics.”
The analysis, conducted by West Point professor and CTC director of terrorism studies Arie Perliger, noted that his study “concentrates on those individuals and groups who have actually perpetuated violence and is not a comprehensive analysis of the political causes with which some far-right extremists identify.” He added that an in-depth look at the data provided addresses three crucial questions:
(1) What are the main current characteristics of the violence produced by the far right?
(2) What type of far-right groups are more prone than others to engage in violence? How are characteristics of particular far-right groups correlated with their tendency to engage in violence?
(3) What are the social and political factors associated with the level of far-right violence? Are there political or social conditions that foster or discourage violence?
The West Point professor said anti-federalists “espouse strong convictions regarding the federal government, believing it to be corrupt and tyrannical, with a natural tendency to intrude on individuals’ civil and constitutional rights. Finally, they support civil activism, individual freedoms, and self government. Extremists in the anti-federalist movement direct most their violence against the federal government and its proxies in law enforcement.”
Perliger also identified limited government activists as belonging to one of three categories: “a racist/white supremacy movement, an anti-federalist movement and a fundamentalist movement.”
According to the Washington Times, the report also draws correlation between mainstream conservatism and what it dubs the violent “far right.” The study then goes on to laud liberals as forward-thinking while maintaining that conservatives harbor a more archaic mindset.
“While liberal worldviews are future- or progressive -oriented, conservative perspectives are more past-oriented, and in general, are interested in preserving the status quo,” the report states.
“The far right represents a more extreme version of conservatism, as its political vision is usually justified by the aspiration to restore or preserve values and practices that are part of the idealized historical heritage of the nation or ethnic community.”
Citing a reported 350 “attacks initiated by far-right groups/individuals” in 2011, the analysis characterizes the liberal-democratic system as inclusive and “designed to emphasize civil rights” while far-right ideology inherently “excludes” minorities.
UrbanMan's comment: 350 attacks? Are you kidding me? I'd like to see what they list as far-right attacks. Also disturbing is the comments about a liberal (politically system) emphasizing civil rights when there is a huge call to take away substantial 2nd amendment rights while the right (conservatives) are characterized as basically racists.
Perlinger’s study, however, has not gone without meeting a degree of criticism. Speaking to the Times, a Republican congressional staffer slammed: “If [the Defense Department] is looking for places to cut spending, this junk study is ground zero.”
He added that the Combating Terrorism Center should be focused on radical Islam and, at the least, publish a companion report underlying the dangers of left-wing terror groups like “the Animal Liberation Front, Earth Liberation Front, and the Weather Underground.”
The CTC describes itself as “one of the leading academic institutions devoted to the study of terrorism” whose research is informed by three core components including” studying emerging threats, challenging conventional logic and offering counter intuitive insights.”
UrbanMan's comment: I have the greatest respect for the military and all those who serve in the government who are risking their lives to protect this country. The military in particular enjoys much respect and credibility with the American people. Recent comments from retired General McCrystal about Americans should not be allowed to own AR's, this West Point study, and the previous posted article about the military puting down a "tea party" rebellion as alarming to say the least.
Friday, January 25, 2013
More on Survival Caches
I have been getting quite a few comments and e-mails with opinions and recommendations on caches. Survivalists would, of course, use caches for many diverse reasons.
You have to have some way to record caches so over time they will not be forgotten, or you may be sending caches reports to other people for recovery. The best way to record the cache information and location is a written record maybe backed up by a electronic file on your PDA, tablet or I phone.
Everyone is now thinking I am recommendating breaking OPSEC or otherwise having a record with anyone seeing it, being able to get the goods. Not so. You could use a password encypted file for your cache records and you can use a default numerical subtraction or addition code to the information vital for the actual cache location and recovery. See more of this below.
Here is what I think it a suitable elements of a Cache report are:
Cache name or designation - so you can keep track of recovery, especially if you have multiple caches in.
Cache contents. Be specific.
Other Information. How cache is emplaced. How items are weather proofed or not. Container(s) description(s) and dimension(s). How deep cache is buried if this is a burial cache (most common). What tools will be neded to recovery the cache.
General Area. This would be a general description of the area the cache is located. This should be a general direction, such as EAST and a distance in a common measurement,...meaning do not use leagues for a measurement unless you are a pirate.
Specific Area. This would be direction on how to get to the Immediate Reference Point (IRP) which is where you will usually need to measure a direction and distance from to locate the Final Reference Point (FRP) and from there the cache. The immediate reference point should be something that is not likely to move or disappear.
Final Reference Point (IRP). This will be a fairly easy marker like a large rock, distinct tree, bridge abutment or something along these lines where you will again measure a distance (tape measure is handy).
An Example Cache Report may look like this:
Cache Report.
Cache B#14.
Cache Contents:
2 each Military style Green Ponchos
60 feet of tan colored 3/32 inch diameter string
2 each one gallon water containers, full, not disinfected nor treated
1 four ounce bottle of water purification drops
6 each Meals Ready to Eat,
complete 1 AR-7 surival rifle
2 each 50 round boxes of .22 LR CCI Stinger ammunition
1 each folding Buck knife with belt sheath
1 each 16 inch crosscut saw
1 each butane lighter
Other Information: All items wrapped in water proof plastic. All items in one wooden box, 30 inches long by 14 inches wide by 14 inches deep. Top of box buried approximately 18 inches from ground surface. Using metal prob to locate wooden box is recommended. Ground is dirt with grass, weeds and small scrubs. Cache site is visible from IRP so security upon recovery is a concern. Shovel will be necessary to recover emplaced cache.
General Area. West of Springerville, AZ. Travel 13.5 miles WEST on US Hwy 60.
Specific Area. From US 60, South on County Road 3123 for 8.2 miles to IRP.
Immediate Reference Point (IRP). On WEST side of County Road 3123 there is a dirt road heading generally WEST. There is a Forest Service gate here.
Final Reference Point (FRP). The FRP is located from the IRP (NORTH end of the gate) on a magentic azimith 032 degrees and at a distance of 62 feet is a large, oval granite rock approx 18 inches long and 12 inches wide. This is the FRP.
Cache Location. The cache is buried 18 inches below the ground from the FRP on a magnetic azimuth of 045 degrees and at a distance of 36 feet.
Notes on Caching.
When emplacing caches consider natural weather conditions such as run off or snow cover that would uncover or expose the cache or make recover difficult. Or make location and recovery of the cache too difficult.
Using ponchos or tarps to separate the different layers of earth when emplacing the cache, then reversing the layers of dirt when covering the caching will greatly aid in the concealment of the cache.
Depicting a concealed route to the cache IRP and/or a good position from which to observe the IRP and FRP may help in the safe recovery.
For additional security against the wrong person or people recovering your cache, you may have an internal procedure where you add a certain number, let's say 65 to your azimuth and distance measurements. Therefore the example azimuths and distances from the IRP to the FRP would be 097 degrees and 127 feet. The cache location from the FRP would be 110 degrees and 101 feet. Then when recovering the cache the right recovering party would know to subtract 65 from each direction in magnetic degrees and distance in feet.
- To support Bug Out especially from an Urban area into a rural area for transit to your final Bug Out location or tentative rally point or assembly area.
- To hide some material or equipment to safeguard it from people who want to take it away from you.
- Cache emplaced to support an operation so travel to that operations in an area does not have to include bringing in so much material.
Cache B#14.
Cache Contents:
2 each Military style Green Ponchos
60 feet of tan colored 3/32 inch diameter string
2 each one gallon water containers, full, not disinfected nor treated
1 four ounce bottle of water purification drops
6 each Meals Ready to Eat,
complete 1 AR-7 surival rifle
2 each 50 round boxes of .22 LR CCI Stinger ammunition
1 each folding Buck knife with belt sheath
1 each 16 inch crosscut saw
1 each butane lighter
Sunday, January 20, 2013
SHTF: Inflation Into Hyper-Inflation
While not too concerned about larger Government conspiracies I am concerned about Inflation leading into Hyper-Inflation and the good chance that this will all precipitate a economic collapse. This is much more likely to be the root cause of SHTF,...... barring any nuclear attack, super density cyber attack or flaming metorite strikes on the earth.
A total economic collapse could also be the cause of large government restrictions on the population and placing martial law into effect.
But we get closer and closer to runaway inflation with the fuel prices, and prices of foods and other commodities increasing daily, compounded by the reduction of earnings through higher taxation. On an every two week basis, my pay has been reduced $125. That's basically a $250 reduction in buying, saving, investing and ultimately prepping power each month.
Even the major news networks and Government are warning of higher food prices. While there is not a single cause for this, droughts, natural disasters, higher fuel prices and the devalued dollar are all combining to cause these higher food prices. The article below is from a USDA paid economist. I think he is vastly understating the potential of increased prices as other good sources tell us that, on average, food prices have went up 20% through 2012. Look at you own checkbook and grocery receipts and come to your own conclusion.
Higher Food Prices Coming,.....for sure. A USDA economist says Americans will be paying more at the grocery store in 2013.
"Inflation's going to pick up in 2013 over what we have seen in 2012. So we are looking ahead at a year of above normal food price inflation," says economist Ricky Volpe of USDA's Economic Research Service. Volpe says to expect food price inflation of 3% to 4% in 2013. He says the drought affecting two-thirds of the nation is partly to blame.
"The major impact of the drought in the Midwest, higher corn prices leads to higher feed prices, leads to higher animal prices, and higher prices for all animal products," Volpe says. He adds that consumers will see especially higher prices for beef. "We are still faced with historically low inventory for cattle in the U.S.," Volpe says. "So we still have supply that's low relative to demand. We have strong inflation; that's not going anywhere, and the drought is only exacerbating that." Egg and dairy prices will also be higher as drought drives up feed costs.
"So we have these higher feed prices translating into higher milk prices, which especially in the coming months and the first quarter of 2013 we expect to see this translate into a hike in overall dairy prices," Volpe says. "As the impacts of higher corn prices and higher feed prices translate throughout much of the year, we’re looking at egg prices to go up another 3% to 4% in 2013."
Fresh produce prices, which stayed low in 2012, are also expected to rise in 2013.
A total economic collapse could also be the cause of large government restrictions on the population and placing martial law into effect.
But we get closer and closer to runaway inflation with the fuel prices, and prices of foods and other commodities increasing daily, compounded by the reduction of earnings through higher taxation. On an every two week basis, my pay has been reduced $125. That's basically a $250 reduction in buying, saving, investing and ultimately prepping power each month.
Even the major news networks and Government are warning of higher food prices. While there is not a single cause for this, droughts, natural disasters, higher fuel prices and the devalued dollar are all combining to cause these higher food prices. The article below is from a USDA paid economist. I think he is vastly understating the potential of increased prices as other good sources tell us that, on average, food prices have went up 20% through 2012. Look at you own checkbook and grocery receipts and come to your own conclusion.
Higher Food Prices Coming,.....for sure. A USDA economist says Americans will be paying more at the grocery store in 2013.
"Inflation's going to pick up in 2013 over what we have seen in 2012. So we are looking ahead at a year of above normal food price inflation," says economist Ricky Volpe of USDA's Economic Research Service. Volpe says to expect food price inflation of 3% to 4% in 2013. He says the drought affecting two-thirds of the nation is partly to blame.
"The major impact of the drought in the Midwest, higher corn prices leads to higher feed prices, leads to higher animal prices, and higher prices for all animal products," Volpe says. He adds that consumers will see especially higher prices for beef. "We are still faced with historically low inventory for cattle in the U.S.," Volpe says. "So we still have supply that's low relative to demand. We have strong inflation; that's not going anywhere, and the drought is only exacerbating that." Egg and dairy prices will also be higher as drought drives up feed costs.
"So we have these higher feed prices translating into higher milk prices, which especially in the coming months and the first quarter of 2013 we expect to see this translate into a hike in overall dairy prices," Volpe says. "As the impacts of higher corn prices and higher feed prices translate throughout much of the year, we’re looking at egg prices to go up another 3% to 4% in 2013."
Fresh produce prices, which stayed low in 2012, are also expected to rise in 2013.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
How the U.S. Military Would Crush a Rebellion
This article was published on Forbes under the title, "How the U.S. Military Would Crush a Tea Party Rebellion"
I found this interesting as this country is not only more divided than ever before, but when you add the whole gun control control-registeration-possible confiscation issues AND the probable economic collapse, well,.....
A right-wing militia inspired by the Tea Party movement has taken over the city of Darlington, South Carolina, arrested the local government, and declared that the federal government should be overthrown. As the militia establishes checkpoints across I-95, other extremist groups across the nation rush to declare their support. South Carolina’s governor – a Tea Party supporter – declines to send in law enforcement to quash the militia, but quietly asks for federal intervention. The President invokes the Insurrection Act to authorize the use of federal troops, as the Pentagon prepares for war at home….
This is a drill, repeat, this is a drill. Actually, it’s a thought exercise by two authors exploring just how the U.S. military would respond to domestic insurrection. It sounds almost paranoid, except that nine days after Obama’s reelection, petitions for secession have sprouted in all 50 states, gun sales have soared for fear of what a second term means for gun owners, and white nationalist groups are elated over Obama’s victory. Add in a stagnant economy, a polarized electorate, and perhaps some disgruntled Afghanistan and Iraq veterans, and domestic strife seems improbable but not impossible.
The scenario appeared last July – before Obama’s reelection – in the respected Small Wars Journal. The article, titled “Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland: A ‘Vision’ of the Future”, was written by Kevin Benson, a retired Army colonel who teaches at University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and Jennifer Weber, a history professor at University of Kansas and a Civil War historian.
Benson and Weber (the team sounds like a cigarette brand) explored how the military might domestically apply its concept of full spectrum operations, which cover everything from all-out war to counterinsurgency and nation-building. In fact, the Army’s operating concept for 2016 to 2028 considers highly likely a future where the U.S. is threatened by “radical U.S. citizens operating domestically and abroad”. The Pentagon was probably thinking of Al Qaeda sympathizers in the U.S., but radicals come in all flavors.
Benson and Weber boldly argue that “if we face a period of persistent global conflict as outlined in successive National Security Strategy documents, then Army officers are professionally obligated to consider the conduct of operations on U.S. soil.” They also argue that preparations for such a scenario must begin now, including proper equipment for the U.S. military as well as liaison between federal and state authorities. Actually, the issue is really the conduct of operations against U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, but Benson and Weber (who declined to speak with the War Games blog) depict a convoluted situation where the military intervenes in South Carolina using techniques honed by hunting Taliban, while still trying to remain within the law.
Make no mistake, this isn’t the Pentagon providing military support to hurricane victims, or even sending troops to support local authorities as during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. This is a war. There will be casualties. Refugees from the fighting must be housed and fed. But it’s a strange kind of war. Thus U.S. forces begin, as any combat forces would, by attempting to collect intelligence on enemy forces – but then have to erase the intel within 90 days after operations are completed, in order not to run afoul of federal privacy laws. They will be eavesdropping on “enemy” communications, but only with a court order. They must depend on local law enforcement for information on the rebels, but the local cops may be rebel sympathizers. There will be “information/influence operations designed to present a picture of the federal response and the inevitable defeat of the insurrection.”
Curiously, the authors don’t really delve the fundamental issue of American soldiers firing on American civilians, except to note that troops would have to comply with standing rules on force, which require graduated levels of violence. Civil support in South Carolina makes counterinsurgency in Kabul look like a picnic.
Predictably, the Small Wars Journal article drew fire from outraged conservative newspapers and protestors. The critics missed the point. This wasn’t really aimed at the far right, except that insofar as there are heavily armed groups in America that dispute the authority of the federal government, they do tend be right-wing. Yet this scenario could just as easily be applied to radical left violence like the 1999 Battle of Seattle riots.
Benson and Weber present a scenario that is somewhat artificial. For example, American law enforcement has become militarized after 9/11. Who needs to call in Army troops when your local police force has armored vehicles, grenade launchers and automatic weapons? One has to wonder if a militia would be so formidable that the state National Guard couldn’t handle it. But then the premise of Benson and Weber’s scenario is that local authorities might not be able to trust local forces to fight rebels, or that local voters might punish politicians who try to do so.
The old gun lobby line that a pack of civilians with hunting rifles will stop a tyrannical federal government is silly. This isn’t 1776, the U.S. military is a tad better equipped than King George’s redcoats, and if the U.S. Army decides to crush an insurrection, it will do so. But it is also true that the nature of warfare is changing, as the spread of high-tech weapons has the Pentagon worried that even weak states can field missiles that make sending in the Marines a bloody operation. If Hamas and Hezbollah can obtain anti-tank missiles, why not a Michigan militia or a Los Angeles street gang? If drug cartels deploy heavy weapons on the Mexico-U.S. border, then perhaps only the U.S. military has the firepower to stop them.
However, the real question is this: under what circumstances should federal troops conduct military operations against American citizens on American soil? Is this scenario likely enough that the U.S. military prepare for such operations, or should we worry that preparation will inevitably lead to action? Note the part about American soil, because American supporters of Al Qaeda are already being killed on foreign soil. Laws like the Insurrection Act and Posse Comitatus are designed to tightly restrict using the military against the American people. But if there were a rebellion, I wonder if the President would stand on legalities. Lincoln is remembered for winning the Civil War, not suspending habeus corpus.
I found this interesting as this country is not only more divided than ever before, but when you add the whole gun control control-registeration-possible confiscation issues AND the probable economic collapse, well,.....
A right-wing militia inspired by the Tea Party movement has taken over the city of Darlington, South Carolina, arrested the local government, and declared that the federal government should be overthrown. As the militia establishes checkpoints across I-95, other extremist groups across the nation rush to declare their support. South Carolina’s governor – a Tea Party supporter – declines to send in law enforcement to quash the militia, but quietly asks for federal intervention. The President invokes the Insurrection Act to authorize the use of federal troops, as the Pentagon prepares for war at home….
This is a drill, repeat, this is a drill. Actually, it’s a thought exercise by two authors exploring just how the U.S. military would respond to domestic insurrection. It sounds almost paranoid, except that nine days after Obama’s reelection, petitions for secession have sprouted in all 50 states, gun sales have soared for fear of what a second term means for gun owners, and white nationalist groups are elated over Obama’s victory. Add in a stagnant economy, a polarized electorate, and perhaps some disgruntled Afghanistan and Iraq veterans, and domestic strife seems improbable but not impossible.
The scenario appeared last July – before Obama’s reelection – in the respected Small Wars Journal. The article, titled “Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland: A ‘Vision’ of the Future”, was written by Kevin Benson, a retired Army colonel who teaches at University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and Jennifer Weber, a history professor at University of Kansas and a Civil War historian.
Benson and Weber (the team sounds like a cigarette brand) explored how the military might domestically apply its concept of full spectrum operations, which cover everything from all-out war to counterinsurgency and nation-building. In fact, the Army’s operating concept for 2016 to 2028 considers highly likely a future where the U.S. is threatened by “radical U.S. citizens operating domestically and abroad”. The Pentagon was probably thinking of Al Qaeda sympathizers in the U.S., but radicals come in all flavors.
Benson and Weber boldly argue that “if we face a period of persistent global conflict as outlined in successive National Security Strategy documents, then Army officers are professionally obligated to consider the conduct of operations on U.S. soil.” They also argue that preparations for such a scenario must begin now, including proper equipment for the U.S. military as well as liaison between federal and state authorities. Actually, the issue is really the conduct of operations against U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, but Benson and Weber (who declined to speak with the War Games blog) depict a convoluted situation where the military intervenes in South Carolina using techniques honed by hunting Taliban, while still trying to remain within the law.
Make no mistake, this isn’t the Pentagon providing military support to hurricane victims, or even sending troops to support local authorities as during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. This is a war. There will be casualties. Refugees from the fighting must be housed and fed. But it’s a strange kind of war. Thus U.S. forces begin, as any combat forces would, by attempting to collect intelligence on enemy forces – but then have to erase the intel within 90 days after operations are completed, in order not to run afoul of federal privacy laws. They will be eavesdropping on “enemy” communications, but only with a court order. They must depend on local law enforcement for information on the rebels, but the local cops may be rebel sympathizers. There will be “information/influence operations designed to present a picture of the federal response and the inevitable defeat of the insurrection.”
Curiously, the authors don’t really delve the fundamental issue of American soldiers firing on American civilians, except to note that troops would have to comply with standing rules on force, which require graduated levels of violence. Civil support in South Carolina makes counterinsurgency in Kabul look like a picnic.
Predictably, the Small Wars Journal article drew fire from outraged conservative newspapers and protestors. The critics missed the point. This wasn’t really aimed at the far right, except that insofar as there are heavily armed groups in America that dispute the authority of the federal government, they do tend be right-wing. Yet this scenario could just as easily be applied to radical left violence like the 1999 Battle of Seattle riots.
Benson and Weber present a scenario that is somewhat artificial. For example, American law enforcement has become militarized after 9/11. Who needs to call in Army troops when your local police force has armored vehicles, grenade launchers and automatic weapons? One has to wonder if a militia would be so formidable that the state National Guard couldn’t handle it. But then the premise of Benson and Weber’s scenario is that local authorities might not be able to trust local forces to fight rebels, or that local voters might punish politicians who try to do so.
The old gun lobby line that a pack of civilians with hunting rifles will stop a tyrannical federal government is silly. This isn’t 1776, the U.S. military is a tad better equipped than King George’s redcoats, and if the U.S. Army decides to crush an insurrection, it will do so. But it is also true that the nature of warfare is changing, as the spread of high-tech weapons has the Pentagon worried that even weak states can field missiles that make sending in the Marines a bloody operation. If Hamas and Hezbollah can obtain anti-tank missiles, why not a Michigan militia or a Los Angeles street gang? If drug cartels deploy heavy weapons on the Mexico-U.S. border, then perhaps only the U.S. military has the firepower to stop them.
However, the real question is this: under what circumstances should federal troops conduct military operations against American citizens on American soil? Is this scenario likely enough that the U.S. military prepare for such operations, or should we worry that preparation will inevitably lead to action? Note the part about American soil, because American supporters of Al Qaeda are already being killed on foreign soil. Laws like the Insurrection Act and Posse Comitatus are designed to tightly restrict using the military against the American people. But if there were a rebellion, I wonder if the President would stand on legalities. Lincoln is remembered for winning the Civil War, not suspending habeus corpus.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Some Believe Martial Law is Coming
This is the verbiage published with the video: Just remember what has been done by the Federal government already and you have a pretty good idea of what they intend to do with us. This video is a stark reminder of how far we have fallen since "911." Be prepared to defend yourself and your loved ones. Please.
If you watched the above video, then there would be a link to another recomended video that claims that DHS is preparing for a "massive civil war" within the U.S. While my DHS sources tell me they know nothing about any planned civil war response, UrbanSurvivalSkills.com is posting this video because survival preppers are all about planning and preparing for all contingencies including the worst case as far fetched as they may be.
Verbiage leading into the below video: In a riveting interview on TruNews Radio, private investigator Doug Hagmann said high-level, reliable sources told him the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is preparing for "massive civil war" in America.
"We have problems . . . The federal government is preparing for civil uprising," he added, "so every time you hear about troop movements, every time you hear about movements of military equipment, the militarization of the police, the buying of the ammunition, all of this is . . . they (DHS) are preparing for a massive uprising."
Hagmann goes on to say that his sources tell him the concerns of the DHS stem from a collapse of the U.S. dollar and the hyperinflation a collapse in the value of the world's primary reserve currency implies to a nation of 311 million Americans, who, for the significant portion of the population, is armed.
Hagmann, and Host Rick Wiles share their concerns that even our Congressmen, and Senators are afraid to stand up to Barack Obama, and the emerging Police State out of fear "for the safety of their own familes, and Grandchildren as Chicago Style Mob Rule has overtaken the Executive Branch.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
The Best Survival Firearms Battery for SHTF
I received this questions from Rick, via e-mail: "What do you think the best survival gun inventory is? Can you give me a minimum and maximum list? You can use this question for your website. I really like the army skills stories."
UrbanMan replies: Rick, I'll give you my opinion, but there are so many variables involved. Some of them would be your financial capabilities; existing firearms skills and/or ability to get good training; laws within your locality; and extent of your survival family and their abilities.
Regarding your family survival team or other larger group, for instance I have a friend who has a wife and two daughters over 21 years old living with him as they work part time and go to school. The ability of him to train his wife and daughters is limited by money for ammunition and time,...or basically the wife/daughter's buy in to needing the training. So while he has an M-4 variant, a couple shotguns, and several handguns, he has bought several of the cheaper .22 LR rifles and pistols in order to accomplish some sort of training and to ensure that each family member has a gun. I think he bought Savage semi-auto .22 LR rifles and I know he bought Browning Buckmark pistols to this end.
Minimum Survival Firearms Battery. This would be for one person. If there were a number of people in a survvial grouping, such as a family, then you wouldn't really need to replicate this per person. One thought is to have firearms suitable for every inteded use,..e.g...security and protection; hunting both birds and small game and potentially larger game; and training as well. Some people I know collect cheaper guns, including the not so recognizable calibered guns, for barter/trading purposes. Other are dead set against this. But I can tell you that well into a totally SHTF situation, ammunition will be at least be a viable and valuable commodity.
This is what I would consider an individual minimum battery:
Primary Long Gun: A magazine fed rifle or carbine, in .308 Winchester or .223 (5.56). Good choice here are the M-16/M-4 variants or M-14/M-1A variants. An alternative selection would be a Kalashnikov variant in 7.62 x39mm or .223 Remington. A suitable supply of magazines (think 12 as a minimum), ammunition and cleaning kit/supplies would be necessary as well. I would not feel under gunned if all I had in this category was a Ruger Mini-14. A lesser suitable long gun for this category would be an SKS in 7.62x39mm but only because the ability to re-load quickly is reduced.
Primary Handgun: A semi-automatic pistol in 9x19mm parabellum or .40 caliber would be my choice. Again extra magazines, ammunition and cleaning supplies are necessary. Although a revolver in .357 magnum or any of the excellent M1911 clones are good choices as well.
Shotgun: There are so many uses for a decent shotgun. Think 12 gauge. You can use to hunt birds with bird shotshells, hunt bigger game with slugs; stop vehicles with slugs and nothing protects the home better in a last ditch effort at close range, maybe 15 yards or so, than a 12 gauge repeating shotgun shooting buckshot. A pump shotgun, also called a slide action, is generally better - more reliable, but teaching brand new shooters to operate a pump shotgun effectively is a chore. I have found that in some cases, a double barrel shotgun is more suitable to people who are only going to shoot (train) once or twice in their lifetimes. Make sure you have a suitable ammunition supply in birdshot, buckshot and slugs. I generally have most of my students use #4 buckshot.
Ideal SHTF Survival Firearms Battery:
This is like saying "what is the ideal amount of money to have in your bank account". In other words, where do you quit procuring firearms? I think the addition of a .22 LR rifle and a .22 LR handgun are great choices and maybe the next choices after the minimum battery is bought. A scoped rifle calibered bolt or semi-automatic rifle would be a good tool to have and huge advantage in some situations.
I like the saying "One is none, and Two is One", meaning have backups. Just like planning contingencies, secondary guns including hide out guns are a good idea. Having guns to cover most major calibers maybe something to consider.
Okay, having run my pie hole on the above, remember the first rule of a gunfight and that is to have a gun. I am sure that there are people armed only with a bolt or lever action rifle and maybe an old revolver,....or maybe an M-1 Garand and nothing else, who consider thmesles good to go entering into a collapse. There is another saying, "beware of the man who only has one gun" - meaning he is probably pretty good with it.
Hope this helps Rick. Good luck and Good Prepping. Cheers.
UrbanMan replies: Rick, I'll give you my opinion, but there are so many variables involved. Some of them would be your financial capabilities; existing firearms skills and/or ability to get good training; laws within your locality; and extent of your survival family and their abilities.
Regarding your family survival team or other larger group, for instance I have a friend who has a wife and two daughters over 21 years old living with him as they work part time and go to school. The ability of him to train his wife and daughters is limited by money for ammunition and time,...or basically the wife/daughter's buy in to needing the training. So while he has an M-4 variant, a couple shotguns, and several handguns, he has bought several of the cheaper .22 LR rifles and pistols in order to accomplish some sort of training and to ensure that each family member has a gun. I think he bought Savage semi-auto .22 LR rifles and I know he bought Browning Buckmark pistols to this end.
Minimum Survival Firearms Battery. This would be for one person. If there were a number of people in a survvial grouping, such as a family, then you wouldn't really need to replicate this per person. One thought is to have firearms suitable for every inteded use,..e.g...security and protection; hunting both birds and small game and potentially larger game; and training as well. Some people I know collect cheaper guns, including the not so recognizable calibered guns, for barter/trading purposes. Other are dead set against this. But I can tell you that well into a totally SHTF situation, ammunition will be at least be a viable and valuable commodity.
This is what I would consider an individual minimum battery:
Primary Long Gun: A magazine fed rifle or carbine, in .308 Winchester or .223 (5.56). Good choice here are the M-16/M-4 variants or M-14/M-1A variants. An alternative selection would be a Kalashnikov variant in 7.62 x39mm or .223 Remington. A suitable supply of magazines (think 12 as a minimum), ammunition and cleaning kit/supplies would be necessary as well. I would not feel under gunned if all I had in this category was a Ruger Mini-14. A lesser suitable long gun for this category would be an SKS in 7.62x39mm but only because the ability to re-load quickly is reduced.
Primary Handgun: A semi-automatic pistol in 9x19mm parabellum or .40 caliber would be my choice. Again extra magazines, ammunition and cleaning supplies are necessary. Although a revolver in .357 magnum or any of the excellent M1911 clones are good choices as well.
Shotgun: There are so many uses for a decent shotgun. Think 12 gauge. You can use to hunt birds with bird shotshells, hunt bigger game with slugs; stop vehicles with slugs and nothing protects the home better in a last ditch effort at close range, maybe 15 yards or so, than a 12 gauge repeating shotgun shooting buckshot. A pump shotgun, also called a slide action, is generally better - more reliable, but teaching brand new shooters to operate a pump shotgun effectively is a chore. I have found that in some cases, a double barrel shotgun is more suitable to people who are only going to shoot (train) once or twice in their lifetimes. Make sure you have a suitable ammunition supply in birdshot, buckshot and slugs. I generally have most of my students use #4 buckshot.
Ideal SHTF Survival Firearms Battery:
This is like saying "what is the ideal amount of money to have in your bank account". In other words, where do you quit procuring firearms? I think the addition of a .22 LR rifle and a .22 LR handgun are great choices and maybe the next choices after the minimum battery is bought. A scoped rifle calibered bolt or semi-automatic rifle would be a good tool to have and huge advantage in some situations.
I like the saying "One is none, and Two is One", meaning have backups. Just like planning contingencies, secondary guns including hide out guns are a good idea. Having guns to cover most major calibers maybe something to consider.
Okay, having run my pie hole on the above, remember the first rule of a gunfight and that is to have a gun. I am sure that there are people armed only with a bolt or lever action rifle and maybe an old revolver,....or maybe an M-1 Garand and nothing else, who consider thmesles good to go entering into a collapse. There is another saying, "beware of the man who only has one gun" - meaning he is probably pretty good with it.
Hope this helps Rick. Good luck and Good Prepping. Cheers.
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Mainstay Energy Bars for SHTF
UrbanMan responds: The Mainstay Energy bars are just one of many food items I have. My stored food plan is fulfilled by stocking food in several different categories:
- Pantry items - dry, boxed and canned goods. Includes the cereals, granola mixes, nuts, honey, peanut butter, crackers, canned and dry soups, pastas, etc. Although these foods are usually heavier and bulky for the quantity of food they provide, they are often the easiest to start stocking a survival supply with through getting the "on sale" deals at grocery stores, buying extra cans, boxes or packages - and using them from your pantry in the first in, first out mode.
- Long Term bulk items - dehydrated, freezed dried and/or vacuum packed bulk foods items such as grains, vegetables, powdered eggs eggs, rice, beans, etc. These items, along as you have water, provide the most easily transportable food items, stored in #10 cans in durable cardboard boxes, and in small and larger buckets and barrels, which incidently have additionally uses after you use the food.
- Long Term or Medium term Prepared meals such as MRE's, Wise and Mountain House meals. MRE's of course can be used without preparation while the Wise and Mountain House (and other similar type) need water to re-constitute.
- Survival Foods such as the Mainstay bars.
I have a good supply of Mainstay Bars, manufactured by (surprise) Mainstay Products, Inc. I mainly have the three serving bars, which is one bar that you can break into three pieces.
Each serving or 1/3rd of the overall bar provides 400 calories, which 210 are from fat:
23 gram of Fat
23 milligrams of Sodium
46 grams of Carbohydrates
2 grams of Dietary Fiber
14 grams of Sugar
3 grams of Protein
Each serving provides the following pecentage of nutrients according to the FDA's Required Daily Allowance of nutrients (%DV):
Vitamin A 50%
Vitamin C 60%
Calcium 50%
Iron 10%
Thiamin 15%
Riboflavin 25%
Niacin 30%
Vitamin D 50%
Vitamin E 25%
Vitamin B-6 90%
Folic Acid 35%
Vitamin B-12 20%
Phosphrous 40%
Magnesium 30%
Pantothenic Acid 100%
Mainstay Energy Bars have a five year shelf life. I'll bet they'll keep longer if stored correctly. They come in a 1200, 2400 or 3600 calorie packages. I have several of the 1200 and 3600 bars in my Bug Out Kits. I have included these into my food plan to provide food/energy on the go, when stopping is not an option, and, to provide food for when a cold camp or maximum light, noise and scent discipline is necessary.
I also have small bags of various nuts and raisins in my Pantry food group that I would ensure gets distributed into our Bug Out Bags.
While I do not count on these food bars providing the stated % daily Value that is advertised, they are not bad tasting and will provide the two things required of food: nutrients for energy and to maintain life, and, the emotional upswing when your are very hungry and can put food into yourself.
Finally, no survival food plan is complete without a stockpile of seeds to grow your own produce. Obviously the non-hybrid seeds are best so you can continue to grow your own seed stock. I also have cheap packets of vacuum packed hybrid seeds which I can grow vegetables from and use for barter.
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Preparing for the Collapse Links, 1 January 2013
Happy New Year All.
Continuing with requests to provide more linked articles to readers, the following are some of the better articles I have came across in the last week pertaining to preparing for and seeing the beginning of the collapse, and, surviving the chaos and uncertainly of this coming collapse.
Looting the Treasury is the Last Act.
One of the last acts in a failed nation state is the looting of the treasury. Although politicans and their mentors have been looting the U.S. for decades,..nay, centuries, this report is not about the U.S. but on Afghanistan. At least someone sees the value of Gold.
Alternative Gardening.
An excellent article from Peak Prosperity on the Back to Eden Gardening method on using wood chips and a natural method of gardening. Having the ability to grow our own food is essential to long range survival plans. Hope you have a sufficient amount of non-hybrid seeds in your survival stocks.
Demand For Gold "CombiBars" Soaring.
Swiss refiner Valcambi which has created a CombiBar, a credit-card sized, 50 gram block of 99.9 gold, which is precut, and which can easily be broken into one gram pieces which can then be used as forms of payment in an emergency. And since one gram of gold has roughly the value of two ounces of silver, it is a far more practical lowest common denominator unit of exchange than the traditional one ounce minimums in broad circulation. impractical medium of exchange, as the traditional denominations are so large one would be unable to trade one ounce (and certainly one bar) for every day needs.
Nine States with Sinking Pensions.
Illinois is one of the states with an unfunded pension, just 45% of the state’s pension liabilities were funded in 2010. The state labor unions has fought and stalled the legislation to try to fix the underfudning. Standard & Poor’s cut the state’s credit rating in August from A+ to A, pointing to a “lack of action” in tackling the state pension system’s massive unfunded liability. Moody’s Investor Service downgraded the state earlier in the year and warned that further downgrades are possible if no action on pensions is taken. There are many states and many municipalities that are going bankrupt. What happens when there are millions of broke, hungry people who are not getting thier pension check that so are angry at the government?.....
Over the fiscal cliff: How hard a landing?
Set to start in 2013 unless Congress and Obama act to stop them are the following economy killing events: $536 billion in tax increases; $110 billion in spending cuts divided equally between the military and most other federal departments; most real experts believe that this will lead to a big recession, a bigger jump in unemployment and financial market turmoil.
It’s Not a “Fiscal Cliff” … It’s the Descent Into Lawlessness.
Lawless Looting and Redistribution of Wealth that we were warned about by financial gurus in 2008 may be upon us in 2013. As big banks go bankrupt; with bankrupt cities and coming states here in the U.S.; nations in Europe tanking from debtor status and the ones that are afloat using the nuclear options of austerity programs to try and stay solvent....the collapse storm is brewing and moving.
DHS Insider gives report on gun confiscation and martial law (plan) to investigator in face to face meeting.
This is a two part interview claimed to be authentic and posted on the Steve Quayle site. I find it hard to believe there is actually a plan for this, althought I do believe many politicians would make it happen if they could.
Oil prices rise as 'fiscal cliff' talks to resume.
Oil prices rise as Obama heads back to Washington from vacation. This, I fear, is the best prices we'll see for a long time to come, if forever. As the dollar devaluates, as the U.S. debt and fiscal policies slow or destroy any economic recovery, the prices will go up. We could possibly see $200 a barrel oil - $8 a gallon or more gasoline - before the weight of a giant depression collapses the country.
Investors Buying 50 Times More Physical Silver than Gold?
The geist of story is the surprise that the price of silver has remained at such a depressed level compared to gold. Historically, the price ratio between gold and silver has been 16:1, when both were currencies. Today the ratio is 55:1, so what are the numbers telling us? We believe this is one of those times when smart investors will be well rewarded with buying in silver.
Continuing with requests to provide more linked articles to readers, the following are some of the better articles I have came across in the last week pertaining to preparing for and seeing the beginning of the collapse, and, surviving the chaos and uncertainly of this coming collapse.
Looting the Treasury is the Last Act.
One of the last acts in a failed nation state is the looting of the treasury. Although politicans and their mentors have been looting the U.S. for decades,..nay, centuries, this report is not about the U.S. but on Afghanistan. At least someone sees the value of Gold.
Alternative Gardening.
An excellent article from Peak Prosperity on the Back to Eden Gardening method on using wood chips and a natural method of gardening. Having the ability to grow our own food is essential to long range survival plans. Hope you have a sufficient amount of non-hybrid seeds in your survival stocks.
Demand For Gold "CombiBars" Soaring.
Swiss refiner Valcambi which has created a CombiBar, a credit-card sized, 50 gram block of 99.9 gold, which is precut, and which can easily be broken into one gram pieces which can then be used as forms of payment in an emergency. And since one gram of gold has roughly the value of two ounces of silver, it is a far more practical lowest common denominator unit of exchange than the traditional one ounce minimums in broad circulation. impractical medium of exchange, as the traditional denominations are so large one would be unable to trade one ounce (and certainly one bar) for every day needs.
Nine States with Sinking Pensions.
Illinois is one of the states with an unfunded pension, just 45% of the state’s pension liabilities were funded in 2010. The state labor unions has fought and stalled the legislation to try to fix the underfudning. Standard & Poor’s cut the state’s credit rating in August from A+ to A, pointing to a “lack of action” in tackling the state pension system’s massive unfunded liability. Moody’s Investor Service downgraded the state earlier in the year and warned that further downgrades are possible if no action on pensions is taken. There are many states and many municipalities that are going bankrupt. What happens when there are millions of broke, hungry people who are not getting thier pension check that so are angry at the government?.....
Over the fiscal cliff: How hard a landing?
Set to start in 2013 unless Congress and Obama act to stop them are the following economy killing events: $536 billion in tax increases; $110 billion in spending cuts divided equally between the military and most other federal departments; most real experts believe that this will lead to a big recession, a bigger jump in unemployment and financial market turmoil.
It’s Not a “Fiscal Cliff” … It’s the Descent Into Lawlessness.
Lawless Looting and Redistribution of Wealth that we were warned about by financial gurus in 2008 may be upon us in 2013. As big banks go bankrupt; with bankrupt cities and coming states here in the U.S.; nations in Europe tanking from debtor status and the ones that are afloat using the nuclear options of austerity programs to try and stay solvent....the collapse storm is brewing and moving.
DHS Insider gives report on gun confiscation and martial law (plan) to investigator in face to face meeting.
This is a two part interview claimed to be authentic and posted on the Steve Quayle site. I find it hard to believe there is actually a plan for this, althought I do believe many politicians would make it happen if they could.
Oil prices rise as 'fiscal cliff' talks to resume.
Oil prices rise as Obama heads back to Washington from vacation. This, I fear, is the best prices we'll see for a long time to come, if forever. As the dollar devaluates, as the U.S. debt and fiscal policies slow or destroy any economic recovery, the prices will go up. We could possibly see $200 a barrel oil - $8 a gallon or more gasoline - before the weight of a giant depression collapses the country.
Investors Buying 50 Times More Physical Silver than Gold?
The geist of story is the surprise that the price of silver has remained at such a depressed level compared to gold. Historically, the price ratio between gold and silver has been 16:1, when both were currencies. Today the ratio is 55:1, so what are the numbers telling us? We believe this is one of those times when smart investors will be well rewarded with buying in silver.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
