Cookies

Notice: This website may or may not use or set cookies used by Google Ad-sense or other third party companies. If you do not wish to have cookies downloaded to your computer, please disable cookie use in your browser. Thank You.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Survival Planning - Inflation Likely to Drive Food Prices Way Up

Most of you are already keeping track of the soaring prices of Gold and Silver, of course caused by the Fed's decision to print more money to buy U.S. Debt that nobody else will buy,...not even China who already holds massive amount of U.S. Debt.

The following is a article from the National Inflation Association that projects a large increase in U.S. food prices. And of course, Food, gold, silver won;t be the only things increasing,...fuel, commodities,...EVERYTHING will go up except your salary to keep pace. This my friends will also create shortages, increase the have not and have separation and likely set the stage for a economical collapse.

The NIA Article of 5 Nov 2010:

The National Inflation Association today announced the release of its report about NIA's projections of future U.S. food price increases due to the massive monetary inflation being created by the Federal Reserve's $600 billion quantitative easing. This report was written by NIA's President Gerard Adams, who believes food inflation will take over in 2011 as America's greatest crisis. According to Mr. Adams, making mortgage payments will soon be the last thing on the minds of all Americans. We currently have a currency crisis that could soon turn into hyperinflation and a complete societal collapse.

"For every economic problem the U.S. government tries to solve, it always creates two or three much larger catastrophes in the process," said Adams. "Just like we predicted this past December, the U.S. dollar index bounced in early 2010 and has been in free-fall ever since. Bernanke's QE2 will likely accelerate this free-fall into a complete U.S. dollar rout," warned Adams.

NIA projects that at the average U.S. grocery store it will soon cost $11.43 for one ear of corn, $23.05 for a 24 oz loaf of wheat bread, $62.21 for a 32 oz package of Domino Granulated Sugar, $24.31 for a 32 fl oz container of soy milk, $77.71 for a 11.30 oz container of Folgers Classic Roast Coffee, $45.71 for a 64 fl oz container of Minute Maid Orange Juice, and $15.50 for a Hershey's Milk Chocolate 1.55 oz candy bar. NIA also projects that by the end of this decade, a plain white men's cotton t-shirt at Wal-Mart will cost $55.57.

The report highlights how despite cotton rising by 54%, corn rising by 29%, soybeans rising by 22%, orange juice rising by 17%, and sugar rising by 51% during the months of September and October alone, these huge commodity price increases have yet to make their way into America's grocery stores because corporations have been reluctant to pass these price increases along to the consumer. In today's dismal economy, no retailer wants to be the first to dramatically raise food prices. However, NIA expects all retailers to soon substantially raise food prices at the same time, which will ensure that this Holiday shopping season will be the worst in recorded American history.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Urban Survival Planning – Politics and Elections and What Does it Mean to Survival Planning?

Maybe some of you are like me, trying to makes heads or tails of the results of the mid term elections and how they apply to the possibility of an economic collapse or other catastrophic event and the planning/preparation for surviving.

UrbanSurvivalSkills.com received a comment from Don Wand,..”It is not business as usual! Look around people! Sanity is an illusion, the world is falling apart at the seams physically and spiritually! We all need our house in order! We need survival gear now, not when our dollar is worthless! We all will need food and water! Get 15 Year Shelf Life Food Now!

Obviously Don Wand thinks there is no time to waste…..Frankly, neither do I.

It is interesting to see people’s comments on What will cause us to slide into a Survival situation and Whenthat may occur.

Discounting the 2012 Mayan Calendar-Collapse of Mankind Speculators, there are many valid political, social and economic indicators that may or will foretell a collapse or the beginning of a collapse. I think it is important for all individuals and groups planning for a future Survival scenario to understand that if and when a collapse hits and when it becomes time to fully execute Survival plans, all the experts are not going to be there with you.

So what does this mean? Maybe I’m thinking that while you should use the “experts” to help develop indicator criteria and keep the “experts” and their information close at hand and under constant review, each of us has to be individual responsible for what we do and don’t do for survival preparation and execution when necessary.

When I started writing this post, I had a thought centered around the concept that while most people believe that the economic outlook for this country, after yesterday’s election, would appear to be rising – this may not be the case. Many policies and a base direction were set the last two years that combined with gridlock in the Capital may just set the stage for something we cannot recover from.

If citizens of this country think that the last couple of years were rough, I hate to think what they would think if things got really rough,….Greece or Argentina like rough. I just believe, or maybe it’s just a sense of dread, that either any efforts won’t be enough to avoid a near future economic collapse or that no efforts will be made to forestall a collapse.

And my ideas on a collapse are not necessarily a dynamic collapse where you wake up one morning with banks closed, grocery stores empty and fuel scarce,…..I think that a much more likely scenario is a gradual economic collapse that spawns a much larger “have not” or even homeless segment of the population, sporadic regional based anarchy, flailing attempts by the government to control the situation and the population including implementation of martial law, and a general day to today fight for the commodities that we take for granted today.

Nothing has really changed, only a greater need to be prepared.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Urban Handgun - Reader Comments and Replies

UrbanSurvivalSkills.com received a comment on the response to reader question on Urban Handguns......... "Anonymous said,.... It's pretty hard to argue with your idea to standardize on a gun model and ammo, but here is another thought to consider. If the group all has Glock 9mm what do you do (after TSHTF) when you are low on ammo but all you can find for sale/barter is 38 cal? Why not do as you suggest picking the most popular/available ammo for each type weapon (handgun, shotgun, rifle) and then have a backup plan where 2 or 3 different weapons are kept so you can make use of "found" ammo down the road. So everyone gets a glock 17 as the primary handgun and the group picks up a couple .357 & .44 revolvers, a Army .45 a couple of 10 mm etc. My favorite caliber is 22 LR. A cheap way to bring meat to the table and deadly at close range.

UrbanMan's reply: I agree with your idea where you have several firearms of different calibers, .........this describes me and my firearms battery, although I have centered my main battery around .223 Remington in AR platforms and 9mm Glocks. I still have many firearms in different calibers, just in case. There will be some people who argue that if you prepared enough, you do not need to have a slew of additional firearms just to use ammunition they barter for or find.

I was reading into the reader question and believed that this "white collar" new survival group (as they describes themselves) was not to keen or committed to the idea of a well rounded survival battery of firearms. It almost seems distasteful for them to arm themselves, but the reader did ask if standardization was the right thing to do.

Funny thing that he did not ask for a recommendation of type of handgun. If a Survival group decided to arm themselves with only handguns, then I think one choice at the top of their list should be a high capacity 9mm semi-automatic like the Smith and Wesson Military and Police with or the Glock 17/19......and if they are going to limit their survival firearms battery to a handgun, then lots of magazines and plenty of ammunition is in order. I would try to talk them into a couple .22 LR handguns like you say,...especially if they have people in their Survival group and are not going to take weapons training seriously or maybe are physically unable to handle a center fire handgun.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Urban Survival - CBRNE Threat: VX Nerve Agent

I see alot of back and forth on the internet assessing the probability of Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosive (CBRNE) events being the catalyst for a collapse. I assess this is less likely than either a gradual or dynamic economic collapse, but still possible. UrbanSurvivalSkills.com possess very basic knowledge in this area and feels that Urban Survivalists can take some steps to protect against some of the likely agents, be it military grade weapons or some type of commercial contaminant, however the required technology, equipment, and expertise to be exceptional prepared and protected is far outside the scope of most Survivalists.

It is always prudent to have Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) such as protective (gas) masks, extra filters, protective suits, gloves, and decontamination material, such as bleach on hand. The ability to seal the air input into your home or residence may be crucial as well.

Over the next few weeks and months, we will post some information on CBRNE Threats, particularly chemical and biological threats.

VX Nerve Agent

First symptoms of exposure (skin contact) may be muscular twitching or sweating at the area of exposure followed by nausea or vomiting. Some of the early symptoms of a VX vapor exposure a runny nose, tightness in the chest with shortness of breath, and pinpoint pupils.

Treatment would include first removal of the liquid agent from the skin before moving the person out of the contaminated area. Begin decontamination by washing the contaminated areas with household bleach and flushing with clean water. After decontamination, the contaminated clothing is removed and skin contamination washed away.

An individual who has received a known nerve-agent exposure or who exhibits definite signs or symptoms of nerve-agent exposure should immediately have the nerve agent antidote drugs atropine, pralidoxime (2-PAM), and diazepam injected. In several nations the nerve agent antidotes are issued for military personnel in the form of an auto-injector such as the United States military Mark I auto-injector.