When the Deflation Tsunami Hits, Losing the Least is a Winner

 

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  • #1167
    NZSanctuary
    Member

    Check out this – just WOW! 0.o
    https://agendadocumentary.com/trailer/

    It looks like a perfect example of how to divide and conquer the people – play them against each other. Blame the “left” and “Godlessness” and stealth communism, and produce your very own fundamentalist extremists.

    The propaganda machine is in full swing.

    #1169
    sumac.carol
    Participant

    I’d like to echo the SOS request for what would be the Canadian-equivalent to TD for the purposes of buying Canadian treasuries (or Savings Bonds or whatever is recommended). If anyone can provide insight on this, it would be most appreciated.

    #1170
    el gallinazo
    Member

    Nassim

    I agree with everything you say. But just to point out that they can freeze your account in any financial institution such as a bank or a money market just as easily as in td.gov. Td.gov is marginally safer regarding seizure as at least Corzine and Dimon can not personally steal your savings and the treasury has to think twice before screwing with bondholders at the risk of foreign currency flight. As to a minimum of 10% each in bills and PM’s, agree with you totally. The trick is finding a safe place for it. Silver is easier to use as currency than gold, but gold is a lot easier to move around.

    #1171
    riesterm
    Participant

    El G: What’s your opinion on using Treasury Direct through a local credit union ?

    Thank-you.

    #1182
    Burgundy
    Member

    Totally agree with this statement “When the Deflation Tsunami Hits, Losing the Least is a Winner”. The problem is that finding a different place to hide on a sinking ship tends to be futile. So finding a different place within the financial system to hide one’s wealth seems equally futile. Even the notion that one can live off the saved credits in the tertiary make-believe financial system even after it crashes and defaults on its obligations seems somewhat obtuse.

    As I see it we’re facing a multifaceted collapse as follows:

    1. tertiary economy (finance, services and make-believe) collapses due to internal dynamics;

    2. secondary economy (production, transformation and real work) collapses due to energy constraints, resource depletion and failure of the primary economy;

    3. primary economy (everything nature provides) collapses due to climate change and ecological damage.

    Seems to me that weaving a successful survival path through the labyrinth of existential dangers will require much more than simply rearranging financial investments. Especially when they’re just claims on underlying assets which are themselves vanishing.

    #1183
    Nassim
    Participant

    There is also a real possibility – on a human time-scale – of a Carrington Event.

    “One-in-eight chance of solar megaflare causing trillions of dollars of damage in next ten years, scientists warn”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2108442/One-chance-solar-megaflare-causing-trillions-dollars-damage-years-scientists-warn.html

    Clearly, in such a catastrophic event, having direct access to resources (including PM) would make quite a difference.

    #1185
    Sabretache
    Member

    @NZSanctuary, all

    That “Agenda” documentary trailer is scary stuff.

    A direct rallying call to “The Flag” and the self-evident (or so we are required to presume) “Christian Values” underpinning it.

    Wow indeed! – that is exactly what we are ALL up against.

    I found the entire thing utterly abhorent . According to its world view, that makes me either a fool or plain evil. I wonder which it will be?

    #1186
    Franny
    Member

    It is not so much the getting locked out part that worries me, it is that they are so short staffed and/or inefficient that it takes them 5+ days to answer the damn phone.

    #1189
    bluebird
    Participant

    Thanks El G, great topic!

    I have my TD account linked with a credit union. no issues.

    The issue I have with TD, is that my computer fails to be registered to TD. So every time I sign into TD, I get a temporary password. While this has been doable, it is kinda annoying whether I use IE or Firefox. I wonder how long I can get TD temporary passwords before TD locks me out?

    I am thinking with FDIC insured bank accounts or NCUA insured accounts with a credit union, that with the global financial Ponzi implodes, most people will still think their accounts are ‘safe’. However, I think there will be limits on the amount of withdrawals. Otherwise, if not allowed any of their money, the angry people will go after the banksters with pitchforks, ropes, guns, and tear down the banks.

    We will be told the limits are just temporary until the crisis is resolved.

    #1219
    el gallinazo
    Member

    Riesterm

    I recommend that one has three banks, if possible, tied into td.gov, and one of them being a credit union would be excellent.

    Burgundy,

    I agree with you in principle. But the purpose of this blog site is to increase your odds of making it to the next change. And holding on to your savings for an extra year or two over having them expropriated would probably increase your odds. The timing of the collapse is not written in stone. I can’t believe that TPTB have kicked the can down the road for 3.5 years and counting. Besides, everyone’s milage will vary. A strapping young lad with a BA and living in Dad’s basement with a $100k student loan should have a different strategy than a 65 year old buzzard whose family thinks he’s a whack job.

    Bluebird

    I’ll clean my floor but I don’t do Windows. But it sounds to me that your browsers are set to reject the cookies that td.gov is planting on your hard drive so their computers will recognize it. I would go into the browser settings and “liberalize” the accept cookie preference or at least see how it is set. If by chance you have a Mac running something under the new Lion, I could give you more details. Td.gov is geared to run on computer interaction, and it does appear that they are understaffed with human support, so one should take as much care as possible to make your computer relations smooth. Reports back to me do appear that once you actually get a human there, they are friendly and competent.

    #1225
    alfbell
    Member

    If it all comes crashing down I can always live in my truck, stand on a corner with my guitar with a tip jar beside me and sing and play for my dinner. Come to think of it, this is what I’ve always wanted to do anyway. Ah… the simple life.

    #1226
    alfbell
    Member

    Doesn’t appear to me that TD or any bank or institution would be safe if we got into desperate times. Who would want to put themselves in a position where they couldn’t have access to their money or even allow the chance of it happening? TD, Fed Reserve banks and the TBTFs are all easily accessible by the government and can be shut down or controlled in the blink of an eye. If anything, a small private local bank would be best BUT I wouldn’t even trust that.

    I guess desperate times would require desperate measures no matter how inconvenient those measures might be for us.

    Maybe the best idea would be to do something such as… starting now, slowly but surely get 90-95% of your cash out of the banks (obviously in $100 bills), just leaving enough and continuing to keep just enough in to pay bills and do business. (You can deposit some cash back in whenever you need more money to write a big check or pay off a credit card or some such.) Take all of your cash and your silver and gold and put it into one of those military stash containers that are waterproof, crushproof, etc. and find a very safe place to bury and/or hide it. Return to it on occasion when you need to replenish your cash. Like El G, move to some beautiful moderate climate environment like Mexico or Costa RIca or Belize and live well but inexpensively. Come back into the US whenever necessary to get your passport stamped, visit friends and family, etc. and then head back to your paradise.

    Find an income source in Mexico, or wherever you go, that will minimally give you enough income to handle your living expenses (lessening the amount of times you’ll need to go to your cash stash). Would be best if it was cash income off the books. Or you could even have an internet business.

    If you set up a formal business in this country and had a bank account you might be able to apply for and get citizenship. Then, if it ever becomes necessary, you’ll have the choice to renounce your US citizenship, turn in your US passport, and be free of US taxes and intervention for the rest of your life. If the US econ completely collapsed and became the welfare-war monger-police state that we all fear, who would want to live here anyway.

    #1234
    skipbreakfast
    Participant

    Great article. Nice to see you’re contributing to the new site el g.

    As for the duration of said deflation, I find even the deflationists such as yourself tend to lean towards the notion of a shorter term period of deflation, as devastating as it might be, rather than a longer term one. My impression is that Nicole Foss has warned the deflation could be devastating in both scale AND duration–it might last much longer than we currently anticipate, like a decade or more. And so when I read your own predictions, which tend towards a relatively short deflationary window, I can’t help wondering if even the best deflationists are being tempered by the hyper-inflationists’ arguments.

    In contrast, I feel that the current unwind is much slower than anyone could have expected, including TAE. Which only leads me to believe that the entrenched powers will draw things out as long as possible, and I would be inclined to believe that will include a long deflation too.

    #1245
    bluebird
    Participant

    Hm, I tried signing into TD with my AOL browser. And it worked! I’m glad that worked, but what does that say about AOL.

    Now for a cash story…
    My spouse went to pay a couple bills with cash. One was to an insurance company, the other to a department store. Each bill was appx $500.

    Neither company would accept the cash. Spouse was getting very irritated. The department store ended up calling their corporate office and finally decided to allow the cash payment.

    The insurance company wanted a check. He did not have any checks with him, but they would allow payment to be made with a credit card. So that was resolved.

    As far as stashing cash in the ‘Bank of Sealy’, I have some extra 20s, a few 50s, even fewer hundreds. I had heard the lower the denomination, the better. But after the ordeal with paying bills with cash, I think next time to get money order first.

    #1255
    el gallinazo
    Member

    Haven’t got one for several years, but ironically enough, Postal Money Orders are a great way to convert your disreputable cash into a responsible looking document. They are much cheaper than at a bank, and the PO doesn’t even take your name. Just money on the barrelhead. Hope that hasn’t changed. Since your name does appear on the order itself, and they eventually wind up back somewhere in the PO system eventually, guess they could trace them to you if they really put their minds to it. But not to worry. We’ll all have RFID chips implanted in our nostrils shortly.

    #1256

    Whether the End Game is Deflation or Hyperinflation, in the developed countries with a digital money infrastructure already in place, at some indeterminate point in the future CASH will not be acceptable payment form.

    Far as TPTB go are concerned, Cash is nearly as bad as Barter, its very difficult to trace, particularly old bills that have been floating around in the system a long time. Anyone having large Stashes of Cash can be assumed by TPTB to have acquired it “illegally”. Electronic Money is much better, it can always be traced, all the Bits are Tagged and you have a complete record always of every transaction ever made with a given bit from its date of issuance onward, even if it was just to buy a stick of bubble gum.

    Consider the current means of Food Distribution through the SNAP Card system. The Card is tagged with your Name, and you have to show Goobermint ID (drivers license usually) in order to use it to buy Food. You can’t hand over some Food Stamps to somebody else for say a bottle of Moonshine and then the Moonshiner could use the stamps to buy some Potatoes to make more Booze. You would have to buy the Potatoes yourself and hand the sack over to the Moonshiner to get your bottle of Vodka.

    If/when we get a Full On crash, even a deflationary one, its fairly likely Da Goobermint will Decertify all FRNs, and give you a Window of time (maybe a month) to turn in all your FRNs and then be issued out Digicredits for this Cash. From then on, the only “legitimate” transactions you could ever make would be with the new DigiDollars. Probably they would be recorded in your ATT Cell Phone Account, and whenever making a transaction even with another Private Seller of something, you would have to use your Iphone to transfer the Money from your account to his, with all the Taxes automatically taken out.

    You don’t really NEED the Chip Implants here, this conversion could be done virtually instantaneously now since everyone carries a cell phone. If you chose NOT to carry a Cell Phone, you simply could not buy anything, because there is no “Paper” form of currency that is accepted anymore by Da Goobermint. Its not good to pay Bills already, once TSHTF completely, its unlikely you could use it to buy anything at all.

    When the monetary system crash works its way inward to collapsing the dollar, there will likely be a very limited amount of time where current FRNs will work to buy anything at all. You’ll have to use that window to convert into Hard Goods as best you can at that time, but really everyone will be doing that and shelves will empty pretty fast.

    Meanwhile though, they remain the most fungible form of money available on a global level. Gold has limited utility, you cannot go to Walmart and buy out their stock of 50 lb bags of rice with an American Eagle. First you have to go to a coin dealer and get him to fork over whatever it is Gold is trading at on that day, less his vigorish, then go over to Walmart to buy the 50 lb bags of rice. In a SHTF scenario, by the time you complete the first trasaction of seling the Gold Coin and then driving over to Walmart, the shelves would already be emptied.

    You have to keep your wits about you all the time here, on practically a daily basis. Really, its a possibility on any given day that the POTUS would declare a Bank Holiday, and if you don’t divest of your cash in the Bank of Sealy on that DAY before everybody else runs out trying to load up on Preps, it won’t buy jack squat, because there won’t be anything left to buy.

    The fact we now have an electronic system of commerce already in place makes this economic colapse quite a bit different than the one experienced leading into the Great Depression. There was no readily available substitute for the Paper Dollars then. There is now, and one can be pretty sure TPTB will take the opportunity here to get rid of Cash completely.

    Of course, the whole bizness will cause such Havoc that one cannot expect the system to hold up too long. Local communities will have to reorganize along Barter lines and produce their own local currencies to do local resource distribution, if a monetary based economy is chosen by said community. I hope we will not go down this route up here, I’d rather see us try a Potlatch economy again. Only time will tell how that works itself out.

    RE
    https://www.doomsteaddiner.com

    #1258
    bluebird
    Participant

    I expect that eventually TPTB will take down the Internets and accessibility to online banking and ATM cards. No cash, no digi-cards, ugh. I suppose by then I shouldn’t worry, because I probably wouldn’t have survived anyway.

    #1262
    el gallinazo
    Member

    Reverse Engineer,

    Welcome to the exalted club of “conspiracy factists” here 🙂 I find your comments very valuable and thought stimulating.

    I listened to a radio interview with the Gambles yesterday, creators of the very amazing film, Thrive. After hearing them interviewed yesterday, I immediately paid my 5 bucks to lease it, and was happy at the technical quality of the transmission as I have a very narrow broadband where I live, nominal 1 Mbps. They refer to TPTB as TPTSB, the powers that shouldn’t be. I think I will adopt this in the future.

    What we might give some thought to is that if TPTSB declare a “bank holiday,” then what is all that debit card money going to debit. They would be putting all their nuts, assuming they have any, in the functioning of the electronic system. Even a minor Carrington event would take down the monetary system or a single, strategically placed nuclear explosion in the ionosphere.

    Also, only the Starbuck yuppies and the Amalgamated Union of Nerds with their handheld iGadgets are really ready to go cashless. The heat hasn’t been under the lobster pot long enough to get the teeming millions to go along without resistance.

    And then we should give some thought to exactly how the recall of currency will go down. While other governments have pulled this shit, they have replaced the currency with a new paper currency, and the excuse is always that their political antecedents have allowed the base unit to reach such a small value that they need a new currency that divides it by a 100 or a 1000 (or perhaps 10 to the 8th 🙂 Are enough Merikans that brain dead or would this be the kick off to an even more radicalized resistance movement? Turning in your sweat and blood paper for electrons might not go down that easily. Inquiring minds would like to know.

    BTW, bartering your JPMC acquired potatos (I prefer the Dan Quayle spelling) for vodka with your local bootlegger would be a nifty idea. Keep the wheels of industry spinning.

    #1268
    Nassim
    Participant

    Reverse Engineer,

    I have no doubt that the those in charge would love to move all financial transactions – even the most trivial – to mobile/cell phones. It has been largely achieved in Japan, BTW.

    However, as is usual with technocopic solutions, it is quite easy to waylay them. How exactly can they stop people from sabotaging local cell phone towers. I mean, if one cannot get food to eat, why should anyone else?

    As soon as local towers are damaged, no one will be able to carry out any financial transaction legally. People will be forced to either barter or use gold/silver or revert to nominally worthless FRN’s

    Attached files

    #1270

    el gallinazo post=862 wrote: Reverse Engineer,

    Welcome to the exalted club of “conspiracy factists” here 🙂 I find your comments very valuable and thought stimulating.

    Thanks EG. Actually I’m “Conspiracy Theory Lite” compared to some of my fellow Diners. We made one of our Topic areas for this area in particular 🙂 Have you stopped by the Diner yet? Brand Spanking new and pretty quiet still, but hopefully things will perk up with some good theorizing.

    https://www.doomsteaddiner.org

    What we might give some thought to is that if TPTSB declare a “bank holiday,” then what is all that debit card money going to debit. They would be putting all their nuts, assuming they have any, in the functioning of the electronic system. Even a minor Carrington event would take down the monetary system or a single, strategically placed nuclear explosion in the ionosphere.

    No, all the information would not be lost in an EMP. Its all backed up in deep underground computers encased in a large Faraday Cage in Area 51 🙂 However, the network itself would certainly be fried along with everybody’s cell phone, so rebooting after this would take some time. Until the network was rebooted, you would probably have to go to a Bank where the manager would take your name along with others and send off a Snail Mail message via Pony Express to the regional office of Da Fed, which would have a paper file of the accounts listed in the Secure Computers in the Underground Bunker. Your local Bank affiliate would get a return Post and he would start Ledger for your account, and temporarily you would be issued Paper Notes of a limited duration to use in local commerce, until the network could be rebooted.

    Also, only the Starbuck yuppies and the Amalgamated Union of Nerds with their handheld iGadgets are really ready to go cashless. The heat hasn’t been under the lobster pot long enough to get the teeming millions to go along without resistance.

    Not true, the vast majority of people in the FSofA already go cashless operating this way using Plastic Debit and Credit cards. This is the same system, you just don’t have your own end terminal, the stores have them. As mentioned in the post I replied to, you often cannot even use Cash to pay some bills.

    And then we should give some thought to exactly how the recall of currency will go down. While other governments have pulled this shit, they have replaced the currency with a new paper currency, and the excuse is always that their political antecedents have allowed the base unit to reach such a small value that they need a new currency that divides it by a 100 or a 1000 (or perhaps 10 to the 8th 🙂 Are enough Merikans that brain dead or would this be the kick off to an even more radicalized resistance movement? Turning in your sweat and blood paper for electrons might not go down that easily. Inquiring minds would like to know.

    I lived in Brazil in the 60s, during which period the Cruzeiro was replaced by the Cruzado, then after that I think was the New Cruzeiro followed eventually by the Real. Zeros were lopped off in each iteration of this monetary farce. It of course led to a lot of political instability, but mostly the average person just lives with it, relatively powerless to do much about it. With all the Guns in the FSofA, it could be more radical here than there, but so far the imagined Revolution of Gun toting Rednecks and Tea Baggers has not yet occurred, so I’ll believe it when I see it.

    BTW, bartering your JPMC acquired potatos (I prefer the Dan Quayle spelling) for vodka with your local bootlegger would be a nifty idea. Keep the wheels of industry spinning.

    My Grandpa was a Bootlegger in Brooklyn during the Great Depression. He did very well 🙂 Left a lot of Booze Bucks behind. A dangerous bizness to be in back then, probably more dangerous in the Depressin to come, but still one off the most durable enterprises you can engage in to survive, as long as you can dodge the bullets.

    RE
    https://www.doomsteaddiner.org

    #1275

    Nassim post=868 wrote: Reverse Engineer,

    However, as is usual with technocopic solutions, it is quite easy to waylay them. How exactly can they stop people from sabotaging local cell phone towers. I mean, if one cannot get food to eat, why should anyone else?

    As soon as local towers are damaged, no one will be able to carry out any financial transaction legally. People will be forced to either barter or use gold/silver or revert to nominally worthless FRN’s

    The sabotaging of Conduit infrastructure by Have Nots is already occuring in places like Egypt. That is what all those Gas Pipeline explosions are about.

    If people have ZERO dollars in their Cell Phone Accounts, then they would stop carrying them around and you would not be able to track them via GPS. This sytem only works as long as you trickle out enough Dole Money for people to survive. A monthly allotment just enough for minimum food and energy requirements. As long as people get this much, they won’t en masse sabotage the Cell towers, because they remain dependent on the system for their daily bread.

    Really, the fact we have 47M people currently getting a Food Allotment on their JPMC SNAP card is the reason the FSofA is not yet Egypt or Greece. If we really had 47M people unable to get the subsistence basics of life, they really would have nothing left to lose and we would see a lot more violence.

    The system is overall limited in its utility, it can only persist for as long as TPTB can keep the electric grid up and running everywhere to power all the routers and keep everybody’s cell phone charged. I don;t think the system can last very long, but I also think it is something that will be attempted. As you mention, in Japan its already up and running.

    The substitution of Gold or Silver really is just a Barter Economy. If its a Coin, whatever face value is stamped on it is meaningless, its only value is in whether somebody who has some food will take the gold or silver in return for that food. If that person has a large surplus of food, he might take the gold or silver for it, but really not enough people in any community have much Gold or Silver to start an economy rolling this way. What exactly would there be available for the person who collects up Gold and Silver to buy with it in this economy?

    On the homepage of my Yahoo Group I kept the following quote from Revelation:

    Revelation 18:11-13 And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more: 12The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, 13And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.

    In a monetary collapse of this magnitude, it ALL goes worthless, even the Gold and Silver, even the Flour and Wheat, even the Souls of Men. Nothing has meaning in terms of monetary value. Its a systemic collapse of a civilization which is held together by the use of money in trade. Its happenned before, it happenned in Babylon and it happenned in Rome. Its happening again now.

    RE
    https://www.doomsteaddiner.org

    #1284
    Nassim
    Participant

    << The sabotaging of Conduit infrastructure by Have Nots is already occuring in places like Egypt. That is what all those Gas Pipeline explosions are about.>>

    That is an interesting example. Essentially, Egypt has limited gas. The Egyptian PTB’s have resorted to two tactics to get that gas into cash/gold in Switzerland.

    1- They opened cement factories – using almost free gas as fuel. Egypt has unlimited supplies of limestone and clay. This is then exported by those paying almost nothing for the fuel and much of the money disappears abroad.

    2- Almost free gas is exported to Israel and Jordan. The Israelis and Jordanian pay a very cheap price which is nevertheless largely kept abroad and almost nothing reaches the Egyptian Treasury.

    The destruction of the gas pipe-line is one way of getting at TPTB of Egypt. Easy and effective.

    PS

    Can someone please tell me how to shade in grey quotations by others?

    #1285
    alfbell
    Member

    Prediction and supposition are a waste of time. No one knows what is going to happen and when it is going to happen.

    Gold, silver, digital money, new currency, cell phones and on and on and on. What a bunch of drivel.

    Real wealth is water, food, shelter, clothing, tools, energy and land. That is all there is to it. This is the common denominator… the basic datum. Figure out your strategy based on this basic datum.

    #1287

    Nassim post=884 wrote:

    Can someone please tell me how to shade in grey quotations by others?

    If you are quoting somebody from the thread itself, you just hit the “quote” button.

    If you are quoting from somewhere else you are pasting in, surround the text with the words “quote” and “/quote” in square brackets. This forum accepts most BBcode so far as I have experimented with it anyhow.

    On that topic, Ashvin are you running this forum on SMF software? Will it accept SMF codes natively?

    RE

    #1288

    alfbell post=885 wrote: Prediction and supposition are a waste of time. No one knows what is going to happen and when it is going to happen.

    Gold, silver, digital money, new currency, cell phones and on and on and on. What a bunch of drivel.

    Real wealth is water, food, shelter, clothing, tools, energy and land. That is all there is to it. This is the common denominator… the basic datum. Figure out your strategy based on this basic datum.

    You forget Friends and Community in your list of Basic Datum as far as tallying up your real wealth is concerned.

    I disagree however that specualting on how the collapse will play itself out on the monetary end is either “drivel” or a “waste of time”. The fact is, that for a while at least the monetary system will remain the main method people have for acquiring water, food, shelter et al. Part of Prepping Up is being aware of the possible ways the system might be manipulated or morphed here. Too many people labor under the false assumption that having a pile of Gold in the Basement Safe or a mattress stuffed full of FRNs will provide a measure of monetary security. Other people labor under the false assumption that by living on a subsistence farm (aka “doomstead”) they will be able to both produce a perpetual food supply and protect and defend it from both the State and from destitute people (aka “zombies”).

    In actuality, for the most part you are going to have to find means and methods of surviving inside what looks to be evovlving as an increasingly Fascist State here on the NA continent, thus the reason I label it the “FSofA”, or Fascist States of Amerika.

    RE
    https://www.doomsteaddiner.org

    #1303
    bluebird
    Participant

    Reverse Engineer said “Part of Prepping Up is being aware of the possible ways the system might be manipulated or morphed here.”

    Indeed. No one knows exactly how anything will be occurring. So I’ve been trying to do a bit of prepping in several areas, and hope for the best.

    But to remind everyone, Nature will always bat last. My daughter and family recently survived a tornado in SW Ohio. Luckily, she and her husband and pets are fine, her house is fine, but the tornado flattened her barn and everything in it…generator, lawnmower, tools, etc. She is on the third day without electric as the tornado took out all the poles and wires in her area. Definitely many lessons to be learned.

    #1350
    el gallinazo
    Member

    RE – I bookmarked your link and will take it around the block when I have time. Thanks.

    The United States is in very rapid transition from soft to hard fascism. Though Stalin’s Soviet Union was not technically fascist due to a lack of corporate superstructure, it certainly was totalitarian, and most lessons between the two are interchangeable. Probably the greatest threat to survival via doomstead preparation is the lesson of the Kulaks in Russia and Ukraine (formerly the Ukraine) 🙂 One reason that you cannot divorce a survival strategy from a political, big picture understanding.

    RE, would you consider the upcoming global economic collapse as a phase of the long term TPTSB strategy, or would you regard it as a very serious miscalculation? I really cannot figure that one out with any certainty, but not from lack of trying. The possible dissolution of the EU would be strong evidence for the latter opinion, as Master of the Universe David Rockefeller has made it quite clear that the consolidation of pseudo sovereign government into a small global number, perhaps four, is a necessary stepping stone to a one world government run by enlightened, technocratic bankers. The recent installation of this system into Greece and Italy certainly indicates a pathway for this possible game plan. Eventually, of course, they will have to use NATO thugs to reinforce it against populist revolution. The upcoming chaos in Europe may very well lead to the consolidation of power in classical Naomi Klein fashion – total jackbooted state. OTOH, they may have truly miscalculated and their plans may fall apart, even in the short term, through centrifugal forces, even prior to PO kicking in hard.

    #1352

    el gallinazo post=950 wrote: RE, would you consider the upcoming global economic collapse as a phase of the long term TPTSB strategy, or would you regard it as a very serious miscalculation? I really cannot figure that one out with any certainty, but not from lack of trying.

    Always a source of endless speculation in the Conspiracy Theory crowd 🙂 MIne isn’t the most popular viewpoint on this question.

    I believe the consequences of exponential growth have been well known by the Illuminati going well back into time, predating Malthus for sure. I also am quite sure Isaac Newton when he was Master of the Mint back in 1692 new precisely what the consequences were of the type of monetary system the BoE was engineering up. Anyhow, over the centruies here there is no doubt that the monetary system has been engineered up to keep a very small group of people in perpetual power.

    The discoveries of the Enlightenment enabled the accessing of large amounts of thermodynamic energy, which thus propelled our friends the Illuminati to even higher pinnacles of power. They also however have known for a long time (going back at least to Hubbert but probably back further than that) that fossil fuel resource was limited and would eventually run out on them. So for a long time they engaged in seeking out “ultimate power” in the form of Nuclear Energy, particularly Fusion power. Billions if not Trillions have been spent over the last 40 years (that when the numers meant something before the printing spree), I was reading about coming Fusion Reactors in Popular Science when I was a boy.

    Sadly here, TIMES UP, the Buzzer has gone off and Ultimate Power has not arrived here. What our Illuminati friends are doing here is rear guard action, they are trying to escape with what wealth they collected up and get out from under a collapsing Tower of Babel.

    Far as a “Plan” goes, I think they think they have Plans, but for the most part I don’t think those plans will work all that long. I’ve looked at this problem up down and sideways and once the Conduits fail in earnest you get a One to the Many devolution. The center will not hold.

    Anyhow, my good friend Peter who is collaborating with me on DD doesn’t agree with me on this, he is pretty sure the Illuminati have this well planned and figured all the way down the line. He makes a pretty good case for it also, and e have pursued some EXTREMELY long debates with each other on how this plays out. Eventually I’ll try to get some of those debates up on DD, they are very entertaining 🙂

    In any event, I definitely would not call this one a “Phase” like the Great Depression or even the French Revolution. Those events happenned on the upswing while the Illuminati were still accumulating greater power and greater wealth. Now we are on the downslope, and its all going to come apart, quite rapidly relatively speaking. I don’t think the Illuminati can control the collapse, and I don’t think most of what is called wealth will be worth a hill of beans here pretty soon. For Rome it came apart at the seams when the monetary system collapsed. When the money doesn’t work to pay the Soldiers, you cannot Buy Loyalty anymore and the Elite are no longer Elite. That is when you will see quite a few people strung up by their Gonads with their Chestnuts Roasting over an Open Fire.

    RE
    https://www.doomsteaddiner.org

    #1356
    alfbell
    Member

    RE: yes, I agree about friends and community added to the list of stable datums. (Might I add being in a temperate climate area… thus not needing much energy for heat or A/C, and also having the benefit of a long growing season.)

    El G: please tell the lesson of the Kulaks in Russia.

    I posted my opinion earlier on this thread regarding things being upside down and backwards in our society (ie. what the status quo thinks and believes, and are programmed to think and believe, is usually the opposite of what is true) and I think this also applies to the above speculation about the Illuminati/NWO/TPTB. I believe Hollywood pushes this false notion forward by always having the villian or bad guy as the very wealthy, “together”, organized individual and the hero is always an unkempt, bungling guy with marital or relationship problems, always in trouble with his boss or the authorities due to his irresponsibility, etc.

    Wouldn’t you say that that is again another opposite? I believe people or groups that are on an evil bent, or pushing destructive intentions and purposes forward, will always wind up derailing and crashing. The more evil one commits the more “stupid” they become. If there are indeed people who want to make debt slaves of the masses and control them via a police state, I believe they are going against humanity and its urge to survive and thrive and it can only blow up in their faces. They are on this planet too, right? What they are doing is analagous to drilling a hole in the bottom of a boat and gleefully anticipating how everyone is now going to drown. Yet, they have forgotten one very important datum… they are on the boat too!

    I think the crash of the Eurozone is one of their faux pas. And they’ll be many more to come as they continue to work at making a mess of everything.

    Crime and evil does not pay in the long run, eh?

    #1358

    alfbell post=956 wrote: RE: yes, I agree about friends and community added to the list of stable datums. (Might I add being in a temperate climate area… thus not needing much energy for heat or A/C, and also having the benefit of a long growing season.)

    Disagreed. The problem with Temperate climates is everybody wants to live there. Besides that there are food preservation issues to deal with.

    You want to be in the coldest possible climate Homo Sapiens can tolerate. Basically sub Arctic conditions. Properly insulated with clothing, you don’t need Heat really down to 50 Below. Inuit have been doing this for 1000s of years. The cold climate provides you instant Food Preservation about 8 months of the year, the whole world is a Refrigerator. If you are sedentary, its also quite possible to build an Icehouse that will last all summer through to the first snowfalls.

    A short growing season is compensated for by very long growing days in the Summer. Alaska farms are actually quite productive, and the peculiarities of the light distribution make it possible to grow some mammoth veggies.

    Besides the veggies, there remains up here the greates fisherie still alive in the world Oceans

    Finally, you just can’t beat Alaska for Population Density. At 1.24 Homo Sapiens per square mile, its one of the least populated places on the face of the Earth. Only some parts of Siberia and Antarctica and various Deserts come in lower than that.

    So forget the Middle Latitudes. You just gotta learn to love the cold. BE THE COLD!

    RE
    https://www.doomsteaddiner.org

    #1359
    Nassim
    Participant

    El G: please tell the lesson of the Kulaks in Russia.

    alfbell,

    I think El G is asleep. If you don’t mind, I will try to answer that one.

    A Kulak was essentially a person, in the Soviet Union, who grew his own food and sold the surplus in the market or to traders who took it to the cities. Some were wealthy and owned lots of land, but the vast majority were not much more than doomsteaders. Eventually, anyone who could store food was considered a Kulak.

    The Russian Revolution was largely driven by the urban population. The people in the countryside were much more religious and conservative (still true today). Due to the dislocation of the Revolution and the civil war (Reds versus Whites), the people in the cities got hungry and the communists blamed it all on the Kulaks – for hoarding food. The communists raided the country-side and took everything they could find and sent the males to concentration camps in Siberia – leaving their families behind to starve. In Russia, peasants stored food for the winter underground (still true today). Tens of millions starved – Solzhenitsyn estimated 60 million. Of course, the communists claimed it was under one million. Vast areas of the most productive agricultural land of Russia, Ukraine and Belorussia were almost depopulated. The communists used the unproductive peasants – who wanted the land of the more productive ones – to help in this carnage.

    Nikita_Khrushchev, the guy who negociated with Kennedy, was the Kommissar for the Ukraine. He was Ukrainian, ugly and from an impoverished urban family. He must have been responsible for perhaps 20 million deaths in Ukraine. I hope you get the drift of what El G was getting at.

    Suggested reading: Gulag archipelago (by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)

    Who was it who said that

    Crime and evil does not pay in the long run, eh?

    ?

    #1361
    ashvin
    Participant

    Nassim,

    Here is a very interesting article in that regard:

    The Last Famine

    Sharman Apt Russell, in her survey of our primordial craving, Hunger: An Unnatural History, quotes a 4,000-year-old inscription on the tomb of an Egyptian noble: “All of Upper Egypt was dying of hunger to such a degree that everyone had come to eating his children.” Two-thirds of Italy, she reminds us, starved to death during the black plagues of the 14th century. Five-hundred years later, a microscopic potato fungus scythed down a million Irishmen (and women and children) and sent at least a million more into famished exodus. And proving once again that we humans are perhaps the worst crop of pestilence of all, she cites the 2 million to 3 million Ukrainians methodically starved to death by Stalin’s forced collectivization. A grim coda: The deadliest famine recorded — ever — was man-made and happened within living memory: The Great Leap Forward, Mao’s rush to industrialize the countryside, killed tens of millions of Chinese between 1958 and 1962. “Hunger,” Russell writes, “is as big as history.”

    Regarding corporatist debt slavery + growing police state:

    https://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/mar/02/police-privatisation-security-firms-crime

    https://www.opednews.com/populum/linkframe.php?linkid=146528

    Among the central provisions of H.R. 347 is a section that would make it a criminal offense to “enter or remain in” an area designated as “restricted.”

    The bill defines the areas that qualify as “restricted” in extremely vague and broad terms. Restricted areas can include “a building or grounds where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting” and “a building or grounds so restricted in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance.”

    The Secret Service provides bodyguards not just to the US president, but to a broad layer of top figures in the political establishment, including presidential candidates and foreign dignitaries.

    Even more sinister is the provision regarding events of “national significance.” What circumstances constitute events of “national significance” is left to the unbridled discretion of the Department of Homeland Security. The occasion for virtually any large protest could be designated by the Department of Homeland Security as an event of “national significance,” making any demonstrations in the vicinity illegal.

    (all of the above courtesy of VK)

    #1366
    alfbell
    Member

    Sorry RE. You may be correct yet I can’t abide cold weather. I live at 5,300 feet now in the mountains of SoCal. It is beautiful but my body type doesn’t do well with cold weather and snow. Makes me very uncomfortable and irritable and non-productive. (Altho a mixture of Irish/English/Italian, my predominant body characteristic is Mediterranean type). I’m unhappy now in 20 degree weather with thermal base layers, pile and down. Couldn’t imagine living in and around zero weather. Looking forward to getting back down to the flatlands and/or desert for warmer living.

    I know people live longer in the cold regions. And the cold mountains have always been the place where people seem to hunker down and survive or avoid predators, attacks, etc.

    If it wasn’t for the peak oil scene and the cost of oil skyrocketing over the next few decades my solution would be a motor home (mobility, flexibility, follow economic and educational opportunities, escape catastrophes, follow the sun and warm weather, etc.)

    If there really was a way to have an engine that ran on hydrogen/water or some other inexpensive fuel the motor home would be my survival solution.

    #1369

    alfbell post=966 wrote:
    If it wasn’t for the peak oil scene and the cost of oil skyrocketing over the next few decades my solution would be a motor home (mobility, flexibility, follow economic and educational opportunities, escape catastrophes, follow the sun and warm weather, etc.)

    I call RVs and Sailboats “Bugout Machines”, and I have one of each 🙂 I write quite often about how you plan for diferent types of Bugouts using such tools depending on circumstances. I’ll probably drop one of them in as a Feature Article on the Diner in the next week or so.

    Far as being intolerant of cold weather, yes lots of people are which makes it a bit easier for folks like me who cannot stand heat. Unless I am out in the Bush I don’t generally go nuts suiting up unless we get the 30 below stuff. Zero is very comfortable for me in typical winter gear if I am not outside for mre than an hour or so. Full time outdoors, you gotta Suit Up.

    BTW, the Iditarod got going this Weekend. I’ll update you all periodically on the Last Great Race on Earth

    Iditarod
    ..Neff leads a pack of top Iditarod racers out of the Alaska Range
    Mike Campbell | Mar 05, 2012

    Amid snowfall, the top dozen mushers in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race yanked their snow hooks Monday afternoon and began a steep 40-mile descent to Rohn River.

    Yukon Quest champion Hugh Neff was the first to leave Rainy Pass at 2:58 p.m. Within an hour, nine racers had given chase. They included:

    • Ray Redington Jr. of Wasilla, the early race leader, who was 11 minutes back.

    • Lance Mackey of Fairbanks, the four-time champion looking to tie aging Rick Swenson as the winningest Iditarod musher of all time.

    • Aliy Zirkle of Two Rivers, the former Yukon Quest champion who’s behind a powerful dog team that finished seconds behind Neff at last month’s Quest.

    • John Baker of Kotzebue, the defending Iditarod champion and race record holder.

    • Rick Swenson of Two Rivers, the most decorated musher in Iditarod history who despite his age of 61 is hanging closer to the front that he often does.

    • Jeff King of Denali Park, another four-time champion returning to the Iditarod after ending his brief retirement.

    Perhaps the only surprise among the front-runners was Kelley Griffin, the 52-year-old veteran from Wasilla. Even though she’s finished three Iditarods and a number of Quests, she has never contended for victory. She was the first woman to finish the Quest and the Iditarod in the same year, a feat she accomplished in 2008. Last year, she finished fifth in the Quest and 26th in the Iditarod, both personal bests.

    Both Zirkle and Mackey are driving dog teams fresh off a successful 1,000-mile run in the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race last month. Some of the dogs in Zirkle’s team were in husband Allen Moore’s team that finished second to Hugh Neff by less than a minute in that race. Mackey finished third and proclaimed himself happy with how his crew of young dogs performed.

    For many contenders, the goal of the first couple of days on the trail is to stay in contention without stressing the dog team with a maddening early pace.

    “A lot of people will try to race out to the front and get to the front of the pack,” young Rohn Buser, the Kuskokwim 300 champion, said on Sunday to Iditarod Insider at the race start in Willow.

    “But you’ve got to be careful not to go out too fast. It’s more important to set a good pace for your team, something your team can maintain. You’ve just got to keep them relaxed and don’t blow them up on the first day so on Day 5 you don’t say, ‘Oh man, I went down the river too fast.’”

    RE
    https://www.doomsteaddiner.org

    #1373
    alfbell
    Member

    Reverse: Yes, a boat could be the best bugout vehicle for survival. Never really thought about that. You’ve got me thinking now. (The thing about owning a home or farm is that the gubmint knows where you are and still controls you through property taxes, and who knows what other taxes they’ll devise for homeowners.) A boat (like an RV) is a home that can move around (fabian) and doesn’t have property taxes. Also very key… no major worries about fuel if it is a sailboat.

    Unfortunately, I know nothing about sailing and have no experience (I’m a land-lubber). A decent ocean going vessel could take you along the US, Canadian, Alaskan, Mexican, Central American coastlines, down to the Caribbean, etc. There would be all sorts of small ports, marinas, coves, etc. where one could locate, hide, hunker down, etc.

    If I could have a large enough freezer to keep meat and also some sort of garden (hydroponic?) on board I could go for long periods without needing to come in for supplies. Guess could have solar energy too?

    I’m age 60 and in good physical shape. So is the wife. If I went to the right school or teacher… how long would it take me to learn to sail in order to operate a decent size 60-70 ft schooner, or whatever the appropriate type of boat would be for this application? I know one key thing to learn is everything about weather conditions and navigation.

    #1374
    alfbell
    Member

    Hey folks… talking about speculation as to how things will go in the future due to economic crash and America going Fascist… here is some historical data that could shed more light on the subject.

    Niall Ferguson’s newest book, “Civilization: The West and the Rest”. He states that based on history there isn’t a slow gradual decline when an empire collapses (he explains this re: Rome, Ming Dynasty, etc.). It is fast. There is an exponential climb followed by falling off a cliff. This occurs in a generation or a few decades, even one decade (witness Russia, witness Egypt, Libya, etc.). He states that those thinking they have a lot of time to prepare and get their act together might have a big surprise.

    Gulp!

    #1379

    alfbell post=973 wrote: Reverse: Yes, a boat could be the best bugout vehicle for survival. Never really thought about that. You’ve got me thinking now. (The thing about owning a home or farm is that the gubmint knows where you are and still controls you through property taxes, and who knows what other taxes they’ll devise for homeowners.) A boat (like an RV) is a home that can move around (fabian) and doesn’t have property taxes. Also very key… no major worries about fuel if it is a sailboat.

    Unfortunately, I know nothing about sailing and have no experience (I’m a land-lubber). A decent ocean going vessel could take you along the US, Canadian, Alaskan, Mexican, Central American coastlines, down to the Caribbean, etc. There would be all sorts of small ports, marinas, coves, etc. where one could locate, hide, hunker down, etc.

    If I could have a large enough freezer to keep meat and also some sort of garden (hydroponic?) on board I could go for long periods without needing to come in for supplies. Guess could have solar energy too?

    I’m age 60 and in good physical shape. So is the wife. If I went to the right school or teacher… how long would it take me to learn to sail in order to operate a decent size 60-70 ft schooner, or whatever the appropriate type of boat would be for this application? I know one key thing to learn is everything about weather conditions and navigation.

    Dmitri Orlov, one of the most well read of early Doomers lives on a Sailboat in Boston. He has written a decent amount about his experience with “Sailsteading”. Go to Cluborlov.com and read up there to get the most positive spin on this methodology.

    By NO MEANS is a 60′ boat necessary or even advisable here. Boats of this size have very big and expensive sails, and until the whole biz does go to hell in a handbasket are pretty expensive to maintain at any Marina. Bigger the Boat, bigger the monthly fees. For most purposes, boats in the 35-40″ range are quite livable. Then you have choices to make as far as monohulls and multihulls are concerned. Multihulls of the Catamaran variety are more spacious and roomy, and they are also faster and point up better into the wind than most monohull keelboats. However, unless you are a very competent Blue Water sailor, I would never take a multihull far off the coast. They can pitchpole or roll in really big seas, and they do not self right as a monohull does.

    My choice is very small boat, a 28′ Ian Farier designed floding Trimaran that is trailerable. I have no marina fees. It has very little living space, its just a Bugout Machine for me that can get me from here to Tristan da Cunha, Edinburgh of the Seven Seas (generally considered the most remote Island on Earth) if need be, though that would be one mighty scary undertaking in this craft. My intention if I ever need to use it for REAL is to coastal sail it into the fjords of British Columbia. I have a water maker, solar panels and enough Preps to make it for a year on board.

    Far as how long it takes to learn to Sail, not really that long. You can take week long Vacations that will teach you the rudiments of sailing a small yacht, and pick lots of places to do that still. There are Sailing schools in the Bahamas, in the Meditarranean and in the South Pacific you can go to. Will cost you some, but not nearly what a 60′ behemoth would cost.

    Making big transits over Blue Water takes experience and time to gain the expertiese, but coastal sailing is not all that hard. Navigation is quite easy so long as the GPS is up and running, but when that goes off the map navigating via Sextant and Compass is quite a bit more challenging, and you gotta know your constellations, which also take time to memorize. For short coastal sailing though, Dead Reckoning keeping track of your course and over water speed works fine for the most part, and is not that hard to learn.

    Dmitri is very Positive on Seasteading, but he does not cover many of the downsides that will be present in real SHTF scenarios. I try to do that with my Bugout analysis articles. Its not a perfect paradigm, but it has many good advantages to it.

    If you can afford it, a good sailcraft is a good Bugout Machine. At the very least, when nobody else can leave a bad neighhborhood gone south via planes or commercial boats, you always can GTFO of Dodge, even from the Big Shities like Boston. Newfoundland is just a coastal sail away, and its not a highly populated place.

    I’ll try to get more about this up on DD in the next week or so. I have a lot of material I have to mave on other topics so this will take some time.

    RE
    https://www.doomsteaddiner.org

    #1403
    el gallinazo
    Member

    My last eight years on St. John, US Virgin Islands, I owned an 18 foot Cape Dory Typhoon Weekender, “the littlest yacht.” It is a great training boat, Alberg design, if you would plan to move up to a larger classic monohull bugout, and they can be found everywhere, even lakes, in good condition cheap. As with most fiberglass boats from the early 70’s, they are overbuilt and have held up well. They are trailerable, though the keel makes it trickier. Displacement is one ton and it includes a 500 lb cast iron full keel. They are too small for any sort of bugout, but as they handle like a larger vessel in many respects, a great training vessel and lots of fun if one can leave the doom at the shore for the day.

    I second RE that Orlov’s recommendations for a boat are excellent. He, his wife, and cat are living on their boat year round in Boston Harbor. As one might expect from Orlov, he thinks outside the box, and has executed a lot of good ideas, such as how to insulate the boat for a Boston winter without being buried in mildew. He made a lot of classic mistakes at the start of his nautical adventure, and one should search for his earlier writings on the subject as well.

    #1405
    Nassim
    Participant

    This interesting discussion about boats was to be found deep down in the “Tsunami” thread. It has nothing to do with which boat can handle a real ocean tsunami best. 🙂

    Am I the only one to miss a single discussion thread?

    #1406

    el gallinazo post=1003 wrote: As with most fiberglass boats from the early 70’s, they are overbuilt and have held up well.

    I’d like to expand here on this point made by EG if you do go in the market for a Fiberglass boat (most of them). DON”T buy a new boat! First off because the prices are stupid but more importantly because Fiberglass comes in two Black/White incarnations, Good FG and Bad FG. You can’t KNOW which it is for about 10 years or so. Bad FG will delaminate, the boat will get leaks and its basically impossible to keep up with repairing it. Good FG is basically FOREVER, at least by the measure of a Human Lifespan. A Fibeglass hull that has held its integrity for 10 or more years probably is good for 50.

    In the Used Market these days, you can pick up some very nice boats built in the 70s-80s for practically a SONG. Boats that sold New for $200K in 1980’s dollars can be had sometimes for under $40K, and if you shop around you find some Old Guys who took care of them so well they are better than new, and they just want to find a buyer they think will take good care of their boat. You can also find some not well maintained boats that superficially look bad, but the Hull is still first class and these you can get for $20K and under. Many also go on the Auction Block in Bankruptcies these days.

    However, remember your Maintenance fees until TSHTF. Boats are a money sink extraordinaire. If you keep them in the water and don’t sail them regularly, the hull gets fouled with algae and has to be regularly scrubbed. Bigger the boat is, more it costs to yank it up out of the water and do hull maintenance. If you are actually living aboard, you can take of this problem by regularly getting in the water with snorkel and fins and scrubbing a bit in the water regularly, but if you let it go too long it has to be hauled up in dry dock. Salt accretion can also cause you issues with your electrics. All things to consider before going the Seasteading route.

    RE

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