2015-08-28


The USA #1!


So it looks like the USA will be #1 in another field soon - Bad hairstyle on our primary "leadership".
North Korea has been maintaining  a clear lead in the field for many years now, after such previous place holders such as Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, etc.  (referring to facial as well as head hair styles).
But though the correlation between poor hair styling and tyranny is tenuous, the Clinton mk2 and Trump candidates prove that the USA can compete and possibly even dominate that field. (bad hair or tyranny? you ask, Yes, I reply).
I don't know if I should laugh or cry.

2015-08-26

Vitamin deficiencies, in addition to outright starvation and hygiene (cleanliness) issues were the biggest killers of the past- and of the poorest people now.  They don't kill first world people often now for four reasons:

1) Clean water to drink. 
2) Nutritionally required vitamins.
3) Calories.
4) Protein and essential amino acids.

4 things. Lack of 4 Simple things killed the majority of people through time. 
Cheap in first world countries today, and easily stocked up on. 
Of course having a plan for fulfilling those needs when the stockpile runs out is also important.

Humanure composting returns much of the essential trace substances to the land- I doubt anyone wants to eat anything grown directly in humanure, but growing a green composting crop from that to feed your animals or compost for the garden is not unreasonable. 

A diet of homegrown vegetables from your own garden, locally sourced protein, sufficient well filtered water, and a few multi-vitamin supplements (cycled back into the local area bio-sphere with Humanure and composting) to fill out any lack will go far in improving your life and the lives of those who come after us.  Metabolic Iodine, Vitamin C,  Salt, are all usually in short supply for inland and northern areas. Other deficiencies of a mineral sort may exist in your local area and can be dealt with, by sufficient one time inputs or stockpiles and retention/ recycling methods.
Have your area checked for what it is short on and move to deal with the issue.   

Keeping clean will become harder as outside chemical sources get more expensive, local sources and reduced usage should allow anyone with practical sense to prepare for that in the future.

2015-08-20

Unemployment at any time- 

So with the price of crude oil so low, many people who had hoped on the oil field boom bandwagon are beginning to see an economic bust headed their way.
This is just the latest in a long line of booms and busts for various local, regional, national, and global economies. When the boom is big enough people will do anything to delude themselves into believing it will last forever. If the person is lucky it will last their lifetime. If their family is very, very, lucky it will last generations.
This current oil boom going bust, and the impending higher education bubble popping, but those are smaller bubbles on the hidden multi-generational economic bubble of petroleum. The petroleum bubble reached its peak in about 2005 according to the petroleum industry's own institution. Coal, Oil, Gas, are all limited resources and we have been using the easiest to get best selection of the fossil fuels for generations now. Yes, there is more of all of it, but it is lower quality and harder to get. We already got the best of it. Eventually we will hit a point where it isn’t really worth extracting – the costs of extracting it will be greater than the value from using it.
Long before that point price volatility will cause people to have to abandon reliance on it for most purposes. (This petroleum industrialization bubble too may be just a lesser component of the European colonization of the new world bubble...) 

What this mean for the average person though, is, in our interconnected economy, that at any time in any position  is liable to become untenable to the employer – even ones with government or other supposed ‘guaranteed security’ organizations - . 
Meaning you can be laid off at almost any time.
You may, or may not, have any notice of this impending personal economic disaster.
You may be the only one laid off- or fired if the employer can find a good excuse – or you may just be one of an entire company or even industry laid off at once.
Perhaps for reasons beyond your control you can no longer work the job – too old, too sick, too fat, too ????.
So then you count on Unemployment Benefits, savings, credit, and welfare.
Or perhaps you think you escaped the threat because you are self-employed – not so, as your company as being both you and your employer- can also run into severe financial difficulties when people no longer are able to afford your services as often as they did before.
Or perhaps you think you escaped the threat because you are already retired – until the government seizes your pension or reduces your social security or increases inflation.

In any of the scenarios of the future I can envision increased volatility in the economy is an absolute certainty. Even if some breakthrough like desktop clean cold fusion should occur, the mere change from fossil fuels to the new energy source would guarantee volatility.
Which means you will always face a risk of your source of money going away or your money becoming much less valuable (or both).

The best way to protect yourself is to divorce yourself as much as possible from reliance on money to survive.
  • ·         Paid for shelter – energy efficient low maintenance. No rent, no mortgage.
  • ·         Food you grow yourself with your own seeds and sources.
  • ·         Energy you provide yourself as much as possible- Bike to the store, to the park, library, work, etc. Solar wind or hydro for electric power.
  • ·         Water that isn’t dependent on a corporate or government entity such as rain fall collection or home well.
  • ·         Health care you provide for  yourself with nutrition, exercise, herbal and holistic care as much as possible.
  • ·         A healthy padding of some sort of savings in the form of a deep pantry, useful skills, community good will, good friends, and neighbors, and any other supplies you can think of.


You will always need some small amounts of trade. No one can go it alone forever.
  • ·         Cash money emergency savings is great when you break your leg, or have to pay an unexpected tax bill, etc.
  • ·         Precious metals tend to store value for the long term.
  • ·         Barter for skills knowledge and surpluses is also useful. Dr.’s used to get paid in chickens just a hundred years ago.  


Even if you currently have no employment and are living on welfare or retirement, you can make inroads to getting all these things to get ready for a change in the value of your money. There is land defined as “junk” land that you can buy, improve, and live on. You might not be able to grow all your own food but every dollar you save in your grocery bill can go to increasing you pantry or otherwise preparing to divorce from the ‘grid’.

The down side is the system of corporations, government, and popular society frown on people getting free of the system.
Your friends family and neighbors probably won’t really understand at best, and at worst will actively try and undermine you.
Your existing creditors will judge you a high risk and increase your interest rates (get out of debt ASAP  - pay it off or bankruptcy).
Your local government and HOA will throw up roadblocks for every little thing that they see that is out of place (find a place with the least possible government and little to no HOA)
Do your best to stay off everyone’s radar. Stay legitimate as much as you can. Investigate local zoning and laws and how to circumvent troublesome ones.
Look forward to a time where your personal sustainable systems make you a target of the tax man, other thieves, muggers, and beggars.  Find ways to stay off their radars and deal with them as well.  


By considering these things now, and taking these steps, well ahead of the desperate scramble that can come, you not only help yourself you help everyone else by not needing their resources when things get tighter. And future generations will have the systems you have built to fall back on should the need arise for them as well.