From Jenna Orkin
Headlines
Whoops, Social Security Just Went Bust
NYT: Social Security payout to exceed revenue
Bin Laden threatens Americans with execution
U.S. official dismisses bin Laden threat as absurd
Japan's $50 Trillion Question Could Have A Catastrophic Answer
Economy
New Home Sales Fall to New Low in Feb
THE GREAT DISCONNECT: Stocks 30% Overvalued, Housing Rolling Over
Stall in housing market threatens economy
Bernanke says economy still needs aid of Fed
Highlights: Bernanke on unwinding Fed emergency programs
19,000 Job Cuts Projected For NYC; Illinois Bill to Slash Pensions; Florida Bill To Slash Pensions
Utah, Florida help non-residents pack guns
California getting closer to legalizing use of marijuana
Police believe a gang is targeting officers - from Rice Farmer
"Such is the new reality for police here, where life has increasingly taken on the feel of a war zone."
The death of primary care physicians
Tom Whipple of Falls Church News on the UK Energy Minister and Peak Oil
Europe/World
Europe agrees IMF-EU rescue for Greece
Sovereign Lies: Why Euro Is Destined to Collapse - from Rice Farmer
Merkel's Killer Poker Game Has Shown How, In The End, The Eurozone Is Simply Run By Germany
Seeking Lower Fuel Costs, Ukraine May Sell Pipelines
Turkey takes delivery of Israeli-made drones
Israel 'to defy Barack Obama' over settlements
Colombian troops rescue oil workers
What Joe Dwyer's Death Can Teach Us about PTSD
In 2009, more than twice as many soldiers died by their own hands than were killed by the enemy in Iraq.
Intelligence/Terror
RAF intercepts Russian bombers over Stornoway - from Rice Farmer
Ghana rolls out Biometric Passport
Printable Nanocircuits Promise to Make RFID Tags More Ubiquitous Than Bar Codes - from Rice Farmer
CIA could face prosecution due to U.S. drone raids in Pakistan
Russia conducts anti-submarine drills in Sea of Japan - from Rice Farmer
Wikileaks Promises "Pentagon Murder Cover-up" Details, Goes Suspiciuosly Silent
Environment
Giant dam to devastate 200,000 tribal people in Ethiopia
Trade Beats Conservation at UN Wildlife Talks
Why Are All the Bees Dying?
And...
Child Abuse by Irish Priests Makes Church Seek Aid From Angry Parishioners
Why not? Everyone else is getting a bailout.
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52 comments:
Texas Board of Education cuts Thomas Jefferson out of its textbooks.
agape wins...
You said:
"Why is My distraction/Crap, or that of RanD, that some reject, posted, while others are rejected? Maybe tone, or phrasing?"
In my opinion, it is because we feel you are genuine, and genuinely care about humanity.
With RanD, it's been pointed out by many in here that they seem to be coming from a place of feeling superior over others, with spirituality being the outer mask. So when ego and a feeling of superiority are detected by others, any attempted spiritual message will get thrown in the garbage can by the readers...Because ego and true spirituality are incongruent with each other.
Now I have to admit that your own stuff can seem a bit "out there" to me at times...but I have always, always felt that you constantly come from a place of deeply caring about humanity.
Book Review: Confronting Collapse by Michael C. Ruppert
http://tomstream.blogspot.com/2010/03/confronting-collapse.html
I haven’t looked at the blog for two days, because my free time has been absorbed reading Tipping Point, by David Korowicz of FEASTA. It’s over 50 pages, but well worth the read. I had thought that it might be something I could quote to my skeptical friends, but it’s not. It’s a document for people who have already done their homework: US, here on this blog.
Jenna posted a link to the summary, but I recommend reading the whole article.
Korowicz has based his observations on mainstream data – Campbell, Heinberg, Tainter and U.N. reports – not on any whacko theories or radical re-interpretations. And yet he as brought common understandings together concisely and clearly, to focus on a non-mainstream conclusion: that the Hubbert bell-curve gives an unreasonably optimistic view of our energy future. He says:
“…we may be entering a near-term period of profound and abrupt change.”
Well, we know that, but reading Korowicz reminded me, in concise and powerful terms, why this is true. Unfortunately, it seems like a rough draft, full of grammatical errors throughout. But it’s quite readable, if not eminently quotable for this reason.
Besides reciting the reasons that the second half of Hubbert’s energy bulge has poor EROEI (much of the oil may be left in the ground as a result) he unites financial news with realpolitik and complexity theory. His main notion is that the complex inter-relation of these highly contingent systems means that when one is crippled, the others shut down. A severe blow to one could send the whole of global civilization into terminal decline. And he’s not talking about long term decline. His phrase is “systemic collapse”.
It seems that he takes, as the Tipping Point, the soon-to-occur moment when a sufficient body of opinion develops in financial markets, that the economy will not grow again, but must contract due to energy decline. Forestalling that moment, he suggests, is the reason for manipulation of demand projections by the IEA last year. Once the market can no longer be fooled into expecting growth, credit will dry up, loans will be defaulted on, the recession will deepen, and any further expansion of energy production will be out of the question. This will have deep impact on food production, purchasing power, investment and sovereign debt, leading to a self-reinforcing spiral of systemic collapse.
This conforms to the John Michael Greer prediction of "catabolic collapse". And it’s hard to refute Korowicz’ suggestion that the moment of reckoning is nearly upon us. His recommendation:
“There is much we can do. Not to prevent or defer a collapse, rather to prepare to some degree our selves and communities for some of its impacts.”
Well, aint that what this here blog is all about.
Korowicz makes a very good case for his scenario. And yet he fails to engage the leading competitor to this paradigm, which is planned collapse by an empowered elite: the Cheney Plan. If the elite has its own energy generation, off of our grid, if this elite is not dependent on the illusion of money, but firmly in possession of land, water and commodities, and if it can reliably command both technicians and military force, it might let us crash and continue making progress on its own. I think that would have to involve mass murder on a grand scale, but given the mindset shown by many of the Dark Ones, it seems a real possibility.
But read the article anyway!
With Eyeballs excellent summation of the Tipping Point paper, the recent downgrades of reserves going MSM, and then the MCR quote from the last post which I can't get out of my head....
[MCR]..." predicts that as much as two thirds of the human race may perish in the next five to ten as food disappears and lights go out around the world."
Anyone else got thoughts on timing?
I reckoned we'd have until some time around late 2011 early 2012 before BAU stops on the oil front, then gradually worsening situation for another 5 - 10 years before total anarchy/collapse.
Now I'm not so sure society could manage the 5 - 10 years.
eyeballs, based on your Greer précis, there is no need to open this link, is there? Nothing new here. I would imagine (because I don't know) that the same holds for the movie. It was packaged for mass intellect and imagination, was it not, for those who don't know how to spell "book" never mind opening one?
Re “There is much we can do. Not to prevent or defer a collapse, rather to prepare to some degree our selves and communities for some of its impacts.”
Puhlease! Gag me with a pitch fork. Shall we also watch old John Wayne flicks? No, no, no! Better yet. A global group wish. We can simply wish it all away and get back to tail-gate parties on the church parking lots (with cinema babes on roller skates serving up drinks and tepid Jackson Browne tunes wafting in the backgroud). God bless Amerika!
Oops, Korowicz.
gamedog and Elmo, careful with your aanlyses. You're liable to get painted with the "Dark Ones" brush as opposed to simply being awake, eyes wide open.
Sebastian, you'll find that I AM a rather "Dark One"... Not because I don't care about mankind; but, because I don't see the slightest possibility of us digging our way out of this mess we call civilization. People have tried since it's inception, to convince others that it was a bad idea, but to no avail. You will find, upon getting to know me, that I have accepted this reality, and have moved on to gloomier and doomier things.
Elmo, to quote the cinema Kurtz (as opposed to the literary): "In a war there are many moments for compassion and tender action. There are many moments for ruthless action, what is often called ruthless, but may in many circumstances only be clarity, seeing clearly what there is to be done and doing it, directly, quickly, awake, looking at it."
"seeing clearly what there is to be done and doing it, directly, quickly, awake, looking at it"
Whether you intended to do so, or not, you have just eloquently described the core ethic of all successful businesspersons, military leaders, and kings. Dare I assume that you are an admirer of these types? For I loathe them.
Life --in my humble opinion-- should be an appreciation of beauty; not an act of conquest.
I realize that to condone conquest was not your intended message; but to see clearly our situation, and to offer valid solutions. The fact is, I don't see any valid solutions. I see only the powerful squeezing the powerless, until there is nothing left to squeeze. There is no solution to that, save that the powerful should repent. And I don't see that happening, do you?
Sure, there are tricks one can do, to keep oneself alive in the meantime. We all know what they are; they've all been discussed ad-nauseum; here, there and everywhere. But they're not "solutions", they're merely "band-aids".
Sebastian,
Great quote, but I do think you should read the article. It probably doesn't have anything you don't already know, but having it provided in such a clear orderly way was very enjoyable from me. It only takes a half hour to read, less than the time it takes most pinheads watch a Simpsons re-run.
"In 2009, more than twice as many soldiers died by their own hands than were killed by the enemy in Iraq. "
Guilt is a bitch, isn't it?
Hey, here's an idea... Let's go convince 500 million-or-so would-be soldiers that murder is wrong, and they shouldn't be killing people... Then maybe we'll put an end to all of these wars once and for all! Sounds like a plan, eh? C'mon, what do you say? I'm game... LET'S DO THIS!
So for decades, we've been paying into SS with a surplus and the Federal Government has been blowing that money on whatever it wants.
Now that we're about to go into a deficit, and now the Greenscam says sorry, we stole your money you're just gonna have to live with less?
We paid in that extra money for all of those decades on the promise that it would be used for SS. But it wasn't the gov lied and stole the money.
Even so, I wouldn't expect anything else.
A ran into a veteran that did four tours in Iraq recently. He was in as a medic. According to this scarred up young man, the soldiers are coping by staying high on heroin.
When soldiers die of a heroin overdose, it's marked down as some other cause of death. Suicide could well be a euphemism for OD.
He told me a story about the first overdosed soldier he knew. It seems that a truck in their convoy broke down and they decided to make camp for the night. In the morning a soldier he knew, came up missing. They delayed leaving while looking for him. Just before they had finished pack out, my narrator said he saw what he though was a finger sticking out the sand. He dug around it and found a hand.
The soldier has died from a heroin overdose the night before, just a few yards from our narrator's tent. During the night, the camel spiders had laid their eggs and buried him where they found him.
As to Hemet, it is a Drug War is it not?
In a war people get killed. The glory and popularity of a war is measured by the rate at which people die.
In Arizona, the drug war has escalated to kidnappings and torture and murder of innocent Americans. For some reason this isn't on the MSM radar.
As this Great Depression deepens, we should expect that Mexico's drug war problems will spread through the USA.
In Mexico, gangs already go after police officers that don't play ball, by kidnapping, torturing and murdering their family members. They then dump the body (sometimes stripped of clothing) in front of the officer's home as a message. We should expect that to start happening the USA. Police Officers should be prepared for it.
In Mexico, the problem is so bad, because police officers would rather ignore the problem than bury their wife and kids. What sane and rational human being, could can blame them?
There's a lot of money being made in the drug war. As it escalates, the profits will go up. Both sides of the war will keep lobbying Congress to keep it going.
Elmo, re "Dare I assume that you are an admirer of these types? For I loathe them."
I'm not so sure about "admire", but I do acknowledge the necessity of doing. Why would you "loathe" doers? Do you loathe MCR for his years of tireless work? Do you loathe Orkin for grinding out the leads on a daily basis? The genre of writers? There's the old saying: Lead, follow, or get the fuck out of the way. It is simple, to the point. Those who lead/do will, due to the very nature of the dynamic, always constitute an elite. Such is life. It is the tip of the arrowhead.
You can appreciate beauty till you're blue in the face; you cannot eat it; you cannot use it as a tool or weapon.
Solutions? For starters, I would suggest look after your own butt. Extend from there to family, neighbourhood, community, region. Didn't Colin Campbell nail the "solutions" question in A Crude Awakening? Only if one perceives with an industrial perception are there no solutions. If you are thinking in terms of solutions for salvaging a way of life that will never again be, of course there are none. Why would there be? Who cares? The herd will be culled. The trick is to not be part of the cull. Conclusion: there are no problems, only solutions.
It is a physical impossibility to resuscitate a cadaver. If you wish to expend the energy in the effort, then by all means, knock yourself out.
It's over. It's finished. It's time for some birthing pains.
Ronin and elmo, I don't see how you two are saying fundamentally different things.
It looks like Elmo to exception to the quote being taken from a military movie perspective.
But if it had come a from a movie about farmers combating the elements, the message would be the same.
You see that your crops need water, you go get them some water. Observation -> Action.
Weaseldog, re "When soldiers die of a heroin overdose, it's marked down as some other cause of death. Suicide could well be a euphemism for OD."
That explains a lot. I recently read (can't remember the source) that military "suicides" over the last year are outpacing actual combat deaths. I would imagine that it's a combination of both: actual suicides and OD's. I would also venture a guess that a certain degree of fragging is underway, but the antiseptic, MSM reporting will not make that mistake again by reporting it.
Re Mexico and the deteriorating condition towards a Rio type of reality in NAmerica. It would seem to me that within 1-2 years the kidnappings for ransom will start. Street gangs will be cutting some serious deals...working both sides of the fence. The only thing about paying off ransom, the middle class will be strapped to do so for their children. Fugly.
In an alternate universe I can imagine the headline, "California getting closer to legalizing use of marijuana" could be rewritten to the following with the same exact debate going on.
California getting closer to legalizing use of tobacco
California getting closer to legalizing use of alcohol
All of the arguments about being harmful to children or being gateway drugs, can be applied to the legal recreational drugs, nicotine and alcohol.
This is waaaay off-topic. But I was just thinking of something that's been 'bugging' me.
I live in probably the most run-down area of town (the house was cheap), so there are a lot of empty houses around. The house on the other side of our next-door neighbor has a honeybee hive in one of the lower windows --on the opposite side, facing the empty lot-- where we can't see the window.
They must have just moved in, because they weren't there last year. This is a great thing, because I have gardens, as some of you already know.
Well, what worries me is the rest of the neighborhood. City folk! I worry that the first one of my neighbors to spot the hive, or even the guys who mow the lot, will go at it with a can of Raid.
I know that my neighbor, Ralph, can see the window clearly from his house; and he also keeps gardens. So, I thought about pointing it out to him, and asking him to keep an eye on it. But, he is also a city folk, and I wouldn't put it past him, or one of his brain-dead relatives, to be the one to spray it. I've already seen how they react to bees buzzing their picnic table!
Eventually, if nothing else happens to the hive, the city will come tear the house down, bees and all!
I know this neighborhood pretty well, and this is the only honeybee hive I am aware of. So.. any suggestions how to save these bees?
Director of world's biggest sovereign wealth fund missing after glider crashes in Morocco, state news agency says
Leaked memo reveals CIA strategy to manipulate public opinion in Germany, France in favor of war in Afghanistan
GrTz,
V
"Sheikh Ahmed bin Zayed al-Nahayan ... was in a crash of a glider which was airborne in Morocco. The pilot was rescued and is in good condition and the search for His Highness is still continuing," WAM said in a statement.
Something about that, doesn't sound right.
Elmo, there is likely a beekeeper in your area that can capture and move the bees.
Try this link:
http://www.ebeehoney.com/swarmremovalmap.html
Ronin, the kidnapping for ransom has already begun in the USA.
google kidnapping ransom arizona
Well, Sebastian, I think you miss (or maybe choose to overlook) my point. You're talking about creating a brave new world. I ask you: "out of what?" The "elite" will not have left you the materials to do it! Besides which; I suspect that you and I will have been exterminated long before it's even an issue. That is unless you, yourself, happen to be one of the elite.
I believe I've said it before... The last remaining handful of the world's richest "elite" will be huddled together in their space station, orbiting a burned-out husk of a planet, fighting over the last TV dinner! I know that sounds like something out of a Marvel Comic; but that's really the only future I can envision. And we are three-quarters of the way there already!
MCR is entertaining. You all are! That's why I come here! But I don't take any of it seriously. It's all just: "Tilting At Windmills".
Weaseldog..
The only bee keeper I can find will gladly "remove" them, free of charge. I'm thinking more along the lines of "mounting them on a pole next to my garden". :-)
I'll check the link... Thanks!
Bin Laden threatens Americans with execution
Is there any reason to believe that he's still alive? There hasn't been a video of him released since early 2001.
The man used to make a lot of videos, then just stopped. Now we get scratchy audio tapes that sound Edison recordings. And some sound like different men are speaking in them. Yet they are all assumed to be credible, because, well nobody could make a tape pretending to be him. Right?
Or more likely, we need him to be alive, because like children, we need Santa Claus to be real. So long as he's a alive we can do things in his name that we would not normally do. And the world needs a super villain as a distraction and an excuse to do as we wish, when our conscience says otherwise.
Where is the collapse net website mentioned in Mike's interview today on USSTEAMTV?
How is his concept of "lifeboats" any different than Transition Towns or Intentional Communities or plain old relocalization?
MCR...I loved seeing and hearing you answer the questions from the audience in London today after they watched your movie. I'm really looking forward to seeing you doing more audio and video presentations when Collapsenet launches.
@Weaseldog
"Ronin and elmo, I don't see how you two are saying fundamentally different things."
I suspect that we are.
I fully expect to die, as a result of this "crisis". It's no big deal to me. I don't figure I can "save" anybody, and I don't see any real need to. The human race is like a virus on this planet. And "lead, follow or get the fuck out of the way" has been it's war cry for ten thousand years. It has to end!
I really enjoy reading your blogs Elmo you represent for me the all American dumb-ass. There are other places and cultures in the world you know apart from America. Some of them even have stringent gun laws preventing, we hope, the type of bloodbath scenario most American bloggers here are worried about.
I'm not saying that starving people won't do desperate things, especially for the wellbeing of their children.
But just because you cannot see any possible survival of humanity you obviously see that from an American point of view.
America where greed is good and consumerism the goal, the epitome of 'The Good Life'.
You, and no doubt many on this blog, will be outraged at my comments, but hey, welcome to how the rest of the world views the efforts of America to push the 'American way of Life' on a global scale.
And when you cannot manipulate our cultures with your movies, your advertising strategies, your schemes of globalisation - which usually means raping the poor, you go to war entirely for your own ends.
You may be expecting armageddon in your neck of the woods boyo but don' shovel that shit on the rest of us.
I'm sorry, Sebastian. I have no intention of attacking you personally. But I do think we have opposing viewpoints. FWIW, I have nothing against "the doer", only what's "been done".
Jenna, is there a way to network with other FTW followers in my local area? As you know, Michael recommends forming communities to face the effects of Peak Oil. It can get a little lonely when people don't believe you or take you seriously.
re. military suicides - an australian angle - i sat down with my father in law yesterday, vietnam vet, now in charge of "health and safety" on base. as he cried into his coffee, he told me he deals with 3 suicides a week, most just boys, or young dads. that in a country that has lost less than 50 in combat in iraq and afghanistan combined.
tom
right now, you can put a call out here if you like(specifying your area, of course.) there will be a more refined mechanism in the future.
Thanks Jenna. I'm near Minneapolis if anyone wants to have an FTW meetup or community here. Tom Cleland, Golden Valley, MN
tom
google 'minneapolis' 'peak oil' 'meetup' and u get this
http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:vFSsu95RWK0J:oilawareness.meetup.com/cities/us/mn/minneapolis/+%22peak+oil%22+%22meetup%22+%22minneapolis%22&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
hey Tom, I'm probably 10 minutes north of you. I think that peak oil meetup group closed here. The more I think about it, I'm not sure I'm interested in a group about the subject because I'm not looking to meet people who want to know more, but people who already know this stuff..that may have been the problem before. Anyway, good to see somebody else that reads this blog from the area. If you want to shoot me an email: scan45@comcast.net
@ Soggy Bottom, re "American point of view."
It is a conundrum. The mass always takes on the ideology, via educational/cultural conditioning and osmosis, of the elite. That is standard. In the case of Americans, they all tend to be imperialists, even so-called "progressives." The ability to incorporate alternative perspectives, to even consider alternative perspectives, does largely not exist, so there is little use in ragging on it. In The Long Emergency, Kunstler nailed it: the obscenity of American exceptionalism. Even as the Empire burns, it is rampant. It is an irritant and an obstacle. The only way that vanity can be conquered is if it is conquered from and at the source.
As for "And when you cannot manipulate our cultures with your movies, your advertising strategies, your schemes of globalization." These are not "American" per se. That is left to the evolution of your own political consciousness.
@ Elmo, re "But I don't take any of it seriously. It's all just: 'Tilting At Windmills'."
So then you are not a player. Fair ‘nuff. As a toss of reciprocity, then why should anyone in here take you seriously? I, for one, am not a trinket for your "entertainment." We have others who eagerly trip over themselves to fill that role.
Sitting on the fence is easy. There is no risk, no stake, no money on the table, no possibility of failure. It is the perch of cowards. It is the moist and deceptively safe womb of liberal irresponsibility and political correctness. It is a liability that need be left at the side of the road to share the dunce's cap with the court jester.
As you say, nothing personal. It's business. Some will get it; most will die.
How's that for "entertainment?"
@ Soggy Bottom
"But just because you cannot see any possible survival of humanity you obviously see that from an American point of view."
Umm, no... I see that from a purely "'industrial", as in: "we've eaten everything up, and there's nothing left to live on" point of view. But feel free to believe what you like.
"You, and no doubt many on this blog, will be outraged at my comments, but hey, welcome to how the rest of the world views the efforts of America to push the 'American way of Life' on a global scale."
I think you'd do better to blame Walt Disney or Ronald McDonald for that, rather than me. I haven't had a "real" job in almost 5 years!
And no, I'm not "outraged" by your comment. Your particular argument is one I have become quite used to hearing.
'You may be expecting armageddon in your neck of the woods boyo but don' shovel that shit on the rest of us."
It wasn't my idea. I believe that particular scenario began somewhere between six and ten thousand years ago, with the invention of politics, industry and agriculture --which, if you think about it, is all the same damned thing. Armageddon is simply the ends of the means.
Soggy Bottom, one more thing...
"I really enjoy reading your blogs Elmo you represent for me the all American dumb-ass."
This is Michael C. Ruppert's blog, not my own. It's apparent from you statement that you have never read my blog, or you may have noticed the part that says "I never had the American Dream".
"...in your neck of the woods boyo but don' shovel that shit on the rest of us."
I have been racking my brain, trying to recall if I've ever heard that particular dialect used by anyone but a genuine flag-waving U.S. redneck, but I keep coming up empty. What country did you say you were from?
I am a college teacher who teaches inner city kids how to read and write...I have a small 401K from a previous employer and it keep me up at night, that I don't know what I should do with it.
I worked hard for it and would be devastated if I did not do something productive to make sure I have something of value when things really begin to go south. I need advice. Should I be cashing it out (taking the penalty) and buying some gold? Rolling it over to an IRA? I am truly lost about what to do.
My gut tells me I should be doing something. But most people I know find the doom & gloom musings I share to be ridiculous, except for my students. My wide eyed kids who look at me and ask what they and their families should be doing now, in urban areas in Jersey...I'm not sure what to tell them anymore.
Mike, Jenna, or any of the well meaning folks following this blog, I need some advice on this 401K, and even more advice about possible solutions for people living in apartments in urban areas, many of them underserved...Every morning on my way to work, I picture chaos...the mass chaos that awaits and feel so alone in it...
ms v
there may be a free cpr or first aid course your students can take to make themselves useful in an emergency. do they have relatives in rural areas? those relatives should be apprised of permaculture.
you have your finger on the pulse, keep researching. you're on the right track.
@Ms. V
Land is the only thing of real value. On land, you can build your house, grow food, hunt; you can do whatever is necessary to survive. This is why, through the ages, every attempt has been made to take land away from you. Not because the powers-that-be are "evil", and they hate you (although, many of them do); but because they wish to control their populations. I don't doubt that, when push comes to shove, they will try to take your land away from you again. But at least it's something real.
Many people will advise you to buy gold. Remember that gold is nothing more than money. The original money; but money, nonetheless. It has no more "real" value than a petrified dinosaur turd. It's "perceived" value will crash right along with the rest of the money.
Most people, even though they might see the crash coming, will hold on to the idea that it's not going to be as bad as all the doomsayers make it sound; or that someone, somewhere, will come up with a solution. But, I think they're wrong this time. This time there's nowhere to run.
This is the price for thousands of years of not using our intelligence to live in harmony with nature. Some call it: "God's Revenge"... I just call it: "Refusing to look at the obvious".
If you can rediscover this life of harmony that we have lost, you might --might-- be able to survive. I say "might", because I don't know if it even is survivable, given the rate at which other species that are disappearing. It sure looks like another mass-extinction to me.
-----
Ok!.... Now that we've heard from the wacko... Let's hear some real solutions! (just thought I'd throw that in, and save someone else the trouble)
Thanks Jenna, I signed up for my local meetup group. Hang in there, Ms. V!
"Land is the only thing of real value"
Well, almost. I rank it third in order of importance. If you live where it rains dependably, it could be second.
Because land is fairly worthless without water, especially here in arid western North America. But even if you had land and water, so what? Now what? What are you going to eat?
The most important thing to possess is seeds. Right now. Even if you don't have land or water or a clue what to do next, someone else you know just might. And they just might NOT have thought it through all the way to food, the most valuable thing, after all.
Thanks Jenna...I will ask my students about relatives in rural areas. Also are there any urban survival books you would recommend?
I need to learn more about storing seeds and their shelf life...from what I read here, I guess what most are saying is to get out of urban areas. But what if that is not feasible? I know these comments are late in this string. Perhaps I should try in a newer post. I am grateful for the work you do here Jenna...I am so worried at a deep maternal level for so many...
and thanks Elmo & Tom Cleland...still not sure what to do about this small 401k. Any advice?
ms v
u can communicate with the peak oil meetup in nyc and drop in on them occasionally, as u see fit. but lois (i forget her last name) sends out useful emails
Ms. V., if you're able to diversify your savings, then you might have more options in a crisis. The downside of cashing out a 401K is the 10% penalty. 401K's have employer matching, but they're not as liquid. One possibility is to put future savings in the bank account or safety deposit box, and keep the small 401K in case Ruppert is wrong, others here may disagree. In the city, maybe you could have bottled water and canned food for the short run, cash for the medium run, and seeds for the long run. I have "Tom Brown's Field Guide to Wilderness Survival" in a "Duluth" pack (oversized backpack) as part of my "Homeland Security" kit, but that's just me. I have "The Encyclopedia of Country Living" but it's too long for me to finish. My book review of "Collapse" above has links, and I may blog more about my garden this summer. -- Tom
Tom,
Thanks again. I will take a look at the books you mentioned and have taken the financial advice in...I think I understand a bit more now about which direction I should go in....
Many Thanks...
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