08:49 – I’ve almost finished reading Under the Dome, so last night we decided to watch the series on Amazon streaming. The book isn’t bad, if you can get past clangers like cops carrying Beretta Taurus pistols, which is kind of like having them drive Ford Chevys. The series is utter crap. Bad writing and bad acting. We bagged it and started watching series seven of Mad Men on Netflix.
Speaking of bagging, I’m thinking it might be time to convert some of the cash in our bank accounts to bags of junk silver coins, one-ounce silver rounds, or perhaps 100-ounce bars, depending on the relative premia. Here’s one place that sells all three.
Why? The only time silver would be really useful is for making bullets if the lycanthrope apocalypse happens. If the organic fertilizer hits the whirling multivaned object, I think a can of tuna fish or a packet of seeds will easily be worth its weight in silver. Both items might well be worth their weight in gold.
Well, it’s not like I’m talking about converting all our assets to precious metals. I’m talking about buying maybe a couple bags of junk silver. Call it 1,500 ounces.
“Why?”– assuming you are in earnest and not just trolling.
Throughout history many different things have been used for money, ie. as a store of value or as a medium of exchange. From cowrie shells to bit of paper, their value has been based on local scarcity, local decree, or magical thinking. For millennia, gold and silver have consistently been used for both purposes. Most people who think about it realize that they will continue to be used long after any current belief in the value of paper with some pictures on it. Gold and silver (to a lesser degree platinum and copper as well) have been readily convertible to whatever had local value.
As an experiment, try using a WW2 era Deutschmark to buy some bread at your corner market. Then try some WW2 era gold. I bet you can find someone in your neighborhood (esp. with the proliferation of cash for gold businesses) that will exchange your 75 y.o. gold for the local paper, and essentially NO ONE who will do the same for your Deutschmark. Try it with some 100 y.o. paper from Argentina. Or some 100 y.o. silver from Mexico. Guess which one has value?
In the prepper community, gold is a means of preserving wealth, silver is a form of alternate currency. Who will accept your pre-1965 silver coins? Well, if no one else, who will have stuff you might want? Coincidentally, those very same preppers who are currently planning to use silver as a means of exchange.
From a practical standpoint, in order for silver to be a viable medium of exchange it needs to be easy to recognize and assign value to. Pre-1965 US coinage fits that bill. Rounds and bars of unknowable provenance do not. As cheap as silver is, bars and rounds as a store of value don’t make sense, but US coins as a medium of exchange do.
Finally, you will hear lots of comments that “you can’t eat your gold/bullets/gun” implying that those things don’t have value. You can USE them to get food though (which should be obvious to anyone who thinks about it.) Even in the worst crisis, there is someone who will trade– after killing each other, it’s what we do.
nick
There are some basic ways to assess the purity of metals with density and chemical reactions. In a SHTF situation some local entrepreneur will set himself up as the local assayer* for a small fee. Plus in a local survival community the guy trying to pass off bogus metal will be identified quickly.
A collapse doesn’t mean government goes away entirely. Somebody will be nominally in charge and will issue scrip of some sort. Silver and gold will always buy some of the new paper if you need it to conduct business.
After a massive EMP society might fall back to bronze age levels. Perhaps I should lay in a ton a copper and a couple hundred pound of tin. It would be difficult to steal. Just kidding. Maybe.
* As a chemist this is something I could do easily. Maybe I should put the appropriate chems in my supplies. It could feed me and my family occasionally.
I never thought bartering guns or ammunition was a good idea unless you’re very sure that the people you trade them to won’t be using them against you later. Not that I think it will come to that.
I’m also rethinking the idea of relocating to a small town. They’re apparently prone to being covered by impermeable domes of unknown origin.
being covered by impermeable domes of unknown origin.
That would be the EPA.
according to one popular movie…
“In a SHTF situation some local entrepreneur will set himself up as the local assayer* for a small fee.”
Neal Stephenson has a great couple of pages about this in his novel “Crytonomicon”.
Basically, until the assayer gets done, it’s just some unknown shiny metal.
That’s why US coins are recommended. Easy to identify, already available in a variety of values. In gold, certain coins make more sense than others. US and Canadian coins, in 1/10, 1/4, 1/2, and 1 oz will be easily identifiable and verifiable.
Broken gold has proven utility during a currency collapse. Read FerFal’s comments about shopping with gold chains. His best observation is that you don’t have to sell the chain all at once. You can cut off an inch at a time….
Re: the dome show. I couldn’t make it past the “veteran with a dark past” trope. As soon as he brought that tired old thing out, I was gone. Oh, and the only religious figure was the crazy old man. Too typical of King- elitist liberal east coast cr@p. Oh yeah, and of course when confronted with the unknown, the only response possible is for the sinister military to bomb it. Gah.
nick
Selco has lots of first hand info about barter, trading, and what has value after the collapse. His whole site is worth reading. It happens that his current post is about one of his first trades, post SHTF.
http://shtfschool.com/blog/
He’s posted in the past about how items change value as the disaster unfolds. The changing value of candles was interesting.
nick
I’m also rethinking the idea of relocating to a small town. They’re apparently prone to being covered by impermeable domes of unknown origin.
Too much religion in many small towns. As an atheistic Jew, I might have a little trouble fitting in. The Northwest has a number of small towns which might work. Port Townsend and Friday Harbor would probably work.
Rick in Portland
Too much religion in many small towns.
Also too many nosy people. When I moved into my house in March 1988, having moved from Texas, I put some stuff at the edge of the driveway on Saturday morning that the prior owner had left. Later that afternoon I got a call from someone that said “Mr. Thompson you put some stuff out, can I have it?” So not only did they know my name, they also knew my phone number. I had been in the house less than 24 hours. Remember, this is 1988 before the web and Google.
But there is a positive point. I needed some plumbing work done. I called a plumber that I used before. His available day was a day I was not at home. I gave him the code to the garage and told him to let himself in. He did, did the work, put everything back, locked up the house. A few days later I get a bill. In a small town if you screw someone over it gets around fast. Applies equally to the vendor and the customer.
Religion (or lack thereof) was just one of many reasons why I was initially thinking about the Montana/Alberta border area. Barbara was initially in favor of doing a recon trip, but later decided it was just too far for us to move. My next suggestion was the Boone, NC area, which is diverse enough that we could easily fit in. The idea of moving to some of these small towns that are something like 97% white and 99% Southern Baptist scares me. I’d much prefer to be somewhere more diverse, particularly where no one religion dominates.
And I’ve never been convinced that staying in the suburbs is as bad an idea as some seem to think. As a matter of fact, I’m writing now about the advantages and drawbacks of urban vs. suburban vs. exurban vs. small town vs. MON. All of them have some good points and some bad points, although urban and MON are in my opinion the worst of the bunch. A lot depends on the nature, severity, and duration of the emergency.
Don’t worry about the Southern Baptists – they’re 99% infidels.
I’ve always doubted the idea of saving silver currency to use as trade items. I’m afraid that many of the people trading won’t have bought into the “precious metals” idea. They’ll just be plain old farmers, tradesmen, craftsmen, shopkeepers, and they’ll still go on trading in the money they knew. In other words, all your “junk silver” will be just that – junk for the most part, and acceptable at face value only. When you absolutely have to spend it, your “junk silver” quarter may be worth just twenty-five cents, rather than whatever it’s silver content cost you.
Given that is a risk, then I’d tend to do with copper cents what people have already done with the silver. Collect mass amounts from banks, winnow through them and keep the ones that are all precious metal (copper), and return the newer, debased ones to a(nother) bank in another town. Copper has value in itself as a metal – you can even use it for bullets. Of course, melting cents down for their metal content is illegal, but even now the all-copper ones are worth more for their metal content than their face value. Someone who cached copper coins, some tin and some zinc would have a decent basis for casting metal items, and working the individual coins into small metal items like rivets, washers, bases and end-caps and small-game/target points for wooden items like arrows and crossbow bolts, and so forth. Tinkers used to make a living. If you could work at a higher temperature to smelt bronze and brass you’d do better. Mix some lead with your tin (and maybe copper), maybe incorporate gas-checks stamped from aluminium drink cans, and you could make hard-cast bullets near as good as current-day composite metal-jacketed bullets, or solder, or pewter. Even just have copper to mix with the gold that miners would find, and you’d make the precious metal more durable (as well as diluting it) in daily-wear jewellery.
Dr. Bob, lots of good comments on barter above. Are you going to have a section on it? Gold, silver, food, etc as barter for the long term prepper.
I probably will, but I’m not convinced that it’s worthwhile for anyone whose budget is not unlimited. I’m not considering silver for bartering purposes but rather as a store of value. I could just as easily buy ingots of copper, tin, nickel, etc. Commodities are down and going to continue dropping as the Chinese Factory machine slows and sputters.
I’ve thought about the “junk” silver thing off and on for a while now and have a very small amount of it, but Mr. Don has a good point, esp. out in these small-town and rural areas; peeps are likely to only accept the face value of the coins for a good long time, and may even take the fiat paper for a long time as well. That would suck for us if we had anticipated that our mostly silver quarters and Kennedy halves were now worth ten to twenty times as much as that face value. Ditto the gold coins; these guys out here are gonna look very critically and suspiciously at such stuff and be largely ignorant as to the true values.
I’m thinking now that it can’t hurt, so long as you don’t pile up too much of it and become a target yourself, but in general, hard goods and skillz will be more valuable.
Why so afraid of religion? (or religious people?)
I live in a part of the country that is heavy on churches, very conservative, evangelicals, Baptists, even the Catholics are building new cathedrals.
I am not religious.
I haven’t had any problems. You do sometimes get asked what church you attend when meeting some people in a social setting. You might even get an offer to attend a person’s church. And that is the end of it. It is more in the nature of finding out if you have any friends or acquaintances in common than proselytizing. I don’t bring it up, but when asked I’m honest about my beliefs. (I was raised in a major faith, but no longer practice or believe.)
In many areas, social life includes church activities and groups, but if you don’t socialize (and RBT has never indicated any outside socializing other than the small astronomy group) why would it concern you?
I’m asking seriously because I had some concerns moving here from SoCal, but they were groundless. Even Bumbleflock, NW isn’t ISIS. They don’t stone you for apostasy. They have satellite TV and the internet and are connected to the world. Even the smallest town here has at LEAST 2 churches, so you aren’t facing a monoblock of believers. And as far as being worried about 97% white, there are a lot worse places you could be, even if you COULD find that. With the number of illegals and the spread of blacks from the cities, even small towns have significant minority populations and the accompanying problems of crime, gangs, drugs, and violence.
Smalltown USA is probably the last place left where you can find the traditional values that built the US- the value of hard work, focus on family, independence, self sufficiency, respect for learning and dead white males…. A lot of that comes from and with strong religious beliefs.
Finally, what about a small town composed mostly of Mormans? Isn’t that sort of the epitome of preparedness?
It sounds a bit like Jerry’s observation that most of his readers rarely interact with the left side of the bell curve. Maybe you haven’t spent much time lately with small town folk?
nick
Hell, I rarely interact with the left 3/4 of the Bell Curve, and I prefer to keep it to the right 1% or less.
No, I wouldn’t want to live in a small town where the LDS dominates. I know quite a few Mormons, and I like all of those I know. The same can be said of Presbyterians, Methodists, Catholics, Jews, and probably Hindus. Even Southern Baptists. What concerns me is the True Believers being dominant and not under any outside control. If that happens, we’ll see witch burnings, probably literally.
I suspect you don’t live in the South, or you’d know just how scary some of these fundies are. That’s even now. If things went to hell, they’d be out establishing a local theocracy as fast as they could. True Believers are delusional hypocrites, and that’s a dangerous combination. We’re in North Carolina, which is one of the most cosmopolitan and “Northern” of the traditional Southern states, and we have truly scary SB churches here. I’d hate to think what it’s like in the Deep South.
I’ve almost finished reading Under the Dome
I’ve had that in my SBR for over a year now. Do you recommend it? My SBR is approaching 500 books as I am seeing too much good stuff on Amazon and clicking “buy!”.
I agree with OFD. I’d rather not devote money to storing goods specifically for barter. I’d much sooner have my assets converted to hard goods. You can always barter with cans of tuna or, if you’re of a mind to do so, .22 rounds or even entire firearms. In the long term, all of those things keep their value. I think buying junk silver coins with the intention of using them for barter is a bad idea.
“Smalltown USA is probably the last place left where you can find the traditional values that built the US- the value of hard work, focus on family, independence, self sufficiency, respect for learning and dead white males…. A lot of that comes from and with strong religious beliefs.”
There it is.
This New England region was settled by, and is still heavily influenced by, though they are largely unaware of it, by Calvinist Puritans. Since those days there has been a massive infusion of Roman Catholics, so that now it’s upwards of 25% of the population, though you might not know it on a lotta Sundays when you notice half the pews are empty. But as I’ve mentioned on here before, no one is ever in your face with religion here and I’ve been around a long time to observe that; we might get the rare visit from the Witnesses or Mormons but that’s it. In direct contravention, I might add, to the Church’s teaching to go and evangelize. But it’s not in the psychological makeup of folks here; too long a tradition of cussed independence and minding our own business.
Dr. Bob is perhaps more sensitive to religious matters than most folks and negatively so, but that is his perogative and I suspect that they’re in your face more often in his region than up here.
Under the Dome is okay. I’ve never been much of a King fan.
They completely castrated the book when they made the TV series. CBS was obviously worried about offending anyone at all, so they eliminated all the stuff they thought might offend someone. Unfortunately, that pretty much eliminated many of the major plot points.
Whoa, I thought that I was suburban. Seeing the definition of exurban makes me think that we are that. Or, used to be as we used to have cow pastures between us and Houston. Sadly, those have gone away.
I’m also not convinced that the world is going to collapse faster than I am. It could, I grant you – a strong possibility, but not what I’d count as a probability. I’d count the stronger likelihood as the “slow slide into dystopia” that Bob has spoken of.
Given that assumption, then what I see as ideal is a small community (a small town or large village – say 1,500 to 2,000 population) within commuting distance of a larger city with a college. Big enough for small businesses, medical professionals, maybe a cottage hospital and an IGA “supermarket”. I’m pretty close to that now, although the town is more like 3,000. Ideally (and what I lack for health reasons, although it’s available here) is a smallholding – say two to five acres – on the outside of the town. Have or build a home on a public road, room for a workshop for any trades and crafts, small livestock like poultry and rabbits, work up a garden, plant an orchard adjoining, then use the rest for pasture for larger livestock, and small crops of cereals and legumes. Poultry, eggs, milk from goats or a cow. If a cow, then train her to a plough – not a bullock or ox, but it works. Close enough to town that you can walk most anywhere, or use a bicycle, or even a cart or draught goats. Be able to attend a “farmer’s market” if you so choose. Before you move in, have the land deep-ripped, then deep-ploughed, then harrowed. You can live there almost free of cost for the rest of your life; and as you age, you can sell off portions of the pasture and cropland to finance your retirement, retiring to your central core of garden, orchard, and small livestock.
Hey Dr. Bob, doesn’t Barbara’s sister and her fam live close to you? Are they going to move also?
Most book conversions to tv shows / movies are just about worthless. Either the conversion is wooden (see “Ender’s Game”) or the writers make a total hack of the script. The Harry Potter movies were an exception to the rule as they were faithful (mostly) and interesting.
Yeah, we get door-to-door everything, or did until I scared some of them badly. Church ladies show up at our door bearing religious tracts. I always rush out and shout that I’m a radical atheist and intend to convert them. I point to Colin, who’s invariably acting like a berserk killer dog as he rams the glass door, and introduce him as Beelzebub, my familiar. Some of them actually run screaming.
We used to get these pests every week, but lately it’s down to maybe every two or three months. I think they warn their churches about me. Most of them have been SB, although I sometimes get LDS or JWs. I wish they’d make it legal to shoot them and mount their heads on pikes as a warning to others.
“melting cents down for their metal content is illegal”
There ought to be some principle that automatically voids unenforceable laws. I mean, if you melt a bunch of pennies into copper ingots, maybe mixing in copper from other sources to change the impurities, there is just no way the government will ever know. So the law makes no sense whatsoever.
Makes me think of a host of other laws: illegal to make backup copies of DRM’d movies, illegal to listen in on certain government radio frequencies, etc..
On a related note, have y’all heard about the great new idea the feds have? Banks already have to report transactions over $10,000; they already have to report “suspicious activity”, with a very vague definition of suspicious. Now the feds want them to call the cops to directly report transactions of $5000 or more so that police can “seize the funds” or “initiate an investigation”. How charming…
Thankfully, cash is still widely used here. Not all stores will have enough change to let you pay for a small purchase with a Fr. 1000 note, but a large purchase will be no problem. Small purchases with Fr. 100 or Fr. 200 notes are entirely normal, because that’s what the ATMs here spit out. Here’s hoping it remains this way!
On a sad note, Swiss banking secrecy is essentially dead. Within the country, it still exists (for now, at least), but Switzerland has negotiated automatic data transfer agreements with most major countries now; these will take effect in the next couple of years. Just exactly why people should grant the government such insight into their personal finances? That escapes me, but people somehow accept it as entirely normal.
– – – – –
Fundies, my family is full of them. I completely agree with RBT: living in a community dominated by them would be uncomfortable at best. You would automatically be an outcast, all the more so if you can’t at least pretend to be accepting of their religion. In a small town you really need to be accepted as part of the community; this will be critical in a crisis. In a community where there is a mix of religions, or at least denominations, a non-believer can disappear in the cracks. If one church is dominant, as may be the case in a small town in the South, then that’s just not possible.
Frances and Al aren’t preppers, nor are Mary and Paul. That’s why I do what I can to make sure we could take them in if necessary. Mostly that’s making sure we can provide food and water for an extended period, and that we can arm them if that becomes necessary. Fortunately, food is cheap. You can build a one person-year supply of bulk staples for under $1 per person per day. And we’re in pretty good shape in terms of water, with the means to capture and purify it if stores run short.
I’ve never been a big fan of trying to organize a group of preppers. If push comes to shove, I’d rather be surrounded by people I know and trust but who aren’t prepared than by well-prepared people I don’t know or trust.
I do live in the South. Pretty deep, for values of deep. And it’s a border state, which limits it to one choice. I’ll coyly not be specific to avoid popping up in any future keyword search.
My wife’s work has her in close and long term contact with most of the various sects and religions here, including actual real life, no foolin’, snake handlers and holy rollers. I’ve personally worked with a sect that practices speaking in tongues (although that was in SoCal, not here.) Again, we have had NO negative issues from these people. There isn’t any commandment to kill infidels or apostates, or non-believers. There is instruction to proselytize, but not to compel. As some of the more extreme sects are CURRENTLY oppressing their members, I’m sure that will continue post SHTF.
Every social group enforces group standards. Street gangs are fast, brutal, and final when it comes to punishing transgressors. Churches, country clubs, homeowner’s associations, fraternal orders, or just a group of Like Minded Individuals all have ways of punishing or denying transgressors or outsiders.
The rise of brutally violent religious leaders in a post SHTF world is a movie plot problem. MUCH more rational to worry about thecurrently existing organized, brutally violent gangs, and random associations of the Free Shit Army rampaging through a post SHTF world. We have contemporary evidence and experience of what THAT looks like. We run the risk of it in our major and minor cities EVERY SINGLE DAY right NOW. The likelihood varies with time and place, but the potential is there 24/7.
I’ll take my chances surrounded by Mormons or the decendents of German Reformationists. I have a much higher chance of getting along with them than I do with the Crips, Bloods, MS13, Gangster Disciples, El Rouken, Latin Kings, or even the most casual members of the FSA.
Don’t let this personal prejudice (no matter how valid it is for YOU) blind you to the bigger picture. I’ll bet no one can name the last time a group of Mormons or Hasids burned a city, and I’ll bet everyone can name a recent example of other groups doing so.
nick
(I mean the ‘you’ in the sense of “all y’all” and not our host personally.)
@Lynn, in it’s current incarnation, I’d define where you live as an “Edge City.” Strictly speaking, edge cities are created from the whole cloth, and not previously existing towns that get subsumed, but modern SLand has been mostly rebuilt from the ground up.
nick
Assuming y’all know Joel’s work from the mention of the Nine Nations, but if not:
http://www.amazon.com/Edge-City-Frontier-Anchor-Books/dp/0385424345
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_city
I obviously scare easier than you do.
Again, what concerns me is monoculture. I personally like all of the Mormons I know, and most of the SBs. And, yes, I’d trust any of them (or the RCs or the Hasids) before I’d trust an inner-city underclass person. Which isn’t saying much, really, because I don’t trust members of the underclass at all and never will.
One illustrative example. Back in the late 70’s, the daughter of a friend had just finished college and decided she wanted to move out west before she started looking for a job. Anne had her teaching certificate, and she ended up in Utah looking around. She was offered a teaching job at decent pay, but the problem started when she was looking for an apartment. She saw signs all over for “roommate wanted” and ads in the papers, but she said they all included the line “LDS only”. At first, she was surprised that there were that many learning-disabled students and that so many people wanted to live with them, but she soon learned that that line meant Mormon only. She talked to several of the people who were advertising for roommates and said they all seemed like very nice, normal young women, but they wouldn’t budge on the LDS part. Anne ended up moving back to Pennsylvania.
I long ago read Rifkin’s book on entropy and Garreau’s two books on the Nine Nations and “Edge City.”
Mr. nick is right; we have a lot more to fear from expanding gangsta mobs than religious fundies, with the obvious exception of the hadji scum. And the latter only as they exist, or more accurately, are allowed to exist within North Murka. We have had the occasional incident reported in the media up here of gang elements being involved with local yokel drug dealers and users via the interstates up from NYC and Florida. I assume that is the tip of the iceberg; and so far those elements are Hispanic and Jamaican. And they make our homegrown trailer-trash huckleberries like unto babes in the woods, literally. They don’t fool around, and as Matt Bracken sez over at the Western Rifle Shooters and in his nonfiction pieces, flash mobs and home invasions are on the rise and look to be a regular feature soon.
On the other hand, also in re: Bracken; they’re not likely to consist of disciplined fire assault teams and will probably be using cheap weapons rather badly and inaccurately, so there is that.
” but they wouldn’t budge on the LDS part”
I understand that it is part of their doctrine to not associate socially with non-LDS so as to avoid temptation. From a practical standpoint, it is much easier to “keep kosher” when everyone in the home has the same beliefs regarding lifestyle and eating. Annoying, but not life threatening.
My point, which I’m probably now belaboring, is that in the OVERWHELMING percentage of time, you are better off in a smaller community with strong moral and religious faith, than elsewhere. Don’t let the vanishingly small chance that religious zealotry will break out in a small town put you off increasing your post SHTF safety. Anyone that far out of the norm will ALREADY be showing signs and it should be obvious while you research the community.
It’s much more likely that garden variety warlord-ism will break out as there seems to be no shortage of violent sociopaths and the personalities that support them. I find it funny that so many of the more ‘adamant’ prepper fringe seem to think that THEY will be holding the whip post SHTF. Seems much more likely to me that they will be killed or enslaved by the current, existing, organized gangs. After all, the gang bangers practice every day of their lives, while the internet phantasists just dream about it.
nick
“On the other hand, also in re: Bracken; they’re not likely to consist of disciplined fire assault teams and will probably be using cheap weapons rather badly and inaccurately, so there is that.”
That may be true initially, but rapid darwinian evolution will guarantee that by the time they get to you, they will be the worst of the worst. And quantity has a quality of it’s own.
nick
See also John Wesley, Rawles series for one potential gangland army scenario. (I’m not recommending them as fiction, they are pretty wooden, but there is a lot of food for thought. Bracken likes sailboats, JWR likes ultralights.)
I merely note that a suburban neighborhood that is being actively monitored and protected by its residents is about the most hostile environment imaginable for underclass thugs to attempt to loot. That’s why the infantry hates combat in built-up areas. They can never tell which direction the next shots will be coming from, or which side of cover to dive behind. It’s all about crossfire, intersecting and mutually-supporting fields of fire, and enfilade. There are probably several people in any neighborhood who could help design pretty formidable defenses. And most suburbanites wouldn’t hesitate to fire on gang-bangers who were attempting to invade their neighborhoods. Also, a lot of suburbanites are much more skilled with weapons than are gang-bangers, mainly because the suburbanites don’t hold them sideways to look cool.
will probably be using cheap weapons rather badly and inaccurately, so there is that.
Of course you know, the first rule in a gun fight is … bring a gun.
We’ve got MS13 running rampant in Houston. They scare the you know what out of me.
Fundies, meh. Just start a conversation about A. baptism: immersion or sprinkling; or B. communion: open or closed. Them are all fightin’ words. And yes, I am probably a fundie.
LDS are great unless you meet their offshoots. Some of the LDS offshoots are leaving Texas due to persecution and moving to Montana for religious freedom. That should worry you a bit about Montana. Texas has a serious problem with the LDS offshoots excommunicating the boy children at age 12 or 13 and just throwing them out of the truck in a neighboring community. You don’t want to know what they are doing with the age 12 or 13 girls.
“LDS only”
In the first place, that was blatantly illegal, both then and now…and clearly violated and violates the federal fair housing laws. In the second place, while LDS tends to dominate the population in Utah, it isn’t the only religion, and there are atheists who live Utah as well. In the third place, the fact that she got a job as a non-Mormon should indicate that other non-Mormons lived and worked where she was looking for an apartment. Perhaps it was the number of Mormons who lived there that put her off.
I do recall a story about a young man who went to Brigham Young University on a basketball scholarship, and he complained that the Mormons on the team wouldn’t pass him the ball…but I can’t remember when that happened…it was the early seventies, I think. Whether it was his perception or a fact is no longer discoverable.
At any rate, most Christians that take their religion seriously would be the first to help you if you needed it.
I am about your age, and grew up in Greensburg, Pa., not far from where you did, before moving south after college. I don’t know what happened to you to make you despise all religions so, but a number of church goers that I know try very hard to love their neighbor, without being pushy, and without proselytizing. It’s unfortunate that your mileage varies so much from my own. Christians, Jews, Mormons…I’ve known many, and while some are bad apples, the vast majority are caring individuals who do the best they can to help those in need.
There are scientists, after all, who have allowed their beliefs to get in the way of their science…James Hansen, formerly of NASA, comes to mind…he of the “coming ice age” in the ’70’s and “global warming” of the ’90’s and beyond.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_city
“Garreau established five rules for a place to be considered an edge city:
Has five million or more square feet (465,000 m²) of leasable office space.
Has 600,000 square feet (56,000 m²) or more of leasable retail space.
Has more jobs than bedrooms.
Is perceived by the population as one place.
Was nothing like a “city” as recently as 30 years ago. Then it was just bedrooms, if not cow pastures.”
Hmm. The Land of Sugar is yes, yes, maybe, yes, no. I’ve been living in the Land of Sugar since 1977 (on and off) and the old sugar refinery was in operation from 1850? until 2008?. Used to be pretty rank around here (burnt sugar smells bad!) until they put air filters on the refinery in 1995???.
The “One Second After” book had a horrible battle sequence between a small town in North Carolina and a rampaging army of cannibals. The town used the kids in the local college as their army. The death toll was horrendous, especially when the kids called mortars down on their positions.
http://www.amazon.com/One-Second-After-William-Forstchen/dp/0765356864/
@lynn, there are some others that are typical as well.
I’m surprised that the residents don’t think of it as a place. Do they leave to get haircuts? (That was one of his tests.) The Houstonians I know seem to think of it as a distinct place (and distinct from Houston.)
JG also says they are typically run by a manager and not a mayor. That is the model there isn’t it?
In any case, not really that important.
I can recommend the book wholeheartedly. If you have any interest in how cities actually get built, why, and by who, you will find lots of good, well researched info. His ‘real world rules of development’ are an eye opener too.
I’d love for him to revisit the ideas now.
nick
@lynn
Alas, Babylon is funny in that it doesn’t have the golden horde at all. Only one or 2 car loads of exploiters come thru.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CD360ZQ/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o08_?ie=UTF8&psc=1
One of the JWR, Expatriots, (I think) has a battle in Florida between several of the recovering communities and the mob from the big city. The mob is decimated due to cooperation, ruthlessness, and geography (picking a battleground that favored the defenders.) In another, the mob is temporarily dealt a setback (by a preemptive strike by the next communities in their path) but continues to rage on despite reduced numbers.
So some authors have explored the issue, with various assumptions. In any case the loss of life is tremendous. The goal is for the OTHER guy to lose his.
nick
I’ve been an atheist anarchist since 1958, when I was five years old. Even before that I realized that what they were preaching made no sense. Religion and government are both bad news. Left unchecked, either quickly becomes very bad news. They’re simply two sides of the same coin; a means to repress freedom.
If I had to pick a turning point, it was when my mom or dad left a copy of Atlas Shrugged lying around. It had been published not long before, and I read it. Then I read it again. I needed a dictionary frequently, and had quite a few questions for my parents, but I got the gist of it the first time through and more the second time.
In addition to being repressive, religion is anti-science. I am a rationalist, a secular humanist, and a scientist. Those are the highest aspirations that a human can have, and religion is in conflict with all of them. Faith is the antithesis of reason, asking people to accept truth claims not just in the absence of any evidence to support them, but actually in the face of evidence that conflicts with them. That is unacceptable.
“If I had to pick a turning point, it was when my mom or dad left a copy of Atlas Shrugged lying around.”
See? There it is, right there.
My mom and/or dad left copies of the KJV and BCP around at our house. And we went to church on Sundays, where I later became a member of the Episcopal Young Churchmen group and an acolyte. My parents had stopped going by then, thanks to the various innovations, novelties and sociological class factors. That world is pretty much gone now; I was part of it on and off from the late 1950s to 1990s, when I converted to the Roman Catholic Church.
It all depends on what books your parents leave lyin’ around the house…
I’m surprised that the residents don’t think of it as a place. Do they leave to get haircuts? (That was one of his tests.) The Houstonians I know seem to think of it as a distinct place (and distinct from Houston.)
Huh? Here are my answers:
Has five million or more square feet (465,000 m²) of leasable office space. – yes
Has 600,000 square feet (56,000 m²) or more of leasable retail space. – yes
Has more jobs than bedrooms. – maybe (that would be 100,000 jobs, I doubt it)
Is perceived by the population as one place. – yes
Was nothing like a “city” as recently as 30 years ago. Then it was just bedrooms, if not cow pastures.” – no
Sugar Land was a city before it was a bedroom community due to the Imperial Sugar refinery and the Nalco chemical plant. Both have been here over 100 years. Here are some pictures from the 1950s.
http://wateringholdclubhouse.blogspot.com/2014/03/a-history-of-sugarland-industries-part_17.html
Yes, Sugar Land has both a mayor and a city manager. The current city manager is a total XXXX.
I’d been exposed to all the religious crap long before that, and recognized it for the crap it was. I’d already told my parents that I refused to attend church any more and that forcing me would be a mistake. They took me to a conference with Gene Stone, the minister of 1st UP. I remember telling him that I might be small and helpless now but I’d grow and my rage would be fearsome. That was all before atlas shrugged.
“… but I’d grow and my rage would be fearsome.”
Like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqAYR6z7yAU
in a more secular way…
RE: Investing in Precious Metals
Warren Buffet’s opinion on investing in Gold (I believe prices he states are circa 2011):
Essentially, Gold has no utility so it’s not a wise investment.
Now, if you’re converting fiat money to something more real as a hedge against a SHTF situation, then I suppose there’s more than utility to consider.
As with most things, something is only worth what someone else is willing to pay (or trade) for it. You may know that pre-1965 coins contain significant amounts of silver, but I’m not sure you’re going to convince the average idiot American (in a post-SHTF world) of that fact. To them, it’s just a 50¢ piece. Likewise, you can drop a bar of shiny silver metal on the table and declare it’s 99% silver and worth a lot, but how does that same average idiot American know it’s not just a bar of polished aluminum and you’re trying to pull a fast one.
Too much is dependent on the person on the other end of the bargain not being an idiot and I don’t like those odds.
BTW, here is a reason to be in a LDS majority area. LDS are preppers and have six family months of food at home. That means the authorities are going to be less inclined to come around and steal your food if everyone is poking a gun at them. Just sayin’.
Oh wait, do LDS people believe in guns?
I’m also rethinking the idea of relocating to a small town. They’re apparently prone to being covered by impermeable domes of unknown origin.
BTW, King stole this idea from Vernor Vinge’s awesome book “The Peace War”. Some people even say that he stole it from a Simpson’s episode who stole it from Vinge. But Vinge’s bubbles around objects are also stasis fields.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Peace-War-Vernor-Vinge/dp/0765308835/
The last time I looked, something like 6% of Mormons actually store food beyond a month’s supply. Yes, Mormons are shooters.
My wife’s work has her in close and long term contact with most of the various sects and religions here, including actual real life, no foolin’, snake handlers and holy rollers.
Most of the snake handling that I have seen in The Great State of Texas is the Sweetwater Roundup and people like that. I have yet to hear of any snakes in any church in Texas. Shudder. Reference?
The only snake handling that I have done on a Sunday morning is the dadgum baby water moccasin that the stupid cat brought in the house to play with last Sunday. We really need to break him of this habit, this is snake #3. Snakes, lizards, tree frogs, moths, geckos, mice, etc. The daughter loves him otherwise he would go swimming in the bayou in a bag.
@chad,
I made my argument upthread, summarized as gold will always be exchangeable for whatever the current local valuata is, be it cowrie shells or paper with pictures on it. Whether it’s been 1 year, 10 years, or 100 years, that gold, as Buffet points out, will be unchanged. I don’t think you can say the same about paper with pictures on it. Just try spending a yuan or real in Indiana, or a 50 y.o. peso note or a confederate dollar. My 50 y.o. gold will easily convert to spending money in a shop on almost every street corner in some neighborhoods.
Buffet is an investor. Gold is not an investment. It is a way to store and preserve wealth. As such it is a hedge against changes in the world. The world will change, and does. Just ask a Cypriot, a Greek, or a Ukrainian whether they would prefer gold or the local bum wipe. For that matter, ask an Argentinian, a Venezuelan, or a Brazilian. You don’t even need a time machine. Ask them today.
Further, saying gold has no utility is nonsensical. Besides being exchangeable for paper money, you can use it in industrial processes, you can make jewelry from it, you can use it as security for a loan, and I’m sure other things as well.
I also pointed out that there is a whole class of people, called “preppers” who will be better positioned to survive, have stuff you might want and need, and recognize PMs and 90% silver coins as a valuable means of exchange. The average idiot is going to be in the equivalent of the Superdome, a refugee camp, or a stewpot. They won’t have ANYTHING worth exchanging for anyway, except their bodies, which will be cheap, plentiful, and of little particular value as labor or sextoys.
I’m not betting on the world continuing as it is. I’m betting that history will win, and change will happen. I’m prepping because I believe that change will be REALLY unpleasant for most folks. I’d like to shield my family from as much of the unpleasantness as possible.
nick
Read Selco at SHTFschool.com or FerFal at ferfal.blogspot.com
Holding PMs in obviously not for everyone. Neither is prepping. Some people will never see the point. Some people think helmets and seatbelts are an imposition and insurance is a waste of money. I think they should be free to do so, but they should be REQUIRED to experience the consequences too. LOTS of people feeling the consequences of fiat money all over the world at the moment.
The last time I looked, something like 6% of Mormons actually store food beyond a month’s supply. Yes, Mormons are shooters.
Huh. We used to have a Mormon neighbor about three houses ago. She had their six months of food with about half of it being peanut butter. And she had four kids. The stash was upstairs with an incredible amount of cans. My wife used her stash quite often when she did not want to drive to the store just yet.
@lynn,
I’m gonna be vague on the church for my wife’s sake. They have a perfectly normal looking sanctuary for most services, but for the private, special services, they pull the cover off the pit… and they are in the Houston area, for sure.
The Peace War was awesome. The second book less so, as it’s hard to make the post singularity interesting, since most of the people were gone. The model of the tinker society is what I’m hoping for as a ‘best case’ if there is a big fall. I’m hoping that we don’t end up in Little house on the prairie instead….
nick
“The only snake handling that I have done on a Sunday morning is the dadgum baby water moccasin that the stupid cat brought in the house to play with last Sunday.”
Oh boy. Yeah, you need to break him of that habit like Right Now. Damn, son. One of our kittens once brought in a little garter snake that immediately rushed to disappear in my spaghetti tangle of computer cords and wires in my downstairs office at our last place. But we have no venomous reptiles up here.
Far as I know, a baby moccasin’s venom is just as deadly as an adult’s. When I was stationed out in Marin County, CA, on top of a mountain inside a state park, a ranger found a kid fishing down below in one of the ponds there. The ranger asked the kid how it was going, and the kid said, swell, except these worms keep biting me. He had a jar full of baby timber rattlers. Dunno if the kid made it or not.
Yikes.
I’ve also seen adult moccasins go out of their way to attack people in boats. The hell with all that; I’ll take my chances up here with bears, coyotes, wolves, ice storms, blizzards and two-legged vermin.
“….for the private, special services, they pull the cover off the pit… ”
Dass right, Mr. Lynn; the snake-handler cults, operating as sort of Protestant churches, although just a tad on the fringe, shall we say, dance around with venomous snakes; other cults will drink strychnine out of jars, probably not a stretch for some of them as has developed a taste for white lightning outta jars. Some of the preachers have been bit a bunch of times and managed to skate; others not so much.
Vermont has no politicians? Paradise indeed!
Some of the preachers have been bit a bunch of times and managed to skate; others not so much.
Saw that on the “Justified” tv show. The preacher’s sister was milking the rattlesnakes before the service so there was very little venom in the snakes.
They have a perfectly normal looking sanctuary for most services, but for the private, special services, they pull the cover off the pit… and they are in the Houston area, for sure.
I doubt that is a Church of Christ. Our services are too reserved for that kind of excitement.
Don’t know the particular denomination, wife says they are north of Houston.
Even when I was a believer, I was not comfortable putting God to the test….
Different strokes for different folks, live and let live says I.
nick
The preacher’s sister was milking his snake for him, hmm? I guess they really do do things different in them little oddball cults.
Some o them there womenfolk need to be squeezed until they get most of the venom out…..
/end curmudgeon voice
nick
HEY, LYNN McGUIRE!
By coincidence, I read something today I was going to refer you to, on treating intractable Lyme disease with bee venom.
It may be worth your while researching and following the subject.
http://digg.com/2015/poison-as-medicine
“Vermont has no politicians? Paradise indeed!”
I won’t insult reptiles with such a comparison. Reptiles mind their own business and have a genuine place in the ecology. Some of our asshole political hacks are chipping away again at gun rights down in Montpeculiar; I will find out more and report accordingly; some of it blew back in their faces today when a hired flack forgot his lines.
I am a believer and would not test You-Know-Who with such activities, either. I have long had the distinct impression that He is loath to abide foolishness.
“Ye shall take up serpents…”
They read that one line outta all the books of the Bible and then go to town on it.
Or their ancestors: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
The more moderate ones will read a bit more but only in Apocalypse, and immediately take that as applying directly to current and future events here on Earth. They also tend to unquestioningly support and adore Israel and the Jews on the basis that it will be fulfilled via prophecy yea unto Armageddon, etc., etc. So for them, Bibi and Likud are just the cat’s whiskers.
By coincidence, I read something today I was going to refer you to, on treating intractable Lyme disease with bee venom.
It may be worth your while researching and following the subject.
http://digg.com/2015/poison-as-medicine
“Ellie Lobel was ready to die. Then she was attacked by bees. Christie Wilcox hears how venom can be a saviour.”
“Ellie Lobel was 27 when she was bitten by a tick and contracted Lyme disease. And she was not yet 45 when she decided to give up fighting for survival.”
“Her first doctor told her it was just a virus, and it would run its course. So did the next. As time wore on, Ellie went to doctor after doctor, each giving her a different diagnosis. Multiple sclerosis. Lupus. Rheumatoid arthritis. Fibromyalgia. None of them realised she was infected with Borrelia until more than a year after she contracted the disease – and by then, it was far too late. Lyme bacteria are exceptionally good at adapting, with some evidence that they may be capable of dodging both the immune system and the arsenal of antibiotics currently available. Borrelia are able to live all over the body, including the brain, leading to neurological symptoms. And even with antibiotic treatment, 10–20 per cent of patients don’t get better right away. There are testimonies of symptoms persisting – sometimes even resurfacing decades after the initial infection – though the exact cause of such post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome is a topic of debate among Lyme scientists.”
You would not believe how many times I have read a Lyme infection story like this. One way out there researcher even thinks that Lyme bacteria has a viral payload. Plus, taking antibiotics for long periods destroys your immune system.
“Her bees live in a “bee condo” in her apartment. She doesn’t raise them herself; instead, she mail orders, receiving a package once a week. To perform the apitherapy, she uses tweezers to grab a bee and press it gently where she wants to be stung. “Sometimes I have to tap them on the tush a little bit,” she says, “but they’re usually pretty willing to sting you.””
“She started on a regimen of ten stings a day, three days a week: Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Three years and several thousand stings later, Ellie seems to have recovered miraculously. Slowly, she has reduced the number of stings and their frequency – just three stings in the past eight months, she tells me (and one of those she tried in response to swelling from a broken bone, rather than Lyme-related symptoms). She keeps the bees around just in case, but for the past year before I talked to her, she’d mostly done just fine without them.”
A case study of one. Sounds easy to try though if Ashley wants to. She, just like this lady, is tired of all the wrong diagnoses and the treatments.
Thank you very much!
Bullion coins and the sit-rep for Greece tonight:
“Bullion coin demand remains robust as seen in the latest data from the U.S. Mint. Sales of gold American Eagle coins by the U.S. Mint have already out sold last March’s total by well over 50% this month, reaching 34,500 ounces with another week of the month left to go according to Reuters. In March 2014 as a whole, they reached 21,000 ounces.”
“Time certainly appears to be running out for Greece. Either Syriza capitulates and returns to the Troika’s bail-out mechanism – highlighting a complete loss of sovereignty, or Greece defaults and exits the Eurozone.”
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/03/no_author/are-us-deposits-safe-from-bail-ins/
Lot’s of folks buying gold. Silver too. Ordinary folks. Guys with dirty hands and Carhart jackets. Suits. Retirees. Recent immigrants. Public service types, in uniform. I’ve seen all that with my own eyes. I’ve had people ask me for advice on where to buy locally. People that I would not normally expect to be awake and concerned. It’s widespread and getting wider is the feeling I’m getting from talking to folks and from looking around at the coin store.
If you can afford it.
If you have your beans bullets and bandaids.
If you have your meds and comms.
I don’t think you could go wrong by putting a little aside in the form of some shiny….
nick
Record numbers of gun purchases, and CHL applications too.
Record number of new ham licenses.
“Prepping” as a TV show and a popular meme. (a few years ago, no one knew what prepping was. Now there are about 500k results for “prepping” on youtube and 385k for “prepper.”
There’s enough of a market for a book that our host is spending months of his life on writing one.
I think some (rapidly growing segment of) folks are not content to sit and wait…
nick
“If you have your beans bullets and bandaids.”
Indeed. The real goods first.
“…folks are not content to sit and wait…”
There it is. And a lot of this attention and waking up is thanks to the innernet.
My Baofeng unit got here today; I’ll be futzing with it as time from studies allows, already have my GMRS license and shortly will be ramping up study for the Technician deal. Minor gunsmith ops continue.
Mrs. OFD very slowly coming around to the various concerns, thanks to local nooz events of property and violent crimes, etc. In a state that has nearly the lowest rate of violent crime if not THE lowest. We note the presence of outside elements lately, when we were already monitoring local denizens.
Hey OFD, didn’t you say that you had some shrapnel in your neck from your friends in SEA? If so, I would hightail it over to the VA and start yelling that you cannot feel your left arm anymore. The one thing that the VA is real good at is emergency situations.
Rocket shrapnel from my pal Charlie during the first tour and mortar fragments from my little Khmer Rouge buddies on the second caper. Mostly just lacerations and minor punctures; legs, shoulder, top of head, stomach.
I can feel my left arm and hand OK; it’s just that I keep dropping chit from my left hand and those fingers all the time, like I don’t have a grip on it or sumthin. Head was effed up already from major-league substance abuse so can’t lay that one on Charlie.
Disability filing is in-progress anyway; all this chit comes out in the wash, sooner or later. I hear different stories from different guys on how many hoops they gotta jump through, though. Probably get 20% for the tinnitus alone.
@OFD
Latest Jeremy Rifkin talk at CeBIT – 17-March-2015 …
Jeremy Rifkin at the #CGC15: “The Zero Marginal Cost Society”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75yiRvi48RQ
Published on Mar 18, 2015
Watch the inspiring Keynote of Jeremy Rifkin, Government Advisor & Bestselling Author, at the CeBIT Global Conferences 2015.
Probably get 20% for the tinnitus alone.
Nope. That is one of the hardest ones to get unless you were on a mortar crew for a couple of years. If you try you want to have a statement from a private ear doctor stating that the cause is from your time in the service. If you go to a VA doctor they will find some way to warp their opinion in the favor of the VA. I tried to get tinnitus because of my time in computer rooms with loud impact printers, hundreds of fans and motors, teletypes, card readers and all manor of noise. Nope, didn’t get it. Should have gone to a private doctor first, lesson learned.
You want to get your disability to at least 30%. The money goes up a lot and your spouse can receive benefits after you are worm food. Plus if she ever goes into assisted living or private pay nursing home you can get a $1,000 a month toward the cost. Same applies to you regardless of the disability level but you need 30% to get her covered.
I am at 20% and am thinking of asking for an increase. Back is getting more stiff and that may be enough to get the VA to up their fee. I need to time my visit to the VA hospital in Nashville to when I am particularly stiff. Unfortunately, the VA controls the schedule. I get interviewed by some clod that is not even a doctor and watches me as I get up out of the chair in the waiting room and walk to his office. (Hint, another lesson learned.)
“If you go to a VA doctor they will find some way to warp their opinion in the favor of the VA.”
VA docs already signed off on it.
“You want to get your disability to at least 30%.”
Understood.
“I am at 20% and am thinking of asking for an increase.”
Mr. Ray, the boyz tell me that this is possible; furthermore that the VA is getting a whole boat-load of money right now and this is a window we should take advantage of. Also, if you run into any flak or delays, get a lawyer on it. Their experience with lawyers is so far 100% that it clears the logjam and bullshit almost instantly. We have a woman lawyer at the Vermont Law School who will take cases pro bono, too.
The boyz also advised me that for the PTSD part of the process to tell them about my WORST day, not so much that I’ve been making a splendid recovery the past five years. Of course several of them are at 80% and 100% and clearly worse off than me.
Also, if you run into any flak or delays, get a lawyer on it
Once you are in the system the delays seem to be relatively small. When I had my disability increased from 10% to 20% it only took three months.