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Pine bark found to prevent inflammation
September 18, 2009
by Personal Liberty News Desk
According to new research, the extract from the bark of the French maritime pine tree appears to have inflammation-fighting properties and relieve pain.
Scientists from the National Research Institute on Food and Nutrition in Rome found the antioxidant compound, called Pycnogenol, inhibits the generation of COX-2 and 5-LOX, which are naturally occurring mediators associated with inflammatory responses.
The researchers tested volunteers aged 35-50, who took Pycnogenol pills for five consecutive mornings before breakfast. Blood sample analysis before and after supplementation showed that while the participants’ immune cells rapidly initiated production of COX-2 and 5-LOX in response to pro-inflammatory stimulation, taking Pycnogenol almost entirely suppressed them in the immune cells.
Study author Dr. Raffaella Canali explained that common NSAID medications lower the pain by reducing the production of prostaglandins by COX enzymes.
"In contrast, Pycnogenol turns to the root of the problem, completely stopping the production of COX-2 in inflammation. Thus far, the compound seems to be a unique tool for modulating inflammatory processes," she adds.
Natural Health Science, a supplements distributor, says Pycnogenol is available in more than 700 nutritional supplements worldwide.
http://www.personalliberty.com/news/pin ... -19369279/
Cherries reduce inflammation, risk of heart disease
April 27, 2009
by Personal Liberty News Desk
Consuming just one and a half cups of tart cherries daily enhances the antioxidant activity in the body, according to new research.
The study, conducted by scientists from the University of Michigan and reported at the 2009 Experimental Biology meeting in New Orleans, included twelve healthy adults, aged 18 to 25 years, who were randomly assigned to eat either one and a half cups or three cups of frozen tart cherries.
The researchers found increased levels of five different anthocyanins, the natural antioxidants which give cherries their red color, for up to 12 hours after consumption.
"This study documents for the first time that the antioxidants in tart cherries do make it into the human bloodstream and is coupled with increased antioxidant activity that could have a positive impact," says Dr. Sara L. Warber, co-director of University of Michigan Integrative Medicine and principal investigator of the study.
"[What's] really great is that a reasonable amount of cherries could potentially deliver benefits, like reducing risk factors for heart disease and inflammation," she adds.
Previous studies have linked cherries and cherry compounds to lower blood cholesterol and triglycerides levels.
Other benefits of cherries include a 14 percent lower body weight and less belly fat, the type linked to increased heart disease risk and type 2 diabetes, according to the UM researchers.
http://www.personalliberty.com/news/che ... -19142164/
Do bing cherries count? Mmmm......I make myself sick on those when they come into season locally. They are good dried too, along with dried cranberries.
We have wild cherries all over where we live, in mid-summer, but those are unbeleivably sour.
Speaking of things good for you. Echinacea tea.....make sure you all have some around. I started feeling something coming on, and it was hitting me hard and fast (scary, worried about flu, or swine flu). Took down two cups of that tea, and it was almost immediate, felt so much better. Could feel something still, but very little, and the next day repeated it all, and so far, so good.
Who needs government health care when we have enough brains to use what is around us?
I hear that using powdered milk in soil is really good for tomatos. Going to give this a try.
(Yeah...still having issues with my maters....grrrrr) :x
Solar Powered Battery Charging Systems
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We have a variety of solar battery charger power supplies, from small trickle car charger solar unit to large solar RV and auto battery chargers. The best thing about our solar battery charger is that they are maintenance free and easy to use. Please take a few minutes and read our Solar Powered Battery Charger Tutorial.
http://www.batterystuff.com/solar-chargers/#
Study: Eating fresh fruits may reduce the risk of kidney stones
September 23, 2009 by Personal Liberty News Desk
http://pictures.directnews.co.uk/liv...0_7523_300.jpg
According to new research, those whose diet is rich in fruits and vegetables may end up with healthier kidneys and lower their risk of developing kidney stones.
A kidney stone is a solid piece of material that forms from the crystallization of excreted substances in the urine. The condition, which affects more than 1 million Americans, is particularly painful if the stone breaks loose and travels down the urinary tract.
For their study, scientists from Maine Medical Center and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston assigned a score to each enrolled participant based on eight components of a DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) style diet.
The diet—which is based on fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, low-fat dairy products and whole grains and is low in salt, sweetened beverages as well as red and processed meats—is designed to boost the levels of calcium, potassium, magnesium, oxalate and vitamin C in the body.
Compared with those with the lowest DASH scores, participants with the highest scores experienced between 40 percent and 45 percent reduction in the likelihood of developing kidney stones, the scientists found.
http://feeds.directnews.co.uk/feedtr...temid=19375918
http://personalliberty.com/2009/09/2...ones-19375918/
Lessons from Argentina's economic collapse(Editor's note: the article that follows is a very sobering account of the effect that the collapse of the Argentine economy (1999 - 2002) had on its citizens, as seen through the eyes of one of them. The economic collapse wiped out the middle class and raised the level of poverty to 57.5%. Central to the collapse was the implementation of neo-liberal policies which enabled the swindle of billions of dollars by foreign banks and corporations. Many of Argentina's assets and resources were shamefully plundered. Its financial system was even used for money laundering by Citibank, Credit Suisse, and JP Morgan (sound familar?). The net result was massive wealth transfers and the impoverishment of society which culminated in many deaths due to oppression and malnutrition. I am not sure the same thing is about to happen here, but I am sure that there is a distinct possibility that it might. Just food for thought - JSB)
ferfal
Wednesday, 13 December 2006
For western countries such as the UK, the first major problems of Peak Oil, assuming there are no oil shocks, will not be the shortage of oil but the economic crises that will occur. Argentina is a recent example of a country that suffered a serious economic crisis, and although Argentina and the UK are not identical, anyone interested in how economic crises can affect individual lives will be very interested in the following vivid description of life for an Argentinian following the economic collapse.
My brother visited Argentina a few weeks ago. He's been living in Spain for a few years now.
Within the first week, he go sick, some kind of strong flu, even though climate isn't that cold and he took care of himself.
Without a doubt he got sick because there are lots of new viruses in my country that can't be found in 1st world countries.
The misery and famine lead us to a situation where, even though you have food, shelter and health care, most others don't, and therefore they get sick and spread the diseases all over the region.
What got me started on this post is the fact that I actually saw this coming, and posted on the subject here at Frugal's, months before the new viruses spread over the country and the news started talking about this new, health emergency, which proves that talking, thinking and sharing ideas with like minded people (you guys), does help to see things coming and prepare for them with enough time.
So I started thinking about several issues, what I learned (either the hard way or thanks to this forum) after all these years of living in a collapsed country that is trying to get out an economical disaster and everything that comes along with it.
Though my English is limited, I hope I'm able to transmit the main ideas and concepts, giving you a better image of what you may have to deal with some day, if the economy collapses in your country.
URBAN OR COUNTRY?
Someone once asked me how did those that live in the country fare. If they were better off than city dwellers.
As always there are no simple answers. Wish I could say country good, city bad, but I can't. Because if I have to be completely honest, and I intend to be so, there are some issues that have to be analyzed, specially security.
Of course that those that live in the country and have some land and animals were better prepared food-wise. No need to have several acres full of crops. A few fruit trees, some animals, such as chickens, cows and rabbits, and a small orchard was enough to be light years ahead of those in the cities.
Chickens, eggs and rabbits would provide the proteins, a cow or two for milk and cheese, some vegetables and fruit plants covered the vegetable diet, and some eggs or a rabbit could be traded for flower to make bread and pasta or sugar and salt.
Of course that there are exceptions.
For example, some provinces up north have desert climate, and it almost never rains. It is almost impossible to live of the land, and animals require food and water you have to buy. Those guys had it bad, no wonder the northern provinces suffer the most in my country.
Those that live in cities, well they have to manage as they can. Since food prices went up about 200%-300%. People would cut expenses wherever they could so they could buy food. Some ate whatever they could, they hunted birds or ate street dogs and cats; others starved.
When it comes to food, cities suck in a crisis. It is usually the lack of food or the impossibility to acquire it that starts the rioting and looting when TSHTF. When it comes to security things get even more complicated.
Forget about shooting those that mean you harm from 300 yards away with your MBR. Leave that notion to armchair commandos and 12 year old kids that pretend to be grown ups on the internet.
Some facts:
1) Those that want to harm you/steal from you don't come with a pirate flag waving over their heads.
2) Neither do they start shooting at you 200 yards away.
3) They wont come riding loud bikes or dressed with their orange, convict just escaped from prison jump suits, so that you can identify them the better. Nor do they all wear chains around their necks and leather jackets. If I had a dollar for each time a person that got robbed told me, "They looked like NORMAL people, dressed better than we are", honestly, I would have enough money for a nice gun. There are exceptions, but don't expect them to dress like in the movies.
4) A man with a wife and two or three kids can't set up a watch. I don't care if you are SEAL, SWAT or John Freaking Rambo, no 6th sense is going to tell you that there is a guy pointing a gun at your back when you are trying to fix the water pump that just broke, or carrying a big heavy bag of dried beans you bought that morning.
The best alarm system anyone can have in a farm are dogs. But dogs can get killed and poisoned. A friend of mine had all four dogs poisoned on his farm one night, they all died.After all these years I learned that even though the person that lives out in the country is safer when it comes to small time robberies, that same person is more exposed to extremely violent home robberies. Criminals know that they are isolated and their feeling of invulnerability is boosted. When they assault a country home or farm, they will usually stay there for hours or days torturing the owners. I heard it all: women and children getting raped, people tied to the beds and tortured with electricity, beatings, burned with acetylene torches.
Big cities aren't much safer for the survivalist that decides to stay in the city. He will have to face express kidnappings, robberies, and pretty much risking getting shot for what's in his pockets or even his clothes.
So, where to go? The concrete jungle is dangerous and so is living away from it all, on your own.
The solution is to stay away from the cities but in groups, either by living in a small town-community or sub division, or if you have friends or family that think as you do, form your own small community.
Some may think that having neighbors within "shouting" distance means loosing your privacy and freedom, but it's a price that you have to pay if you want to have someone to help you if you ever need it. To those that believe that they will never need help from anyone because they will always have their rifle at hand, checking the horizon with their scope every five minutes and a first aid kit on their back packs at all times.... Grow up
SERVICES
Whatever sort of scenario you are dealing with, services are more than likely to either suffer in quality or disappear all together. Think ahead of time, analyze possible SHTF scenarios and which service should be affected by it in your area.
Think about the most likely scenario but also think outside the box. What's more likely? A tornado? But a terrorist attack isn't as crazy as you though it would be a few years ago, isn't it?
Also analyze the consequences of those services going down. If there is no power then you need to do something about all that meat you have in the fridge, you can dry it or can it. Think about the supplies you would need for these tasks before you actually need them.
You have a complete guide on how to prepare the meat on you computer... how will you get it out of there if there is no power? Print everything that you consider important.
WATER
No one can last too long without water. The urban survivalist may find that the water is of poor quality, in which case he can make good use of a water filter, or that there is no water available at all. When this happens, a large city were millions live will run out of bottled water within minutes.
In my case, tap water isn't very good. I can see black little particles and some other stuff that looks like dead algae. Taste isn't that bad. Not good but I know that there are parts of the country where it is much worse. To be honest, a high percentage of the country has no potable water at all.
If you can build a well, do so, set it as your top of the list priority as a survivalist. Water comes before firearms, medicines and even food.
Save as much water as you can. Use plastic bottles, refill soda bottles and place them in a cool place, preferably inside a black garbage bag to protect it from sun light. The water will pick some plastic taste after a few months, but water that tastes a little like plastic is far way better than no water at all.
What ever the kind of SHTF scenario you are dealing with, water will suffer. In my case the economical crash created problems with the water company, that reduces the maintenance and quality in order to reduce costs and keep their income in spite of the high prices they have to pay for supplies and equipment, most of which comes from abroad, and after the 2001 crash, costs 3 times more.
As always, the little guy gets to pay for it.
Same would go for floods or chemical or biological attacks. Water requires delicate care and it will suffer when TSHTF in one way or another. In this case, when you still have tap water, a quality filter is in order, as well as a pump if you can have one. A manual pump would be ideal as well if possible.
Estimate that you need a approximately a gallon per person per day. Try to have at least two-four weeks worth of water. More would be preferable.
POWER
I spent WAY to much time without power for my own taste. Power has always been a problem in my country, even before the 2001 crisis.
The real problem starts when you spend more than just a few hours without light. Just after the SHTF in 2001 half the country went without power for 3 days.
Buenos Aires was one big dark grave. People got caught on elevators, food rot, hospitals that only had a few hours worth of fuel for their generators ran out of power.
Without power, days get to be a lot shorter. Once the sun sets there is not much you can do.
I read under candle light and flashlight light and your head starts to hurt after a while. You can work around the house a little bit but only as long as you don't need power tools.
Crime also increases once the lights go out, so whenever you have to go somewhere in a black out, carry the flashlight on one hand and a handgun on the other.
Summarizing, being in a city without light turn to be depressing after a while. I spent my share of nights, alone, listening to the radio, eating canned food and cleaning my guns under the light of my LED head lamp. Then I got married, had a son, and found out that when you have loved ones around you black outs are not as bad. The point is that family helps morale on these situations.
A note on flashlights. Have two or three head LED lights. They are not expensive and are worth their weight in gold. A powerful flashlight is necessary, something like a big Maglite or better yet a SureFire, specially when you have to check your property for intruders. But for more mundane stuff like preparing food, going to the toilet or doing stuff around the house, the LED headlamp is priceless. Try washing the dishes on the dark while holding a 60 lumen flashlight on one hand and you'll know what I mean. LEDs also have the advantage of lasting for almost an entire week of continuous use and the light bulb lasts forever.
Rechargeable batteries are a must (ed. Get a solar powered battery charger) or else you'll end up broke if lights go out often. Have a healthy amount of spare quality batteries and try to standardize as much as you can.
I have 12 Samsung NM 2500Mh AA and 8 AAA 800mh for the headlamps. I use D cell plastic adaptors in order to use AA batteries on my 3 D cell Maglite. This turned out to work quite well, better than I expected.
I also keep about 2 or 3 packs of regular, Duracell batteries just in case. These are supposed to expire around 2012, so I can forget about them until I need them.
Rechargeable NM batteries have the disadvantage of loosing power after a period of time, so keep regular batteries as well and check the rechargeable ones every once in a while.
After all these years of problems with power, what two items I would love to have?
1) The obvious. A generator. I carried my fridge food to my parents house way to many times on the past. Too bad I can't afford one right now.
2) A battery charger that has both solar panel and a small crank. They are not available here. I saw that they are relatively inexpensive in USA. Do yourself a favor and get one or two of these. Even if they don't charge as well as regular ones, I'm sure it will put out enough power to charge batteries for LED lamps at least.
GAS
Gas has decreased in quality as well, there is little gas. Try to have an electric oven in case you have to do without it.
If both electricity and gas go down, one of those camping stoves can work as well, if you keep a good supply of gas cans.
The ones that work with liquid fuel seem to be better on the long run, since they can use different types of fuel.
You can only store a limited amount of compressed gas and once you ran out of it, you are on your own if stores are closed of they sold them out.
Anyway, a city that goes without gas and light for more than two weeks is a death trap, get out of there before it's too late.
A DIFFERENT MENALITY
I was watching the People & Art channel with my wife the other night. It was a show where they film a couple for a given period of time and some people vote on who is the one with the worst habits, the one they find more annoying.
We were in our bed, and this is when I usually fall asleep but since the guy was a firearms police instructor I was interested and managed to stay awake.
At one point the guy's wife said that she found annoying that her husband spent 500 dollars a month on beauty products for himself. 500 USD on facial cream, special shampoo and conditioner, as well as having his nails polished! If you are that guy and happen to be reading this, or if you know him, I'm sorry, but what an idiot!!
"500 USD, that's a small generator or a gun and a few boxes of ammo" I told my wife.
"That's two months worth of food" she said.
We were each thinking of a practical use for that money, the money this guy was practically throwing away.
Once the SHTF, money is no longer measured in money, but you start seeing it as the necessary goods it can buy. Stuff like food, medicine, gas, or the private medical service bill.
To me, spending 500 dollars on beauty products, and to make it worse, on a guy? That's simply not acceptable.
The way I see it, someone with that mentality can't survive a week without a credit card, no use in even considering a SHTF scenario. And this guy is a firearms instructor?... probably the kind of guy that will say that a handgun is only used to fight his way to his rifle... and his facial night cream...
Once you experience the lack of stuff you took for granted, like food , medicines, your set of priorities change all of a sudden. For example, I had two wisdom tooth removed last year. On both occasions I was prescribed with antibiotics and strong Ibuprofen for the pain. I took the antibiotics( though I did buy two boxes with the same recipe just to keep one box just in case) but I didn't use the Ibuprofen, I added it to my pile of medicines.
Why? because medicines are not always available and I'm not sure if they will be available in the future. Sure, it hurt like hell, but pain alone isn't going to kill you, so I sucked it up. Good for building up character if you ask me . Make sacrifices so as to ensure a better future, that's the mentality you should have if you want to be prepared. There's stuff that is "nice to have" that has to be sacrificed to get the indispensable stuff.
There's stuff that is not "basic need stuff" but it's also important in one way or another.
My wife goes to the hairdresser once every month or two. It's not life or death, but it does make her feel better and it boosts her morale. I buy a game for the Xbox or a movie to watch with my wife every once in awhile, just to relax. 7 or 10 dollars a month are not going to burn a hole in my pocket.
Addictions such as alcohol, drugs or even cigarettes should be avoided by the survivalist. They are bad for your health, cost a lot of money that could be much better spent, and create an addiction to something that may not be available in the future.
Who will have to tolerate your grouchy mood when your brand of smokes is no longer imported after TSHTF?
GRAY/BLACK MARKET
Once the SHTF the black/gray market will take no time to appear all around you.
In my country, gray markets were even accepted in the end. At first it was all about trading skills or craft products for food. Districts and towns would form their own barter markets, and created their own tickets, similar to money, that was used to trade.
This didn't last long. Those tickets were easy to make on your home computer, there was no control and eventually people went back to paper money.
These markets were usually placed on warehouses or empty land, and were managed by some wise guy and a few thugs or hired security.
Anyone can go rent a kiosk inside these markets for about 50-100 pesos (about 20-30 dollars) a day and sell his goods and services.
Piece within these markets is usually respected... lets just say that these managers don't call the police if someone tries anything funny, like stealing, fighting or taking advantage of women. That's not good for their business and anyone that tries to mess with their business finds out how much pain the human body can actually experiment or gets a free ticket to meet the Lord.
Sometimes even uniformed cops manage security on these markets, for a small fee of course. As always, you still have to be careful. They may still try to pick your pockets or even attack you once you leave the market. Once you leave the market, you are on your own, as always.
This market evolves, and now a lot of different products are available. Today I visited my local market, a warehouse that is fairly well set up and cleanly managed. They had problems for selling stolen merchandise and fake Brand name clothes a few days ago.
What can be found at a local markets? Mostly food and clothing. Some have more variety than others but cheese, canned food, spices, honey, eggs, fruits, vegetables, beer, wine and cured meat are generally available, same as bakery products and pasta. These are less expensive than those found at supermarkets. Fresh fish is sometimes available but not always, people don't trust much products that need refrigeration, and they get those at supermarkets instead.
Clothes are also popular and you can find copies of brand name clothes, imitations, or even original stolen new clothes, the same goes for shoes and snickers. Children clothes, underwear, socks, sheets and towels are all very popular. Some sell toys, but they are always China made, mostly poor quality though there are some few exceptions.
Others sell tools, also made in China can be found as well, but they are of poor quality.
Some offer their services and repair stuff or offer work as handyman.
You would be amazed of the junk that these guys manage to fix: TVs, CD players, Power tools, etc. They even manage to solder the small integrated circuits boards sometimes. Give one of these guys a screw driver and a bar of chocolate and he will fix a nuclear submarine.
After food and clothes, the 3rd most popular item has to be CDs and DVDs, movies, music, play station 2 and Xbox games, programs, it all ends up there just one or two days after the official release in USA. Seems that they have a guy hidden under Bill Gate's desk or something.
Anyway, almost everything can be found there, and if you want, you can ask around, talk to the right guy and buy illegal stuff like drugs or black market guns and ammo. The quality of the drugs is questionable, of course, and a lot of addicts die from the mixtures these guys sell. Guns are mostly FM High Powers, Surplus 1911s and Colt .45s, Sistemas, and old Colt Detective revolvers in 38 special that found their way from police and military armories into the black market. Condition isn't very good but if you have money you'll be amazed of what you can end up with. Everything that is used by the military and police, including SMGs a, Browning 50 BMG Machine guns, and even frag grenades, is available in the black market, if the customer has the amount of money and a little patience, of course. The big guns may take a while, but the handguns and grenades are readily available.
Lessons from Argentina's economic collapsePart Two
ferfal
GOLD:
Someone hit me in the head please because I messed up about the gold issue.
Everyone wants to buy gold! "I buy gold. Pay cash" signs are everywhere, even on TV! I can't believe I'm that silly!
I just didn't relate it to what I read here because they deal with junk gold, like jewelry, either stolen or sold because they needed the money, not the gold coins that you guys talk about. No one pays for the true value of the stuff, so big WARNING! Sign on people that are buying gold coins.
Since it is impossible to determine the true mineral percentage of gold, small shops and dealers will pay for it as regular jewelry gold.
What I would do if I were you: Besides gold coins, buy a lot of small gold rings and other jewelry. They should be less expensive than gold coins, and if the SHTF bad, you'll not be losing money, selling premium quality gold coins for the price of junk gold. If I could travel back in time, I'd buy a small bag worth of gold rings.
Small time thieves will snatch gold chains right out of your neck and sell them at these small dealers found everywhere. This is VERY common at train stations, subways and other crowded areas.
So, my advice, if you are preparing for a small economical crisis, gold coins make sense. You will keep the value of the stuff and be able to sell it for its actual cost to gold dealers or maybe other survivalists that know the true value of the item.
In my case, gold coins would have been an excellent investment, saving me from loosing money when the local economy crashed. Even though things are bad, I can go to a bank down town and get paid for what a gold coin is truly worth, same goes for pure silver. But where I live, in my local are small time dealers will only pay you the value of junk gold, no matter what kind of gold you have. So, I'd have to say that if TSHTF bad, gold jewelry is a better trade item than gold coins.
GUNS, AMMO AND OTHER GEAR
After TSHTF in 2001, only the most narrow minded, brain washed, butterfly IQ level idiots believed that the police would protect them from the crime wave that followed the collapse of our economy.
A lot of people that could have been considered antigun before, ran to the gun shops, seeking advise on how to defend themselves and their families. They would buy a 38 revolver, a box of ammo, and leave it in the closet, probably believing that it would magically protect them from intruders.
Oh, maybe you don't think that firearms are really necessary or your beliefs do not allow you to buy a tool designed to kill people. So you probably ask yourself, is a gun really necessary when TSHTF? Will it truly make a difference?
Having gone through a shtf scenario myself, total economical collapse in the year 2001, and still dealing with the consequences, 5 years later, I feel I can answer that question.
YES, you need a gun, pepper spray, a machete, a battle axe, club with a rusty nail sticking out of it, or whatever weapon you can get hold of.
A LOT has been written on survival weapons. Everyone that is into armed survival has his or her own idea of the ideal gun battery. Some more oriented to a hunting point of view, others only as self defense means and others consider a little of both, and look for general purpose weapons.
Talking about guns, there is one special subject I want to rectify, and it's the point on what's the primary weapon for the survivalist, specially a urban survivalist that has to function in a society, yes, even after the SHTF.
People, if you are interested in real world SHTF situation, and you want to prepared for the real deal, then understand that this isn't black or white.
You wake up one day and listen on the radio that the economy collapsed and that the stock market closed indefinitely.
CRIME AND INSECURITY
Even though crime has always been an issue in South America, my country was quite the exception. It was dangerous, yes but nothing like after the 2001 economical crisis. One used to be able to let kids play on the sidewalk, or walk back home from a party, a few blocks, and be somewhat safe. This all changed now. There are no kids playing on the sidewalks anymore. I should emphasize this a little more. There are absolutely NO kids playing on the sidewalks at all, at any time of the day. Maybe a kid rides his bike a few meters on the sidewalk, but always under the supervision of an adult. A kid riding a bike on his own will get that bike stolen in no time, probably get hurt in the process, therefore no responsible parent leaves a kid alone on the street. Teenagers present a greater problem. You can't keep a 15 or 16 year old inside a house all day long, and even though they are big enough to go out on their own, when the sun goes down things get much worse.
This is when parents organize themselves; either taking them to someone's house or to a club and picking them up at a certain time. Taxis and remises are used sometimes , but there have been lots of cases of girls getting raped, so no parent worth a buck leaves his son or daughter in hands of a stranger. After years of living like this, almost everyone learned to be careful; sometimes they had to learn the hard way. Practically no one leaves a door or window opened or unlocked. Nor do they hang out in front of the house talking to friends. A bad guy might just see you there, like a sitting duck, pull a gun on you and take you inside your house.
There are no "bandit's law" anymore. One used to hear people talk about "You shouldn't resist a robbery, give them what they want and they'll go away". That holds true no more. These guys are under the influence of drugs, epoxy glue, or just hate your guts so much, because you have a better life than they ever dreamed of, because they were abused since the day they were born, that they will hurt and humiliate you as much as they can. Letting a criminal inside you house almost guaranties you that he will rape/beat/ torture and abuse whoever they find inside.
I personally drew a line a few years ago and decided, after one long, serious conversation with my wife; that no one would be allowed inside the house, no matter what. We figured that there are worse things than death. Having decided that, I make sure I always have a weapon on me. They'll have to pay dearly for my life, plus interests.
By far, the most dangerous moment of the day, is when I (or my wife) leave/enter my house. A solid, secure house cannot be broken in easily, so criminals wait until you are standing on front of the door with the keys on your hand to jump on you. This is why we are extra alert when approaching our house, look all around us and if we see anything strange, keep walking around the block or keep on driving. No door is ever opened when there is a strange person around. Whenever someone knocks on our door (and we don't know him/her), they are answered from a second story window. Criminals sometimes disguise as electric company guys or something like that, saying that they have to fix something. NO! If there is something to be fixed they can fix it on the sidewalk. Anything inside your house is your responsibility and the company is not going to fix it for you. Either way, it's always better to play it safe, Better to be rude than dead.
On the car/driving issue, that calls for an entire post dedicated to SHTF driving. For now I'll just say that windows and doors have to be closed at all times, a weapon must be within arms reach, and that stop signs and traffic lights have a hole new meaning once TSHTF. If your country ever falls as mine did, you'll remember me whenever you see a traffic light. You never stop at a red lights or stop sign unless there is traffic, especially at night.
At first, police would write you a ticket for not stopping at a red light if they saw you (another way of saying that they will ask for a bribe if they see you pass a red light), but after a few months they realized that nothing could be done, people would rather risk a ticket than risking their lives, so they decided to turn traffic lights to permanent yellow at night, after 8 or 9 PM. This is, of course, very dangerous. Night car accidents are both frequent and brutal since sometimes both cars hit each other at full speed.
MissinLink asked some good questions that might interest others as well, and since we are on the security issue, here they are:
"Do the invaders of homes in the country just drive up in cars or trucks? Do they hide and sneak up? How do these home invaders attack a home in the country? A similar question could be asked for homes in the city."Sometimes they just drive up to where you are working, if you are far away from the home, but most of the time they sneak up on you. Criminals are not stupid, and they will spend days checking the place and specially YOUR ROUTINE. For example, if they see that you lock the gate at night, as most do, they will wait for you behind a tree until you are close. This is done a lot. Dogs are the best alarm you can find, and criminals know that. They will poison them with pills when you go to sleep and attack the place in the middle of the night. I know of many that had their dogs killed. If they think that security is tight, they will just hide near the main gate, and wait for you to leave or return. When you stop at the gate and must get out of the truck to open/close the main gate, they attack. I'd say that the most frequent kind of attack is attacking by surprise when you enter/leave your home.
"Most common times of attack? Day night evening morning? I understand occur when coming or going from ones home, etc."7 am, 9 am, 1pm 7pm, all are common times for attacks. There is no "safe" hour of the day. Night is particularly dangerous. Maybe attacks during the day are faster, they want to get some money or jewelry and leave fast, while at night they might stay inside more time, maybe till the next day. But there are no fixed patterns. If I could give one advice concerning SHTF security, it would be: Eyes and ears wide open when you enter/leave your home. If possible, keep a gun on your hand when doing either one. If something looks, even "feels strange, then go around the block and check again, carefully. If you see them still there, either call the police (if still available) or get help. If you approach the house with a large number of people they will leave. One time, I saw a couple of strange looking guys at my door. I went round the block and saw them still there. I started flashing the car lights and the horn and they left. I had a gun with me, though, so be careful when trying this. Also, remember that a car is one heavy, powerful piece of machinery. I know a guy that had one of those big chrome-tube bumpers installed on his truck, especially for hitting those that were stupid enough to try and make him stop by standing in front of the car.
If I had a truck, I would do so myself. Though I would keep my mouth shut about it, as always. Just say that you think it looks cool or something. Every now and then someone tries to force me to stop my car by standing in front of it (I suppose there are still fools out there that get robbed this way), in the middle of the street. I just aim at them and accelerate at full speed. They always jump out of the way before I hit them. By the way, at first, doing this made me feel nervous, but can you believe that now it's just common driving, as normal as changing gears? I guess it's a little sad.
http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/10.08/tshtf2.html
Lessons from Argentina's economic collapse
ferfal
Studying the SHTF at the University: Dark omens:
Part Three
I forgot it! Darn, same as the gold stuff but worse, much worse. I've never been good at remembering some things, like numbers and names of people I meet, I forget those (instantly), they just flee my mind, uneventfully, but I do remember some other things that don't seem to be as important. I do remember living in USA as a kid. I remember my school, Pierce School, Don't remember exactly were it was, because we lived some in Boston, Massachusetts and some in New Hampshire. I remember my best friend, Freddy, and a girl (why is there always a girl? ) Samantha, Sam. She was red haired and tall, I had a picture of her playing together but I lost it. Some time between the age of 3 and 26 I lost that picture that was so dear to me. I remember the smell of an orange shaped "scratch and smell" sticker my kindergarten teacher stuck in a small book we made once. But I almost forgot this forever. This, this was important, a moment where the life we once knew stopped existing, and a group of students, in a class room that looked like and abandoned building, realized it, all 60 of us at the same time.
It's 1:06 AM over here. I just finished showering and my wife and son are asleep. I was putting shampoo on my hair, thinking about what I wrote today on this post, and remembered the exact moment when I realized along with several other people, not only that TSHTF (that we all knew) but that the world we once new no longer existed, and that this was not a hurricane, this was an ice age period, it wouldn't just go away.
We understood it the same way a kid understands photosynthesis: Because a teacher coldly explained it to us, even used graphics. I slept 5 hours yesterday, 2 hours the day before yesterday. Saturday night I didn't sleep at all. I'm already used to it. Deadlines at the University, staying late at night, drawing in CAD 3D, waiting until Renders are ready. It's a competitive world out there, and no one sympathizes with what you are going through, they just want you to perform as expected, and the standard is always high. It happened 4 years ago, almost a year after the December 2001 crisis. It was a social studies class and this teacher, don't remember if it was a he or a she, was explaining the different kinds of social pyramids. God! Now I remember more! We even had a text book with those darn, cruel pyramids! The first pyramid explained the basic society. A pyramid with two horizontal lines, dividing those on top (high social class) those in the middle (middle class) and the bottom of the pyramid (the poor, proletarian). The teacher explained that the middle of the pyramid, the middle class, acted as a cushion between the rich and the poor, taking care of the social stress. The second pyramid had a big middle section, this was the pyramid that represents 1st world countries. I which the bottom is very thin and arrows show that there is a possibility to go from low to middle class, and from middle to the top of the social pyramid. Our teacher explained that this was the classic, democratic capitalist society, and that on countries such as Europeans one, socialists, the pyramid was very similar but a little more flat, meaning that here is a big middle section, middle class, and small high and low class. There is little difference between the three of them.
The third pyramid showed the communist society. Where arrows from the low and middle class tried to reach the top but they bounced off the line. A small high society and one big low society, cushioned by a minimal middle class section of pyramid. Then we turned the page and saw the darned fourth pyramid. This one had arrows from the middle class dropping to the low, poor class.
"What is this?" Some of us asked.
The teacher looked at us. "This is us"
"It's the collapsed country, a country that turns into 3rd world country like in pyramid five where there is almost no middle class to speak, one huge low, poor class , and a very small, very rich, top class."
"What are those arrows that go from the middle to the bottom of the pyramid?" Someone asked.
You could hear a pin drop. "That is middle class turning into poor".
I won't lie, no one cried, though people rubbed their faces, held their heads and their breath.
No one cried, but we all knew at that very moment that all we thought, all we took for granted, simply was not going to happen.
"You see, the income from the middle class is not enough to function as middle class any more. Some from the top class fall to middle class, but the vast majority of the middle class turns into poor" Said the teacher.
I don't know how many people in that room suddenly understood that he/she was poor.
The teacher continued "You see, we have a middle class that suddenly turns to poor, creating a society of basically poor people, there is no more middle class to cushion tensions any more. Middle class suddenly discovers that they are overqualified for the jobs they can find and have to settle for anything they can obtain, there for unemployment sky rockets, too much to offer, too little demand. You see they prepare, study for a job they are not going to get. You kids, you are studying Architecture because you simply wish to do so. Only 3 or 4 percent of you will actually find a job related to architecture."
We all sat there, letting it all sink in. After a few months, it all proved to be true. Even the amount of students that dropped out of college increased to at least 50%. They either so no point in studying something that would not make much of a difference in their future salaries, had no money to keep themselves in college, or simply had to drop college to work and support their families.
Someone once said, in this forum, that if this had happened in USA, the social unrest would have been much worse, because people from S. America are stronger. At first, I told him that I didn't think so, I said that all humans adapt when they have no other choice. But now that I consider it more, maybe he was right. Not that S. Americans are stronger, but they are more used to adversities. Most of us are children from grandparents that escaped civil war, either in Spain or dictators in Italy, our parents survived the dirty war, even more dictators, and therefore their children are of strong character too. Can USA citizens survive what we survived? Of course they can, though I think that there are too many that are not like you, many that don't prepare, and take everything for granted. Those are the ones that will be responsible for the increase in the social unrest once the SHTF, those that were too lazy to take care of themselves before the SHTF, or that had gone soft through out the years, believing that the government will "take care of them because they pay their taxes". But in the end, they will pull through. People will adapt, they always do. You'd be surprised. And those that don't want to adapt to the new reality they live in, will die young, thus cleaning the gene pool and ensuring the continuity of the specie. It's been this way for thousands of years.
MISCELLANEOUS Q&A
Don't prepare for an idiot shooting a Raven at you 200 yards away, prepare for the sneaky son of a gun that waits until you are distracted, fed the dogs some nice pills, and gets to you when you less expect him. THAT is much more likely than someone attacking you 200 yards away.
I didn't mean it as an insult to anyone, I'm well aware that there are cases of people shooting enemies 1000 yards away. That is war. Killing someone that wants you dead before he gets close to you is perfectly logical.
Please name me one case of self defense where the person shot the bad guy 100 yards away.
I had a guy try to steal my car a while ago while visiting a friend at his farm.
I saw the guy next to my car about 300 meters away. I had my FAL PARA with me, since we where going to spend some time shooting that morning.
I could have shot that guy from a safe distance, right? But you can't do that in real life. People that shoot others 300 meters away for no reason, claiming self defense, are called psychos. I had to fold my rifle, hide it under my coat, walk to where my car and the guy where, and ask him what he wanted. When he said that he was there to take the car I leveled my FAL at him, and as it usually happens in real life, the guy almost pissed his pants, and left, babbling some BS story I no longer remember.
If someone starts shooting at you 300 yards away, and you shoot back in self defense , that's ok, but that rarely, if ever, happens.
Any bad guy that has survived through puberty will be smart enough to get close, very close, maybe when you are distracted with some chore/fieldwork and point a gun at you, asking you to calm down and walk into the house.
No way can you know what a man's intentions are 200 yards away, unless he starts shooting at you like an idiot. And if he wants you dead that bad, he will get close enough and make sure that that one shot is the last thing you hear on this planet.
As I said, dogs are the best alarm on the field, though those too can be eliminated, as it happened to my friend. A shame by the way, they were nice dogs.
But if your idea of a self defense plan is shooting anyone that happens to be within your 200 yard range, do as you wish. You will not have to worry much about survival, State penitentiary will provide all you need.
It is one thing to go to war, and it is another, completely different, to live your life in a SHTF situation. When you deploy in a war zone, you set yourself mentally to do a job, when the job is done, you return home, you turn the mental combat switch off.
You cannot live your entire life as if you where in combat, it's impossible.
I'm as alert as I can be, all day long, and all night. Thanks to that I kept my family and myself safe, while everyone else I know has at least been involved in one or more violent crimes. I'm so winded up that the slightest sound will make jump out of bed at night and have my pistol ready even before I'm conscious of what I'm doing.
My house is the only one in the block that has not been broken into, my wife and son are safe, safer than all the other stupid sheep that blame God for whatever happens to them, and do nothing to prevent it themselves.
But still, you have to live your life, go to work, go to the supermarket... live a life! do everyday stuff.
The stress of living that way will be the end of you, I'm 26 years old and already have problems related to high stress like high blood pressure, migraines, insomnia, etc.
NSA
"You make it sound like carrying a pistol on your person is a fairly common occurance (at least now)."
My mistake, it is not common, at least for descent working people. There are parts were criminals carry their guns openly, sticking out of their joggings and no one does anything about it. No one dares mess with them, these are neighborhoods were police don't dare to enter.
Carrying a handgun, ready for use (loaded and on your person) is illegal, unless you have a permit that is almost impossible to get. You need to own a large company, and justify carrying the gun because you transport large amounts of money (several thousands of USD on daily basis). Carrying a gun for self defense is not a reason for a carry permit, only the protection of money. It's ridiculous, isn't it?
Still, owning handguns is not that complicated, once you get a gun user card, but a ccw permit card is out of the question.
Some gun users still choose to carry guns, even though they don't have a carry permit. This is not allowed and you might loose your gun user card for this.
Carrying a gun, bought in the black market, and without even having a gun user card, will take you straight to jail.
On the issue of cops and guns, some may understand that you are carrying for self defense, because you are in a very dangerous area, and if you have you gun user card that shows that you bought that gun legally, he MAY be sensitive and let you go, or not.
More than likely, he will ask for a small "tip", for his troubles. It's a matter of luck actually. You have to consider all this, and decide if the risk of getting caught is greater than the risk of getting killed for not being able to defend yourself.
We often call unprepared people, the mass, sheep. Sheep describes them pretty well. They do as the rest of them do, don't fight for their rights, accept almost everything and so on. But what happens when "sheep" get desperate? Well, that 's what happened here.
After years of closing factories and the destruction of the national industry, extremely low wages, people got fed up. This destructive economy by Menem, our previous president, one of the most corrupt president in the history, ( he was into the bombing of the jew embassy, managed the drug market in the country, just to mention some) plus the stupidity of the following president, De la Rúa, was a formula for disaster.
One day the Minister of Economy declared that no one would be able to get more than 100 bucks a day from the ATM( correct?) nor close accounts. You could just get 100 bucks out of the bank a day. That was it.
Then came the devaluation. Before this happened 1 U$S= 1 $ Argentine peso. Suddenly this changed into 1 U$S dollar= 2 peso then 2.5 even 4 pesos. Today 1U$S= 3 Pesos.
The banks kept the people's money, including their deposits in US dollars. If you had 1000 U$S dollars in Bank Boston for example, they turned it into 1000 pesos, that equaled 333 U$S dollars. They stole 666 dollars from you!
Prices went up 200%, 300% and sometimes more. Imagine for one moment what your life would be like if today you go to your local 7-11 and everything has gone up 200%. How would you survive with your pay check?
The sheep got desperate. First, because they had been stolen by banks and wouldn't return the money to the people.(the so called "corralito" ) then because the classes with the lowest income found out that their salaries weren't high enough to buy the minimum food stuff to survive. The country marched asking for the presidents resignation. He had to leave the presidential palace in a chopper...
Banks were destroyed by people that wanted their hard earned money back. Supermarkets and other shops were looted, as well as regular houses.
This lasted for about a month, the chaos spread all over the country, concentrated in the largest cities.
I remember being at a supermarket and the mob outside, negotiating with the manager. Sometimes, they would not destroy the place if the supermarket surrendered them the goods peacefully.
Food got scarce. I mean, you could buy just a certain amount of milk or water, 4 bottles for example. And most imported goods disappeared. Electro domestics such as TV, videos, and refrigerators kept their prices in dollars, inaccessible for most people. The same happened with real estates, cars and luxury goods.
Today this all seems far away. Not because it got better, but because us humans have this damn capacity to " get used to".
How did our lives change? I cant even being to explain... everything changed!
The streets are more dangerous than ever, thanks to the general poverty.
Education suffered thanks to this as well. Kids working or stealing to survive instead of going to school.
How could I explain this to you?....
For example, tools are really expensive, since most come from abroad... remember, our national industry was sold out or destroyed.
Stuff like MRE, Emergency food bars are impossible to get. No one imports them anymore. (I paid 10 dollars for 1 MRE a guy had)
Guns and ammo are really expensive and are sold in small quantities.
Forget about buying a "case" of ammo! Forget it! I know it's hard for some of you to imagine this, but you just can't buy a " case" of anything. A large store may have 10 or 15 boxes of 308, 20 rounds each box. Small stores have 10. or less.
Only common ammo is available such as 22, 38, 357. 9mm, some 40 s&w, 12 ga 308 and a little 223, that's pretty much it. Ammo for my 357 sig is hard to get. I buy a box of it every time I find one around... and it's extremely expensive.
IF you just HAVE to buy something strange like 300 magnum or 270 (strange for us J ) there's one place you can get them from but be prepared to pay +100 dollars for 20 rounds. While we are at it, there are also few models of guns, 70 % of it is used. You can find about 4 or 5 12 ga pumps, mossberg 500, Maverick or Rem 870 in each store. Handguns are relatively plentiful, not the newest models but still there's some Beretta, Glock, Colt, S&W, Walther, Taurus, Rossi and Sig. Same goes for Mausers and bolt action rifles as well as side by side shotguns.
Semi auto rifles are hard to get. Some big gun shops have 1 FAL each. M16 are quite rare and expensive. Saw a Galil and a SKS(600 dollars) the other day, but it's not common and the red tape is HUGE. I found a good FMK3, one of the few left around, and bought it for 250 dollars, but this isn't common.
Shoes and clothes are also, expensive, even in U$S. Labor is cheep; you can have a maid and a gardener for 300 dollars. There's no "safe" job. With 20% unemployment they pay you whatever they want and if you don't like it there are 100 persons waiting to get your job. Owning a shop-business is hard. You have to consider armed robbery (some get hit 10 times a month) and still you have to pay the police for protection (from themselves) Hope it helps, at least so you can have an idea how your world would be if this happened in your country, hope you never have to experience it in the flesh...
Well, one thing I learned with all this is that people adapt, people get "used to".
And finally, people accept.
I have a hard time seeing people eat out of trash cans, that's one thing I'll never get used to.
Every night entire families, wife, husband and 2 or 3 kids, little kids about 3 years old go throw trash cans in search of food.
At almost every light stop there's little bare foot kids begging, all dirty and skinny.
That's the thing that affected me most, the starving children.
One guy in another board told me he didn't care for this "bleeding Heart thing" and that "Life is rough. Get used to it." I told him that I didn't need someone that lives in San Diego, California, explain me how rough life is.
I've seen dead people, man, I once saw a guy "sew" his mouth shut with a piece of rusted wire he got out of a broom, and all that I can handle, but a 3 year old sobbing because he's starving, Im sorry, I can't.
Believe me, it's one thing to see a little kid starving in Africa, you probably saw that terrible image a million times, but now imagine that that kid speaks English, with an American accent, and you see the Hollywood sign in the background.
Both cases are terrible, but the one that looks as if he could be your son and not some kid in Africa or Croatia hits a nerve. Because "those things don't happen here". It happens to others, not in my country, not in my neck of the woods.
Sorry , Im babbling here. Back to your question:
You guys have most stuff covered, but there's some stuff I'd like to share:1) Don't invest all your money in your country. Don't put all your eggs in the same basket, just in case economy goes to hell. Invest in a country in Europe, in Australia, whatever, I don't know, but not in the same place. I did this, but most people didn't and got screwed."What about essential services like power and water?"
2) Keep cash. Both dollars and Euros. I know some of you just don't like the European money, but it's the only way you have to cover most bases. Here the national paper money was worth 1/3 from one day to another.
3) If you have land, have some animals. Even a few chickens and rabbits can make a huge difference and will complement your staple food.
4) Buy guns and ammo. Not 20, but a couple of fighting guns, 1 or 2 Mausers and 2 or 3 handguns. You know the kind. Get lots of 22 ammo.
5) Try to get 2 or 3 similar guns, like 2 or 3 AR, Fals, or SKS. This way you can use the same ammo and if 2 guns brake you may be able to fix 1. For example, If I were you, Id buy 3 or 4 SKS and 3000 rounds of ammo. If your SKS brakes, you have a spare gun that you already know how it works and are used to.
6) Spare parts are ok, but make sure you know how to replace them, a gunsmith may not be available. If not, get a similar gun as back up.
7) Don't trust the media. If you watch the news here, reporters say everything is ok, everything is fine. But then you talk to your neighbor and it turns out Mr. X got shot yesterday, the nice girl on the next block got kidnapped and raped, and today the boy next door was also kidnapped. This is the kind of conversations I have in my neighborhood, I'm not kidding.
8) Keep 6 months- a year worth of food stored if you can and have a well or at least a good supply of bottled water stored as well a 2 water purifier and a good supply of filters for them. The water network works but it's not safe. Some time ago an entire town got sick because of the contaminated tap water and lots of people died.
9) B-proof vest. I'd sell my left testicle for one these days. I never believed I would ever need one and now here I am. Get one of those that can go under the regular clothes.
10) Keep your passport and cash ready. If you can afford it, the best thing to do in such a country is getting the hell out of it! Maybe you have family somewhere else, keep in touch just in case. I did with my family in Spain and I going there as soon as I can.
Power get cut some times but not for long , a couple of flash lights and your ok.
Water is still working but you cant drink. Most of the water supply in Bs As shouldn't be drank, I used to drink it but this year the water was just too dirty. Even if we still pay our water bill and the gov. says it's ok for drinking this water wouldn't be accepted in the US. Here the water companies can bribe their way out of it.
"Were they always delivered reliably or were there blackouts etc...."
There were blackouts, I remember once most of the country was without light for about a day. Buenos Aires was without light for 4 days.
"What about medical care, how do people get treated for injuries or illneses? "
If you have private health you are ok, but if you don't have the money for it you might as well put a bullet in your head. Free hospitalization, forget it, you'll die because of an infection. They don't have supplies, even sterile needles are hard to get in a public hospital. No way, if you don't have private health you have a foot in your grave already.
"Is the crime mostly simple street crime or is it highly organized with gangs and cartels/mafia style?
Both. The police handles most organixed crime. The governors are the head of the organizations on each Province.The worst part is the kidnapping. About 2 or 3 persons get kidnapped each day in my neighborhood.
For example, I keep 10 pesos (about 3 dollars) bills to give to the police if I get stopped when driving. You HAVE to bride the cop that stops you, the last time I got stopped by a couple of cops I played a little hard to get (pretended I didn't understand he wanted money) the cop got really nervous so I just have him the money and he calmed down, he let me go.
The cops are involved in most illegal activities like drugs, prostitution, robbery and kidnaps.
That's why I keep the high power Hirtemberg 9mm stuff and AP 308, because there a big chance the "perp" might be wearing a "Policia Federal" body armor vest.
They ask for donations. That's right, the government asks the people for donations instead of doing things themselves.
And the best part is that once they get all the donations.(mostly food, milk, blankets and such) The damn Governors SELL the donated goods to the poor. No , you cant imagine the kind of corruption we have here.
The problem is that nothing is being done to get us on the right track, because a small group of people wants this country as poor as possible to take advantage of it.
Imagine having to pay your employees 1 dollar a day and selling the soya, meat and other agricultural products you get at international prices.
The people that own small portions of land have it worse than those professionals that are in the city. This is because they are destroyed by the larger land owners such as Benetton and other large international corporations.
But you are right, they can at least live out of their land. The poor people in cities have to collect cardboard or look in the garbage.
You are also right about people now fixing things instead of buying new ones. Seems as handyman will always find a way to survive.
The only things that can be imported are the cheep ones from China, or Brasil. Other products like large plasma TVs and such are rare and only accessible to the extremely wealthy.
For example, I had to buy a electric shaver because the Gillette blade are too expensive. No way am I going to spend 6 dollars for a pack of Gillette Sensor.
And so you adapt to whats available and what you can afford.
people that live in the Patagonia are a little better off than those that live in other Provinces. The rich people do well everywhere (except for the kidnaps and murder) but the poor people that live in the south have better land and can at least grow and raise a few animals. The central part of Argentina, and the North has been severely punished. Tucumán is a disaster, as well as Chaco, Entre Rios, and others, the amount of children that starve to death is astonishing.
The Chileans returned to Chile long ago, Chile is MUCH better off. Argentineans are going to Chile looking for job.
Buenos Aires is also a disaster area. Even the "nice part" of Buenos Aires, the Capital where the nice Hotels are, the part that tourists see, turns into a complete nightmare after 10 pm.
During the day tourist from around the world shop and sight see, ignoring the beggars. But at night the picture is Mad Max 4:
All the "cartoneros", people that pull carts in search of cardboard and paper to sell, flood the city. And I mean flood: 20 to 30 persons per block.
They pull the carts themselves, followed by the wife and a few children. They pick the paper out of the trashcans and eat whatever they scavenge.
The government considers them "employees" God only knows why, since they have no salaries, just the paper they get. This is just another "trick" the government has to reduce the unemployment %, considering these poor people that eat out of trashcans employed. (Our politicians have no shame)
As I write this I hear shoots being fired outside and people screaming.. jjejee, I never would have think that I would be writing this today, 3 years ago, but now it's almost normal.
Gold & silver kept their true value, as they always do. I didn't have gold, but had dollars and euros. Now that you mention it gold might be a good way to go for the Americans. Dollars, Euros and gold and you'd have most bases covered.
You can't barter gold at a supermarket for example, you would loose too much money. But you can wait until things settle and change for dollars/Euros or other stable paper money and save yourself from devaluation. Or get out of dodge with your gold and deposit it in a safe country.
The point is that gold never looses it's value because, unlike paper money, it holds value itself.
Foreign accounts could not be touched since they are protected by other countries law, not affected by national executive orders.
Imagine a federal agent calling a Suzie Bank.
"Hi, I'd like to seize Mr. Smiths accounts"
"Why?"
"Well, because I want to steal his money"...
Wouldn't work.
http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/10.08/tshtf3.html
Lessons from Argentina's economic collapse
ferfal
Part FourA LIST OF THINGS THAT "If you had it to do over again" YOU WOULD GET.
Nomad came up with this one. It's a good idea because it may help some of you from making the same mistakes I did. There are things you don't think about until you need them, and then it's too late.
OK, If I had to do all this from scratch? Say, for example, if I had a 2 year warning, fairy godmother appears one night , all dressed in blue waving a magic wand, saying " Your country will go down the sewer in 2 years, consider yourself warned dear"
There are several things I would have done differently, and things I would have bought:
Food: I'll get to the food issue soon enough, but you can never have too much canned, or other long shelf life food. This was probably one of my greatest mistakes, I overlooked the food problem.
I was talking to my wife today while driving, asked her the same question Nomad asked me "what would you do if you could go back in time, before the 2001 crisis".
My wife, though smart, isn't much into preparedness, but she answered "I'd buy food" in a heartbeat.
"Don't you remember that you could only buy one small bottle of oil at a time, same with sugar, flour and milk. Don't you remember all those empty shelves at the supermarket.?"
Definitely, more food, specially food that lasts for a few years.
CAR
I would have bought a 4x4, even though I live in the city. A 4x4 allows you to dive over the sidewalk or through wasteland, away from roadblocks or riots. I've see those that have 4x4s simply go off road, climb over a boulevard and leave while the rest of us poor car owners have to stay.
A 4x4 truck also has more mass and power in case that someone tries to cut you off or rams you with the car. It's less likely to stop running if you hit someone or several people (in a riot situation) since it's prepared for cross country use and the engine is much more protected.
Fuel containers: Not only jerry cans, but those big metal containers, that hook up like small "u-hauls" ? I'm not sure about their capacity, maybe they can hold one or two barrels of gas. I saw them at construction sites, and they were not that expensive if bought used, before the 2001 crisis. Now , I don't know. Haven't seen them for a while.
A generator: These are imported and very expensive for us. I think that they are now making them here, but I'm not sure about the quality.
A nice TV and DVD player: I know what you are thinking "this guy has gone ... "nuts" "
Please, let me explain.
Going out for dinner or to the movies is not only dangerous but also expensive. You WILL find much better use for that money if SHTF.
There are places in Buenos Aires where you can go out for dinner, movies, or theater shows and have a good time, safely. They either have their own security or arrange with the police for added security. These are the kinds of places you are likely to visit if you ever come to Argentina, places were tourists can move around, relatively safe (there are always exceptions, of course). But these places are either for tourists or for the extremely wealthy. I have a good socio-economical level, better than 96% of the population at least, yet I cant afford to spend that amount of money every weekend or even two weekends a month. Going out for a walk is a possibility, and we do go out for a walk every now and then, but lets just say that the view isn't that good, and you can only walk about 6 blocks in the same direction before you get out of the are which is guarded by private security, after that you are on "you are on your own" land. You CAN go for a walk (just like millions that live in Somalia or Afghanistan go for a walk as well) millions of citizens do, but I'd rather not risk it.
Just the day before yesterday, a young woman was waiting at the bus stop in my neighborhood, holding her 6 month old daughter. A cop that was chasing a bad guy opened fire with his High Power, with no regard to bystanders as they always do. The 9mm FMJ (JHP are not allowed for the average police) went right through the baby's buttocks and through the mother. Miraculously, the bullet didn't hit any of the baby's internal organs and the mother also survived after a few days at the hospital. Was that just luck? Maybe, I prefer to think that God does work in mysterious ways.
We have a lot of cases like this, were innocent people get shot by the police, and the stupid "no JHP" rule makes it worse, since 124 gr. FMJ 9mm will penetrate walls, windows, even bad guys and end up injuring or killing innocent people.
So, back to the TV. Good places are too expensive, and just going out for a walk at night with your wife/girlfriend is out of the question. All of a sudden popcorn , pizza and a movie sounds like a good plan.
I'm not saying that you should spend all day in front of the screen like a zombie. Reading is nice, I love reading myself, but once the SHTF, going out with a date at night wont be that easy, nor will it be that cheap. You will end up paying for that added security the shop/bar/theater owner hired, the higher price of gas and food, while a DVD copy can be found everywhere, and costs only a couple of bucks.
After the SHTF there will be a lot of "why don't we watch a movie" nights. Like it or not TV is cheap, safe entertainment. A play station or xbox is also nice to have.
Even if the country collapses, there will always be a guy with a DVD writer making copies. Just something to think about if you like movies.
BOOKS
Oh, almost forgot. If you like reading a lot, buy books now, even if you wont read them for some time. If your economy crashes, paper will become a source of income for many. We have thousands of scavengers collecting cardboard and paper all day long, specially at night when people take out the trash. As a result, books are not cheap, because they have a value of its own in the form of paper.
Also, consider that books are heavy, making transportation expensive and many are printed abroad.
Just as an example: I returned from visiting my parents in Spain with three suitcases. ONE suit case was entirely full of books. Books cost about 80%-200% more than what they cost in USA or Spain.
Guns & ammo: I always liked guns, so I always had weapons. But I didn't have an adequate survival battery. If you don't have a good survival selection of weapons, buy them now, or as soon as your budget allows. Make it one of your priorities, just after food, water and shelter.
There are several posts on the ideal choice of weapons. Get at least a service size pistol and a military semi auto rifle and a 22 handgun/rifle. (try to get both if you can, they are not that expensive).
A bolt rifle (preferably in the same caliber as the semi) a pump 12 ga shotgun and a sub rifle, like a SMG or pistol caliber semi auto carbine (same caliber as pistol) would complete the package.
I forgot to buy a 22 pistol until after 2001, and ended up paying for a Norinco 22 pistol the same price I would have paid for a Ruger pistol before the crisis.
My advice is: See what you use regularly and what you expect to need after TSHTF. Of those goods, see where they are made. If they are made outside your country, they will either increase in price of stop importation entirely after TSHTF.
In my case, one good example (of many, many others) is Gillette disposable blades. They are made in USA, and right now they cost a fortune. But as I said before, check what is being imported.
No point in buying cases of Cubans for trade after TSHTF if you live in Cuba, right?
I wouldn't think of these items as trade goods, but as "gifts" to buy favors, build up relationships with police, government officials, doctors, people you might need favors from.
Stuff, like liquor/wine, a nice pen, perfume, makeup and other "free shop" kind of items can go a long way when you need some strings pulled, or a "friend" within certain circles. And it's not only the item, sweet talking also must be applied.
For example, you need renew your drivers license after the XXXX crisis. The problem is that the office is low on personal (they had to let go 25% and 50% are on strike) so you'll have to wait 4 months until you get an appointment.
You approach the information desk were you find Betty. Now, Betty hasn't had a date since the age of 10, and she weights as much a healthy manatee (though she's not THAT pretty) you kindly ask her to please help you fill the paperwork, and though she's as cold as a Popsicle, you keep calling her by her first name and when you leave she smiles and says good bye.
The next day you drop by and give Betty a Revlon lipstick for "helping" you fill the form, which had difficult questions like "name?"" Age?". It cost you about 4 bucks before the crisis but, since it's made in France, it went up to 20 dollars and then, 2 months ago, they no longer imported it. Revlon saw that they no longer had a market for their 4 Euro lipstick, which now costs Americans 20 dollars and the segment that used to buy it is spending that money in other items like food, so their marketing experts told them that the 4 Euro lipstick is no longer profitable in USA.
Betty used to love that particular lipstick, she thought it made her look like Cindy Crawford (poor Betty) but 20 dollars was more than she could spare in her good looks, and when she finally decided to drop the 40 pounds of M&M's she ate a month in favor for the lipstick, the girl at the drugstore told her that the item is no longer imported into the USA.
Her face lights up when she sees your present, and tells you that you shouldn't have bothered, and she asks how did it go with your license. You tell here that you actually have a problem, it seems that it takes 4 months to renew, and you ask her if , well, maybe she can do something about it... you get the picture.
In other occasions people will let you know that they want a plain and simple "bribe", and there 50 bucks or 100 bucks according to the situation will get the job done. I've used "gifts" ( a perfume) to get my passport faster, saved a few months, and I've used bribes every single time the police stopped me for "inspection". I know this does not apply to 1st world countries were most officers are honest self sacrificed people, I mean no insult to the law enforcement community on this forum, but please understand that it does apply to 3rd world countries, and I'm not getting shot by an angry cop over 10 or 20 pesos, let them have their bribe. I tried it once and I will never try it again. A cop stopped me and started BS me. I told him "ok officer, guess you'll have to write me a ticket, I understand". He didn't want to write a ticket , he wanted money and things got ugly. I'm never doing anything that stupid again.
FOOD
A delicate issue. Even though not in the same way, it does affect us all. Keep in mind that if TSHTF, prepared or not, food will always be in your thoughts. If you don't have it you'll do ANYTHING to get it, and if you are prepared you'll worry about being able to get more for the future. Once you see food prices go up between 200% and 300%, or simply see it missing, you'll realize what a valuable commodity food really is.
To those that think that food will never be a problem in USA:
Come visit my country, even though there are desert areas up north, most of the country is fertile "Pampa".
Just after WWII Argentina practically fed Europe. Argentina was know in Europe as " the world's granary". Cattle and wheat was enough to feed our own country and another continent.
So, what happened? Why are there so many that have little or no food and end up eating out of dumpsters?
I mean, the land is still there, isn't it?
Well, the country is the same country that used to be called the "world's granary" but some things changed. Several big, multinational corporations, such as Benetton, bought hundreds of thousands of acres of natural resources. I don't know the exact number, but I do remember that the media started talking about the integrity of the sovereignty of the country being at risk because of these massive purchases of land, so you can imagine how many acres were bought. Mysteriously, the media suddenly dropped the subject.
Another important factor is that now, with our new economy, it's not good business to sell Argentine food to Argentina. Why sell a kg of meat to the local market for 17 pesos when they can now sell it to Spain for 17 Euros when 1 Euro = 3,5 pesos?
All this combined with high unemployment, salaries that are not enough to buy the minimal amount of calories for a typical family, and the high prices resulted in a country that slowly started to suffer hunger.
Again, I can pin point the exact moment when the entire country realized what was happening. After the 2001 crisis things had been bad, but people in Buenos Aires, the capital city and the richest province, didn't realize how bad things actually where in the other provinces.
This was until teachers noted that kids had problems with education. You see, they noticed that they had problems to concentrate, that they fell asleep, and that they found it difficult to resolve mathematical equations.
They later found out that this was due to mal nutrition, kids where not receiving the minimum amount of nutrients for a healthy working body.
The braking point was when a reporter interviewed a little girl about 8 or 9 years old. The reporter lady asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, the usual kiddy questions.
The girl, crying, said that she didn't want to be anything, that she didn't care.
The lady asked her why was she crying.
She said that she cried because she was hungry, that she had nothing to eat for days, and it was then that I noticed how skinny the little girl actually was.
Seeing children starve is terrible, I guess we all saw those images f the starving kids in Africa. But when you see them speak your same language, with your same accent, in your own country, it hits a nerve.
People talked about it for weeks, and they interviewed pediatricians that confirmed that the number of children dieing because of hunger had increased drastically in the last few months.
So whatever happens, let it be a hurricane, economical collapse, earthquake or meteor hitting earth, food and water always come first.
Ideally you already have a food plan and have a year worth of food in your basement... You don't? hmm... neither did I when the SHTF and lets just say that I had my manhood up my throat all the time, fearing that supermarkets would definitely close and me and my family would be left without food.
If you don't have your food needs sorted out already, just do what I did, start buying a little extra every time you go to the supermarket. The points you want to look for your storage food are, in order of importance:
1) No need of fridge.This will usually take you to canned meats, canned tuna, canned vegetables, dried pasta, dehydrated soups, chocolate, milk powder, marmalades, soups, rice and dried beans.
2) High nutritious value/volume
3) Long shelf live, between 1-5 years.
4) That they don't need water
5) That they don't need cooking
Canned food is excellent when it comes to long shelf life. Most of the time they are already hydrated, so they don't need water, and you can eat them out of the can. Just watch out not to dent the can, if this happens air may get inside and ruin it. If you have a dent or bump in a can, consume it fast. Also remember that once the can is opened, you have to remove the food from the can.
My favorite canned food is tuna. It lasts forever, it's full of proteins, and no matter how often I eat it, it always tastes good. Besides you can combine it with frizzed vegetables or rice.
Canned fruits and vegetables are also good, but they have much less vitamins than the fresh ones, and you loose most of it unless you drink the liquid they come in.
Dried pasta may need a lot of water to cook, but its one of the best ways to store carbs in convenient to use form. Flower or wheat can also be stored in large quantities and are nutritious, but they require more preparation to consume.
We've become quite independent from the fridge, and only use it to keep frozen our fresh pasta (ñoqui) pizza and frizzed vegetables.
We practically freeze everything, because it lasts longer, practically indefinitely, and because if the lights go out a large mass of frizzed food will last for hours, even a day or two. The more mass of food you have frizzed to longer it will hold.
The survivalist, especially the urban one, should try to rely as little as possible on the fridge. That's why canned food and freeze dried food is your best friend.
Yet, anyone who has been for a while with no fresh fruit knows that after some time the skin starts to suffer. Sores will appear after a while, especially on delicate skin like the lips and mouth. Once you start eating fresh fruits and vegetables again they go away.
This happened to me once, spent to much time without fresh vegetables and my mouth was a mess, full of sores. After a week of eating fresh vegetables regularly the symptoms disappeared. That's why you should try to have some fresh food to supplement you storage food. Not much, just 2 or 3 fruit trees on your garden and a small orchard would be fine. You don't have to feed out of this, you just need a little fresh veggies or fruit every once in a while.
On the news right now while I write this: We had elections last Sunday, we voted senators. It seems that in one of the north provinces people where surrendering their ID documents for bags of groceries, some for water, or for 10 pesos ( 3 USD) they were later taken to warehouses were they spent the night to ensure that they voted. The next day the candidate's men took them to vote, howled inside cattle trucks, like animals. When they arrived they were given their ID documents back with the number of list they had to vote. Thugs guide them and ensure they vote who they want.
HEALTH & FITNESS
Visit you doctor NOW. Get yourself fixed. Visit the dentist and make sure your mouth is in perfect conditions. Nothing is worse than having toothache and no one available to take care of it. Remember that doctors may not be as available as they are now, in the future.
For example I got eye surgery to take care of my sight problem. Now I see perfectly without glasses.
The advantage of laser eye surgery isn't limited to not needing glasses. (which can brake and would be nearly impossible to replace after TSHTF)
Even people react to you in a different way. Humans are after all instinctive animals.
Bad guys will look at you as a weaker person if you wear glasses. Maybe they don't know that at a conscious level, maybe they do, but they do react differently.
This is not me imagining stuff, it's the way things are. Old people and women are specially vulnerable. After old people and women and children, come small framed people, the smaller you are, the weaker you look, the more likely you are to be chosen as a victim by a bad guy. It sounds, cruel, and it sure is, but that's the way it works.
A young man with a well formed body, broad shoulders, muscled arms and a "don't f*** with me" face, is less likely to be a victims of small time thieves. If a professional group choses you as a target that's a completely different story, of course.
Talk to your doctor a lot. Just like "The little Prince", never stop yourself from asking a question. Adopt that as a general philosophy and you'll end up learning a little about everything. Mechanics, doctors, policemen, you can always learn something new from people with skills.
As a survivalist, and as a smart person, you should try to know a little about everything, Always be curious.
That's how I learned that I had to diversify my stock of antibiotics. A doctor told me, that the body will adapt if you always use the same, making that particular antibiotic not that effective, specially in small children, so now I keep two different kinds of antibiotics.
Working out 3 times a week, for a couple of hours will keep you in shape. I work out at home, I have a bench and some weights. Try to compliment some aerobics and weight lifting.
Working the boxing bag is good exercise, works most muscles if done right, and you'll have a much more powerful punch. Keep in mind that a bag is no replacement for a sparring partner and that the bag does not faint nor does it punch back. Still, it good exercise and your punch will be more powerful if you connect.
Running belts and bicycles are also good.
Research on the subject and make your own routine, join a gym and talk to a professional if possible.
Whatever you do, the idea is to have a fit, healthy body. No use in shooting ½ MOA at 100 yards if you have a gut that hangs half way to the floor and you cant run that same distance without needing an oxygen mask.
I know, shooting is fun, and working out isn't. At least for most, but after some time you'll start to enjoy it, your stamina and morale will definitely increase, and you'll start looking forward to working out.
The survivalist that spends 3 hours a week on his gun skills and no time at all on his own body is not doing things right.
Imagine if you have to run away from a riot/gunfight/attack while carrying your BOB, or fighting bare handed against someone that got you by surprise. This applies for life in general , before or after TSHTF a man has to now how to fight bare handed. You don't have to be Bruce Lee or Mike Tyson, just know how to through a decent punch, cover your face, or some kind or martial art classes.
I once had a fight that got a little ugly. It happened in my mother in law's house, which proves that thing can go bad everywhere at any time. A guy my wife's sister was dating argued with me and things got physical. He had problems with the police for beating up an ex girlfriend (which he was proud of, go figure) and had spend 2 years in jail for stealing cars. My wife's sister was showing up with mysterious bruises on her body, from "falling while working out". So you could say this guy wasn't my favorite person. Anyway, he grabbed my neck by surprise, I grabbed his arm with both hands, one in his hand and the other in his elbow, and twisted it around. The leverage made him let go of my neck and a kept on twisting it forcing him around. He punched me with his other hand but the positing wasn't on his favor so it was just a glancing blow. He pushed with his back against me, so I placed my left arm around hid neck, my elbow flexed over his Adam's apple. The guy went berserk so I decided that I had to hold on until he passed out, or I would get seriously hurt. I had practiced this choking move with my friend, the one that has the farm I talked about before. He told me that after 30 seconds of choking the person passes out, and after 60 seconds, if you keep choking him, he dies.
So I placed my left arm firmly around his neck while holding my left hand firmly with my right arm, pressing as hard as I could.
The guy went nuts. He slammed me against the walls, trying to get me away from his back.
He started clawing with his fingers on my biceps, desperate. Me? I just hold my lock around his neck, mentally counting. As if by magic, after 20-25 seconds. He lost all strength and fell to his knees like a rag doll, and I let him go.
Meanwhile my wife, her sister and my mother in law were all screaming at me to stop.
Once he caught his breath he said that I was psycho, and that he was just fooling around. Not believing a word he said, I said I was sorry and we both got into the elevator, since we were leaving.
As soon as I close the elevator door, the s*** bag attacks me again. I guess he felt humiliated in front of the woman he beat up. He tried to grab me the same way I did. I knew that this was getting out of hand and I completely lost patience with this clown.
I brought my serrated Cold Steel El hombre from my pocket and placed the dull side against his arm. He got the message instantly a let go of me. Once he did this I shoved him against the elevator, my forearm pressing against his neck and the knife under the neck as well. He calmed down instantly, saying he was sorry, bla ,bla, bla.
When we got out of the elevator I told him that if he ever got close to me or my family again I would put a bullet in his head.
I never saw him again.
This guy was a thief and women beater and I had no use him. Besides these are the kind of rats that would brake into your house when you leave, or worse.
I'm ranting all over the place again. What I mean is that practicing defensive moves is useful, specially if you spar with someone that knows his thing. My friend practices Judo. He won the state championship and was left in 3rd place in the nationals final.
Practice as you would fight in real life. Getting chocked isn't nice, but you get to know what you are working with and know how effective it actually is.
Being in shape will also make you less prone to diseases, such as high pressure, heart problems, and will boost your immune system in general.
Knowing first aid procedures is always helpful. I'll take the red cross course this summer.
Keep a first aid kit and any other special medicine you may need. If you take drugs regularly try to have at least a year's worth of the stuff.
Medicines are hard to get and expensive, many are made in other countries and if SHTF they might not be available. My father in law has Parkinson and needs a special medicine that is no longer imported. He asks friends that travel to get it for him.
I stock pile as much medicines as I can. Apart from the regular 1st aid kit stuff you usually have at home, I concentrate on Ibuprofen and antibiotics, both for children and adults.
Antibiotics are precious here, with all the viruses that are floating around. Lung infections are particularly dangerous.
Also remember that keeping a clean, ventilated house goes a long way when it comes to preventing diseases. This is hard when the city is full of filth and there are cockroaches and rats everywhere but it can be done.
My neighborhood isn't that bad, there are places that are much, much worse, where people literally sleep and eat with rats. Cockroaches are a problem, but I keep them somewhat controlled with that poison that comes in syringes and you place around the house.
That reminds me, stock up on rat and cockroach poison. Services are bad in general, and the garbage collectors are no exception.
Once, they went on strike for about a week (though there are worst places where they go months without collecting) and you could see rats running around eh piles of garbage that people threw on the street's boulevard.
This is not healthy, of course. And helps spread diseases all over the city, so keep that in mind as well.
http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/10.08/tshtf4.html
New Research Stresses Importance Of Iron Intake
October 9, 2009 by
Personal Liberty News Desk
http://pictures.directnews.co.uk/liv...031242_300.jpg
In response to the alarm sounded by the World Health Organization, which estimates some 2 billion people around the world are iron-deficient, scientists in Switzerland have unveiled a new species of rice that has six times more iron than normal.
The work was conducted at ETH, a well-known technical university in Zurich, where researchers have succeeded in increasing the iron content in polished rice by transferring two plant genes into an existing rice variety.
The authors of the study say the prototypes have already been shown to grow normally in the greenhouse conditions without causing any negative effects on the environment, as iron is one of the most abundant metallic elements in soil.
Wilhelm Gruissem, one of the researchers on the team, says the group will now have to test whether the rice plants also perform well in the field.
Symptoms of iron deficiency include fatigue, difficulty metabolizing harmful substances, and if not remedied may lead to anemia. In addition to iron-enriched foods, nutritional supplements are also a good way to make up for possible deficiency.
The work was published in an online edition of Plant Biotechnology Journal.
http://personalliberty.com/2009/10/09/new-research-stresses-importance-of-iron-intake-19394022/
http://feeds.directnews.co.uk/feedtr...temid=19394022
Hypermiling : for Hybrid Cars or SUV Drivers or any Vehicle in Between
Hypermiling for SUV Drivers
What is hypermiling? According to a a fantastic August 2006 story in the Washington Post, it is a method of increasing your car's gas mileage by making skillful changes in the way you drive, allowing you to save gas and thereby have an easier time withstanding the rising oil and gas prices.
Check out this video showing some basic hypermiling tips being given on electronic signage at busy intersections... in India!.
This CNN.com Article gives a fantastic explanation of some of the basic concepts behind hypermiling.
The Toyota Prius is one of the leading Hybrid Cars and Fuel efficient Cars saving you money over today’s Gas Prices.
>> The first step toward saving gas and increasing mpg: Always know your gas mileage after each visit to the gas pump.
>> The second step: do you drive agressively but not know it?
>> The third step: How long are you sitting still at red lights? Video
>> The fourth step: Keeping yourself moving in traffic congestion
>> The fifth step: Slowly accelerate after stops
>> The sixth step: Your cruise control saves gas (but not by using it they way you might think)
Cars used to get higher mileage in the past, especially during the 1980's, since we had learned something from the 1973 oil embargo. Remember the 50 MPG Diesel Rabbit? And a 1989 Mazda Pickup - B2200 - got 33 miles per gallon on the highway, yet the currently available pickup - a B2600 - gets in the neighborhood of 20 MPG. WTF?! Think about the money ramifications: MPG then, now. Gasoline consumption then, now. Fuel prices then, now. Who is getting rich?
Remember the window sticker on your car when you bought it? Did you ever get the miles per gallon that it showed? I certainly never did. Normally I got as much as 1/3 less MPG than the value advertised.
See the hypermiling How-To methods http://www.hypermiling.com/car-mpg.html
http://www.hypermiling.com/
Teeth Whitening : Best & Fastest Way to Bleach Teeth at Home
youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcH0bshHjxg&feature=fvw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcH0b...mp;feature=fvw
November 08, 2008
The best and fastest ways to bleach teeth at home can include using bleaching trays from the dentist, brushing with hydrogen peroxide or brushing with a baking soda paste. Whiten teeth at home using household ingredients with tips from a licensed dental assistant in this free video on oral hygiene.
Expert: Michelle McPhail
Contact: www.MySolutionz.com
Bio: Michelle McPhail has been a licensed dental assistant for more than seven years. She currently works at My Solutionz in Florida as the dental treatment coordinator.
Filmmaker: Christopher Rokosz
Green Tea May Curb Cancer Risk
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 10:46 AM
Drinking green tea may lower your risk of developing certain blood cancers, but it will take about 5 cups a day, according to a study from Japan.
Drinking green tea has been associated with lower risk of dying and heart disease deaths, Dr. Toru Naganuma, at Tohoku University School of Medicine in Sendai, Japan told Reuters Health in an email correspondence.
The current study, Naganuma said, suggests drinking green tea may have a favorable effect "for particular cancers."
After gathering information on the diets and green tea drinking habits of a large group of Japanese adults aged 40 to 79 years old, Naganuma and colleagues followed the group for development of blood and "lymph system" cancers. The lymph system is a major component of the body's immune system.
The 19,749 men and 22,012 women who participated in the study had no previous history of cancer, Naganuma and colleagues note in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
During 9 years of follow up, 157 blood, bone marrow, and lymph system cancers developed in the study group.
Naganuma's team found that the overall risk for blood cancers was 42 percent lower among study participants who drank 5 or more, versus 1 or fewer, cups of green tea daily.
Drinking 5 or more cups of green tea daily was also associated with 48 percent lower risk for lymph system cancers.
These associations held up in analyses that allowed for age, gender, education, smoking status and history, alcohol use, and fish and soybean consumption.
The researchers also observed reduced risk for blood-related cancers among obese study participants, who are "considered to have higher risk of these cancers," Naganuma said.
The investigators say further studies are needed to confirm the health benefits of drinking green tea, and to determine whether daily consumption might prevent certain cancers.
SOURCE: American Journal of Epidemiology, September 15, 2009
http://www.newsmaxhealth.com/health_sto ... ode=8C80-1
HARVESTING BLACK WALNUTS
The flavor of black walnut lends a gourmet touch to cookies, breads, cakes and other baked goods. The nutmeats are often expensive and difficult to locate; discovering an available crop of black walnuts is a real find.
Black walnuts are about two inches in diameter and are shaped like basketballs. The trees can be identified by their large compound leaves, alternately arranged on the branches. Each leaf has 15-23 leaflets; the terminal one is often missing. The surface of the leaf is dull with a slightly hairy or downy texture on the underside.
While Black walnut, Juglans nigra, is the hardiest walnut found in Minnesota, late spring frosts may still reduce its yield. You are most likely to find walnut trees with nuts ready for harvest in southern Minnesota in early fall, late August through the end of September.
Allow nuts to ripen on the tree. After harvest, you must husk and cure the nuts for the best flavor. Remove the outer skin of the walnut, the husk, and dry the nuts to cure them. After curing, nuts can be used or stored either shelled or unshelled. Two pounds of unshelled black walnuts found in the wild will yield about a cupful of nut meats.
Harvest
As black walnuts ripen, the husk changes from solid green to yellowish green. Walnut juice leaves a dark stain, so wear gloves or use tongs when you handle unhusked walnuts. Press on the skin of the walnut with your thumb; ripe nuts will show an indentation. Weekly monitoring is important as nuts will mature over a four to six week period. Try to harvest the ripe nuts directly from the tree, ahead of the squirrels. If the nuts are too difficult to reach, they can be collected after they fall from the tree during frosts. Often the husk of mature nuts has dried and cracked. Husks must be removed before you store black walnuts.
Prepare for Storage
Removing the husk is an important step in storing black walnuts properly. If the nuts are stored with husks attached, the heat released as the husks decompose will discolor walnut kernels and ruin their flavor.
Hulling walnuts, removing the husk, can be a difficult and messy task. The indelible dye from the husk stains hands, clothes, tools and work surfaces. If you are working with dry nuts, the husk can be removed by applying pressure to the ends of the nut. This can be done by pounding side to side with a hammer, of course while wearing safety glasses.
The husks can also be softened in a container filled with a slurry of three parts nuts to one part water and a handful of gravel. Stir the mixture vigorously. It may take more than one attempt to completely remove the husks.
If you are hulling a large quantity of nuts, the slurry can be used in a small portable cement mixer. An old-fashioned corn sheller will also be useful in hulling black walnuts.
Take care when hulling or shelling walnuts. The practice of driving over nuts with an automobile can be a dangerous one. Nuts and broken shells may be thrown into the air by the tires, possibly causing bodily injury or property damage.
After hulling, wash the unshelled nuts. Black walnut shells can also leave stains, so rinsing walnuts outside with a garden hose may be the best idea.
Kernel quality can be affected by insects such as walnut weevils and husk fly maggots; darker than usual husks may be evidence of insect damage. Check for insect feeding by placing the nuts in a bucket of water. Nuts without injury will sink; discard any nuts that float.
When cleaning up after hulling black walnuts, it is best to place leavings in the trash. Do not compost walnut husks. Juglone, a naturally occurring chemical released by all parts of black walnut trees, can have a toxic effect on many vegetables and landscape plants.
Curing
After husks have been removed, the nuts must be cured. Curing prepares the walnuts for storage and allows the walnut flavor to develop. To cure black walnuts, stack the clean hulled nuts in shallow layers only two or three nuts deep. Place the nuts in a cool, dry, well-ventilated area out of direct sunlight for two weeks.
To be certain nuts have cured adequately, break open a sample nut. When the nut is dry enough to store, its kernel will break crisply, with a sharp snap. If cured improperly, nuts will mold.
Storage
After curing, store unshelled nuts in a well-ventilated area at 60°F or less. Cloth bags or wire baskets allow adequate air circulation and discourage development of mold. Try to keep the relative humidity fairly high, ideally about 70%. Nut shells will crack and the kernels spoil if nuts are stored in too dry an area.
When you're ready to shell the nuts, moisten them to keep the kernels from shattering. Soak the walnuts in hot tap water for about 24 hours. Drain and replace the hot water and soak the nuts for two more hours. Cover the nuts with moist cloths until you're ready to crack the shells.
After shelling, nut meats can be stored in several ways: at room temperature, refrigerated or frozen. If you plan to store the nutmeats in a container at room temperature and use them within a few weeks, first bake them at 215° for 10 to 15 minutes. Nutmeats can be refrigerated in a jar or plastic bag for up to nine months without baking. Nutmeats can also be frozen for longer term storage, but use them within two years.
Preparing black walnuts for baking involves several steps: harvest, hulling, curing, cracking and storage. Many people, however, find the time and effort well worth it.
http://www.extension.umn.edu/projects/y ... lkwal.html
Growing & Processing Black Walnuts
I have two black walnut trees (Juglans nigra) and two Carpathian walnut trees. Note that English, Persian, and Carpathian, all refer to the same tree (Juglans regia.) There are more than 400 cultivars of black walnuts. While the cultivar 'Thomas' is not suited to my midwest locale because of its susceptibility to anthracnose, it does produce very large nuts.
To select the cultivar that is anthracnose resistant, produces a very large size nut, and has a history of success in your area, it will be necessary to talk to your County Cooperative Extension Agent and the nursery you plan to purchase from. It would be silly to save $20 at the time of purchase, only to find that the tree is unsuitable when it is old enough to bear. If you do contemplate the purchase of any nut tree or already own nut trees, I recommend "Nut Tree Culture in North America" published by The Northern Nut Growers Association, Inc., 1979, ISBN: 0-9602248-0-7 for the best background information. Some of the information in this article was drawn from that fine book. While I do lampoon some of the outdated advice on cleaning the nuts and extracting the nutmeats found in that book, it remains an important one in my library.
Walnut trees are attacked by some 64 diseases and 296 species of insects and mites. I have used a fungicide in the spring as the leaves emerge, but usually just let nature take its course. Lacewings take care of the aphids; new growth containing colonies of walnut caterpillars can be cut off for disposal; and the larvae of the walnut husk fly cause no serious damage and are destroyed during husk removal. Walnut pests in your area may be less or more significant.
Walnut trees suffer for want of nutrients in competition with grasses and weeds. I do add fertilizer every 2nd or 3rd year at a depth of about 8 inches around the drip line. In addition, walnuts benefit from trace quantities of zinc. If your soil is deficient in zinc, there are two easy remedies which can be applied on the same schedule. One is the application of zinc sulfate (sold by Stark's), and the other is Acecap zinc implants (not in Leonard's catalog anymore, but may be available to special order). I tried the implants one year (4 per tree), and the nut production was phenomenal. I don't think that I ever want that many nuts again in the same year.
Nut production across the various cultivars is a bit of a mystery. Some trees bear a few nuts every year with a major flush of nuts every third or fourth year. Others bear only every 2nd or 3rd year. I apply fertilizer in early spring in the year in which I guess that the tree is due for heavy production. Guessing wrong about the year in which to add fertilizer does not appear to create any problem.
Harvesting Nuts:
To have nuts to harvest in the bearing years, it is necessary to know something about squirrels. Recreational gardeners with one or more trees cannot avoid a certain amount of pilferage. Some of the methods used in commercial walnut groves simply cannot be applied in urban areas. Tall straight trunked trees isolated from nearby jumping off points on other trees can be protected by sheet metal bands around the trunk during August and September. Killing squirrels is fruitless because they are a part of large breeding colonies covering huge areas. Replacement squirrels fill empty territories in a matter of days, and the population remains constant despite your best efforts; don't bother. My best defense lies in the proximity of my Carpathian walnut trees. Their prolific annual production keeps the bushy tailed rats busy, and they prefer the less highly flavored nut. In many cases, I have observed squirrels eating the husk in preference to the nut, early in the season. Needless to say, after losing 10 to 20 nuts per day on these trees, there are none to few left for me at harvest time. My greatest harvest from the two Carpathian trees was 800 nuts, but that was the year in which I used the zinc implants. The squirrels were simply overwhelmed with nuts, and therein lies the best defensive strategy, i.e. provide alternative sources of forage, especially those which ripen just before and during the period in which your nuts are ripening, or simply overwhelm the critters with more nuts than they can eat and bury. Based on the number of Oak seedlings I find every spring, there must be a number of trees somewhere in the neighborhood. Maturity of the acorns probably coincides with that of the Black walnuts. Therefore, I have begun planting Oak trees. As they begin to bear mature acorns, the squirrels will have had their fill of Carpathian walnuts prior to ripening and leave my black walnuts alone during final ripening, in preference to acorns. A less peaceful view of squirrels may be found at: http://www.deadsquirrel.com/index.html
Harvesting nuts is not like picking apples. Do not pick nuts from your trees as there will be too much damage to bearing branches which will slow future nut production, and you will have to wait for the husks to soften anyway. In September, check the ground underneath your trees regularly for dropped nuts. Collect those. By September 20th in the Chicago area, the nuts are ready to be shaken out of the trees. I use a plastic coated hook on a two piece aluminum tube about 17 feet long. Shaking the branches (up and down rather than sideways) usually dislodges a rain of heavy nuts. I would wear some form of head protection but they seem to just glance off the sharply pointed ridge that I call my brain- case. Do not try to dislodge each and every nut. The effort is not worth it, and you may begin to break some of the weaker branches. Check the ground three or four times every day thereafter, especially when there is a strong wind, and pick up the balance of the nuts during the following two to three weeks.
Cleaning Nuts:
"Numerous methods have been used to remove hulls. Where only a few bushels of nuts are involved, they can be tramped off, placing the nut with husk on a hard surface and rolling it under a heavy foot. Light hammer blows will remove the husk; the nut can even be hammered through a hole in a piece of wood forcing the hull off. Nuts can also be driven over with an automobile to crush the soft hulls. The use of a small trough-shaped box under a jacked-up automobile wheel is satisfactory for small quantities. As the nuts are forced between the turning wheel and stationary trough, the husks are rubbed off. An open box or bangboard at the back of the car will catch the nuts." (1)
I don't use any of those methods, and I consider them quite hilarious, to put it kindly. But then, I am dealing with a very large nut by comparison with many of the other cultivars. My method requires the following tools: a lightweight pair of plastic gloves rated for solvents (such as the Edmont Solvex glove), a jackknife with a 3 1/2" blade, a vise fixed to a workbench, a trash container for the hulls, and a 5 gallon bucket half-full of water. As with most other aspects of life, timing is everything. Husks which don't dent easily with a thumbnail are too hard to process by this method, and should be set aside for a few more days to soften.
The first procedure I describe is much too dangerous to recommend to most people, so I will follow that with an safer alternate.
This is what I do, and to be safe, it must be done in the absence of distractions such as telephones and other people: First, clamp the knife horizontally in the vise so that the blade edge is on top. (Do not attempt this yourself if you do not keep your mind in the same place as your brain.) Score through the husk to the shell by rolling the nut from the front of the knife blade to the end. This is to be done in the widest portion of the nut at a point halfway between the ends of the nut. Once the husk has been cut through, the two halves can be rotated since they are loose about the shell. Just turn them off, and drop them into the trash, while dropping the nut into the bucket. You should be able to strip the husks off at least 5 nuts per minute. Nothing gets stained with walnut juice except your gloves and the knife blade. Do not be turned off by the presence of husk fly maggots. They do not harm the nutmeat, and drown immediately when landing in the bucket.
I prefer to process 200 nuts every day until finished. It takes 35 minutes to remove the husks, 15 minutes to scrub and rinse the nuts two times (and clean the driveway), 2 hours to dry in the sun, 24 to 36 hours to dry internally in my herb drier, and about 4 weeks for the nutmeats to cure. This is not a big deal, even if your procedures require more time.
Here is an alternate procedure to use when more than one person is involved or when absolute safety is paramount: First, dispense with the vise. With the knife in one hand, cut through the husk by rolling the nut on a newpaper covered hard surface. Then, you have to drop the knife in order to turn off the husk halves. It is the same procedure, but much slower because of the extra step, and your knife may get messy. The problem with my preferred method is the potential for injury as you run some part of your body onto the fixed blade during distractions. There is some evidence that bloodshed will interfere with your ability to garden.
When finished removing husks for that day, take the knife out of the vise first. Rinse your gloves in the bucket with the nuts. Remove the gloves. Wipe off the knife blade. I made a paint type stirrer from 3/8" threaded rod and a flat plate fixed to one end. The plate has been twisted to increase stirring action. Insert the stirrer in an electric drill with 3/8 or 1/2 inch chuck, and agitate the nuts until all of the remnants of hull matter have been removed. Or, you can find an old broom handle, and agitate the nuts in the bucket by stirring vigorously. "Remove and discard any nuts that float for those have not filled out well." That is another old wives tale that I do not believe. Only about one out of four floaters are not well formed. Pour off the water in the street gutter. Fill the bucket to the same level and repeat the agitation in order to clean the nuts of any excess husk debris. Do it again for a third or even a fourth time if necessary. Do not pour off the water onto any portion of your land, as any earthworms under the runoff area will be killed at once. For the same reason, do not attempt to compost the husks, although there will be no juglone left when fully composted. See the note on toxicity.
Air dry the nuts on a screen in the sun for several hours. Northern gardeners should then put the nuts into an unlit gas oven on cookie sheets for 24 to 48 hours in order to dry the nuts inside and out and prevent any mold that might form inside the nuts while they are being cured. The pilot light will usually keep gas ovens at about 110ºF, which is perfect for drying most things except fruit leathers. I prefer to use my herb dryer because excess moisture is carried off much more efficiently. To cure the nutmeats, place the nuts in an onion sack or mesh bag, and hang up in a ventilated indoor area for 4 to 6 weeks. The nutmeats should be extracted immediately after curing. If that is not possible, the nuts can be stored in air-tight gallon jars. Southern gardeners may have enough sun and warmth to eliminate excess moisture levels out of doors.
In the early years, I used to further clean the nuts under a wire wheel. But I have since found that vigorous stirring in the rinse water with the drill and paint stirrer method eliminates almost all of the husk materials, and that subsequent cracking and extraction processes are not messy.
Extracting the nutmeats:
"Walnuts should be placed in hot tap water and let stand for 24 hours. Drain off the water and replace with hot water. After a minute drain off water and let surface of nuts dry. When cracked the kernels will not shatter because they have picked up enough moisture to be somewhat flexible. The extracted kernels should be spread out to dry overnight." (1)
That is ridiculous. Most solid metals are more flexible than black walnut shells. This type of pre-conditioning is unnecessary if you have a good vise.
"There are many types of nut crackers. The universal nut cracker owned by everyone is the hammer and anvil (the anvil often being a block of hard wood, the flat surface of a vise, or a rock.)" (1)
I consider that procedure to be unsafe; it is wasteful of your time picking up the scattered projectiles. In addition, many good nutmeats will be crushed into uselessness because this method can only be applied to the side of the nut. This is archaic, if not actually barbaric, and does not really produce food, in my opinion.
Here is my method: while holding the widest part of the nut between middle finger and thumb, place the the nut (end-to-end) between the near end of the vise jaws Note that I do not plan to crack the shell at the sides. Place the thumb above the nut and four fingers below the nut. Apply pressure until the shell only just breaks, then put the shells into another container. I prefer to catch all the parts and pieces in the hand which is under the nut, but the process would not harmed by letting everything fall into a container under the vise. However, unless your thumb covers the top of the nut as well during the cracking process, pieces will fly everywhere, and there will be nutmeat losses too. Using this method, you should be able to crack 100 nuts in eight minutes. Compare that to the time involved in using any of the heavy duty commercially available nut crackers, and you will see that the vise is the only way to do the job. One needs only to have a vise large enough and I suggest that a 4" vise be regarded as the minimum acceptable size. With a 3" vise, or smaller, there would be no way to get your hand under the nut while cracking the shell.
After cracking, 25% of the nutmeats are completely free of the shell of small nuts, but only about 5% with the largest nuts. That is because larger nuts have expanded lobes at each end of the quarters, and the nutmeats are not easily freed by exposing only one end of the chamber. Extracting the balance from the shells is easy, but time consuming.
I never pick or force out the nutmeats as that leads to too many massacres and mutilations. I prefer whole pieces. The openings in black walnut shells are too small to make picking and prying feasible. I use electrician's diagonal wire cutters to cut the shell at the strategic point which releases the nutmeats in whole solid pieces into my hand (see note below). Half of the shells require but one strategic cut, and others perhaps two or three. After the first ten minutes, you will discover that certain kinds of cuts never work. All of the shells are constructed similarly but when cracked open, they break differently. For each piece of shell, you will soon learn that there is exactly one cut which should always be performed first. Half of the time, that first cut is sufficient to release the nutmeats intact. When second or third cuts are needed, you will soon learn where they are to be made for each type of shell piece. Most of your cuts will be to the outer portion of the shell from the blunt end of the nut. Don't waste any time at the pointed end of the nut. Small nuts are very easy to work with as the nutmeats practically fall out when one end of the chamber is exposed. Larger nuts require quite a bit more work because of the odd lobe shapes. Because of my arthritic hands, I can extract only about 50 large nuts per day, but I can do 100 of the small ones, as they are so easy. I have mostly large walnuts, so it is a struggle to finish by Christmas.
Note: I have recently switched to the use of a wire cutter made by the SevenStrand Company. It is a heavy duty instrument, some 9 1/2 inches long with rubber grips, and capable of applying more pressure than standard wire cutters. The SevenStrand Company manufactures fishing wire and compression sleeves, so this tool is easily special ordered from your local fishing tackle shop. I find it much easier on the hands. This device is also available from American Fishing Wire,
1-800-824-9473, but they sell only to dealers. The stock number of the 8 1/2" version is TPCRP8.5 at $18.27, and the 9 1/2" version is TPCRP9.5 at $24.99.
As the nutmeats are released, toss them into a container which is at least two feet away from you so that little bits of shell and shell powder clinging to your hand are either too light weight or too heavy weight to follow the same path, and both end up in the discard bin immediately below. No one likes to find bits of walnut shell in food. I like to vibrate the nutmeats on a screen to be sure to eliminate small debris prior to storage. And, while on the #8 screen, I check them very carefully to make sure that no bits of shell remain (#8 means eight squares to the inch in every direction.) This step is very important because I find at least one small bit of shell in every batch, despite my best efforts.
Nutmeats that are to be used in the next few months can be stored in plastic bags or mason jars. The nutmeats from 250 small nuts will easily fill a quart mason jar, whereas those from 150 large nuts may not easily fit into the same jar. Long term storage requires freezing of the nutmeats to prevent rancidity -- remember they are filled with oil.
The methods described above have been employed by me for processing as many as 2,000 nuts per season. Above that amount, the use of mechanical equipment (or a larger family) might be preferable, though I am not aware of any commercial processor of black walnuts.
The flavor of black walnuts is about five times stronger than that of the carpathian walnut meats you purchase at the supermarket. One teaspoonful of these nutmeats can usually flavor an entire cake -- at first. As you get addicted to the flavor, you will begin putting them into cookies, then salads, and desserts. I once found a recipe for champagne and black walnut salad dressing, and it was delicious. Call the Nursery, you are going to need more trees.
Footnotes: In the year 2001, I harvested 2660 nuts from one tree. That quantity put all of my procedures to the extreme test, successfully, and I must say that I have no wish to explore other methods. For those who find the use of a vice a bit tricky, check out the Crackerjack Nutcracker http://www.nutsncorks.com/ from England. They are not responding to inquiries or orders from the USA (last checked in 2002).
Return to Index
I read somewhere that a full sized black walnut tree close to your house will attract lightning away from your house better than any other type of tree.
For a list of plants which will grow under black walnut trees follow this link. http://tomclothier.hort.net/page43.html
http://tomclothier.hort.net/page21.html
Seven Strategies for a Healthy Heart - Part One
by Dennis on July 9, 2010
Heart failure is one of the fastest-growing causes of hospitalization and deaths in the Western world. The United States takes the lead in this disease — an estimated 5.3 million Americans live with heart failure and 660,000 new cases are diagnosed each year.
Heart failure is defined as the inability of the heart to pump enough blood to meet the body’s needs. Of all the cardiovascular diseases, it is the only one that is increasing in incidence. It’s obvious that we have a real problem on our hands.
The condition is hitting senior citizens especially hard. A new 27-year study has found that heart failure in people over age 65 increased 131 percent, with women showing the greatest increase. Among younger people, men are more likely to suffer heart failure.
About 50 percent of both genders will die within five years of diagnosis — when conventional treatments are used.
Seven strategies can put the odds in your favor. We will discuss the first four this week.
1. Take vitamin D3.
Vitamin D3 is being shown to be one of our most important supplements. In truth, vitamin D3 is not a vitamin; rather, it is a neurohormone.
As we have seen, the primary cause of heart failure, or at least its progression, is chronic inflammation. Therefore, anything that reduces inflammation also should lessen the chances for heart failure.
A number of studies are confirming this observation. Vitamin D3 has been shown to suppress the release of the inflammatory cytokine TNF-a and to increase the anti-inflammatory cytokine called IL-10 — the higher the dose of vitamin D3, the greater the beneficial effect.
For information on the powers of vitamin D3, read my special report “Vitamin D’s Hidden Role in Your Health.”
2. Avoid Statin Drugs.
Statin drugs have been shown to lower CoQ10 levels dramatically in the heart. It is interesting to note that the dramatic rise in congestive heart failure started about the same time as the widespread use of these drugs. Only recently have some cardiologists started recommending CoQ10 supplementation to their patients who use statins. Many still do not use it.
3. Increase Omega-3’s.
Omega-3 fats play a major role in reducing heart disease and especially death from heart disease. One of the major ways omega-3 oils reduce cardiovascular deaths is by reducing fatal arrhythmias.
Not only are omega-3 oils important for heart health during our adult years but also new research indicates they may play a role in regulating our heart rate from early life.
4. Reduce Excitotoxins in Your Diet.
Excitotoxins have been shown to raise blood glutamate levels anywhere from 20-fold to 50-fold higher than fasting levels.
At high levels, glutamate overstimulates the heart and can lead to destruction of heart muscle cells and the electrical conduction system. This can lead to heart failure and arrhythmias. For information on how to avoid excitotoxins and other poisonous foods in your diet, go here for the report “How to Avoid Poisonous Foods.”
http://doctorschoicewellness.com/201...212;-part-one/
The Argentina Collapse
11 June 2009
The topic is not a new one. When Argentina spiraled into social and economic collapse in the late 90′s life changed for everyone. Regardless of the causes, there is much to be learned from a country that was once prosperous and is now recovering from economic crises that put about 60% of the people into poverty.
http://www.survival-spot.com/surviva...a-collapse.jpg
Argentina’s Economic Collapse Documentary
A popular article in the survival sphere entitled “Lessons from Argentina’s economic collapse” from Ferfal documents the struggles of living in a collapsing society. Download it here in pdf Argentina Collapse or simply read below.
Lessons from Argentina’s economic collapse
Part I: Urban or Country?
Part III: Gray/Black Market
Part III: Guns, Ammo And Other Gear
Part IV: Interlude
Part V: Necessary Items
Part VI: More On Security
Part VII: tea With Aunt Sheeply
My brother visited Argentina a few weeks ago. He’s been living in Spain for a few years now. Within the first week, he got sick, some kind of strong flu, even though climate isn’t that cold and he took care of himself. Without a doubt he got sick because there are lots of new viruses in my country that can’t be found in 1st world countries. The misery and famine lead us to a situation where, even though you have food, shelter and health care, most of others don’t, and therefore they get sick and spread the diseases all over the region.
What got me started on this post is the fact that I actually saw this coming, and posted on the subject here at Frugal’s, months before the new viruses spread over the country and the news started talking about this new, health emergency, which proves that talking, thinking and sharing ideas with like minded people (you guys), does help to see things coming and prepare for them with enough time. So I started thinking about several issues, what I learned (either the hard way or thanks to this forum) after all these years of living in a collapsed country that is trying to get out an economical disaster and everything that comes along with it. Though my English is limited, I hope I’m able to transmit the main ideas and concepts, giving you a better image of what you may have to deal with some day, if the economy collapses in your country. Here is what I have so far:
Part I
URBAN OR COUNTRY?
Someone once asked me how did those that live in the country fare. If they were better off than city dwellers. As always there are no simple answers. Wish I could say country good, city bad, but I can’t, because if I have to be completely honest, and I intend to be so, there are some issues that have to be analyzed, especially security and security monitoring methods. Of course that those that live in the country and have some land and animals were better prepared food-wise. No need to have several acres full of crops. A few fruit trees, some animals, such as chickens, cows and rabbits, and a small orchard was enough to be light years ahead of those in the cities. Chickens, eggs and rabbits would provide the proteins, a cow or two for milk and cheese, some vegetables and fruit plants covered the vegetable diet, and some eggs or a rabbit could be traded for flower to make bread and pasta or sugar and salt.
Of course that there are exceptions, for example, some provinces up north have desert climate and it almost never rains. It is almost impossible to live of the land, and animals require food and water you have to buy. Those guys had it bad; no wonder the Northern provinces suffer the most in my country. Those that live in cities, well they have to manage as they can. Since food prices went up about 200%-300%. People would cut expenses wherever they could so they could buy food. Some ate whatever they could; they hunted birds or ate street dogs and cats, others starved. When it comes to food, cities suck in a crisis. It is usually the lack of food or the impossibility to acquire it that starts the rioting and looting when TSHTF.
When it comes to security things get even more complicated. Forget about shooting those that mean you harm from 300 yards away with your MBR. Leave that notion to armchair commandos and 12 year old kids that pretend to be grown ups on the internet.
Some facts:
The best alarm system anyone can have in a farm are dogs. But dogs can get killed and poisoned. A friend of mine had all four dogs poisoned on his farm one night, they all died. After all these years I learned that even though the person that lives out in the country is safer when it comes to small time robberies, that same person is more exposed to extremely violent home robberies. Criminals know that they are isolated and their feeling of invulnerability is boosted. When they assault a country home or farm, they will usually stay there for hours or days torturing the owners. I heard it all: women and children getting raped, people tied to the beds and tortured with electricity, beatings, burned with acetylene torches. Big cities aren’t much safer for the survivalist that decides to stay in the city. He will have to face express kidnappings, robberies, and pretty much risking getting shot for what’s in his pockets or even his clothes.
- Those that want to harm you/steal from you don’t come with a pirate flag waving over their heads.
- Neither do they start shooting at you 200 yards away.
- They won’t come riding loud bikes or dressed with their orange, convict just escaped from prison jump suits, so that you can identify them the better. Nor do they all wear chains around their necks and leather jackets. If I had a dollar for each time a person that got robbed told me “They looked like NORMAL people, dressed better than we are”, honestly, I would have enough money for a nice gun. There are exceptions, but don’t expect them to dress like in the movies.
- A man with a wife and two or three kids can’t set up a watch. I don’t care if you are SEAL, SWAT or John Freaking Rambo, no 6th sense is going to tell you that there is a guy pointing a gun at your back when you are trying to fix the water pump that just broke, or carrying a big heavy bag of dried beans you bought that morning.
So, where to go? The concrete jungle is dangerous and so is living away from it all, on your own. The solution is to stay away from the cities but in groups, either by living in a small town-community or sub division, or if you have friends or family that think as you do, form your own small community. Some may think that having neighbors within “shouting” distance means loosing your privacy and freedom, but it’s a price that you have to pay if you want to have someone to help you if you ever need it. To those that believe that they will never need help from anyone because they will always have their rifle at hand, checking the horizon with their scope every five minutes and a first aid kit on their back packs at all times…. Grow up.
SERVICES
What ever sort of scenario you are dealing with, services are more than likely to either suffer in quality or disappear all together. Think ahead of time; analyze possible SHTF scenarios and which service should be affected by it in your area. Think about the most likely scenario but also think outside the box. What’s more likely? A tornado? But a terrorist attack isn’t as crazy as you though it would be a few years ago, isn’t it?
Also analyze the consequences of those services going down. If there is no power then you need to do something about all that meat you have in the fridge, you can dry it or can it. Think about the supplies you would need for these tasks before you actually need them. You have a complete guide on how to prepare the meat on you computer… how will you get it out of there if there is no power? Print everything that you consider important.
WATER
No one can last too long without water. The urban survivalist may find that the water is of poor quality, in which case he can make good use of a water filter, or that there is no water available at all. When this happens, a large city were millions live will run out of bottled water within minutes. In my case, tap water isn’t very good. I can see black little particles and some other stuff that looks like dead algae. Taste isn’t that bad. Not good but I know that there are parts of the country where it is much worse. To be honest, a high percentage of the country has no potable water at all.
If you can build a well, do so, set it as your top of the list priority as a survivalist.
Water comes before firearms, medicines and even food. Save as much water as you can. Use plastic bottles, refill soda bottles and place them in a cool place, preferably inside a black garbage bag to protect it from sun light. The water will pick some plastic taste after a few months, but water that tastes a little like plastic is far way better than no water at all. What ever the kind of SHTF scenario you are dealing with, water will suffer. In my case the economical crash created problems with the water company, that reduces the maintenance and quality in order to reduce costs and keep their income in spite of the high prices they have to pay for supplies and equipment, most of which comes from abroad, and after the 2001 crash, costs 3 times more. As always, the little guy gets to pay for it. Same would go for floods or chemical or biological attacks. Water requires delicate care and it will suffer when TSHTF in one way or another. In this case, when you still have tap water, a quality filter is in order, as well as a pump if you can have one. A manual pump would be ideal as well if possible. Estimate that you need approximately a gallon per person per day. Try to have at least two-four weeks worth of water. More would be preferable.
POWER
I spent WAY to much time without power for my own taste. Power has always been a problem in my country, even before the 2001 crisis. The real problem starts when you spend more than just a few hours without light. Just after the SHTF in 2001 half the country went without power for 3 days. Buenos Aires was one big dark grave. People got caught on elevators, food rots; hospitals that only had a few hours worth of fuel for their generators ran out of power. Without power, days get to be a lot shorter. Once the sun sets there is not much you can do. I read under candle light and flashlight light and your head starts to hurt after a while. You can work around the house a little bit but only as long as you don’t need power tools. Crime also increases once the lights go out, so whenever you have to go somewhere in a black out, carry the flashlight on one hand and a handgun on the other.
Summarizing, being in a city without light turn to be depressing after a while. I spent my share of nights, alone, listening to the radio, eating canned food and cleaning my guns under the light of my LED head lamp. Then I got married, had a son, and found out that when you have loved ones around you black outs are not as bad. The point is that family helps morale on these situations.
A note on flashlights. Have two or three head LED lights. They are not expensive and are worth their weight in gold. A powerful flashlight is necessary, something like a big Maglite or better yet a SureFire, especially when you have to check your property for intruders. But for more mundane stuff like preparing food, going to the toilet or doing stuff around the house, the LED headlamp is priceless. Try washing the dishes on the dark while holding a 60 lumen flashlight on one hand and you’ll know what I mean. LEDs also have the advantage of lasting for almost an entire week of continuous use and the light bulb lasts forever. Rechargeable batteries are a must or else you’ll end up broke if lights go out often. Have a healthy amount of spare quality batteries and try to standardize as much as you can. I have 12 Samsung NM 2500Mh AA and 8 AAA 800mh for the headlamps. I use D cell plastic adaptors in order to use AA batteries on my 3 D cell Maglite. This turned out to work quite well, better than I expected.
I also keep about 2 or 3 packs of regular, Duracell batteries just in case. These are supposed to expire around 2012, so I can forget about them until I need them.
Rechargeable NM batteries have the disadvantage of loosing power after a period of time, so keep regular batteries as well and check the rechargeable ones every once in a while.
After all these years of problems with power, what two items I would love to have?
GAS
- The obvious. A generator. I carried my fridge food to my parent’s house way to many times on the past. Too bad I can’t afford one right now.
- A battery charger that has both solar panel and a small crank. They are not available here. I saw that they are relatively inexpensive in USA. Do yourself a favor and get one or two of these. Even if they don’t charge as well as regular ones, I’m sure it will put out enough power to charge batteries for LED lamps at least.
Gas has decreased in quality as well, there is little gas. Try to have an electric oven in case you have to do without it. If both electricity and gas go down, one of those camping stoves can work as well, if you keep a good supply of gas cans. The ones that work with liquid fuel seem to be better on the long run, since they can use different types of fuel.
You can only store a limited amount of compressed gas and once you ran out of it, you are on your own if stores are closed of they sold them out. Anyway, a city that goes without gas and light for more than two weeks is a death trap, get out of there before it’s too late.
A DIFFERENT MENTALITY.
I was watching the People & Art channel with my wife the other night. It was a show where they film a couple for a given period of time and some people vote on who is the one with the worst habits, the one they find more annoying. We were in our bed, and this is when I usually fall asleep but since the guy was a firearms police instructor I was interested and managed to stay awake. At one point the guy’s wife said that she found annoying that her husband spent 500 dollars a month on beauty products for himself. 500 USD on facial cream, special shampoo and conditioner, as well as having his nails polished! If you are that guy and happen to be reading this, or if you know him, I’m sorry, but what an idiot!! “500 USD, that’s a small generator or a gun and a few boxes of ammo” I told my wife. “That’s two months worth of food” she said. We were each thinking of a practical use for that money, the money this guy was practically throwing away. Once the SHTF, money is no longer measured in money, but you start seeing it as the necessary goods it can buy. Stuff like food, medicine, gas, or the private medical service bill. To me, spending 500 dollars on beauty products, and to make it worse, on a guy? That’s simply not acceptable. The way I see it, someone with that mentality can’t survive a week without a credit card, no use in even considering a SHTF scenario.
And this guy is a firearms instructor?… probably the kind of guy that will say that a handgun is only used to fight his way to his rifle… and his facial night cream…
Once you experience the lack of stuff you took for granted, like food, medicines, your set of priorities change all of a sudden. For example, I had two wisdom tooth removed last year. On both occasions I was prescribed with antibiotics and strong Ibuprofen for the pain. I took the antibiotics (though I did buy two boxes with the same recipe just to keep one box just in case) but I didn’t use the Ibuprofen, I added it to my pile of medicines. Why? Because medicines are not always available and I’m not sure if they will be available in the future. Sure, it hurt like hell, but pain alone isn’t going to kill you, so I sucked it up. Good for building up character if you ask me.
Make sacrifices so as to ensure a better future, that’s the mentality you should have if you want to be prepared. There’s stuff that is “nice to have” that has to be sacrificed to get the indispensable stuff. There’s stuff that is not “basic need stuff” but it’s also important in one way or another. My wife goes to the hairdresser once every month or two. It’s not life or death, but it does make her feel better and it boosts her morale.
I buy a game for the Xbox or a movie to watch with my wife every once in awhile, just to relax. 7 or 10 dollars a month are not going to burn a hole in my pocket. Addictions such as alcohol, drugs or even cigarettes should be avoided by the survivalist. They are bad for your health; cost a lot of money that could be much better spent, and create an addiction to something that may not be available in the future. Who will have to tolerate your grouchy mood when your brand of smokes is no longer imported after TSHTF?
PART II
GRAY/BLACK MARKET
Once the SHTF the black/gray market will take no time to appear all around you.
In my country, gray markets were even accepted in the end. At first it was all about trading skills or craft products for food. Districts and towns would form their own barter markets, and created their own tickets, similar to money, that was used to trade.
This didn’t last long. Those tickets were easy to make on your home computer, there was no control and eventually people went back to paper money.
These markets were usually placed on warehouses or empty land, and were managed by some wise guy and a few thugs or hired security. Anyone can go rent a kiosk inside these markets for about 50-100 pesos (about 20-30 dollars) a day and sell his goods and services. Peace within these markets is usually respected… lets just say that these managers don’t call the police if someone tries anything funny, like stealing, fighting or taking advantage of women. That’s not good for their business and anyone that tries to mess with their business finds out how much pain the human body can actually experiment or gets a free ticket to meet the Lord. Sometimes even uniformed cops manage security on these markets, for a small fee of course. As always, you still have to be careful. They may still try to pick your pockets or even attack you once you leave the market. Once you leave the market, you are on your own, as always.
These markets evolved and now a lot of different products are available. Today I visited my local market, a warehouse that is fairly well set up and cleanly managed. They had problems for selling stolen merchandise and fake Brand name clothes a few days ago.
What can be found at a local markets? Mostly food and clothing. Some have more variety than others but cheese, canned food, spices, honey, eggs, fruits, vegetables, beer, wine and cured meat are generally available, same as bakery products and pasta. These are less expensive than those found at supermarkets. Fresh fish is sometimes available but not always, people don’t trust much products that need refrigeration, and they get those at supermarkets instead.
Clothes are also popular and you can find copies of brand name clothes, imitations, or even original stolen new clothes, the same goes for shoes and snickers. Children clothes, underwear, socks, sheets and towels are all very popular. Some sell toys, but they are always China made, mostly poor quality though there are some few exceptions. Others sell tools, also made in China can be found as well, but they are of poor quality. Some offer their services and repair stuff or offer work as handyman.
You would be amazed of the junk that these guys manage to fix: TVs, CD players, Power tools, etc. They even manage to solder the small integrated circuits boards sometimes. Give one of these guys a screw driver and a bar of chocolate and he will fix a nuclear submarine.
After food and clothes, the 3rd most popular item has to be CDs and DVDs, movies, music, play station 2 and Xbox games, programs, it all ends up there just one or two days after the official release in USA. Seems that they have a guy hidden under Bill Gate’s desk or something. Anyway, almost everything can be found there, and if you want, you can ask around, talk to the right guy and buy illegal stuff like drugs or black market guns and ammo. The quality of the drugs is questionable, of course, and a lot of addicts die from the mixtures these guys sell. Guns are mostly FM High Powers, Surplus 1911s and Colt .45s, Sistemas, and old Colt Detective revolvers in 38 special that found their way from police and military armories into the black market. Condition isn’t very good but if you have money you’ll be amazed of what you can end up with. Everything that is used by the military and police, including SMGs a, Browning 50 BMG Machine guns, and even frag grenades, is available in the black market, if the customer has the amount of money and a little patience, of course. The big guns may take a while, but the handguns and grenades are readily available.
GOLD!!
Someone hit me in the head please because I messed up about the gold issue.
Everyone wants to buy gold! “I buy gold. Pay cash” signs are everywhere, even on TV! I can’t believe I’m that silly! I just didn’t relate it to what I read here because they deal with junk gold, like jewelry, either stolen or sold because they needed the money, not the gold coins that you guys talk about. No one pays for the true value of the stuff, so big WARNING! Sign on people that are buying gold coins. Since it is impossible to determine the true mineral percentage of gold, small shops and dealers will pay for it as regular jewelry gold. What I would do if I were you: Besides gold coins, buy a lot of small gold rings and other jewelry. They should be less expensive than gold coins, and if the SHTF bad, you’ll not be loosing money, selling premium quality gold coins for the price of junk gold. If I could travel back in time, I’d buy a small bag worth of gold rings.
Small time thieves will snatch gold chains right out of your neck and sell them at these small dealers found everywhere. This is VERY common at train stations, subways and other crowded areas.
So, my advice, if you are preparing for a small economical crisis, gold coins make sense. You will keep the value of the stuff and be able to sell it for its actual cost to gold dealers or maybe other survivalists that know the true value of the item. In my case, gold coins would have been an excellent investment, saving me from loosing money when the local economy crashed. Even though things are bad, I can go to a bank down town and get paid for what a gold coin is truly worth, same goes for pure silver. But where I live, in my local are small time dealers will only pay you the value of junk gold, no matter what kind of gold you have. So, I’d have to say that if TSHTF bad, gold jewelry is a better trade item than gold coins. Forgive me for not talking about this before, but I didn’t realize this until today, when I visited my local market warehouse and saw a “Buy Gold” sign.
PART III
GUNS, AMMO AND OTHER GEAR
After TSHTF in 2001, only the most narrow minded, brain washed, butterfly IQ level idiots believed that the police would protect them from the crime wave that followed the collapse of our economy. A lot of people that could have been considered antigun before, ran to the gun shops, seeking advice on how to defend themselves and their families. They would buy a 38 revolver, a box of ammo, and leave it in the closet, probably believing that it would magically protect them from intruders.
Oh, maybe you don’t think that firearms are really necessary or your beliefs do not allow you to buy a tool designed to kill people. So you probably ask yourself, is a gun really necessary when TSHTF? Will it truly make a difference? Having gone through a SHTF scenario myself, total economical collapse in the year 2001, and still dealing with the consequences, 5 years later, I feel I can answer that question. YES, you need a gun, pepper spray, a machete, a battle axe, club with a rusty nail sticking out of it, or whatever weapon you can get hold of.
A LOT has been written on survival weapons. Everyone that is into armed survival has his or her own idea of the ideal gun battery. Some more oriented to a hunting point of view, others only as self defense means and others consider a little of both, and look for general purpose weapons. Talking about guns, there is one special subject I want to rectify, and it’s the point on what’s the primary weapon for the survivalist, specially an urban survivalist that has to function in a society, yes, even after the SHTF. The primary defensive weapon for the survivalist is his HANDGUN. It’s the weapon that stays with him when he is doing his business around town of working on the field. The survivalist IS NOT a soldier, even though you are a soldier or you once were the meanest mother on the battle filed, your home town is not a battlefield and it wont be, even if the SHTF. A LOT of water has to go under the bridge until the situation gets to a point where you can calmly walk down the street with a rifle on your shoulder. People, if you are interested in real world SHTF situation and you want to prepare for the real deal, then understand that this isn’t black or white. You wake up one day and listen on the radio that the economy collapsed and that the stock market closed indefinitely. What do you do? You still have to go to the office/work/whatever .Kiss the wife good bye and walk to the office with your AR across your back, or across your chest, Israeli style, and ready to shoot? You won’t get far. Someone will shoot you or throw you in jail, or in a mental institution.
What I’m trying to explain, is that it’s ok to prepare for China invading you country, Germans and UN or Martians. That is the extreme, less likely worst case scenario.
There is an infinity spectrum of gray between the black and white. White being your average normal day and black being total TEOTWAWKI, lizard men invading the planet.
Rifles do have a place in the survivalist’s arsenal, and a very important one. But you have to understand that 90% of the time, the handgun will be the weapon you have available when you need one. You can’t compare to a trooper in Iraq that has his weapon with him at all times. I ask you how many soldiers do you know that keep wearing camo and totting their M4s around town when they return home?
What works for war does not work for the survivalist, especially the urban survivalist.
Even if you live in a retreat far from town, you have to work, don’t you? Or do you have employees that take care of all your mundane tasks, leaving you all day to keep watch with your rifle ready? A soldier is part of a huge machine; HIS job is to carry that rifle, while others take care of other needs. A survivalist, one that is not part of a large survivalist group, has no one to cover for him. When a new guy looks for advice on what to get for defense, some will recommend a rifle or shotgun as a first defensive weapon.
Let’s say race riots start in this guy’s city. He still has to go to work every day. What is he supposed to do? Shove his pump shotgun in his pocket? A handgun, even though less powerful, can be used for home defense AND go with you wherever you need to go. If the place floods, he can still hop into an evacuation boat without leaving his weapon behind. I’m sure no rescue team will pick you if you are carrying a long arm. They’ll ask you to leave it behind for sure. What if your government, realizing that TSHTF and that they lost control of the events, bans all firearms indefinitely? Don’t know about you, but if things are that bad, I’d like to be armed. You can hide a handgun under a jacket. You can’t hide a long arm under your clothes.
I think it was Clint Smith who said that the handgun is only used to fight his way to his rifle. Man! That sounds “macho”. I’d love to see him walking into Wal-Mart with his tactical M4, taking the subway, visiting the doctor or going to the bank. “Over here Mr. Smith, you can hang you M4 right next to my coat” I don’t think so. Guys, unless you have your own shooting school, you do not get to carry your rifle to work.
OK, now that I got that out of my chest lets look at some options.
Handguns
Revolver or Pistol? Pistol ALL THE WAY! Yes, I saw the video of the guy that accurately emptied his S&W in ½ a second. I also saw the shooting range and the crowd behind him, watching the event. Can he shoot and reload that way if he is in his car, driving with one hand and shooting with the other, while a bunch of scum bags in another car are shooting at him? Hey, maybe he can. I know I can’t. Can you?
Generally speaking, the revolver is more difficult to master than the pistol. The double action is hard and it affects speed and accuracy. It can be done, but I found that pistols are easier, as did many shooters. Also, even though they seem to be more simple, revolvers are not as rugged as service pistols, the mechanisms that cycles the cylinder and cocks the hammer is both complicated and fragile compared to auto pistols.
Before anyone starts casting evil voodoo spells at me for insulting their prized S&W or Ruger: I own revolvers and like shooting them, I just don’t think they are the best option for self defense, and I see that everyone I talk to in my country who is worried about security as I am also chooses pistols. Quality pistols resist sand, mud and dirt in general better than revolvers, where a small pebble locked in the mechanism may render the revolver inoperable.
I personally had a problem with a new stainless steel Taurus Tracker .357 magnum. After shooting it a couple of times I reloaded it and shot all 7 rounds as fast as I could and when I tried to empty it, I found that the empties were stuck because they expanded because of the heat. I had to wait until the gun cooled a little so I could empty the gun. Stuff like this can get you killed, even more in a 7 round handgun. I once saw a man walk into a gun store wanting to trade his 357 magnum revolver for a 9mm high capacity pistol. He said he was driving when thugs from another car started shooting at him. He was chased for a few blocks. He said that he pulled his revolver and started shooting at them, and ran out of ammo real fast. He wanted more capacity and fast reloading. I could not agree with him more. Some will consider this “Spray and pray”, thinking that all rounds should hit the target and if some don’t then it means that you need more time at the range. Those same people will tell you that they intend to use bolt action rifles as defensive rifles, making each shot count, without ever missing their target, one shot one kill. I don’t agree with this. One shot one kill is ok for snipers, but the survivalist should have other alternatives.
I don’t see anything wrong with shooting four or five rounds at a chasing car. If those rounds make them think twice about their intentions, they are rounds well spent in my book, even if they don’t kill the attacker. Suppressive fire is possible if you have a high capacity pistol. I wouldn’t doubt on using such a tactic if it serves my purposes, or if it buys me time to get out of there. Also keep in mind that criminals are cowards and therefore attack in groups. The survivalist should be able to face more than just one attacker. Getting into a gunfight with two or three armed men while packing a 6 round revolver is rather hard to deal with. A high capacity pistol can load about 15 or 19 rounds, and that can certainly make a difference in a gunfight where you are outnumbered.
A forensic doctor that used to live in my neighborhood got killed last year. He was ambushed when he exited a restaurant by 5 or 6 men. Even though they did kill him he managed to kill 4 of them and severely injure another. He shot regularly and carried a Glock .40. I’m sure he was lucky but I also think that his choice of weapon was also important in the outcome. If anyone is wondering, people in my country that are serious about self defense carry Glocks. Those that don’t have the money for a Glock carry Bersas, FM High Powers or 1911 surplus .45s. At first I wasn’t sure about the Bersa, but once I tried them I saw that they are very descent guns. I now own two Bersas and am pleased with they performance.
The caliber choice calls for endless debate and it is not my intention here. Let’s just say that 9mm, 40S&W and 45ACP are the obvious choices. 40S&W seem to be the most adequate, both in FMJ and HP, while 9mm lacks some stopping power and hollow points should be used if possible. Though the 9mm lacks power compared to the 40S&W, it is more popular world wide, a factor to consider seriously when choosing a handgun for SHTF. Besides, 9mm can also be used in a number of carbines and SMG, another important fact to be considered.
SMGs and carbines chambered for 40S&W and .45 ACP are also available, but they at not nearly as popular as those chambered for 9mm. Whatever you choose keep 500 or better yet 1000 rounds of quality ammo for your handgun at all times. 100 rounds won’t last much if the crisis lasts long. Also consider that once the balloon goes up, governments tend to restrict guns and ammo.
Rifles
I previously stated that the urban survivalist will be using his handgun 90% of the time he needs to defend himself and family from attackers. I didn’t pull this figure out of thin air; it is quite accurate based on what happens here on daily basis, even a little optimistic. Cold harsh reality has shown us that most attacks occur when entering or exiting your home, when you are more vulnerable. Almost no one is stupid enough to try to enter a barred house with armed occupants. Believe me people; the gene pool will clean itself rather fast once the SHTF. So, is a rifle necessary? Of course it is! There is still that 10%, and that 10% can still ruin your day. And this percentage sky rockets if you intend to use that same rifle for putting meat on the table. If you have to settle with just one rifle, go for a semi auto. Ideally you should have a bolt action one and a semi auto rifle. A bolt action and a semiautomatic 308 would make a nice combination.
Whatever you choose, try to keep it within military calibers and military weapons if possible.
It may seem that I have something against bolt rifles but I don’t. I think they are fantastic weapons, but I think that semi autos are much better fighting weapons. The idea of “picking them out” 300 meters away with your bolt rifle, as they come in a row blowing whistles and firing warning rounds is laughable at best. Bolt rifles do have advantages over semi autos, accuracy not being the most important one. Bolt rifles such as Mausers last forever and are harder than rocks, THAT’S important. They are simple, easy to repair tools that will serve you (within their limitations of course) longer than any other weapon. For example, the coil spring on my Mauser 1891 safety broke into 3 separate parts, after almost 100 years of faithful service. I dug into my tool box and found a spring left over from a kitchen shelve door. I cut it approximately to the length of the previous spring, replaced it and the rifle was fixed. There are not many weapons that allow this. And it is a very valuable attribute once the SHTF and spare parts are no longer available.
Stick to common calibers, 223, 7.62x39mm, or 7,62×51 (308). 223 vs. 308? I’m not going there. If you prefer 223 because it has less recoil, it’s lighter, or you favor the AR rifle go ahead. If you think that 223 is more powerful than 7,62 sign up to Physics I.
Just remember what I said before, a survivalist is not a soldier serving in Iraq, and you don’t have the entire USMF to back you up. You are on your own. You are not going to pin your attackers down with a questionably effective round and wait until someone hits them with artillery.
About ARs… I wouldn’t trust my life to a rifle that has more versions than Rocky sequels… the way I see it, it means that the basic design was the problem and there is no solution. On AK … all has been said. The most popular rifle on the planet, and popular not because of politics, but because it works. It also fires an intermediate power, effective round, available world wide. SKS are also good, but I’d rather have removable magazines. Again, don’t use voodoo on me because I say I wouldn’t trust my life to a AR. If you keep your weapon clean, know its limitations and feel comfortable with it, go for it please. A couple of rounds of 223 will kill anyone just as well.
If you want a rifle that can do a little bit of everything relatively well, do yourself a favor and get either a M1A or a FAL in 7,62 (308) with a carbine length barrel. Preferably with a red dot scope and some kind of light mount. Leave full length barrels to hunters and bench rest shooters. Do your homework on both guns and you’ll see what I mean.
Choose 308 not because of the added range you can get out of it, but because of its power at all ranges, choose it because it turns cover into concealment. Think about all the possible cover material you can find in a city, like cars, trees, low walls and other structures. The 308 will go right through it, or destroy it after a few rounds. It’s a proven cartridge through out the years.
Shotguns
Shotguns are good general purpose guns. The main advantage I see is the devastating stopping power and the ability to use special ammo, like slugs and less than lethal ammo. I’m not so sure about the role as an “inside house” gun. The muzzle blast is great and quick follow up are not easy, especially when adrenalin is pumping through your system or, even worse, when someone is shooting back at you.
Pistol caliber carbines and SMG.
If possible, I’d choose a SMG reduced to semi auto (only if necessary, of course, full auto selector is better if possible) or other kind of short, small, pistol caliber carbine.
The combination of a 9mm handgun and a 9mm carbine or SMG reduced to semi auto or full auto class III has lots of advantages in my book and is a fine combination.
Some think that full auto is a waste of ammo. I don’t think so, not if you know how to use your head, and use this feature wisely. If you can get a short barrel and collapsible stock, you’ll also have a weapon that can be hidden under a heavy coat. A red dot scope would enhance accuracy a lot. The advantage of having the same ammo for long and small arm is not to be taken lightly. From the logistical, survivalist point of you, this is one big thumbs up! Think about cowboys and Americans that lived in the west, they also knew the value of using the same ammo for rifle and handgun. They had single action handguns and lever action handguns chambered for the same ammo, the modern survivalist can have the same ammo for his auto pistol and his sub-rifle as well.
Some think that a pistol caliber long arm is just one big clumsy pistol or a rifle sized gun that delivers pistol power and accuracy. This is BS. Anyone that ever fired a pistol caliber rifle or SMG knows that they are much more accurate, hitting torso targets at 100 yards is easy, and a little more if you have a red dot scope. Also, SMGs can manage hot ammo specially made for such guns, much more powerful than the one for handguns. Even if you use regular handgun ammo, the added barrel length adds a few extra feet per second making it more powerful. Just check the information on boy armor. Body armor that is rated to stop 9mm, for example, is not rated to stop the same 9mm ammo out of a SMG or carbine, because the added speed will make that same round penetrate the vest. Anyway, +P ammo is more than enough power out of a SMG or carbine; you don’t have to go looking for special SMG ammunition.
If you can get full auto that’s one nice feature to have, not worth it if you are on a tight budget, but if you can get it, it may come in handy someday. Full auto SMG are giving police in my country a lot of headaches. A criminal with little or no training will put 3 or 4 cops armed with pistols and shotguns on their toes, just because of the sheer volume of fire these high capacity 9mm deliver. There was this case of a bad guy standing in front of a patrol car full of cops on a red light stop, pulling a 9mm SMG out of his coat and emptying it on full auto. The cops didn’t have a chance, he killed them all. The car looked like Swiss cheese with 40 9mm holes all over the vehicle.
SOUND SUPPRESSORS
All I’m going to say on this subject is: Have one if you can. That’s it. I’ll leave the rest of it to your imagination, don’t make me say it. Today it may seem like a “nice to have” feature… after the SHTF, it may be an “O God I’ve got to get a suppressor!!” feature.
I’d buy a good suppressor instead of an ultra high dollar scope like the SOG. Buy a good quality scope, but don’t spend a fortune on it, and use the rest of the money on a suppressor. If you are serious about preparing for SHTF, you’ll thank me one day; just trust me on this one. 9mm and 45 suppress quite well. Not as well as .22, but there is much more power on the big bore ammo. Combined with a full auto SMG, the possibilities are much greater. Sometimes it’s just better to go unnoticed, especially in a SHTF crisis.
BODY ARMOR
Dear God! Buy body armor PLEASE!! Its dirt cheep in USA. Preferably, get the police concealable kind (class II) then continue to work on it and get class III A military armor and some rifle plates, just as you do when you start buying guns. You’ll end up with 2 or 3 sets of armor which are great to have for family members and spares. Just so you know, I got so desperate about body armor I ordered it from USA through internet (bulletproofme.com), I ended up paying a total of nearly 600 USD for body armor that costs 200 USD in USA. Buy it while you still can. When the SHTF you’ll end up wearing it, believe me. I don’t wear mine all day long but I do wear it when I have to go some place dangerous, deal with people I don’t trust, or when I have to go teach Architecture Representation late at night, and must travel through a much dangerous road at 12 PM.
PART IV
-Interlude -Studying the SHTF at the University: Dark omens.
I forgot it! Darn, same as the gold stuff but worse, much worse. I’ve never been good at remembering some things, like numbers and names of people I meet, I forget those (instantly), they just flee my mind, uneventfully, but I do remember some other things that don’t seem to be as important. I do remember living in USA as a kid. I remember my school, Pierce School, Don’t remember exactly were it was, because we lived some in Boston, Massachusetts and some in New Hampshire. I remember my best friend, Freddy, and a girl (why is there always a girl? ) Samantha, Sam. She was red haired and tall, I had a picture of her playing together but I lost it. Some time between the age of 3 and 26 I lost that picture that was so dear to me. I remember the smell of an orange shaped “scratch and smell” sticker my kindergarten teacher stuck in a small book we made once. But I almost forgot this forever. This, this was important, a moment where the life we once knew stopped existing, and a group of students, in a class room that looked like and abandoned building, realized it, all 60 of us at the same time.
It’s 1:06 AM over here. I just finished showering and my wife and son are asleep. I was putting shampoo on my hair, thinking about what I wrote today on this post, and remembered the exact moment when I realized along with several other people, not only that TSHTF (that we all knew) but that the world we once new no longer existed, and that this was not a hurricane, this was an ice age period, it wouldn’t just go away.
We understood it the same way a kid understands photosynthesis: Because a teacher coldly explained it to us, even used graphics. I slept 5 hours yesterday, 2 hours the day before yesterday. Saturday night I didn’t sleep at all. I’m already used to it. Deadlines at the University, staying late at night, drawing in CAD 3D, waiting until Renders are ready. It’s a competitive world out there, and no one sympathizes with what you are going through, they just want you to perform as expected, and the standard is always high. It happened 4 years ago, almost a year after the December 2001 crisis. It was a social studies class and this teacher, don’t remember if it was a he or a she, was explaining the different kinds of social pyramids. God! Now I remember more! We even had a text book with those darn, cruel pyramids! The first pyramid explained the basic society. A pyramid with two horizontal lines, dividing those on top (high social class) those in the middle (middle class) and the bottom of the pyramid (the poor, proletarian). The teacher explained that the middle of the pyramid, the middle class, acted as a cushion between the rich and the poor, taking care of the social stress. The second pyramid had a big middle section, this was the pyramid that represents 1st world countries. I which the bottom is very thin and arrows show that there is a possibility to go from low to middle class, and from middle to the top of the social pyramid. Our teacher explained that this was the classic, democratic capitalist society, and that on countries such as Europeans one, socialists, the pyramid was very similar but a little more flat, meaning that here is a big middle section, middle class, and small high and low class. There is little difference between the three of them.
The third pyramid showed the communist society. Where arrows from the low and middle class tried to reach the top but they bounced off the line. A small high society and one big low society, cushioned by a minimal middle class section of pyramid. Then we turned the page and saw the darned fourth pyramid. This one had arrows from the middle class dropping to the low, poor class.
“What is this?” Some of us asked.
The teacher looked at us. “This is us”
“It’s the collapsed country, a country that turns into 3rd world country like in pyramid five where there is almost no middle class to speak, one huge low, poor class , and a very small, very rich, top class.”
“What are those arrows that go from the middle to the bottom of the pyramid?” Someone asked.
You could hear a pin drop. “That is middle class turning into poor”.
I won’t lie, no one cried, though people rubbed their faces, held their heads and their breath.
No one cried, but we all knew at that very moment that all we thought, all we took for granted, simply was not going to happen.
“You see, the income from the middle class is not enough to function as middle class any more. Some from the top class fall to middle class, but the vast majority of the middle class turns into poor” Said the teacher.
I don’t know how many people in that room suddenly understood that he/she was poor.
The teacher continued “You see, we have a middle class that suddenly turns to poor, creating a society of basically poor people, there is no more middle class to cushion tensions any more. Middle class suddenly discovers that they are overqualified for the jobs they can find and have to settle for anything they can obtain, there for unemployment sky rockets, too much to offer, too little demand. You see they prepare, study for a job they are not going to get. You kids, you are studying Architecture because you simply wish to do so. Only 3 or 4 percent of you will actually find a job related to architecture.”
We all sat there, letting it all sink in. After a few months, it all proved to be true. Even the amount of students that dropped out of college increased to at least 50%. They either so no point in studying something that would not make much of a difference in their future salaries, had no money to keep themselves in college, or simply had to drop college to work and support their families.
Someone once said, in this forum, that if this had happened in USA, the social unrest would have been much worse, because people from S. America are stronger. At first, I told him that I didn’t think so, I said that all humans adapt when they have no other choice. But now that I consider it more, maybe he was right. Not that S. Americans are stronger, but they are more used to adversities. Most of us are children from grandparents that escaped civil war, either in Spain or dictators in Italy, our parents survived the dirty war, even more dictators, and therefore their children are of strong character too. Can USA citizens survive what we survived? Of course they can, though I think that there are too many that are not like you, many that don’t prepare, and take everything for granted. Those are the ones that will be responsible for the increase in the social unrest once the SHTF, those that were too lazy to take care of themselves before the SHTF, or that had gone soft through out the years, believing that the government will “take care of them because they pay their taxes”. But in the end, they will pull through. People will adapt, they always do. You’d be surprised. And those that don’t want to adapt to the new reality they live in, will die young, thus cleaning the gene pool and ensuring the continuity of the specie. It’s been this way for thousands of years.
Note: I’m sorry I took so long to continue this post. I spent the last few days drawing on the computer, I have to present this sort of thesis for the University, a school project, to a board of 4 teachers in 3 weeks.
CRIME AND INSECURITY
Even though crime has always been an issue in South America, my country was quite the exception. It was dangerous, yes but nothing like after the 2001 economical crisis. One used to be able to let kids play on the sidewalk, or walk back home from a party, a few blocks, and be somewhat safe. This all changed now. There are no kids playing on the sidewalks anymore. I should emphasize this a little more. There are absolutely NO kids playing on the sidewalks at all, at any time of the day. Maybe a kid rides his bike a few meters on the sidewalk, but always under the supervision of an adult. A kid riding a bike on his own will get that bike stolen in no time, probably get hurt in the process, therefore no responsible parent leaves a kid alone on the street. Teenagers present a greater problem. You can’t keep a 15 or 16 year old inside a house all day long, and even though they are big enough to go out on their own, when the sun goes down things get much worse.
This is when parents organize themselves; either taking them to someone’s house or to a club and picking them up at a certain time. Taxis and remises are used sometimes , but there have been lots of cases of girls getting raped, so no parent worth a buck leaves his son or daughter in hands of a stranger. After years of living like this, almost everyone learned to be careful; sometimes they had to learn the hard way. Practically no one leaves a door or window opened or unlocked. Nor do they hang out in front of the house talking to friends. A bad guy might just see you there, like a sitting duck, pull a gun on you and take you inside your house.
There are no “bandit’s law” anymore. One used to hear people talk about “You shouldn’t resist a robbery, give them what they want and they’ll go away”. That holds true no more. These guys are under the influence of drugs, epoxy glue, or just hate your guts so much, because you have a better life than they ever dreamed of, because they were abused since the day they were born, that they will hurt and humiliate you as much as they can. Letting a criminal inside you house almost guaranties you that he will rape/beat/ torture and abuse whoever they find inside.
I personally drew a line a few years ago and decided, after one long, serious conversation with my wife; that no one would be allowed inside the house, no matter what. We figured that there are worse things than death. Having decided that, I make sure I always have a weapon on me. They’ll have to pay dearly for my life, plus interests.
By far, the most dangerous moment of the day, is when I (or my wife) leave/enter my house. A solid, secure house cannot be broken in easily, so criminals wait until you are standing on front of the door with the keys on your hand to jump on you. This is why we are extra alert when approaching our house, look all around us and if we see anything strange, keep walking around the block or keep on driving. No door is ever opened when there is a strange person around. Whenever someone knocks on our door (and we don’t know him/her), they are answered from a second story window. Criminals sometimes disguise as electric company guys or something like that, saying that they have to fix something. NO! If there is something to be fixed they can fix it on the sidewalk. Anything inside your house is your responsibility and the company is not going to fix it for you. Either way, it’s always better to play it safe, Better to be rude than dead.
On the car/driving issue, that calls for an entire post dedicated to SHTF driving. For now I’ll just say that windows and doors have to be closed at all times, a weapon must be within arms reach, and that stop signs and traffic lights have a hole new meaning once TSHTF. If your country ever falls as mine did, you’ll remember me whenever you see a traffic light. You never stop at a red lights or stop sign unless there is traffic, especially at night.
At first, police would write you a ticket for not stopping at a red light if they saw you (another way of saying that they will ask for a bribe if they see you pass a red light), but after a few months they realized that nothing could be done, people would rather risk a ticket than risking their lives, so they decided to turn traffic lights to permanent yellow at night, after 8 or 9 PM. This is, of course, very dangerous. Night car accidents are both frequent and brutal since sometimes both cars hit each other at full speed.
MissinLink asked some good questions that might interest others as well, and since we are on the security issue, here they are:
quote:
“Do the invaders of homes in the country just drive up in cars or trucks? Do they hide and sneak up? How do these home invaders attack a home in the country? A similar question could be asked for homes in the city.”
Continued
Sometimes they just drive up to where you are working, if you are far away from the home, but most of the time they sneak up on you. Criminals are not stupid, and they will spend days checking the place and specially YOUR ROUTINE. For example, if they see that you lock the gate at night, as most do, they will wait for you behind a tree until you are close. This is done a lot. Dogs are the best alarm you can find, and criminals know that. They will poison them with pills when you go to sleep and attack the place in the middle of the night. I know of many that had their dogs killed. If they think that security is tight, they will just hide near the main gate, and wait for you to leave or return. When you stop at the gate and must get out of the truck to open/close the main gate, they attack. I’d say that the most frequent kind of attack is attacking by surprise when you enter/leave your home.
quote:
“Most common times of attack? Day night evening morning? I understand occur when coming or going from ones home, etc.”
7 am, 9 am, 1pm 7pm, all are common times for attacks. There is no “safe” hour of the day. Night is particularly dangerous. Maybe attacks during the day are faster, they want to get some money or jewelry and leave fast, while at night they might stay inside more time, maybe till the next day. But there are no fixed patterns. If I could give one advice concerning SHTF security, it would be: Eyes and ears wide open when you enter/leave your home. If possible, keep a gun on your hand when doing either one. If something looks, even “feels strange, then go around the block and check again, carefully. If you see them still there, either call the police (if still available) or get help. If you approach the house with a large number of people they will leave. One time, I saw a couple of strange looking guys at my door. I went round the block and saw them still there. I started flashing the car lights and the horn and they left. I had a gun with me, though, so be careful when trying this. Also, remember that a car is one heavy, powerful piece of machinery. I know a guy that had one of those big chrome–tube bumpers installed on his truck, especially for hitting those that were stupid enough o try to make him stop by standing in front of the car.
If I had a truck, I would do so myself. Though I would keep my mouth shut about it, as always. Just say that you think it looks cool or something. Every now and then someone tries to force me to stop my car by standing in front of it (I suppose there are still fools out there that get robbed this way), in the middle of the street. I just aim at them and accelerate at full speed. They always jump out of the way before I hit them. By the way, at first, doing this made me feel nervous, but can you believe that now it’s just common driving, as normal as changing gears? I guess it’s a little sad.
PART V
Note: Sorry for the delay. This thread started ok and it seems to have a lot of acceptance so I give it serious thought before I post, try not to leave anything out so it can serve the better, as a mini guide of things that may come.
A LIST OF THINGS THAT “If you had it to do over again” YOU WOULD GET.
Nomad came up with this one. It’s a good idea because it may help some of you from making the same mistakes I did. There are things you don’t think about until you need them, and then it’s too late.
OK, if I had to do all this from scratch? Say, for example, if I had a 2 year warning, fairy godmother appears one night, all dressed in blue waving a magic wand, saying
“Your country will go down the sewage in 2 years, consider yourself warned dear”
There are several things I would have done differently, and things I would have bought:
Food: I’ll get to the food issue soon enough, but you can never have too much canned or other long shelf life food. This was probably one of my greatest mistakes, I overlooked the food problem.
I was talking to my wife today while driving, asked her the same question “Nomad asked me ‘what would you do if you could go back in time, before the 2001 crisis’”.
My wife, though smart, isn’t much into preparedness, but she answered “I’d buy food” in a heartbeat. Don’t you remember that you could only buy one small bottle of oil at a time, same with sugar, flour and milk? Don’t you remember all those empty shelves at the supermarket?”
Definitely, more food, especially food that lasts for a few years.
CAR
I would have bought a 4×4, even though I live in the city. A 4×4 allows you to dive over the sidewalk or through wasteland, away from roadblocks or riots. I’ve see those that have 4x4s simply go off road, climb over a boulevard and leave while the rest of us poor car owners have to stay.
A 4×4 truck also has more mass and power in case that someone tries to cut you off or rams you with the car. It’s less likely to stop running if you hit someone or several people (in a riot situation) since it’s prepared for cross country use and the engine is much more protected.
Fuel containers
Not only jerry cans, but those big metal containers, that hook up like small “u-hauls”? I’m not sure about their capacity; maybe they can hold one or two barrels of gas. I saw them at construction sites, and they were not that expensive if bought used, before the 2001 crisis. Now, I don’t know, haven’t seen them for a while.
A generator: These are imported and very expensive for us. I think that they are now making them here, but I’m not sure about the quality.
A nice TV and DVD player
I know what you are thinking “this guy has gone … “nuts” ” Please, let me explain. Going out for dinner or to the movies is not only dangerous but also expensive. You WILL find much better use for that money if SHTF.
There are places in Buenos Aires where you can go out for dinner, movies, or theater shows and have a good time, safely. They either have their own security or arrange with the police for added security. These are the kinds of places you are likely to visit if you ever come to Argentina; places were tourists can move around, relatively safe (there are always exceptions, of course). But these places are either for tourists or for the extremely wealthy. I have a good socio-economical level, better than 96% of the population at least, yet I can’t afford to spend that amount of money every weekend or even two weekends a month. Going out for a walk is a possibility, and we do go out for a walk every now and then, but lets just say that the view isn’t that good, and you can only walk about 6 blocks in the same direction before you get out of the are which is guarded by private security, after that you are on “you are on your own” land. You CAN go for a walk (just like millions that live in Somalia or Afghanistan go for a walk as well) millions of citizens do, but I’d rather not risk it.
Just the day before yesterday, a young woman was waiting at the bus stop in my neighborhood, holding her 6 month old daughter. A cop that was chasing a bad guy opened fire with his High Power, with no regard to bystanders as they always do. The 9mm FMJ (JHP are not allowed for the average police) went right through the baby’s buttocks and through the mother. Miraculously, the bullet didn’t hit any of the baby’s internal organs and the mother also survived after a few days at the hospital. Was that just luck? Maybe, I prefer to think that God does work in mysterious ways. We have a lot of cases like this, were innocent people get shot by the police, and the stupid “no JHP” rule makes it worse, since 124 gr. FMJ 9mm will penetrate walls, windows, even bad guys and end up injuring or killing innocent people.
So, back to the TV, good places are too expensive and just going out for a walk at night with your wife/girlfriend is out of the question. All of a sudden popcorn, pizza and a movie sounds like a good plan. I’m not saying that you should spend all day in front of the screen like a zombie. Reading is nice, I love reading myself, but once the SHTF, going out with a date at night won’t be that easy, nor will it be that cheap. You will end up paying for that added security the shop/bar/theater owner hired, the higher price of gas and food, while a DVD copy can be found everywhere, and costs only a couple of bucks. After the SHTF there will be a lot of “why don’t we watch a movie” nights. Like it or not TV is cheep, safe entertainment. A play station or Xbox is also nice to have. Even if the country collapses, there will always be a guy with a DVD writer making copies. Just something to think about if you like movies.
BOOKS
Oh, almost forgot. If you like reading a lot, buy books now, even if you won’t read them for some time. If your economy crashes, paper will become a source of income for many. We have thousands of scavengers collecting cardboard and paper all day long, specially at night when people take out the trash. As a result, books are not cheap, because they have a value of its own in the form of paper. Also, consider that books are heavy, making transportation expensive and many are printed abroad. Just as an example: I returned from visiting my parents in Spain with three suitcases. ONE suit case was entirely full of books. Books cost about 80%-200% more than what they cost in USA or Spain.
Guns & ammo
I always liked guns, so I always had weapons. But I didn’t have an adequate survival battery. If you don’t have a good survival selection of weapons, buy them now, or as soon as your budget allows. Make it one of your priorities, just after food, water and shelter. There are several posts on the ideal choice of weapons. Get at least a service size pistol and a military semi auto rifle and a 22 handgun/rifle. (Try to get both if you can, they are not that expensive). A bolt rifle (preferably in the same caliber as the semi) a pump 12 ga shotgun and a sub rifle, like a SMG or pistol caliber semi auto carbine (same caliber as pistol) would complete the package. I forgot to buy a 22 pistol until after 2001, and ended up paying for a Norinco 22 pistol the same price I would have paid for a Ruger pistol before the crisis.
Other Stuff
My advice is to see what you use regularly and what you expect to need after TSHTF. Of those goods, see where they are made. If they are made outside your country, they will either increase in price of stop importation entirely after TSHTF. In my case, one good example (of many, many others) is Gillette disposable blades. They are made in USA, and right now they cost a fortune. But as I said before, check what is being imported. No point in buying cases of Cubans for trade after TSHTF if you live in Cuba, right? I wouldn’t think of these items as trade goods, but as “gifts” to buy favors, build up relationships with police, government officials, doctors, people you might need favors from. Stuff, like liquor/wine, a nice pen, perfume, makeup and other “free shop” kind of items can go a long way when you need some strings pulled, or a “friend” within certain circles. And it’s not only the item, sweet talking also must be applied.
For example, you need renew your driver’s license after the XXXX crisis. The problem is that the office is low on personal (they had to let go 25% and 50% are on strike) so you’ll have to wait 4 months until you get an appointment. You approach the information desk were you find Betty. Now, Betty hasn’t had a date since the age of 10, and she weights as much a healthy manatee (though she’s not THAT pretty) you kindly ask her to please help you fill the paperwork, and though she’s as cold as a Popsicle, you keep calling her by her first name and when you leave she smiles and says good bye.
The next day you drop by and give Betty a Revlon lipstick for “helping” you fill the form, which had difficult questions like “name?”” Age?”. It cost you about 4 bucks before the crisis but, since it’s made in France, it went up to 20 dollars and then, 2 months ago, they no longer imported it. Revlon saw that they no longer had a market for their 4 Euro lipstick, which now costs Americans 20 dollars and the segment that used to buy it is spending that money in other items like food, so their marketing experts told them that the 4 Euro lipstick is no longer profitable in USA. Betty used to love that particular lipstick, she though it made her look like Cindy Crawford (poor Betty) but 20 dollars was more than she could spare in her good looks, and when she finally decided to drop the 40 pounds of M&M’s she ate a month in favor for the lipstick, the girl at the drugstore told her that the item is no longer imported into the USA. Her face lights up when she sees your present, and tells you that you shouldn’t have bothered, and she asks “how did it go with your license”. You tell here that you actually have a problem, it seems that it takes 4 months to renew, and you ask her if, well, maybe she can do something about it… you get the picture.
In other occasions people will let you know that they want a plain and simple “bribe”, and there 50 bucks or 100 bucks according to the situation will get the job done. I’ve used “gifts” (a perfume) to get my passport faster, saved a few months, and I’ve used bribes every single time the police stopped me for “inspection”. I know this does not apply to 1st world countries were most officers are honest self sacrificed people, I mean no insult to the law enforcement community on this forum, but please understand that it does apply to 3rd world countries, and I’m not getting shot by an angry cop over 10 or 20 pesos, let them have their bribe. I tried it once and I will never try it again. A cop stopped me and started BS me. I told him “ok officer, guess you’ll have to write me a ticket, I understand”. He didn’t want to write a ticket, he wanted money and things got ugly. I’m never doing anything that stupid again.
FOOD
A delicate issue. Even though not in the same way, it does affect us all. Keep in mind that if TSHTF, prepared or not, food will always be in your thoughts. If you don’t have it you’ll do ANYTHING to get it, and if you are prepared you’ll worry about being able to get more for the future. Once you see food prices go up between 200% and 300%, or simply see it missing, you’ll realize what a valuable commodity food really is. To those that think that food will never be a problem in USA: Come visit my country, even though there are desert areas up north, most of the country is fertile “Pampa”.
Just after WWII Argentina practically fed Europe, Argentina was known in Europe as “the world’s granary”. Cattle and wheat was enough to feed our own country and another continent. So, what happened? Why are there so many that have little or no food and end up eating out of dumpsters? I mean, the land is still there, isn’t it? Well, the country is the same country that used to be called the “world’s granary” but some things changed. Several big, multinational corporations, such as Benetton, bought hundreds of thousands of acres of natural resources. I don’t know the exact number, but I do remember that the media started talking about the integrity of the sovereignty of the country being at risk because of these massive purchases of land, so you can imagine how many acres were bought. Mysteriously, the media suddenly dropped the subject.
Another important factor is that now, with our new economy, it’s not good business to sell Argentine food to Argentina. Why sell a kg of meat to the local market for 17 pesos when they can now sell it to Spain for 17 Euros when 1 Euro = 3, 5 pesos? [Editors note: The Irish Potato Famine was not the result of not enough food being in Ireland…but rather the Irish peasants were too poor to purchase anything and English land owners selling their goods to the highest payer] All this combined with high unemployment, salaries that are not enough to buy the minimal amount of calories for a typical family, and the high prices resulted in a country that slowly started to suffer hunger.
Again, I can pin point the exact moment when the entire country realized what was happening. After the 2001 crisis things had been bad, but people in Buenos Aires, the capital city and the richest province, didn’t realize how bad things actually where in the other provinces. This was until teachers noted that kids had problems with education. You see, they noticed that they had problems to concentrate, that they fell asleep, and that they found it difficult to resolve mathematical equations.
They later found out that this was due to malnutrition, kids where not receiving the minimum amount of nutrients for a healthy working body. The braking point was when a reporter interviewed a little girl about 8 or 9 years old. The reporter lady asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, the usual kiddy questions. The girl, crying, said that she didn’t want to be anything; that she didn’t care. The lady asked her why was she crying. She said that she cried because she was hungry, that she had nothing to eat for days, and it was then that I noticed how skinny the little girl actually was.
Seeing children starve is terrible, I guess we all saw those images of the starving kids in Africa. But when you see them speak your same language, with your same accent, in your own country, it hits a nerve.
People talked about it for weeks, and they interviewed pediatricians that confirmed that the number of children dieing because of hunger had increased drastically in the last few months. So whatever happens, let it be a hurricane, economical collapse, earthquake or meteor hitting earth, food and water always come first.
Ideally you already have a food plan and have a year worth of food in your basement… You don’t? hmm… neither did I when the SHTF and lets just say that I had my manhood up my throat all the time, fearing that supermarkets would definitely close and me and my family would be left without food. If you don’t have your food needs sorted out already, just do what I did; start buying a little extra every time you go to the supermarket. The points you want to look for your storage food are, in order of importance:
This will usually take you to canned meats, canned tuna, canned vegetables, dried pasta, dehydrated soups, chocolate, milk powder, marmalades, soups, rice and dried beans. Canned food is excellent when it comes to long shelf life. Most of the time they are already hydrated, so they don’t need water, and you can eat them out of the can. Just watch out not to dent the can, if this happens air may get inside and ruin it. If you have a dent or bump in a can, consume it fast. Also remember that once the can is opened, you have to remove the food from the can. My favorite canned food is tuna. It lasts forever, it’s full of proteins and no matter how often I eat it, it always tastes good. Besides you can combine it with frozen vegetables or rice.
- No need of fridge.
- High nutritious value/volume
- Long shelf live, between 1-5 years.
- That they don’t need water
- That they don’t need cooking
Canned fruits and vegetables are also good, but they have much less vitamins than the fresh ones, and you loose most of it unless you drink the liquid they come in.
Dried pasta may need a lot of water to cook, but its one of the best ways to store carbs in convenient to use form. Flower or wheat can also be stored in large quantities and are nutritious, but they require more preparation to consume.
We’ve become quite independent form the fridge, and only use it to keep frozen our fresh pasta (ñoqui) pizza and frizzed vegetables. We practically freeze everything, because it lasts longer, practically indefinitely, and because if the lights go out a large mass of frozen food will last for hours, even a day or two. The more mass of food you have frozen to longer it will hold. The survivalist, especially the urban one, should try to rely as little as possible on the fridge. That’s why canned food and freeze dried food is your best friend. Yet, anyone who has been for a while with no fresh fruit knows that after some time the skin starts to suffer. Sores will appear after a while, especially on delicate skin like the lips and mouth. [Editor’s Note: This condition is commonly known as Scurvy] Once you start eating fresh fruits and vegetables again they go away.
This happened to me once, spent too much time without fresh vegetables and my mouth was a mess, full of sores. After a week of eating fresh vegetables regularly the symptoms disappeared. That’s why you should try to have some fresh food to supplement you storage food. Not much, just 2 or 3 fruit trees on your garden and a small orchard would be fine. You don’t have to feed out of this, you just need a little fresh veggies or fruit every once in a while.
On the news right now while I write this: We had elections last Sunday, we voted senators. It seems that in one of the north provinces people where surrendering their ID documents for bags of groceries, some for water, or for 10 pesos ( 3 USD) they were later taken to warehouses were they spent the night to ensure that they voted. The next day the candidate’s men took them to vote, hauled inside cattle trucks, like animals. When they arrived they were given their ID documents back with the number of list they had to vote. Thugs guide them and ensure they vote who they want.
HEALTH & FITNESS
Visit you doctor NOW. Get yourself fixed. Visit the dentist and make sure your mouth is in perfect conditions. Nothing is worse than having toothache and no one available to take care of it. Remember that doctors may not be as available as they are now, in the future. For example I got eye surgery to take care of my sight problem. Now I see perfectly without glasses. The advantage of laser eye surgery isn’t limited to not needing glasses. (Which can break and would be nearly impossible to replace after TSHTF)
Even people react to you in a different way. Humans are after all instinctive animals.
Bad guys will look at you as a weaker person if you wear glasses. Maybe they don’t know that at a conscious level, maybe they do, but they do react differently. This is not me imagining stuff, it’s the way things are. Old people and women are especially vulnerable. After old people and women and children, come small framed people, the smaller you are, the weaker you look, the more likely you are to be chosen as a victim by a bad guy. It sounds, cruel, and it sure is, but that’s the way it works. A young man with a well formed body, broad shoulders, muscled arms and a “don’t f*** with me” face, is less likely to be a victims of small time thieves. If a professional group chooses you as a target that’s a completely different story, of course.
Talk to your doctor a lot. Just like “The little Prince”, never stop yourself from asking a question. Adopt that as a general philosophy and you’ll end up learning a little about everything. Mechanics, doctors, policemen, you can always learn something new from people with skills. As a survivalist, and as a smart person, you should try to know a little about everything, Always be curious. That’s how I learned that I had to diversify my stock of antibiotics. A doctor told me, that the body will adapt if you always use the same, making that particular antibiotic not that effective, especially in small children, so now I keep two different kinds of antibiotics.
Working out 3 times a week, for a couple of hours will keep you in shape. I work out at home; I have a bench and some weights. Try to compliment some aerobics and weight lifting. Working the boxing bag is good exercise, works most muscles if done right, and you’ll have a much more powerful punch. Keep in mind that a bag is no replacement for a sparring partner and that the bag does not faint nor does it punch back. Still, it good exercise and your punch will be more powerful if you connect.
Running belts and bicycles are also good. Research on the subject and make your own routine, join a gym and talk to a professional if possible. Whatever you do, the idea is to have a fit, healthy body; no use in shooting ½ MOA at 100 yards if you have a gut that hangs half way to the floor and you can’t run that same distance without needing an oxygen mask. I know, shooting is fun, and working out isn’t. At least for most, but after some time you’ll start to enjoy it, your stamina and morale will definitely increase, and you’ll start looking forward to working out.
The survivalist that spends 3 hours a week on his gun skills and no time at all on his own body is not doing things right. Imagine if you have to run away from a riot/gunfight/attack while carrying your BOB or fighting bare handed against someone that got you by surprise. This applies for life in general, before or after TSHTF a man has to now how to fight bare handed. You don’t have to be Bruce Lee or Mike Tyson, just know how to through a decent punch, cover your face, or some kind or martial art classes.
I once had a fight that got a little ugly. It happened in my mother in law’s house, which proves that thing can go bad everywhere at any time. A guy my wife’s sister was dating argued with me and things got physical. He had problems with the police for beating up an ex girlfriend (which he was proud of, go figure) and had spend 2 years in jail for stealing cars. My wife’s sister was showing up with mysterious bruises on her body, from “falling while working out”. So you could say this guy wasn’t my favorite person. Anyway, he grabbed my neck by surprise; I grabbed his arm with both hands, one in his hand and the other in his elbow, and twisted it around. The leverage made him let go of my neck and a kept on twisting it forcing him around. He punched me with his other hand but the position wasn’t in his favor so it was just a glancing blow. He pushed with his back against me, so I placed my left arm around his neck, my elbow flexed over his Adam’s apple. The guy went berserk so I decided that I had to hold on until he passed out, or I would get seriously hurt. I had practiced this choking move with my friend, the one that has the farm I talked about before. He told me that after 30 seconds of choking the person passes out, and after 60 seconds, if you keep choking him, he dies.
So I placed my left arm firmly around his neck while holding my left hand firmly with my right arm, pressing as hard as I could. The guy went nuts. He slammed me against the walls, trying to get me away from his back. He started clawing with his fingers on my biceps, desperate. Me? I just held my lock around his neck, mentally counting. As if by magic, after 20-25 seconds. He lost all strength and fell to his knees like a rag doll, and I let him go.
Meanwhile my wife, her sister and my mother in law were all screaming me to stop.
Once he caught his breath he said that I was psycho, and that he was just fooling around. Not believing a word he said, I said I was sorry and we both got into the elevator, since we were leaving. As soon as I close the elevator door, the s*** bag attacks me again. I guess he felt humiliated in front of the woman he beat up. He tried to grab me the same way I did. I knew that this was getting out of hand and I completely lost patience with this clown.
I brought my serrated Cold Steel El hombre from my pocket and placed the dull side against his arm. He got the message instantly a let go of me. Once he did this I shoved him against the elevator, my forearm pressing against his neck and the knife under the neck as well. He calmed down instantly, saying he was sorry, bla ,bla, bla. When we got out of the elevator I told him that if he ever got close to me or my family again I would put a bullet in his head. I never saw him again. This guy was a thief and women beater and I had no use him. Besides these are the kind of rats that would brake into your house when you leave, or worse.
I’m ranting all over the place again. What I mean is that practicing defensive moves is useful, especially if you spar with someone that knows his stuff. My friend practices Judo. He won the state championship and was left in 3rd place in the nationals final.
Practice as you would fight in real life. Getting chocked isn’t nice, but you get to know what you are working with and know how effective it actually is. Being in shape will also make you less prone to diseases, such as high pressure, heart problems, and will boost your immune system in general.
Knowing first aid procedures is always helpful. I’ll take the Red Cross course this summer. Keep a first aid kit and any other special medicine you may need. If you take drugs regularly try to have at least a year’s worth of the stuff. Medicines are hard to get and expensive, many are made in other countries and if SHTF they might not be available. My father in law has Parkinson and needs a special medicine that is no longer imported. He asks friends that travel to get it for him.
I stock pile as much medicines as I can. Apart from the regular 1st aid kit stuff you usually have at home, I concentrate on Ibuprofen and antibiotics, both for children and adults. Antibiotics are precious here, with all the viruses that are floating around. Lung infections are particularly dangerous. Also remember that keeping a clean, ventilated house goes a long way when it comes to preventing diseases. This is hard when the city is full of filth and there are cockroaches and rats everywhere but it can be done. My neighborhood isn’t that bad, there are places that are much, much worse, where people literally sleep and eat with rats. Cockroaches are a problem, but I keep them somewhat controlled with that poison that comes in syringes and you place around the house.
That reminds me, stock up on rat and cockroach poison. Services are bad in general, and the garbage collectors are no exception. Once, they went on strike for about a week (though there are worst places where they go months without collecting) and you could see rats running around eh piles of garbage that people threw on the street’s boulevard. This is not healthy, of course. And helps spread diseases all over the city, so keep that in mind as well.
PART VI
MORE ON SECURITY: KIDNAPPING
The theory behind kidnapping is simple to explain, yet it evolved into a complicated issue that presents itself in several forms and the survivalist should understand to better defend his family and himself. The way kidnapping just popped out of nowhere it astonishing to say the least. One day kidnapping for money is almost unheard of, and within a couple of months, after the economical collapse, everyone starts getting kidnapped. The news report of about 3 or 5, sometimes even 10 kidnaps in one day in Buenos Aires city.
As time went by, the news dropped the issue and you don’t hear much about people being kidnapped any more. Does this means that the kidnaps stopped? I don’t think so. I still hear about people getting kidnapped in my own neighborhood, express kidnaps (I’ll explain later). Since my neighborhood is “nice” compared to most of Buenos Aires, I can only conclude that kidnapping is still VERY popular, but that the media isn’t reporting about it any more because of obvious political reasons. Why did kidnaps start in the first place? In a country where there were nearly 0 cases?
Because since the economy crashed, suddenly there where lots of poor people that didn’t have enough money to feed their families. This was the main reason, but not the only reason though. After the first riots and looting, it was quite obvious that the government and police had no true control of what was going on. Obviously they were overwhelmed.
Once the veil of crime=jail is lifted and people comprehend that they will not be punished for their crimes, it’s the beginning of the end people. All of a sudden, bank robbery, stealing, kidnapping and murdering people is just a matter of personal moral values, nerve and determination, and punishment is almost left out of the equation.
1) The first kind of kidnap to appear was the most common one. People were intercepted, either when walking or driving, by the band of kidnappers. Well organized bands of at least 5 or 6 members, with battle rifles, SMG’s and communications, intercept the victim with at least 2 cars.
Do not be mistaken; these guys know what they are doing. In most bands you will likely find a LEO gone bad that decided to increase the poor cop salary the gov. pays.
The victim is taken to a far away location in one of the many extremely poor neighborhoods in Buenos Aires. They call asking for a ransom, a ridiculously high one, and the negotiation starts. The person is held for a few days, maybe even a couple of weeks. If a month goes by and the person doesn’t show up, forget about it, he’s already dead. Some times they torture him too much, covered his mouth with tape “As seen on TV” and the victim chocks to death, dies of heart or health complications or they just get scared of getting caught and shot the poor guy. They get scared of getting caught not because of the police efficiency, but because most of the time one of the kidnapers KNOWS the victim. Either an employee, friend, neighbor or relative that knows that X person has money available for Y reason, either he is already wealthy, or he sold or inherited and has a large sum of cash available. These kinds of kidnap are generally very gruesome, with tapes of the victim being tortured sent to the family, fingers getting cut and other creative means of encouraging the family to pay. Survivability of this kind of kidnap is about 60%-70%, give or take. Not good.
2) The second kind of kidnap is called “Express kidnap” because it occurs fast, a smaller amount of money is asked as ransom, so that the family can come up with it within an hour or so, and if everything goes as planed the victim is released with an hour or two. This is, by far, the most popular kind of kidnap we see today in my country. Even police advice you to pay and get over with when they ask for small ransoms. The victim is chosen randomly, because of the way he/she dresses, because he/she seems to be easy to control and dominate and isn’t likely to resist the attack.
Kidnapers found out that this low profit, but fast, low risk kind of kidnap is very profitable in the long run, and does not involve the complicated and expensive logistic of long term kidnaps, where you need a place to keep the victim, feed him, someone to watch over him 24/7 , etc.
The victim of an “express kidnap” rarely leaves the car/van he/she was pulled into. The criminals Survivability is much greater than in the 1st kind of kidnap, I’d say about 90%. This doesn’t mean that the victim is in good hands. Girls are raped by the gang most of the time. Men may fare a little better, probably get beaten up a little if they are problematic. The chances of surviving are greater because kidnapers don’t know the victim most of the time, they don’t have time to worry about the “what if’s” get scared and decide to get rid of the victim, and because police is almost never involved in them. As I said, when small sums of money are asked for they recommend to just pay.
3) The third kind of kidnap isn’t nearly as dangerous as the previous ones, but you should still know about it to prepare of it better. After all, it’s all about preparing and covering as many scenarios as possible, right? “Virtual kidnaps” caught all of us by surprise. It consists on someone knowing that a wealthy person is going to be “away from town” or unable to communicate for a certain period of time and taking advantage of it. They will call the family and say that X person has been kidnapped and that they have 30-60 minutes or sometimes more to pay( depending on the time the person will be unable to communicate) The family, unable to get in contact with the family member pays, only to later realize that it was all a scam.
Some SOBs even took advantage of real kidnaps, pretending to be the kidnappers and asking for ransom before the real kidnappers got in contact. This kind of “virtual kidnap” isn’t as popular anymore, though some get caught every now and them. Most smart people make sure they always know where family members are and communicate with cell phones or tell each other when they wont be available to prevent these situations.
I dedicated some time to the kidnap issue because I firmly believe that if your country goes through an economical crisis for any given reason, desperate immoral people will find out about the fine art of kidnapping soon enough and Americans may have to face this kind of threat, which they are not used to. I personally know a man that escaped his kidnapper 3 times. Once he escaped through the roofs, by removing some sheet metal in the room, and the other two he jumped out of the moving vehicle. You must think the man is 7 feet tall, all muscle, and trained with some of the best defensive schools… of course not. He’s a short, stocky, barrel chest fellow, now in his 50s that looks like a neighborhood Italian butcher.
This man’s weapons of choice? A frag grenade and a 357 revolver. He had the grenade rolling inside the car floor among the pedals the last time I heard of him. The thing would get caught under the pedals and at least once he crashed his car because of it.
He once even shot his own mother on the hip with the 357 magnum. A patient had escaped from a mental institution and broke into the woman’s house from the back yard. The old woman called his sons and the first to arrive was “grenade guy”. As soon as he entered the house he saw the man and shot him without saying a word, missed and wounded his mother in the hip. The poor escaped patient froze right were he stood when he heard the shot.
Right after this, the woman’s other son arrived and saw his mother bleeding on the floor next to his brother, and thought that the nut case had hurt her. Thank God they stopped him before he blew the poor man’s head off. This man obviously knows nothing about the proper equipment and defensive tactics, but hey! Anyone that escapes kidnappers 3 times has my respect. So, what can we learn from this?: That even though your weapons of choice may be a little “exotic” or even down right inappropriate, DETERMINATION, MENTAL ATTITUDE, ( along with a nice dose of good old luck) is enough to make the difference. The training helps a lot, and so does the gear, but in the end it’s all about attitude.
This man gets a 0 when it comes to weapons, shooting skills and tactics, but it’s all about proper survival mentality. He’s quite the SSS (shoot, shovel and shut up guy) and for sure has a few dead bad guys on his debt, not that I’ll ever know anything about that. He managed to survive and excel in a rough business, the recycling of paper, where they deal with paper scavengers, which are not exactly Berkley college boys, if you get my meaning. His recycling company made him and his family very rich, specially now, that there are lots of poor people that scrounge paper and cardboard to survive.
Bragging about the people you kill is not a good survival attitude, and should be avoided. Seriously, if you have problems keeping your mouth shut when it comes to stuff like this, do some serious soul searching and change it. Same goes for new guns, large food supplies or new equipment you may me proud of. The word gets around fast so keep it to yourself.
And this takes us back to the kidnapping issue.
“My Scout/Squad M1A1 looks SO cool! And it shoots like a champ. They cost a fortune right now, but I was smart enough to buy it before the economy crash back in XXXX! ” You tell your mechanic, a guy you’ve known for years. Now, the guy that your friend just hired, who just happened to overhear the conversation, him you never met before. Neither do you know that he’s a problematic kind of guy that has drug problems and is always looking for expensive stuff to sell.
You are also clueless when you are held at gunpoint some days later, just when you were leaving to the office, and the first thing the guy says is “I want the guns”.
So, what can you do to protect you family and yourself from kidnapers?
SHTF DRIVING
- Keep you mouth shut about everything that has economical value, or your family’s schedule. Especially be careful around people that have economical problems or drug problems, people that always need cash. Don’t trust your employees with internal business affairs. Remember, most of the time the informant is someone close to the victim.
- Keep a low profile. I know people that even though they have the money to buy any car they want, they stick to common low profile cars. Even the private school I went to when I was a kid that has its own mandatory uniform, encouraged parents to send kids wearing regular clothes instead. Kids dressed in private school uniforms where being kidnapped all over the place.
- Learn evasive driving. Never allow cars to cut off escape routes. Again, the use of body armor may make the difference between escaping a well organized kidnap or not.
Get yourself comfortable and fix yourself a cup of coffee because this is one long subject that calls for a book of its own. I’ll do my best to synthesize and tell how driving changed after the economical collapse. As always, crime directly affects the way you will drive after TSHTF. As will the price or availability of spare parts determine what car should you get. Another factor to consider is that, as I said before services will suffer in quality after TSHTF. This means that roads will no longer be what they used to be.
People that live in 1st world countries are used to well kept streets and roads. Let me tell you, after only a few months of no maintenance, street will look as if bombed from an airplane. Rain and temperature difference destroys the pavement very fast.
Right now in Buenos Aires there are holes in the street the size of trucks. There were cases of cars actually falling inside these craters, so you can imagine the conditions streets are in.
A low car, designed for perfect pavement should be avoided as much as possible. That’s why I said that if I could do everything all over again I would get a 4×4 SUV.
This doesn’t mean that you should buy a huge 4×4 truck to drive around the city all day long. That’s not very practical and you do need a fast, easy to maneuver vehicle that can get out of problems fast. A medium size SUV should be the ticket for both agility and 4×4 power. Getting stuck in a roadblock because your truck is to darn big to maneuver around it, then what’s the use of the 4×4?
There are many options out there. The small Suzuki 4×4 are good options, though a little bit fragile for my taste, maybe a Jeep Wrangler would be better. Anyway, just keep in mind that your vehicle should be a compromise between speed, ease of maneuver or agility, and 4×4 traction.
Ok, so now you spent some hours on the Internet, searched for the best option, and you bought your brand new SHTF 4×4 car. Now what? Is that it? Unfortunately no. Choosing the right vehicle gives you the tool, but you now have to learn how to use it, and it’s not exactly what you learned when you got your drivers license, as a matter of fact, it’s quite the opposite. I can read your mind “Go to sleep FerFAL. You are burned out and you make no sense” Let me explain.
Close your eyes. Look inside you. Find that little politically correct driver guy inside you, the one that was born the day you learned how to drive. You see him? Good! Grab him before he sneaks away. Now hit him, choke him, and kill that little PC driver guy inside you. I killed mine a couple of years ago. It took me about 2 years to drive the way I do now, to react without thinking. What does it mean? I no longer flinch, or stir the wheel when something comes close to the car; I keep driving as if nothing happens. A dog runs in front of the car and I don’t move an inch, a ball hits the windshield and nothing. I killed the little PC guy inside me, the one that used to say” Watch out! You are going to hit something/someone! Turn the other way!”. Reacting like that can get you killed after TSHTF.
Guys, you have to prepare for people throwing objects at your car, standing themselves in front of the vehicle so that you stop or crash against a light/tree/whatever, so that they can rob you. It takes time and determination, but you MUST get to a point where if the windshield blows in you can continue driving as best as you can, if someone puts twisted nails on the road and blows your tires, you keep calm and keep driving, always keep driving no matter what, until you get to a gas station or other place safe. Especially at night, or early morning you have to keep the car moving all the time. Of course this is not always possible. Sometimes there is too much traffic and you have to stop. In this case, slow down before you get to the cars, and keep the car moving slowly until the light changes, in order to always keep the car moving. Never cut away your own escape routes by getting too close to the car in front. Leave at least 5 meters or so in front of you, so that you have enough place to maneuver.
At night, no one stops at red lights in Buenos Aires. That’s why many districts decided to turn the traffic light to a permanent yellow at night, in order to reduce car accidents. There are places in Buenos Aires where you don’t stop at the traffic lights all day long. Today, when I was retuning from the University at 1.30 PM, I passed a red light right in front of a police patrol car. The cop didn’t say a word. He understands that no one stops on the Dark road (the road I take back home) unless it’s inevitable. This won’t happen over night. It will take at least a few months after TSHTF until cops and authorities understand the new reality of the country. Even now, there are those that may stop you from crossing on a red light at night. But most patrol cars will understand, even crossing the red light themselves.
Another variable that has to be dealt with on the street is people. People that live in 1st world countries have little problems and low stress compared to guys that don’t know where they are going to get money to feed their families next week, or when they are going to finally find a job. Fights among drivers in 1st world countries may end up in the beating of someone in the worst-case scenario. Over here, people are so nervous and aggressive that many times people kill each other. This should not be ignored guys, if SHTF the sheep will turn aggressive and might be dangerous. They will usually start a fight over a minor problem, just because they are nervous, or angry at the world. You can still get beat to death with a bat or bare hands you know? You car weaponry should take all of this into consideration. A handgun should be with you at all times, but it may be excessive for dealing with a mad driver. A bat and pepper spray will be enough to face an unarmed attacker, most times. I keep one canister of pepper spray and a small bat in my car at all times, apart form the 9mm pistol I may be carrying.
The pepper spray car tactic is the following:
This will ensure that the mad driver will stop chasing you, and you prevent an even more violent episode where you would end up using lethal force. I had more than a couple of problems myself with other drivers. One Saturday night a guy in an armored truck chased me for several blocks, flashing lights and staying on my tail. I don’t know if he was mental, or on drugs, drunk or if he wanted to rob me. In this case having a smaller faster car allowed me to escape the nut driver. In another occasion a driver broke my right mirror. One time a guy got out of his car on a red light and started hitting my car. Of course, I didn’t get off the car. That would have been stupid and dangerous. What did I do? I had left some space between my car and the one on front. They guy was kicking my car on the right side. I put the gear on reverse, catching the guy between my car and his, and rolled him between the two like a freaking burrito. The guy fell to the ground, I never knew how bad he was hurt or not. I suppose that not too bad, because my car didn’t even show a small bump or dent, so it couldn’t have applied much force to the man’s body. I don’t care much, either. After going on reverse for a few meters, I shifted to 1st, turned left and left the place.
- Idiot driver starts a fight over XYZ.
- Mad driver chases you, honking the horn, flashing lights and insulting.
- I slow down, and let him place the car next to mine
- 9 out of 10 times, the mad driver will lower the passenger window to insult you the better.
- That’s when you grab the can of pepper spray, lower your own window as if for insulting and you spray him into his own car by surprise.
You should get to know your car and what it’s capable of. 180 degree turns using the hand brake isn’t that hard and after a day or two of practicing it you should be able to do it easily. If someone is chasing you and the situation is serious, suddenly hitting the brakes will bust the chasing car’s front, ruining the radiator and engine. You’ll crash you back side but your car will still work, his won’t.
Cars blocking the road (kidnappers, thieves) should be avoided with a 180 degree turn, or going on reverse fast and turning using the regular foot brake can also achieve a almost 180 degree turn. If you can’t go back because they have cars cutting the road there too, don’t crash your car as fast as you can “As seen on TV”. What you should do is: SLOWLY, place the front bumper of your car against the back wheel axis of the car blocking the road (they usually place the car ACROSS the road to cover more area) and accelerate. The trunk compartment, the back part of the car, isn’t nearly as heavy as the front part where the engine is, so it should turn quite easily when you accelerate. Shooting your handgun while maneuvering will keep them away from you while you do this.
These are just a couple of defensive driving techniques. If possible, take some defensive-dissuasive driving classes. They are almost as important as shooting classes, in my opinion. Almost forgot. As many, I like hearing music when driving, and I used to set it rather loud. I quickly found out this isn’t the smartest thing to do, since you can’t hear what is going on around you; shooting, people screaming, a car running out of control, for example. Keep the volume low so as to listen to what’s going on around you. Or turn it off completely if you are in a high risk area.
Of course windows and doors must be closed at all times. Also try to keep at least half a tank full worth of gas in jerry cans. There are times when a roadblock will force you around alternative roads that you didn’t count on. Extra fuel is nice to have. If room in the vehicle is an issue, have at least one small can. And, as always, keep eyes on the road. But not only for other cars and people, but for bumps on the street (that can sometimes be like craters) or rocks and other objects bad guys may put so as to make you crash or force you to stop. Your eyes should be focused much further away most of the time, so as to anticipate to this.
Part VII
Tea with aunt Sheeply
“Why do you want to move to Spain? Here you can live much, much better. Her you can afford 3 maids, and a gardener, private school, private health and tennis lessons. You can live in what Europeans would consider a mansion”.
The argument was an old one already. My mother, my aunt and my grandmother where having tea in my parents living room.
My mother was arguing with my aunt again. My father was gone before it even started. He went to fix something in the house as he usually does when my aunt is around. It’s been years since he last had the patience to withstand even 5 minutes of the woman’s narrow minded, sheep mentality ramble.
“Alicia, I don’t care about how many gardeners or maids I can afford here. You can afford to have that many people working for you precisely because there is so much misery that people will almost work for food. I’d rather live in a country where I can safely walk the streets and not have a maid. Don’t you see that the same reality that allows you to have 3 maids and a gardener is the one that can get you killed every time you walk out of your house?”
The argument went on and on, with my grandmother siding with my aunt. Not because she thinks that the reality of this country is good, no, but because she doesn’t want to see one of her two daughters leave to a country at the other end of the world.
Most Spanish immigrants, like my grandparents, hate to see the new generations, sons and grandsons, leave to the country they once escaped from, because it promises greener pastures. They escaped hunger, civil war, and now, 50 years later, they want to go back?
Old folks just don’t understand that. They had to leave everything behind, family, possessions, to give their family a better life. And in those days you just didn’t take a plane, my grand parents had to spend a month in a stinking boat to get here. They all remember that trip, and they just don’t get used to the idea of, thanks to airplanes, being just 24 hours away.
For all of them, moving to Spain means that their loved ones are a month worth in a stinking boat away.
There are many like my aunt in this country. People that, surprisingly, don’t fear SHTF, but actually look forward to it.
It means cheaper workers, cheaper services, and new exploitation opportunities. And I’m not only talking about locals, I’m talking about large international corps. as well.
What locals seem to ignore, or simply don’t care, is that you still have to live WITH those that are in a much worse position. Maybe you are incredibly wealthy, yes, but wherever you go you will have to go with an armored car and bodyguards. You wont have freedom, not real one at least.
As I said before a number of times, people will surprise you for being incredible resourceful and /or incredibly stupid.
Most of the “Herd” will simply sail through life being happy that their favorite soccer team won the finals and that they can go have a couple of beers with their friends.
Notice that not much changed since the ancient Roman times, where the emperor claimed that you only have to give the population “circus and wine” to keep them content and under control.
People like my aunt, these are the fools that love vacationing in Brazil, and think that Cuba’s communism is the greatest creation right next to sliced bread. They will come back from Cuba in love with the place. Oh! The resorts, the food, so many cheerful people. They seem to forget that if Cubans don’t put a happy face they get executed, and that they have a great time because they are tourists with money that can afford to live like kings. Why don’t they move over there without a penny, and live as Cubans really do? Let’s see if the like pimping their wives and daughters to survive, lets see if the y like living like rats. Of course they don’t.
Another issue I want to point out. SHTF such as political crisis or economical collapses take time to settle.
There wont be a declared SHTF day. Yes, there are events that are like landmarks, milestones in the course of history. But it will take time, society will change little by little, until the new reality is assimilated and accepted, consciously or not, by the entire population. After a few months, you’ll se people talking about before and after certain event that changed their world. For you it may be S-11, for me it’s life before and after the 1:1 (meaning the 1 dollar, 1 peso conversion) or life before and after the 2001 crisis. People use it on their daily conversations. “ So, you’ve been to Hawaii?, wow!” , “Yes, yes but we went back before the 1:1, now it’s impossible to pay for such a trip”, “ Yes, too bad”
This time of uncertainty, until people accept that the world around them changed, takes time, months or even years, and it’s a SLOW decline, slowly slipping down. One day you’ll start seeing more people begging, more prostitutes, houses not painted, cars will start to look a little more shabby, because people don’t have money to fix them, until one day you will tell yourself “wow, this wasn’t like this 6-12 months ago.” Things do not get accepted day over night, a SHTF event may occur in a matter of seconds, but it takes MONTHS to sink in.
That’s why you should keep an open, independent mentality, and eyes and ears listening all around you, so as to stay ahead of the herd.
Financial security, and the ability to move:
The greatest survival trait.
Which brings me to my final consideration on survival, my final conclusion concerning surviving mayor crisis.
Money.
Yes, some paper money, gold, silver, but mostly money in accounts in a couple of “safe” countries and money invested in real estate.
We had people going from middle class to poor over here. We had people going through some terrible situations, and it’s safe to say that those that fared better where those with solid finances.
Our society runs on money, people. Not only paper money, but accounts and virtual money. It would take a world wide collapse, practically the end of humanity for money to be useless as a concept.
A country, or several, even a continent can go down into misery, dragging it’s local paper money with it, but the other end will rise proportionally. I truly believe this, and history also shows that there are always losers and winners, conquered and conquerors, the balance, the ying yang always remains.
A giant meteor could destroy earth and little green men could enslave us, yes, but in the infinite spectrum of possibilities, that scenario is the less likely one. I’d rather prepare for those that are more likely. And it’s very likely that though your country can go down with an economical collapse, suffer civil war or natural disasters, you will probably have the possibility to escape to somewhere safe, greener pastures.
Hel!, that’s what thousands of Argentines ultimately did, what my family did, and what I intend to do as soon as possible.
Just last week my parents told me that they ran across some old friends that recently moved to Spain. Bad guys broke into their home with them inside, don’t know exactly what happened but it must have bee ugly, so they got fed up of the insecurity and moved to Spain with their daughter.
I consider myself a citizen of the world, and have no problem to move if I must. I strongly suggest you think about this, because it may be the ultimate survival solution. While I do believe in the stronghold, retreat concept, I do not believe it is possible to fight off an entire starved, crazed nation.
If we are going to consider long term, permanent TEOTWAWKI, do consider moving to another country, far away, and plan accordingly. This means, having money in accounts, documents and passports ready, maybe even learn a second language.
Now that I think of it, a solid financial situation and making sure his kids had a worldly, ample mentality, was all my father did, unconsciously or not, to make sure his family survived, and he sure did succeed where millions of others failed. Considering he lived in a shack with earth floor when his parents moved from Spain 50 years ago, he sure did better than the rest.
My father’s “survival arsenal” ? a 22 semi auto, a .22 revolver and a box of ammo, until I convinced him of buying a 1911. Still, we did ok. Savings and investing was the key to our survival.
The survivalist that has 5000-10000 bucks worth of weapons, years worth of food and a safe water source but no money invested anywhere is not doing things right. Even if you invest all you have on your retreat, and manage to get of the grid and live in your retreat without the need of anything else, you are pinning yourself down to one single point in the map, from which you can’t move.
Look to what happened to an entire generation of Spanish. They fled Spain escaping civil war. Look at what we are now doing over here. Moving to Spain, escaping from a economical/political SHTF scenario. See a pattern here?
I know that some refuse to leave their country because of patriotism, but you still CAN be a patriot and still leave if you have to.
Many of the most dedicated fighters had to leave my country during the “Dirty War” civil war/dictatorship in the 70’s. They where alive to come back and bring those dictators and murderers to justice, while those that stayed and fought simply got executed. Which would you rather be?
Save money, invest, travel, make new friends, visit those long lost parents in the old continent, they will be happy to see you, travel around and learn about different cultures, how to be flexible and adapt to them. This is, by far, the best advice I can give you all when it comes to bad, bad, SHTF.
Sometimes, you simply run out of options. Happened here, happened before, and happened in several places. It can happen to you.
A person is not a survivalist simply because he lives in the woods, wears camo all day long, and has always a rifle hanging from his shoulder and looking for trespassers to shoot. That is not what I want in life, and that is not what I consider a flexible, adaptable person. In my humble opinion, the survivalist can feel as comfortable in the woods as in a cocktail party surrounded by sheep. He can play both games, he can adapt. He’s a person that can smile back at those that think differently and keep his convictions to himself if needed. A person that cannot tolerate the presence of others that are not like him has a limited adaptation capability and therefore is limited when it comes to survival. Maybe he’s great at wild life survival, but not at the real world, society surviving. He’s good at the kind of survival required to survive a plane cash in the Amazons, which is great, but he cant deal with society and other people.
You have to get over the idea of the retreat being the ultimate, final survival answer to a crisis. That’s incorrect. The final, terminal solution is to leave the country or region. And that requires some social skills and savings. Keep that in mind before you spend every single penny you have on the ultimate retreat. Before anyone beats me in the head with a cinder block, the retreat/bug in house is very important, yes, it’s the semi-last solution, it’s the place that keeps you safe through small and medium crisis (which are more likely than big time SHTF), and it’s also your home, the place you are more than likely to spend the rest of your life in if nothing goes WAY down the swage. But when TSHTF in a large scale, you have to get out, as many of you advised me to do.
Final thought: A Message of Hope
Finally, I want to give a message of hope to you all, and remind you and me both that survival is about surviving, but not for the mere fact of living , but to live happy, rich lives.
Prepare because it’s the smart thing to do, and not because you are looking forward to SHTF and other disasters.
Do not make the mistake of thinking that TSHTF will be a brand new start for you, and that all your problems will just go away and you’ll have a new start in the brave new world.
It doesn’t work that way. Quite the contrary, everything will get worse, small problems will turn into bigger, more serious problems. If you have drinking problems, you’ll drink more, if you can’t keep a job, you’ll spend years unemployed, if you have a disease, you’ll see that it’s harder to get attention and medications. Again everything gets WORSE.
Someone once asked me, “How is it that you cant shoot a criminal 200 meters away, but police don’t do anything to stop them?”.
SHTF, whatever type of crisis it may be, isn’t fair. It will be absolutely unfair.
You’ll have good, honest people starving, while corrupt ones make profit, you wont have a cop to protect you but they sure will come after you when a criminal presses false charges against you. That’s the way it works.
So, anyone looking forward to TEOTWAWKI for a fresh start, better think again, and get your life straighten out NOW.
Survivalists are often considered as dark fatalists, doomsday worshipers. This is not so, the real survivalist should not be like this.
Negative people will have a hard time dealing with a crisis. It takes a positive, good natured person to make it through.
Know that there are dangers, and situations you can not predict and prepare as best as you can for them. But never forget to live life at it’s fullest.
You and I, we don’t know how long we have on this Earth, so make the best out of it, each passing minute.
A survivalist should not be a pessimist, he should always be positive, happy and enjoying life more than anyone else because he understands that each minute of peace we have is precious and unique, and he never takes it for granted.
The way I see it, the survivalist is a vital, fit, ever curious, good humored person. He’s fit because he takes care of his body, and his body takes care of him, he’s curious, because he thinks that it’s important to learn new things all the time, and he enjoys learning, he has a good humor because he’s sure of himself, and treats others the way he wants to be treated.
That’s how we should behave. Being a survivalist is 90% mental attitude. And even if SHTF does not occur in our life, that attitude makes our life more rich and fulfilling.
There are things in life we can control and others we can’t, the survivalist way of thinking makes sure we control those we can and accept those we cant.
So, if you have that mentality, either by having a fully independent homestead or simply a few funds, some supplies, a couple of weapons and bug out bags, set that chin a little higher, walk a little bit straighter, no mater if you are a doctor or accountant, trucker or plumber, be proud my friend, because you are a dyeing breed.
You are, without a doubt, a better person.
The Saucepan
I know that many of you are asking themselves: What is this guy doing with such a pic?
The saucepan is a symbol in my country. It was used to remove one useless President after another, a total of 5 in one week. People would beat the pan in their homes and on the streets as a sign of protest. The sound of MILLIONS of pans beating is… humbling, to say the least. It’s like one giant vibration wave that no one could ignore, therefore the president had to escape the government house through the roof in a chopper.
It is also a symbol of hunger. Thousands of Argentines beat pans like that one against the closed doors of the banks that refused to return them their money.
The saucepan.
http://www.survival-spot.com/surviva...s/saucepan.jpg
A powerful symbol indeed.
It only proves that it’s not the weapon, M16, FAL, M1A, it’s the willpower that matters.
A saucepan. When every single Argentine beat it, the power of all of them united was enough to remove a president, backed by an entire army.
Not a shot fired, just the will of the people.. and a saucepan to be heard.
http://www.survival-spot.com/surviva...tina-collapse/
Argentine economic crisis (1999–2002)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Argentine economic crisis was a financial situation, tied to political unrest, that affected Argentina's economy during the late 1990s and early 2000s. In macroeconomical terms, the critical period started with the decrease of real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 1999 and ended in 2002 with the return to GDP growth, but the origins of the collapse of Argentina's economy, and also the effects on the country's population, can be traced back to both poor economical and political decisions.[1][edit] Origins
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Argentina was subject to military dictatorship (alternating with weak, short-lived democratic governments) for many years, that resulted in a number of significant economic problems. During the National Reorganization Process (1976–1983) huge debt was acquired for money that was later lost in unfinished projects, the Falklands War, and the state's takeover of private debts; in this period, a neoliberal economic platform was introduced. By the end of the military government the country's industries were severely affected and unemployment, calculated at 18% (though official figures claimed 5%), was at its highest point since the Great Depression.In 1983, democracy in the country was restored with the election of president Raúl Alfonsín. The new government's plans included stabilizing Argentina's economy including the creation of a new currency (the austral, which was the first of its kind not to carry the word peso as part of its name), for which new loans were required. The state eventually became unable to pay the interest of this debt and confidence in the austral collapsed. Inflation, which had been held between 10 and 20% per month, spiraled out of control. In July 1989, Argentina's inflation reached 200% that month alone, topping 5,000% for the year. During the Alfonsin years unemployment did not substantially increase but real wages fell by almost half (to the lowest level in fifty years). Amid riots President Alfonsín resigned five months before ending his term and Carlos Menem, who was already President-elect, took office.[edit] 1990s
Following a second bout of hyperinflation, in late 1990 Domingo Cavallo was appointed Minister of the Economy.[2][3] In 1991 he took executive measures that fixed the value of Argentine currency at ₳10,000 per US$.[4] Furthermore, any citizen could go to a bank and convert any amount of domestic currency to dollars. To secure this "convertibility" the Central Bank of Argentina had to keep its U.S. dollar foreign exchange reserves at the same level as the cash in circulation. The initial aim of such measures was to ensure the acceptance of domestic currency because, after the 1989 and 1990 hyperinflation peaks, some people had started to reject it as payment and demanded U.S. dollars instead. This regime was later fixated by a law (Ley de Convertibilidad) which restored the peso as the Argentine currency with a monetary value tied to the value of the U.S. dollar.[5]As a result of the convertibility law inflation dropped sharply, price stability was assured and the value of the currency was preserved. This raised the quality of life for many citizens who could now afford to travel abroad, buy imported goods or ask for credit in dollars at very low interest rates.Argentina still had external debts to pay and needed to borrow more money for these. The fixed exchange rate made imports cheap, producing a constant flight of dollars away from the country and a progressive loss of Argentina's industrial infrastructure which led to an increase in unemployment.In the meantime, government spending continued to be high and corruption was rampant. Argentina's public debt grew enormously during the 1990s and the country showed no true signs of being able to pay it. The IMF, however, kept lending money to Argentina and postponing its payment schedules. Massive tax evasion and money laundering explained a large part of the evaporation of funds toward offshore banks. A congressional committee started investigations in 2001 over accusations that the Central Bank of Argentina's governor, Pedro Pou, as well as part of the board of directors, had failed to investigate cases of alleged money laundering through Argentina's financial system.[6] Clearstream was also accused of being instrumental in this global financial process.Other countries, such as Mexico and Brazil (both of which also happen to be important trade partners for Argentina), faced economic crises of their own leading other countries to mistrust Latin American countries moneywise and affecting the overall economy of the region. The influx of foreign currency provided by the privatisation of state companies had dried up. After 1999 Argentine exports were harmed by the devaluation of the Brazilian real and a considerable international revaluation of the dollar effectively revaluing the peso against its major trading partners, Brazil (30% of total trade flows) and the euro area (23% of total trade flows).By 1999, newly elected President Fernando de la Rúa[7] faced a country where unemployment had risen to a critical point and the undesirable effects of the fixed exchange rate were showing forcefully. In 1999 Argentina's gross domestic product (GDP) dropped 4% and the country entered a recession which lasted three years ending in a collapse. Economic stability became economic stagnation (even deflation at times) and the economic measures taken did nothing to avert it. In fact the government continued the contractive economic policies of its predecessor. The possible solution (abandonment of the exchange peg, with a voluntary devaluation of the peso) was considered political suicide and a recipe for economic disaster. By the end of the century, a spectrum of complementary currencies had emerged.While the provinces had always issued complementary currency in the form of bonds and drafts to brave shortages of cash, the maintenance of the convertibility regime led to this being done in an unprecedented scale. This led to their being called "quasi-currencies", the strongest of them being Buenos Aires province's Patacón. The national state also issued its own quasi-currency—the LECOP.[8][edit] EventSince the early 1990s, Argentina had been closely engaged with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), with the organism providing the country with a reliable access to credit and guiding its economic reforms. When its economy entered in recession the federal government deficit widened to 2.5% of GDP in 1999 and its external debt surpassed 50% of GDP.[9] Seeing these levels as excessive, the IMF advised the government that it needed to address the issue of investor confidence, and that the government had to balance its budget by implementing austerity measures to do so. Complying with IMF's requests, De la Rua administration committed to a sustained effort of fiscal consolidation and implemented US$1.4 billion in cuts in its first weeks in office in late 1999. In June 2000, with unemployment at 14% and projections of 3.5% GDP growth for the year, that move was furthered by a package of US$938 million in spending cuts and US$2 billion in tax increases.[10] Following De la Rúa's vice president Carlos Álvarez resignation in October 2000 (2000-10) over bribery suspicions in the Upper House,[11] the crisis accelerated.[citation needed]GDP growth projections proved to be overly optimistic (instead of growing, real GDP shrank 0.8%), and lagging tax receipts prompted the government to freeze spending and cut retirement benefits again in November 2000 (2000-11).[12][not in citation given] In early November, Standard & Poor's placed Argentina on a credit watch, and a treasury bill auction resulted in yields reaching 16% (up from 9% in July); this was the second highest rate of any country in South America at the time.[13] Rising bond yields left Argentina with no choice but to borrow from major international lenders, such as the IMF, World Bank, and the U.S. Treasury, which would lend to the government at below-market rates, and to comply with their conditions. Several more rounds of belt-tightening followed. José Luis Machinea resigned as the Minister of Economy in February 2001. He was replaced with Ricardo López Murphy, who lasted 8 days in the office before being replaced with Domingo Cavallo. In July 2001, Standard and Poor's cut the credit rating of the country to B–.[14] In July 2001 the government instituted an unpopular across-the-board pay cut of up to 13% to all civil servants and an equivalent cut to government pension benefits - seventh austerity plan implemented since President Fernando de la Rua took office in 1999,[15] triggering nationwide strikes,[16] and, starting in August, it was forced to pay salaries of highest-paid employees in I.O.U.s instead of money.[17] This further depressed the economy, which was already weak after a three-year recession. The unemployment rate rose to 16.4% in August 2001[18] up from a 14.7% a month earlier,[19] and it stood at 20% by December.[20]In October 2001 (2001-10), public discontent with the economic conditions was expressed in the nationwide election. President Fernando de la Rua's alliance lost seats in both chambers of Argentina's congress, leaving it in the minority. Over 20% of all voters chose to enter so-called "anger votes", returning blank or defaced ballots rather than indicate support of any candidate.[21]The crisis intensified when, on 5 December 2001, the IMF refused to release a US$1.3 billion tranche of its loan, citing the failure of the Argentinean government to reach previously agreed-upon budget deficit targets,[22] and demanded further budget cuts, amounting 10% of the federal budget.[23] On 4 December, Argentinean bond yields stood at 34% over U.S. treasury bonds, and, by 11 December, the spread jumped to 42%.[24][25]By the end of November 2001 (2001-11), people fearing the worst began withdrawing large sums of money from their bank accounts, turning pesos into dollars and sending them abroad, causing a run on the banks. On 2 December 2001 the government enacted a set of measures, informally known as the corralito,[26][27] that effectively froze all bank accounts for twelve months,[28][29] allowing for only minor sums of cash to be withdrawn, initially announced to be of just $250 a week.[30][edit] December 2001 riots and political turmoil
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Main article: December 2001 riots (Argentina)Because of this allowance limit and the serious problems it caused in certain cases, many Argentines became enraged and took to the streets of important cities, especially Buenos Aires. They engaged in a form of popular protest that became known as cacerolazo[27][31][32][33] (banging pots and pans). These protests occurred especially in 2001 and 2002. At first the cacerolazos were simply noisy demonstrations, but soon they included property destruction,[34] often directed at banks,[35][36] foreign privatized companies, and especially big American and European companies. Many businesses installed metal barriers because windows and glass facades were being broken, and even fires being ignited at their doors. Billboards of such companies as Coca Cola and others were brought down by the masses of demonstrators.http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...a_renuncia.JPGhttp://bits.wikimedia.org/skins-1.18...gnify-clip.pngAmid rioting, President Fernando de la Rua resigned on 21 December 2001.Confrontations between the police and citizens became a common sight, and fires were also set on Buenos Aires avenues. Fernando de la Rúa declared a state of emergency,[37] only to get the situation worsened, precipitating the violent protests of 20 and 21 December 2001 in Plaza de Mayo, where clashes between demonstrators and the police ended up with several people dead, and precipitated the fall of the government.[20][38][39] De la Rúa eventually fled the Casa Rosada in a helicopter on 21 December.[40] Following presidential succession procedures established in the Constitution, the Senate chairman is the one in the line of succession in the absence of both president and vice-president in office.[41] Therefore, Ramón Puerta took office as caretaker's head of state, and the Legislative Assembly (a body formed by merging both chambers of the Congress) was convened.[42][43] By law, the candidates were the members of the Senate plus the Governors of the Provinces; Adolfo Rodríguez Saá, then governor of San Luis, was eventually appointed as the new interim president.[44] During the last week of 2001, the interim government led by Rodríguez Saá, facing the impossibility of meeting debt payments, defaulted on the larger part of the public debt, totalling no less than US$132 billion, what approximately represented the seventh portion of all the money borrowed by the Third World.[1]Politically, the most heated debate involved the time for the following elections—the spectrum ranged from March 2002 to October 2003 (the original date for the ending of De la Rúa's office).[citation needed]Rodríguez Saá's economy team came up with a project designed to preserve the convertibility regime, dubbed the "Third Currency" Plan. It consisted of creating a new, non-convertible currency called Argentino coexisting with convertible pesos and U.S. dollars. It would only circulate as cash (checks, promissory notes or other instruments could be nominated in pesos or dollars but not in Argentinos) and would be partially guaranteed with federally managed land—such features were expected to counterbalance inflationary tendencies.Argentinos having legal currency status would be used to redeem all complementary currency already in circulation—the acceptance of which as a means of payment was quite uneven. It was hoped that preservation of convertibility would restore public confidence, while the non-convertible nature of this currency would allow for a measure of fiscal flexibility (unthinkable with pesos) that could ameliorate the crippling recession of economy. Critics called this plan merely a "controlled devaluation"; its advocates countered that since controlling a devaluation is perhaps its thorniest issue, this criticism was a praise in disguise. The "Third Currency" plan had enthusiastic supporters among mainstream economists (the most notorious being perhaps Martín Redrado, a former president of the central bank) citing sound technical arguments. However, it could never be implemented because the Rodríguez Saá government lacked the political support required.Rodríguez Saá, utterly incapable of dealing with the crisis and unsupported by his own party, resigned before the end of the year. The Legislative Assembly convened again, appointing Peronist Eduardo Duhalde—then a Senator for the Buenos Aires province—to take his place.[edit] End of convertibility
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...na%2C_2002.pnghttp://bits.wikimedia.org/skins-1.18...gnify-clip.pngMonthly inflation in Argentina, 2002 (the peak is 10.4%, in April).After much deliberation, Duhalde abandoned in January 2002 the fixed 1-to-1 peso–dollar parity that had been in place for ten years. In a matter of days, the peso lost a large part of its value in the unregulated market. A provisional "official" exchange rate was set at 1.4 pesos per dollar.In addition to the corralito, the Ministry of Economy dictated the pesificación, by which all bank accounts denominated in dollars would be converted to pesos at official rate. This measure angered most savings holders and appeals were made by many citizens to declare it unconstitutional.After a few months, the exchange rate was left to float more or less freely. The peso suffered a huge depreciation, which in turn prompted inflation (since Argentina depended heavily on imports, and had no means to replace them locally at the time).The economic situation became steadily worse with regards to inflation and unemployment during 2002. By that time the original 1-to-1 rate had increased to nearly 4 pesos per dollar, while the accumulated inflation since the devaluation was about 80%; these figures were considerably lower than those foretold by most orthodox economists at the time. The quality of life of the average Argentine was lowered proportionally; many businesses closed or went bankrupt, many imported products became virtually inaccessible, and salaries were left as they were before the crisis.Since the volume of pesos did not fit the demand for cash (even after the devaluation) huge quantities of a wide spectrum of complementary currency kept circulating alongside them. Fears of hyperinflation as a consequence of devaluation quickly eroded the attractiveness of their associated revenue, originally stated in convertible pesos. Their acceptability now ultimately depended on the State's willingness to take them as payment of taxes and other charges, consequently becoming very irregular. Very often they were taken at less than their nominal value—while the Patacón was frequently accepted at the same value as peso, Entre Ríos's Federal was among the worst-faring, at an average 30% as the provincial government that had issued them was reluctant to take them back. There were also frequent rumors that the Government would simply banish complementary currency overnight (instead of redeeming them, even at disadvantageous rates), leaving their holders with useless printed paper.[edit] Immediate effects
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...0020206-17.JPGhttp://bits.wikimedia.org/skins-1.18...gnify-clip.pngDepositors protest the freezing of their accounts. Their mostly dollar-denominated accounts were converted to pesos at less than half their new value.Many private companies were affected by the crisis: Aerolíneas Argentinas, for example, was one of the most affected Argentine companies, having to stop all international flights for various days in 2002. The airline came close to bankruptcy, but survived.Most barter networks, viable as devices to ameliorate the shortage of cash during the recession, collapsed as large numbers of people turned to them, desperate to save as many pesos as they could for exchange for hard currency as a palliative for uncertainty.[citation needed]Several thousand newly homeless and jobless Argentines found work as cartoneros, or cardboard collectors. The 2003 estimation of 30,000 to 40,000 people scavenged the streets for cardboard to eke out a living by selling it to recycling plants. This method accounts for only one of many ways of coping in a country that at the time suffered from an unemployment rate soaring at nearly 25%.[45]Agriculture was also affected: Argentine products were rejected in some international markets, for fear they might arrive damaged from the poor conditions they grew in, and the USDA put restrictions on Argentine food and drugs arriving at the United States.Producers of television channels were forced to produce more reality shows than any other type of shows, because these were generally cheap to produce as compared to other programmes. Virtually all education-related TV programmes were canceled.[citation needed][edit] Recovery
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._1999-2004.pnghttp://bits.wikimedia.org/skins-1.18...gnify-clip.pngEvolution of the Argentine GNP, 1999–2004http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...a_reserves.pnghttp://bits.wikimedia.org/skins-1.18...gnify-clip.pngForeign currency reserves of Argentina's central bank, in millions of USDEduardo Duhalde finally managed to stabilise the situation to a certain extent, and called for elections. On 25 May 2003 Néstor Kirchner took office as the new president. Kirchner kept Duhalde's Minister of Economy, Roberto Lavagna, in his post. Lavagna, a respected economist with centrist views, showed a considerable aptitude at managing the crisis, with the help of heterodox measures.The economic outlook was completely different from that of the 1990s; the devalued peso made Argentine exports cheap and competitive abroad, while discouraging imports. In addition, the high price of soy in the international market produced an injection of massive amounts of foreign currency (with China becoming a major buyer of Argentina's soy products).The government encouraged import substitution and accessible credit for businesses, staged an aggressive plan to improve tax collection, and set aside large amounts of money for social welfare, while controlling expenditure in other fields.[citation needed]As a result of the administration's productive model and controlling measures (selling reserve dollars in the public market), the peso slowly revalued, reaching a 3-to-1 rate to the dollar. Agricultural exports grew and tourism returned.The huge trade surplus ultimately caused such an inflow of dollars that the government was forced to begin intervening to keep the peso from revaluing further, which would ruin the tax collection scheme (largely based on import taxes and royalties) and discourage further reindustrialisation. The central bank started buying dollars in the local market and stocking them as reserves. By December 2005, foreign currency reserves had reached US$28 billion (they were greatly reduced by the anticipated payment of the full debt to the IMF in January 2006 (2006-01)). The downside of this reserve accumulation strategy is that the dollars have to be bought with freshly issued pesos, which may induce inflation. The central bank neutralises a part of this monetary emission by selling Treasury letters[clarification needed]. In this way the exchange rate has been stabilised near a reference value of 3 pesos to the dollar.http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...to_de_2004.jpghttp://bits.wikimedia.org/skins-1.18...gnify-clip.pngPresident Néstor Kirchner and Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna discuss policy, August, 2004.The currency exchange issue is complicated by two mutually opposing factors: a sharp increase in imports since 2004 (which raises the demand of dollars), and the return of foreign investment (which brings fresh currency from abroad) after the successful restructuring of about three quarters of the external debt. The government has set up controls and restrictions aimed at keeping short-term speculative investment from destabilising the financial market.Argentina's recovery suffered a minor setback in 2004 when rising industrial demand caused a short-lived energy crisis. The prospect of future energy shortages are not discounted.Argentina has managed to return to growth with surprising strength; the GDP jumped 8.8% in 2003, 9.0% in 2004, 9.2% in 2005, 8.5% in 2006 and 8.7% in 2007. Though average wages have increased 17% annually since 2002 (jumping 25% in the year to May 2008),[46] consumer prices have partly accompanied this surge; though not comparable to the levels of former crises, the inflation rate was 12.5% in 2005, 10% in 2006 and is believed by private economists to have approached 15% in 2007 and to exceed 20% during 2008[citation needed](even if the Ministry of Economy refuses to acknowledge inflation greater than 10%). This has prompted the government to increase tariffs for exporters and to pressure retailers into one price truce after another in a bid to stabilize prices, so far with little effect.While unemployment has been considerably reduced (it has been hovering around 8.5% since 2006), Argentina has so far failed to reach an equitable distribution of income (the wealthiest 10% of the population receives 31 times more income than the poorest 10%). This disparity, nevertheless, compares quite favorably to levels seen in most of Latin America.[edit] Worker-owned cooperatives and self-management
During the economic collapse, many business owners and foreign investors drew all of their money out of the Argentine economy and sent it overseas. As a result, many small and medium enterprises closed due to lack of capital, thereby exacerbating unemployment. Many workers at these enterprises, faced with a sudden loss of employment and no source of income, decided to reopen businesses on their own, without the presence of the owners and their capital, as self-managed cooperatives.[47][48]Worker managed cooperative businesses range from ceramics factory Zanon (FaSinPat), to the four-star Hotel Bauen, to suit factory Brukman, to printing press Chilavert, and many others. In some cases, former owners sent police to remove workers out of these workplaces; this was sometimes successful but in other cases workers defended occupied workplaces against the state, the police, and the bosses.[47][49]A survey by an Argentina newspaper in the capital found that around 1/3 of the population had participated in general assemblies. The assemblies used to take place in street corners and public spaces, and generally gathered to discuss ways of helping each other in the face of eviction, or organizing around issues like health care, collective food buying, or conducting free food distribution programs. Some assemblies started to create new structures of health care and schooling, to replace the old ones that were not working. Neighborhood assemblies met once a week in a large assembly to discuss issues affecting the larger community.[50] In 2004, Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein (author of No Logo) released the documentary The Take, about these events.Some businesses have now been legally purchased by the workers for nominal fees, others remain 'occupied' by workers who have no legal standing with the state (and in some cases reject negotiation with the state on the grounds that working productively is its own justification). The Argentine government is considering a Law of Expropriation that would transfer some occupied businesses to their worker-managers.[edit] Effects on wealth distribution
Although GDP has grown consistently and quickly since 2003, it was only in late 2004 that it reached the levels of 1998 (the last year before the recession). Other macroeconomic indicators have followed suit. A study by Equis, an independent counseling organization, found out that two measures of economic inequality, the Gini coefficient and the wealth gap between the 10% poorest and the 10% richest among the population, grew continuously since 2001, and decreased for the first time in March 2005.Similar statistics are available from the World Bank [51][edit] Debt restructuring
Date ofmeasurement Extremepoverty Underpovertyline May 2001 11.6% 35.9% October 2001 13.6% 38.3% May 2002 24.8% 53.0% October 2002 27.5% 57.5% May 2003 26.3% 54.7% 2nd sem 2003 20.5% 47.8% 1st sem 2004 17.0% 44.3% 2nd sem 2004 15.0% 40.2% 1st sem 2005 13.6% 38.5% 2nd sem 2005 12.2% 33.8% 1st sem 2006 11.2% 31.4% 2nd sem 2006 8.7% 26.4% 2nd sem 2007 5.9% 20.6% 1st sem 2008 5.1% 17.8% 2nd sem 2008 4.4% 15.3% The table on the left shows statistics of poverty in Argentina, in percent of the population. The first column shows the date of the measurement (note that the method and time changed in 2003; poverty is now measured each semester). Extreme poverty is here defined as not having enough money to eat properly. The poverty line is set higher: it is the minimum income needed for basic needs including food, clothing, shelter, and studies.
Main article: Argentine debt restructuringWhen the default was declared in 2002, foreign investment fled the country, and capital flow towards Argentina ceased almost completely. The Argentine government met severe challenges trying to refinance the debt. The state had no spare money at the time, and the central bank's foreign currency reserves were almost depleted.The Argentine government kept a firm stance, and finally got a deal in 2005 by which 76% of the defaulted bonds were exchanged by others, of a much lower nominal value (25–35% of the original) and at longer terms. In 2008, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner announced she was studying a reopening of the 2005 swap to gain adhesion from the remaining 24% of the so-called "holdouts", and thereby fully exit the default with private investors.[edit] Criticism of the IMF
The International Monetary Fund suffered no discounts in its part of the Argentine debt. Some payments were refinanced or postponed on agreement. However, the authorities of the IMF at times expressed harsh criticism of the discounts and actively lobbied for the private creditors.In a speech before the United Nations General Assembly on September 21, 2004, President Kirchner said that "An urgent, tough, and structural redesign of the International Monetary Fund is needed, to prevent crises and help in [providing] solutions". Implicitly referencing the fact that the intent of the original Bretton Woods system was to encourage economic development, Kirchner warned that the IMF today must "change that direction, which took it from being a lender for development to a creditor demanding privileges".During the weekend of October 1–2, 2004, at the annual meeting of the IMF/World Bank, leaders of the IMF, the European Union, the Group of Seven industrialised nations, and the Institute of International Finance (IIF), warned President Kirchner that Argentina had to come to an immediate debt-restructuring agreement with the speculative "vulture funds", increase its primary budget surplus to pay more debt, and impose "structural reforms" to prove to the world financial community that it deserved loans and investment.In 2005, as a large and consistently growing fiscal surplus made it possible, Argentina shifted to a policy of debt relief towards the IMF: paying the IMF in schedule, with no negotiation whenever possible, with the intention of gaining independence from it. On December 15, 2005, following a similar action by Brazil, President Kirchner suddenly announced that Argentina would pay the whole debt to the IMF. The debt payments, totaling 9.810 billion USD, were previously scheduled as installments until 2008. Argentina paid it with the central bank's foreign currency reserves.In a June 2006 report, a group of independent experts hired by the IMF to revise the work of its Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) stated that the assessment of the Argentine case suffered from informative manipulation and lack of collaboration on the part of the IMF; the IEO is claimed to have unduly softened its conclusions to avoid criticizing the IMF's board of directors.[edit] Films[edit] See also
- Memoria del Saqueo, by Pino Solanas
- Un Día de suerte
- The Take
- Nueve Reinas
- Documentary 52': Que Justice soit Faite
- "i" Indymedia, Argentina, and the Questions of Communication
[edit] References
- 1999 in Argentina
- 2000 in Argentina
- 2001 in Argentina
- 2002 in Argentina
- Piquetero
- Popular assemblies
- South American economic crisis of 2002
[edit] Further reading
- ^ a b "Simpson on Sunday: Argentinians summon up the ghost of Peron in hard times". 23 December 2001. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ard-times.html. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
- ^ Nathaniel C. Nash (31 January 1991). "Turmoil, Then Hope in Argentina". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/31/bu...domingocavallo. Retrieved 14 March 2011.
- ^ "Argentina Economy Chief". The New York Times. Reuters. 30 January 1991. http://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/30/bu...domingocavallo. Retrieved 14 March 2011.
- ^ Nathaniel C. Nash (28 April 1991). "Plan by New Argentine Economy Chief Raises Cautious Hope for Recovery". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/28/wo...-recovery.html. Retrieved 14 March 2011.
- ^ "The last tango?". The Economist. 21 June 2001. http://www.economist.com/node/666355. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
- ^ "Argentina's banking scandal deepens". BBC News. 21 February 2001. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1182417.stm. Retrieved 30 November 2011.
- ^ Clifford Krauss (25 October 1999). "Party of Peron Loses Its Hold On Argentina". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/25/wo...a%20rua&st=cse. Retrieved 14 March 2011.
- ^ "Extienden el canje de las Lecop [Exchange of Lecops extended]" (in Spanish). Clarín.com. 1 November 2003. http://edant.clarin.com/diario/2003/11/01/p-02501.htm. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
- ^ "Memorandum of Economic Policies of the government of Argentina, February 14, 2000". http://www.imf.org/external/np/loi/2...g/01/index.htm.
- ^ Clifford Krauss (10 June 2000). "One-Day National Strike Freezes Much of Argentina". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/10/wo...argentina.html. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
- ^ "Argentina's vice-president quits". BBC News. 7 October 2000. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/960418.stm. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
- ^ "Argentina paralysed". BBC News. 24 November 2000. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1038448.stm. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
- ^ "Argentina, Wobbly, Clears a Borrowing Hurdle". New York Times. 9 November 2000. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/09/bu...le.html?src=pm.
- ^ "Markets quiver as IMF fears Argentina will default". 25 January. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/e...l-default.html.
- ^ "Argentina hits rock bottom". The Guardian. 9 December 2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001...tion.argentina.
- ^ "Strike Over Austerity Measures Shuts Down Argentina For A Day". Sun Sentinel. 20 July 2001. http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/200...rity-argentina. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
- ^ "Argentines cry over 'fast food currency'". The Telegraph. 22 August 2001. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/e...-currency.html. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
- ^ "Workers Struggles: The Americas". World Socialist Web Site. 21 August 2001. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/aug2001/lab-a21.shtml. Retrieved 29 November 2011. "Argentina’s unemployed number 2.3 million, 16.4 percent of the workforce."
- ^ "Don’t cry for me…". The Economist. 13 July 2001. http://www.economist.com/node/698129. Retrieved 29 November 2011. "After three years of recession, Argentina’s unemployment rate is now 14.7%."
- ^ a b "Argentina Unraveling". The New York Times. 21 December 2001. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/21/op...nraveling.html. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
- ^ "Angry vote tops Argentina poll". The Telegraph. 16 October 2001. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...tina-poll.html. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
- ^ "Argentina Scrambles for I.M.F. Loans". http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/11/bu...imf-loans.html.
- ^ "I.M.F. Gives Budget-Cut Order to Argentina". http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/10/wo...argentina.html.
- ^ David Litterick (4 December 2001). "Argentine bonds slump to new lows". The Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/e...-new-lows.html. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
- ^ David Litterick (11 December 2001). "Argentina bond yields hit 42pc". The Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/e...-hit-42pc.html. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
- ^ Carlos Ares (16 February 2002). "El 'corralito' asfixia la economía argentina [The "corralito" suffocates the Argentine economy]" (in Spanish). El País. http://www.elpais.com/articulo/inter...lpepiint_7/Tes. Retrieved 14 March 2011.
- ^ a b "La Corte Suprema dictó nuevas medidas en favor del corralito [The Supreme Court ruled out new measures backing the corralito]" (in Spanish). La Nación. DyN. 10 January 2002. http://www.lanacion.com.ar/365732-ca...-plaza-de-mayo. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
- ^ Andrew Walker (2 December 2002). "Argentina lifts cash restrictions". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2535539.stm. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
- ^ Carlos Ares (24 November 2002). "El fin del 'corralito' en Argentina será efectivo a partir del 2 de diciembre [The end of the "corralito" in Argentina will be effective from 2 December]" (in Spanish). El País. http://www.elpais.com/articulo/econo...lpepieco_3/Tes. Retrieved 14 March 2011.
- ^ Clifford Krauss (3 December 2001). "Argentina Limits Withdrawals as Banks Near Collapse". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/03/wo...-collapse.html. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
- ^ "Otro amplio cacerolazo en la ciudad [Another large cacerolazo in the city]" (in Spanish). La Nación. 11 January 2002. http://www.lanacion.com.ar/365864-ot...o-en-la-ciudad. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
- ^ "Nuevo cacerolazo contra la Corte Suprema [New cacerolazo against the Supreme Court]" (in Spanish). La Nación. DyN. 10 January 2002. http://www.lanacion.com.ar/365644-nu...-corte-suprema. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
- ^ "Cacerolazo en la Plaza de Mayo [Cacerolazo in Plaza de Mayo]" (in Spanish). La Nación. 11 January 2002. http://www.lanacion.com.ar/365732-ca...-plaza-de-mayo. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
- ^ "Otro cacerolazo terminó con incidentes [Another cacerolazo ended up in incidents]" (in Spanish). La Nación. 29 December 2001. http://www.lanacion.com.ar/362847-ot...con-incidentes. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
- ^ "Bancos y comercios destrozados después del cacerolazo [Banks and shops destroyed after a cacerolazo]" (in Spanish). La Nación. DyN. 11 January 2002. http://www.lanacion.com.ar/365869-ba...del-cacerolazo. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
- ^ "Doce policías heridos, más de 30 detenidos y negocios atacados [Twelve polices hurt, more than 30 arrested and shops attacked]" (in Spanish). La Nación. DyN. 29 December 2001. http://www.lanacion.com.ar/362851-do...ocios-atacados. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
- ^ Sophie Arie (20 December 2001). "Argentina in 'state of siege' after riots". The Telegraph (Buenos Aires). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ter-riots.html. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
- ^ Uki Goni (21 December 2001). "Argentina collapses into chaos". The Telegraph (Buenos Aires). http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001...entina.ukigoni. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
- ^ "The night Argentina said 'enough'". BBC News. 20 December 2001. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1720915.stm. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
- ^ "Argentine president resigns". BBC News. 21 December 2001. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1722584.stm. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
- ^ Sophie Arie (21 December 2001). "Argentina on the brink of collapse". The Telegraph (Buenos Aires). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-collapse.html. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
- ^ Sophie Arie (22 December 2001). "New President fights to unite nation". The Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...te-nation.html. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
- ^ "Renunció De la Rúa: el peronista Puerta está a cargo del Poder Ejecutivo [De la Rúa resigned: Peronist Puerta is in charge of the Executive Branch]" (in Spanish). La Nación. 21 December 2001. http://www.lanacion.com.ar/361035-re...oder-ejecutivo. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
- ^ Andrew Graham-Yooll (23 December 2001). "Argentina's new president vows not to devalue". The Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...o-devalue.html. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
- ^ "Accommodating an army of garbage pickers" - CNN.com
- ^ Ministerio de Economía y Producción - República Argentina
- ^ a b Benjamin Dangl, 'Occupy, Resist, Produce: Worker Cooperatives in Argentina' http://upsidedownworld.org/coops_arg.htm
- ^ Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina, by Marina Sitrin
- ^ The Take, by Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein
- ^ "Americas Program | Citizen Action in the Americas | Worker-Run Factories: From Survival to Economic Solidarity". Americaspolicy.org. http://www.americaspolicy.org/citize...factories.html. Retrieved 2009-11-09.
- ^ http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.URHC
[edit] External links
- "Guillermo Nielsen exclusive: Inside Argentina’s financial crisis" An insider's account, by Guillermo Nielsen, until recently the Secretary of Finance in Argentina, about his tenure there and specifically about the fraught negotiations the country had regarding its debt with the IMF, investment banks and bondholders. It goes into detail about the negotiations, the people involved. Euromoney March 2006.
- Banco Central de la República Argentina (Argentina's central bank website, with various economic statistics available on the fly)
- Argentina: Life After Default Article looking at how Argentina has recovered from the crisis
- Video: "Argentina's Economic Recovery: Four Years After the Meltdown" featuring CEPR co-director Mark Weisbrot and former IMF Research Director Michael Mussa, November 30, 2005
- Mindmapping for Economic Crisis of Argentina
- A Look at Argentina’s 2001 Economic Rebellion and the Social Movements that Led It - video report by Democracy Now!
- F. Bortot, "Frozen Savings and Depressed Development in Argentina", Savings and Development, Vol. XXVII, n. 2, 2003.
- Mussa, Michael (2002). Argentina and the Fund: from triumph to tragedy. Peterson Institute.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argenti...9%E2%80%932002)
- Argentina Didn't Fall on Its Own (Global Exchange)
- Argentina's debt restructuring: A victory by default? (The Economist)
- Argentina’s Economic Disaster (The Free Market)
- How Argentina Got Into This Mess (The Cato Institute)
- Confiscatory Deflation: The Case of Argentina (Joseph T. Salerno, Ph.D. Professor of Economics)
- No Tears for Argentina (Antony P. Mueller, Ph.D. Professor of Economics)
- Report of the External Evaluation of the Independent Evaluation Office (International Monetary Fund)
- The Crisis that Was Not Prevented: Lessons for Argentina, the IMF, and Globalisation (Jan Joost Teunissen and Age Akkerman)
- The Empty ATM (PBS, Wide Angle)
- What went wrong in Argentina? (Steve H. Hanke, Ph.D. Professor of Applied Economics and Kurt Schuler, Ph.D. Economics)
- Jutta Maute: Hyperinflation, Currency Board, and Bust: The Case of Argentina, (Hohenheimer Volkswirtschaftliche Schriften) (Paperback), Peter Lang Publishing; 1st edition (September 2006), ISBN 0820487082, ISBN 978-0820487083.
How to make fire without matches or a lighter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iha9vQvn ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iha9vQvnWMU&feature=related
great for a real quick camp fire in wet conditions
EatTheWeeds: Episode 87: Blackberries, Dewberries, Rubus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6xXGevM9HM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6xXGevM9HM
Outdoor Survival: Food - Rhubarb
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD4RWpZHkE4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD4RWpZHkE4
Perch Trappin'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp0T2EqF ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp0T2EqF8Fc&feature=related
Mar 28, 2009http://www.reeltexasoutdoors.com/products
Showing off how the Four Leaf Clover perch trap works....
For ORDERING INFORMATION or additional questions please visit the link above:
or email me at: Mike@Reeltexasoutdoors.com
Thanks for watching my video, and God bless.
Edible Wild Plants: Dandelion Coffee (Wilderness Survival skills and courses)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5fcbza- ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5fcbza-whg&feature=related
Making Dandelion Coffee
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd3eNjjPhUQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd3eNjjPhUQ
dandelion Root coffee, wilderness survival,native American coffee
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WiuYyk_ ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WiuYyk_vXM&feature=related
Homestead Series Cast Iron Pots And Pans
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADvdYXCx-bA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADvdYXCx-bA
Oct 13, 2009
We use almost all cast iron pans and pots now. Wouldn't go back. We show how to maintain them and there advantages.
Eggplant Cures Skin Cancer
by Melanie Grimes, citizen journalist
(NaturalNews) An ingredient in common eggplant has been shown to cure cancer. The eggplant extract is a phytochemical called solasodine glycoside, or BEC5. Dr. Bill E. Cham discovered it, after hearing of a folk medicine cure from Australian farmers. They told him of eye cancers cured in cattle after application of a poultice made from the fruit of a weed called Devil's Apple, known in Latin as Solanum linnaeanum. This plant is part of the Solanacea family, which includes other common vegetables such as tomato and eggplant.
BEC5 works by bonding to a receptor on the surface of the cancer cell. After the cell digests the eggplant extract, it causes the cell to rupture. The cancer cell is destroyed and its contents are then reabsorbed by the body.
BEC5 has been proven effective in treating over 80,000 cases of skin cancer, preventing surgery. The types of cancer treated by eggplant are both invasive and non-invasive non-melanoma skin cancers. In every case the cancers went into remission and did not return. Australians have been curing their skin cancers using these phytochemicals for decades.
BEC5 acts by killing cancer cells without harming any other healthy cells in the human body. BEC5 can also be used to treat actinic keratose, the precursor to cancer, as well as age or sunspots on the skin.
Actinic keratoses are a possible predictor of skin cancer. These red patches caused by sun exposure are made of abnormal cells that can mutate into malignant cells in the basal, or lower layers of the skin. Squamous cell carcinomas are another common form of skin cancer, and one which causes nearly two thousands deaths annually. This wart-type growth has irregular borders and can also be treated with the eggplant extract.
Used as a cream for over twenty-five years in clinical trials in both Australia and the United Kingdom, BEC5 had success rate of over 78% when applied for eight weeks. Used for 12 weeks, the cream had a 100% success rate in removing cancers, none of which returned for the following five years.
Over one million new cases of non-melanoma skin cancers are diagnosed each year in the United States alone. Skin cancer is now the most common illness in men over the age of 50. It is even more common than lung, prostate or colon cancer. Incidences are so common that one out of three Caucasians are now expected to develop skin cancer at some point in their lives. With this simple, natural remedy, many surgeries might be prevented and health restored.
http://ahha.org/SkinCancerCure.htm
http://www.lmreview.com/articles/eggpla ... _cure.html
http://www.skincancer.org/
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/lrn/lrn_0.asp
http://www.naturalnews.com/z027506_eggp ... ancer.html
http://mtnhse.com/mm5/graphics/en-US...logo-bl-bg.gif
a good site for dehydrated survival foods ...
http://www.mtnhse.com/mm5/merchant.mvc? ... _Code=MHDL
I seen Katrina... and if I learned anything.. don't count on the government
http://www.mtnhse.com/mm5/images/shim.gif
http://www.mtnhse.com/mm5/images/shim.gif
camping survival
http://www.campingsurvival.com/essentials.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkIG-...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkIG-hdmv4o&feature=related
Apr 3, 2011Pine needle tea or woodmans brew, very nice tasting drink and smells like oranges. Great for camping!
Fights scurvy big time if no citrus is present
This isn't wasted time Airborne :wink:
The articles on the medicinal value of some of the things you've posted, I didn't know about. But I have done the best I can for my Uncle and myself. But I think we're gonna have a situation like the "Grasshopper and the Ants". But there are going to be more grasshoppers than ants in the end. The only thing I didn't get done was a garden as I was late moving in to the new place, and from what my Uncle said, the things like carrots and greens I planted were stolen at night down in the city where gramps had his garden in the yard. But that's how it is in Cetroit. If it isn't chained down with a razor wire fence enclosure, and guards armed with machineguns, it's gone.
100 Things You Will Wish You had Stored:
1. Generators
2. Water Filters/Purifiers
3. Portable Toilets
4. Seasoned Firewood. Wood takes about 6 - 12 months to become dried, for home uses.
5. Lamp Oil, Wicks, Lamps (First Choice: Buy CLEAR oil. If scarce, stockpile ANY!)
6. Coleman Fuel. Impossible to stockpile too much.
7. Guns, Ammunition, Pepper Spray, Knives, Clubs, Bats & Slingshots.
8. Hand-can openers, & hand egg beaters, whisks.
9. Honey/Syrups/white, brown sugar
10. Rice - Beans - Wheat
11. Vegetable Oil (for cooking) Without it food burns/must be boiled etc.,)
12. Charcoal, Lighter Fluid (Will become scarce suddenly)
13. Water Containers (Urgent Item to obtain.) Any size. Small: HARD CLEAR PLASTIC ONLY - note - food grade if for drinking.
16. Propane Cylinders (Urgent: Definite shortages will occur.)
17. Survival Guide Book.
18. Mantles: Aladdin, Coleman, etc. (Without this item, longer-term lighting is difficult.)
19. Baby Supplies: Diapers/formula. ointments/aspirin, etc.
20. Washboards, Mop Bucket w/wringer (for Laundry)
21. Cookstoves (Propane, Coleman & Kerosene)
22. Vitamins
23. Propane Cylinder Handle-Holder (Urgent: Small canister use is dangerous without this item)
24. Feminine Hygiene/Haircare/Skin products.
25. Thermal underwear (Tops & Bottoms)
26. Bow saws, axes and hatchets, Wedges (also, honing oil)
27. Aluminum Foil Reg. & Heavy Duty (Great Cooking and Barter Item)
28. Gasoline Containers (Plastic & Metal)
29. Garbage Bags (Impossible To Have Too Many).
30. Toilet Paper, Kleenex, Paper Towels
31. Milk - Powdered & Condensed (Shake Liquid every 3 to 4 months)
32. Garden Seeds (No n-Hybrid) (A MUST)
33. Clothes pins/line/hangers (A MUST)
34. Coleman's Pump Repair Kit
35. Tuna Fish (in oil)
36. Fire Extinguishers (or..large box of Baking Soda in every room)
37. First aid kits
38. Batteries (all sizes...buy furthest-out for Expiration Dates)
39. Garlic, spices & vinegar, baking supplies
40. Big Dogs (and plenty of dog food)
41. Flour, yeast & salt
42. Matches. {"Strike Anywhere" preferred.) Boxed, wooden matches will go first
43. Writing paper/pads/pencils, solar calculators
44. Insulated ice chests (good for keeping items from freezing in Wintertime.)
45. Workboots, belts, Levis & durable shirts
46. Flashlights/LIGHTSTICKS & torches, "No. 76 Dietz" Lanterns
47. Journals, Diaries & Scrapbooks (jot down ideas, feelings, experience; Historic Times)
48. Garbage cans Plastic (great for storage, water, transporting - if with wheels)
49. Men's Hygiene: Shampoo, Toothbrush/paste, Mouthwash/floss, nail clippers, etc
50. Cast iron cookware (sturdy, efficient)
51. Fishing supplies/tools
52. Mosquito coils/repellent, sprays/creams
53. Duct Tape
54. Tarps/stakes/twine/nails/rope/spikes
55. Candles
56. Laundry Detergent (liquid)
57. Backpacks, Duffel Bags
58. Garden tools & supplies
59. Scissors, fabrics & sewing supplies
60. Canned Fruits, Veggies, Soups, stews, etc.
61. Bleach (plain, NOT scented: 4 to 6% sodium hypochlorite)
62. Canning supplies, (Jars/lids/wax)
63. Knives & Sharpening tools: files, stones, steel
64. Bicycles...Tires/tubes/pumps/chains, etc
65. Sleeping Bags & blankets/pillows/mats
66. Carbon Monoxide Alarm (battery powered)
67. Board Games, Cards, Dice
68. d-con Rat poison, MOUSE PRUFE II, Roach Killer
69. Mousetraps, Ant traps & cockroach magnets
70. Paper plates/cups/utensils (stock up, folks)
71. Baby wipes, oils, waterless & Antibacterial soap (sav es a lot of water)
72. Rain gear, rubberized boots, etc.
73. Shaving supplies (razors & creams, talc, after shave)
74. Hand pumps & siphons (for water and for fuels)
75. Soysauce, vinegar, bullions/gravy/soupbase
76. Reading glasses
77. Chocolate/Cocoa/Tang/Punch (water enhancers)
78. "Survival-in-a-Can"
79. Woolen clothing, scarves/ear-muffs/mittens
80. Boy Scout Handbook, / also Leaders Catalog
81. Roll-on Window Insulation Kit (MANCO)
82. Graham crackers, saltines, pretzels, Trail mix/Jerky
83. Popcorn, Peanut Butter, Nuts
84. Socks, Underwear, T-shirts, etc. (extras)
85. Lumber (all types)
86. Wagons & carts (for transport to and from)
87. Cots & Inflatable mattress's
88. Gloves: Work/warming/gardening, etc.
89. Lantern Hangers
90. Screen Patches, glue, nails, screws,, nuts & bolts
91. Teas
92. Coffee
93. Cigarettes
94. Wine/Liquors (for bribes, medicinal, etc,)
95. Paraffin wax
96. Glue, nails, nuts, bolts, screws, etc.
97. Chewing gum/candies
98. Atomizers (for cooling/bathing)
99. Hats & cotton neckerchiefs
100. Livestock
http://prepare4emergency.blogspot.com/
Believe it not, I just checked my stocks today, and am very close to the list except for a few minor things, like things for my daughter if she's here, but that's easy to rememdy.
Seven Ways to Prevent Chronic Headaches
December 15, 2009 by Dr. Mark Wiley
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According to the World Health Organization (WHO) there are two headache types and 13 headache classifications. If you have been seeing a doctor for treatment or have been doing some research then you’ve probably come across a number of terms, like migraine headache, cluster headache, tension-type headache, allergy headache, sinus headache and so on.
Despite the advances in medical science, an astonishing 25 million Americans suffer from migraines! And a whopping nine out of 10 suffer from other headaches as part of their daily lives! The headaches are accepted as inevitable parts of life and sufferers swallow prescription drugs as a matter of habit, just as they brush their teeth without giving the action a second thought.
The problem is chronic headaches and migraines take their toll, not only on the body’s ability to maintain a state of homeostasis or wellness, but on the ability to think logically, see clearly and to feel and act appropriately. The impact all of this has on one’s quality of life is shattering: jobs lost, relationships ruined, motivation diminished and happiness disintegrated.
Not all headaches are the same. Not everyone experiences headaches and their symptoms the same way. The same trigger does not always trigger the same type of headache. What’s more, headaches encompass physical, physiological and emotional dimensions. In short, headaches are complex conditions that need a comprehensive approach to achieve their banishment.
Despite what you may have been told, the particular label you place on a headache is less important than taking a multi-pronged approach to returning your body to its natural, balanced state in which headaches are less likely to occur.
After personally suffering from painful migraines for nearly 30 years, I devised an “integrated mind/body approach” to prevent headaches of all kinds from taking hold in the body. Indeed, the key to ending headache pain is proactive avoidance of its causes rather than reactive treatment of its symptoms.
Major headache triggers include chemicals in food and beverages and even toxins in the body and air, as well as harboring stress and missing sleep. In order to reestablish cellular balance, one must remove the toxins and stressors that tax the body or learn to deal with them in new ways. For most people, this means a major lifestyle change. Here are seven ways to start:
Be Mindful of Dietary Choices
Eat more fresh items and fewer processed foods. Also, try eliminating suspected food triggers one by one from your diet for two to three weeks and monitor what happens with your headaches. Common culprits include cheeses (such as Brie, feta and Gorgonzola), pickles, chocolate, dairy products (goat as well as cow), alcohol (beware the notorious red wine headache), processed meats (bologna, pepperoni, salami, hot dogs, etc.), raw onions, peanuts, raisins and products that contain MSG.
Stay Hydrated with Plenty of Water
When we become dehydrated, the digestive system, lungs, liver and kidneys can no longer do their jobs as effectively, and this can lead to headaches.
Drink plenty of water every day to help your body expel hazardous chemical residues and toxic build-up. Water cleanses the colon, flushes the liver and kidneys and empties the bowels. I recommend two quarts of bottled or filtered water daily. Please note: caffeinated coffees and teas, carbonated sodas and sugar-filled fruit drinks don’t count toward that total!
Break the Patterns of Stress
Stress, in its many forms, is a leading cause of headaches. So to control headaches, you must break the pattern of stress. Fortunately, there are many ways to go about doing this.
To reduce tension and tightness in the shoulders, neck and back, which can lead to headaches, see a massage therapist or do daily gentle stretches. A chiropractor can work with misalignments that can occur as a result of constantly tensed muscles. I also recommend meditation and deep breathing to quiet the mind and relax the body’s nervous system. Many people benefit from tai chi, yoga, qigong or other gentle exercises that stretch the body and soothe the soul. Find whatever stress relievers work for you—it could be walking, biking, ice skating or whatever.
Taking a multiple B vitamin at least twice daily also helps fight the stress reflex. For many, a magnesium supplement may be useful as well.
Take Deep Breaths
In addition to stress relief, deep breathing ensures a continuous flow of fresh oxygen into the body. Many people’s breathing is too shallow, which means they don’t take in enough oxygen. To get more oxygen into your system I recommend progressive relaxation.
Lie down comfortably with your arms at your sides, and inhale as you tense your toes. Hold for a moment and then exhale as you consciously relax them. Gradually and slowly continue up the rest of the body, mindfully tensing and relaxing the feet, calves, thighs, etc., as you inhale and exhale.
Get Sufficient Sleep
Everyone knows we get cranky and headachy when we don’t get enough sleep. To prevent headaches it’s essential to establish deep and constant sleep patterns.
If you must drink caffeine, avoi
d it six hours before bed. Also avoid overly stimulating activities such as intense exercise. Stop working at the computer at least an hour or so before bed. Instead, establish a regular, soothing routine, such as taking a warm bath and reading a good book before retiring.
Engage in Regular Exercise
Exercise reduces stress, releases endorphins and dopamine, improves blood flow, works through muscle tension and keeps the body firm and supple. Engaging in simple, regular activities such as brisk walks and simple stretches will go a long way toward preventing headaches, as well as improving health overall.
Exercise at the same time every day, buddy up with a friend or group for accountability and support, and consider a trainer (if only for a few sessions) to help you establish a safe, personalized program. Even very easy, do-it-yourself stretches are beneficial for headache prevention. For example, try the chin-to-chest exercise. To stretch and release tension in the shoulders and upper back, use your hands to gently push the back of the head forward until your chin touches your chest. Repeat several times daily.
Know Your Number
Most chronic headache sufferers can’t seem to find definitive relief from their pain by simply adhering to the above-mentioned suggestions.
Unfortunately, the problem is more complex and what I tell patients is that the problem is compounded by multiple trigger combinations.
For me, my trigger number is four within a 24-hour period. I can have coffee, milk and sweetener with no problem, but if I get stressed: Bang! I can eat a hotdog on a white bun, drink a beer and I am fine. But get up with less than eight hours sleep and a headache will show itself. So, when living a lifestyle based on prevention it is important that you know your number… that magic digit that indicates how many triggers you can have in a day or week before the headache returns. And with that knowledge and the right amount of discipline you can keep the pain away forever.
With the above lifestyle changes you can reduce the frequency and severity of your headaches. The time to make the change is now. I wish you the best in this life-changing endeavor.
Yours in self-directed wellness,
—Dr. Mark Wiley
http://www.personalliberty.com/alter...nic-headaches/
How To Make Pine Pitch Glue
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW93Q...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW93Q8DYXnk&feature=related
Jul 10, 2010
In this video, I'll be showing you how to make glue from pine pitch, charcoal and rabbit droppings!
This is my first buschraft/how to video, so please let me know what you think!
I forgot to mention this in the video! I use rabbit droppings as the plant fibers..
But there is of course lots of other alternatives:
Scat from plant-eating animals, such as rabbit, deer and moose.
You can even use the fibers from dried grass, leaves etc.
Bushcraft - Finding and harvesting fatwood
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQTZh...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQTZhv5u_qU&feature=related
Apr 21, 2011
Here I am in the wood finding an old pine stump and beginning the process of harvesting fatwood.
Make a 2 Minute Survival Torch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJhe4...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJhe4-3tw4k&feature=related
Jan 8, 2011
This torch is simple to make, and is strike anywhere. Good for camping/survival
Grandpappy's Basic Acorn Recipes
Acorn Information, Identification, Processing, and Recipes
Copyright © 1976,2006 by Robert Wayne Atkins, P.E.
All Rights Reserved.
History of the Common Ordinary Acorn
Acorn
The common, ordinary acorn is one of the ancient foods of mankind. The first mention of acorns for human consumption was by the Greeks over 2,000 years ago. Over the course of human history it has been estimated that people have eaten more acorns than both wheat and rice combined. The acorn has served as an important famine food for many centuries. Acorns may be eaten alone or in a wide variety of acorn recipes.
Native American Indian tribes all across North America, such as the Cherokee, Pima, and Apache, used acorns as one of their primary staple foods in the same way they used corn. American Indians understood the food value of the acorn and how to prepare it for human consumption. Some Indian tribes would bury their acorns in the mud for many days and then dig them up and dry them in the sun. Other Indian tribes would put their acorns inside a reed basket with a few heavy rocks and then put the basket in a fast moving stream for several days. Both of these methods removed the tannin in the acorns and made them fit for people to eat. There is now an easier, more scientific method and it will be described in detail as you continue to read.
Acorn Facts
One tall mature oak tree can produce almost one-thousand pounds of acorns in one growing season during normal weather conditions. Acorns have a low sugar content and therefore help control blood sugar levels. They have a sweet nutty aftertaste. Acorn meal may be used in bread and stew recipes, substituting acorn meal for approximately one-fourth of the flour. Since acorns contain natural sweetness, reduce any other sweeteners in the recipe by one-fourth. Acorn grits can be used in place of nuts in cookie, brownie, and bread recipes. Acorns are a reliable source of carbohydrates, protein, 6 vitamins, 8 minerals, and 18 amino acids, and they are lower in fat than most other nuts. One handful of acorns is equivalent in nutrition to a pound of fresh hamburger.
Oak Trees
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White Oak: White oak trees live between 450 to 650 years (and longer). They can exceed 4 feet in diameter and 100 feet tall. The white oak is the most common species of oak tree. The leaf has a dark green glossy top side and a light green under side. The leaf lobe ends (edges) are rounded. White oak acorns mature in one growing season. Acorn production is heaviest approximately every third year. The inner shell of white oak acorns is smooth and the inner nutmeat is whitish in color. Split one of the inner nutmeats in half and you will see the whitish color. This is why the tree is called a white oak. White oak acorns are low in tannic acid and are naturally sweet and may be eaten with minimal processing. They are the best acorns for use in acorn recipes.
Red Oak: A red oak tree leaf has a glossy green top side and a fuzzy under side. The leaf lobe ends are very pointed. Red oak acorns require two years to mature. Red oak acorns have a hairy lining inside the shell and the nutmeat is yellowish in color. They are very high in tannic acid and therefore taste very bitter. Red oak acorns MUST be processed before eating. Generally red oak acorns are not harvested for human consumption except during serious famine conditions. (Caution: Excessive amounts of tannic acid can lead to kidney failure. Therefore, if you must consume red oak acorns, you should process them for the maximum amount of time.)
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There are several other varieties of oak trees, but the white oak is the most common oak tree throughout the United States, followed by the red oak.
If all the oak trees in your area are exactly the same, then they will all produce acorns that taste the same. But if you have different varieties of oaks, you will have different varieties of acorns which will taste different. Therefore, when you harvest your acorns, keep the ones you collect under each oak tree in a separate bag or container by themselves until you do a taste test to determine if any have a more agreeable taste than the others. If so, note which tree(s) they came from, and focus your next year's collection efforts there. You MUST harvest your acorns VERY soon after they fall to the ground or the squirrels, deer, and other wildlife will eat them. If the acorns stay on the ground very long, they will become infested with insect larva, and they will also absorb ground moisture and begin to mold.
Acorn Collection
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Collect your acorns every day from September through October as soon as possible after they have fallen off the oak tree onto the ground. They may be green, or green and tan, or brown. The green ones aren't fully ripe yet, but collect them also because they will ripen to a dark brown in a few more days. In my opinion, the green ones are better because they have just fallen off the tree and therefore they have had less time to absorb ground moisture or be attacked by insects. If you happen to notice that an acorn is defective when you pick it up, then toss it into the woods where there are no oak trees. Otherwise, there is a good chance you will be picking up that same acorn every day for many weeks to come.
After collecting all the acorns you can find each day, sit down and go through your new batch of acorns. Remove and discard the cap or crown of the acorn. Inspect the acorns (first inspection) and discard any that have an obvious defect, or signs of mold, or a tiny hole because it probably contains a worm. The acorns should feel firm between your fingers. Discard any that are soft.
Acorn Drying Methods
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Spread the good acorns you collect each day onto a tray, board, or screen. You can then dry the acorns using any one of following three methods:
1. house drying at normal room temperatures, or
2. the sun, or
3. a conventional oven.
House Drying at Normal Room Temperatures: Allow the acorns to dry gradually inside your home at normal room temperatures. The acorns should only be one layer thick on the drying trays. If the acorns are relatively green, this drying method normally takes between two to four weeks.
The advantages of room temperature drying are:
1. The inner acorn nutmeat retains most of its original moisture which adds to its flavor and chewability.
2. If your home is free of flying insects, then you will not loose any more acorns to insect larva.
The disadvantages of room temperature drying are:
1. It can take as long as four weeks to properly dry the acorns.
2. Each day you will need MORE house space to dry additional acorns.
3. Periodically you will have to inspect your acorns for tiny worms.
4. Future acorn nutmeat mold problems are more likely to occur.
Sun Drying: Place the tray of acorns in direct sunlight for two to five consecutive days, depending on how "green" your acorns are when you collect them. Bring all your acorns inside each night. Drying in the sun is the traditional method. If the sky is partly cloudy or overcast, then you may need to dry your acorns for more than five days in the sun. (Note: If your acorns are not completely dry, they will soon be covered with mold and you will have to throw them away. Any acorns that are still partially green after a few days of drying should be separated from the rest of the acorns. Continue drying any partially green acorns until they turn completely brown.)
The advantages of sun drying are:
1. It helps to kill insect larva, and
2. It helps to reduce future mold problems.
The disadvantages of sun drying are:
1. Flying insects will lay eggs in some of the acorns and they will have to be thrown away.
2. The inner nutmeat looses some of its moisture and flavor.
3. The shelf life of the nutmeat is between four to six months.
If you have windows facing the sun, then you can place your tray of acorns in the sun inside your house and eliminate the flying insect problem above.
Oven Drying: Place the tray of acorns in a warm oven (175ºF) for about 20 minutes with the oven door slightly cracked to let the moisture escape.
The advantages of oven drying are:
1. Drying can be done very quickly.
2. It effectively kills all insect larva.
3. It eliminates future mold problems.
The disadvantages of oven drying are:
1. The inner nutmeat looses most of its moisture and flavor and it becomes very hard to chew.
2. The shelf life of the nutmeat is only two or three months.
Of the above three different drying methods, I now prefer sun drying inside my home in front of a window that faces the sun.
Acorn Storage
After drying your acorns, inspect them again (second inspection). The drying process helps to reveal cracks or insect holes you couldn't see when the acorns were still damp. Discard any acorns that don't have a good exterior shell, or process and use those acorns immediately. Acorns with a cracked outer shell will dry out quickly on the inside, and the nutmeat will be lost.
It is also possible that small flying insects may have laid eggs inside some of your acorns while they were drying in the sun, if they could find a convenient entrance to the nutmeat area, such as a crack or hole or other imperfection. Those eggs will hatch in a short time and you will be able to identify the bad acorns when they do (they will have a small hole in them).
If you discover tiny holes in your acorns after they have dried, then discard the bad acorns and place the acorns without any holes on a cookie sheet and dry them in a warm oven at 175ºF for 15 minutes with the oven door slightly cracked to let the moisture escape. The heat will kill any remaining insect larva inside the acorns.
Approximately one-week later, inspect your dried acorns for the third time and look for mold or worms or other major problems. Discard any acorns with mold (or process and use them immediately), or the mold will soon spread throughout your entire batch.
Approximately one-week later, inspect your dried acorns for the fourth time. Remove and discard any defective or moldy acorns (or process and use them immediately).
If you discover mold on your acorns at this point, then they were not thoroughly dry at the beginning. If the mold is not severe, then place the batch of acorns on a cookie sheet and dry them in a warm oven at 175ºF for 15 minutes with the oven door slightly cracked to let the moisture escape and to kill the mold.
You may now store your thoroughly inspected, dried acorns in a cool, dry place until you need them. Store your acorns in several different containers. (Note: Ziplock freezer bags work extremely well for storing acorns.) If the acorns in one container become unusable, your other acorns should still be okay. Properly dried and stored, acorns still in their original shell will remain edible for several months.
As time passes, the inner acorn nutmeat gradually dries out and loses most of its flavor and it becomes too hard too chew. Therefore you should process and eat your acorns as soon as practical after collecting them. The longer they are stored, they more they will continue to dry out and become unfit for human consumption. Even under the best storage conditions at room temperature, most acorns will not be edible after six-months of storage.
If you have freezer storage space available, then you may remove the acorn nutmeats from their exterior shell and freeze only the nutmeats inside a ziplock freezer bag. This will help to preserve the moisture content of the nutmeats and significantly extend their shelf life and flavor.
Acorn Preparation
Acorns must be processed before they can be used in acorn recipes.
Do NOT remove your acorn nutmeats from their protective outer shell until you are ready to process and eat them. The inner acorn nutmeat kernels will dry up and shrivel after a few days of exposure to the air.
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At the top of the picture on the right there are several acorn nutmeat kernels after they have been removed from their shell.
At the bottom of the picture on the right there are several acorn nutmeats which have been split in half. The inner white nutmeat gradually darkens and begins to dry out the longer it is exposed to the air.
First crack the thin outer shell of the acorn. It will crack easily with an ordinary nut cracker, or pliers, or by squeezing firmly with your thumb and forefinger. Only crack the shell. Peel off the shell and save the inner nutmeat kernel for future processing. Sometimes you will split the inner acorn nutmeat in half as you crack the outer shell. That is okay. You may taste one acorn nutmeat kernel from each batch of acorns to determine if one of your local trees produces sweeter acorns than the other trees. After chewing and tasting, you should spit it out.
Our bodies are all different and we can not all eat the same foods as everyone else. For example, some people are allergic to milk and milk products. It is always a good idea to eat a very small amount of any new food that you have never eaten before to determine whether or not your body will have an adverse reaction to it. Therefore, if you have never eaten acorn nutmeats before, then you should only eat ONE and see how your body reacts. If you are allergic to other nuts, then you will probably not be able to eat acorn nutmeats. And you should NOT eat and swallow an acorn nutmeat until AFTER you have removed the tannic acid from the acorn nutmeats.
Tannic Acid
All acorns contain tannic acid (or tannin). White Oak acorns contain very little but Red Oak acorns contain a lot. The good news is that tannic acid is water soluble and it can be easily leeched out of the acorns using either:
1. boiling, or
2. cold water flushing.
Too much boiling will result in a loss of nut flavor and it will change the consistency of the nutmeats into a gooey mess.
There are also two ways to process the acorn nutmeats:
1. as whole nutmeat kernels, or
2. as ground nutmeats.
Whole Nutmeat Kernels
If your original taste test of the raw unprocessed acorn nutmeats revealed little or no noticeable bitterness, then you may process your nutmeats as whole kernels. This preserves the appearance of the nut and it is useful because some recipes specify whole nuts. It also makes eating the nuts as a snack much easier.
Ground Nutmeats
If your original taste test of the raw unprocessed acorn nutmeats revealed an unpleasant degree of bitterness, then grinding the nutmeats is necessary because it allows the tannic acid to be removed with minimum boiling or flushing. Begin with whole acorn nutmeat kernels (without the cap and without the shell). Crush or grind the acorn nutmeats into smaller pieces or into a coarse meal using a hand grinder, or a flat rock, or a blender. If you use a blender, then add a little water to make a liquid mush.
Boiling Method
(May be used with whole nutmeat kernels or ground nutmeats.)
Fill two pots with clean fresh water. Each pot should contain enough water to completely cover the acorn nutmeats (but don't add the nutmeats yet). Turn on the heat to the first pot of water. Taste one of the unprocessed nutmeats to determine the degree of bitterness it contains before boiling.
Note: Add pickling or canning salt to the final pot of boiling water before adding the nutmeats. The salt enhances the flavor of the nutmeats and it also increases their storage life.
Note: It is NOT uncommon for many white oak acorns to contain little or no noticeable bitterness. However, we are not all gifted with the same degree of sensitivity in our taste buds. What may taste pleasant to you may taste slightly bitter to someone else. And regardless of how they taste, all acorns contain some tannic acid. Therefore, you should boil all acorn nutmeats at least ONE time. But you may stop after one boiling if your original taste test revealed little or no bitterness in the original unprocessed acorn nutmeats. If you are only going to boil one time you will not need the second pot and you should add the salt to the first pot of boiling water BEFORE you add the nutmeats.
First Boil: When the first pot starts to boil, add the acorn nutmeats to the first pot of boiling water and immediately turn off the heat to the first pot. Turn on the heat to the second pot to start the water in the second pot boiling. Wait 30 minutes and the water in the first pot will be brown. Pour the acorns and the brown water through a strainer or coffee filter to separate the nutmeats from the brown water. (Note: Save the brown water from the first boiling for one of the uses suggested elsewhere in this summary.) (Note: If there was no noticeable bitterness to begin with and you are only using one boil, then skip down to the drying instructions below.) Taste one of the nutmeats. If the bitterness is almost gone then you will not need a third boiling and you should add the salt to the second pot of boiling water.
Second Boil: Put the nutmeats into the second pot of boiling water and immediately turn off the heat. Rinse the first pot and fill with fresh water for the third boiling. Wait 30 minutes. Strain the nutmeats from the brown water in the second pot. (Discard the brown water unless you want to keep it for another purpose.) Taste one nutmeat. If the bitterness is gone, then skip down to the drying instructions below. If the bitterness is almost gone, then add the salt to the third boiling. However, if the bitterness is still unpleasant, then wait until the fourth boiling to add the salt.
Third Boil: Follow instructions for second boil. Then taste one nutmeat. The original bitterness should be gone and it should have a sweet, nutlike flavor. (If the nutmeats should fail your taste test at this point, then boil a fourth time.)
Dry the nutmeats following the drying instructions below.
Note 1: If you switch the nutmeats from boiling water into cool water and then bring the water to a boil, you will lock in the bitterness and you won't be able to get it out.
Note 2: Do NOT let wet nutmeats sit for hours between boilings. The nutmeats will mold if you do.
Cold Water Flushing Method
(May be used with whole nutmeat kernels or ground nutmeats.)
Put the acorn nutmeats inside a clean pillowcase and leech in cold running water (faucet or stream) for several hours until the bitter taste is gone. Periodically squeeze as much water out of the pillowcase and acorn nutmeats as you can without damaging the nutmeats. Then continue rinsing. When the nutmeats no longer taste bitter, you can stop rinsing. Then dry the nutmeats following the drying instructions below.
Drying
If you need the damp acorn nutmeats in a bread recipe you may use them immediately without drying. However, if you are not going to use the nutmeats until later, you MUST dry them.
After removing the tannin using either boiling or flushing, spread the damp nutmeats in a thin layer on a baking tray and dry slowly in a warm oven (175ºF to 200ºF) with the door slightly cracked to let the moisture escape. Or place the tray of damp nutmeats in the sun near a window. (If you dry them outside in the sun, cover them with a clean screen or the wildlife will steal them.)
If you are drying ground nutmeats, the dried meal will be caked and it will need to be ground again.
If you are drying whole nutmeat kernels, you may eat them like nuts. Or use them in recipes that use whole nuts. Or you may process some of them into grits or meal on an as-needed basis.
Acorn Grits
Follow the tannin removal and drying instructions for acorn nutmeats above. Then pound or grind into course meal or grits. Acorn grits may be used in acorn recipes in place of chopped nuts.
Acorn Meal (or Acorn Flour)
Follow above Grits recipe but grind the acorns into a fine meal.
Storage of Acorn Grits or Acorn Meal
Store in a sealed, glass jar in a cool, dark place. They will keep for several weeks in the refrigerator or for several months in the freezer. Frozen nutmeats will retain their original flavor for about 10 months (or until the next crop of acorns is ready to be harvested). Because they contain nut oil, they will go rancid if left in a warm environment after they have been processed.
Caution: If stored for a very long time, smell them before using. If a musty smell is present, throw them away.
Uses for the Brown Acorn Water
Save the brown water from the first boiling (discussed above). The brown water should be stored in the refrigerator. With the passage of time a mold will form on top of the water and you will need to boil the water again to kill the mold. Then refrigerate the water again until needed. The brown water may be used in any of the following ways:
Laundry Detergent: Two cups of the brown water can be used as laundry detergent for one load of clothes. Your clothes will smell very good but lighter colors (and whites) will take on a tan tint.
Traditional Herbal Home Remedies: The brown water has both antiseptic and antiviral properties.
1. It can be used to wash the skin to ease the discomfort of skin rashes, burns, and small cuts.
2. It can be used externally to help treat hemorrhoids.
3. Pour some of the water into ice cube trays and freeze it. Then rub it on poison ivy blisters. It soothes and heals the blisters and helps reduce the itching. It is very effective on about 95% of the people who try it and the poison ivy is cured in three days. The cold ice helps to soothe the inflamed tissues.
Hide Tanning: The brown water can be used in the process of animal hide tanning. Just soak the clean, scraped animal hides in the water. The reason the bitter ingredient in acorns is called "tannic acid" is because it was originally used to tan animal hides.
Grandpappy's Basic Acorn Recipes
Acorn grits may be deep fried and eaten as a side dish.
Acorn grits may be added to soups or salads.
Acorn grits may be fried briefly in a skillet and then used as one of the ingredients in a granola snack recipe.
Acorn meal may be used in most recipes to replace 1/4 of the flour or 1/4 the corn meal. However, since acorn meal contains natural sweetness, you should reduce any other sweeteners in the recipe by 1/4.
100% Acorn Bread will be hard if baked too long and crumbly if not baked long enough.
Ground acorn nutmeats may be roasted and then used as a weak coffee substitute.
Indian Acorn Griddlecakes
2 cups acorn meal
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup water
Preparation:
Combine everything and beat to a stiff batter. Let stand for one hour.
Cook: Heat 1 tbsp. of fat or oil in frying pan. Drop batter into pan to form cakes about 3 to 4 inches across. Brown cakes slowly on both sides. These cakes will keep for several days.
Mexican Acorn Tortillas
2 cups acorn meal
3/4 cup flour
2 tsp. salt
Preparation: Mix ingredients. Add just enough water to make a stiff dough. Let stand for 30 minutes.
Cook: Squeeze into small balls and then press each ball into a very thin flat cake. Fry in a lightly greased skillet until brown on both sides. Use just enough fat or oil to prevent sticking.
Acorn Pemmican Tortilla
1/2 cup acorn meal
1 pound lean meat, cut in thin strips
Several tortillas
Cook: Boil the lean meat in salted water until tender. Drain and allow to dry. Grind the meat and the acorn meal together using a fine grinding blade. Mix well and then grind a second time. Heat and serve wrapped in a tortilla, or on any flat bread.
Variation: Add cooked white rice, or cooked beans, or hot sauce, or grated cheese as part of the tortilla stuffing.
Pioneer Acorn Bread and Acorn Muffins
1 cup acorn meal
1 cup flour 1 tsp. salt
3 tbsp. baking powder 3 tbsp. oil
1 cup milk (or water)
Optional: You may add 1 egg to the above ingredients.
Preparation: Combine milk, egg (if available), and oil and beat until smooth. Mix in the acorn meal, flour, salt, and baking powder and stir into a smooth dough. Place in a greased bread pan.
Cook: Bake at 400ºF for 30 minutes. Cool and serve.
Variation: Acorn Muffins: Fill greased muffin tins about 2/3 full with above mixture and bake at 400ºF for 20 minutes.
Pioneer Acorn Pancakes
Preparation: Use the above recipe for Pioneer Acorn Bread, but use 2 eggs and 1 1/4 cups milk.
Cook: Drop batter from a ladle onto a hot greased grill. When bottom is brown, turn once and brown other side. Serve with butter, or syrup, or honey, or jelly, or fresh fruit.
Breakfast Acornmeal (Similar to Oatmeal)
1 cup acorn meal
2.5 cups water
1/8 cup hickory nuts or black walnuts, crushed
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. honey or sugar
Boil the water with the salt. Add the acorn meal and continue boiling for 15 minutes. Turn off heat. Allow to cool for about five minutes. Stir in the honey and nuts. Very satisfying and delicious, and it will provide enough energy for a day of rigorous physical activity.
Acorn and Corn Meal Mush
1/2 cup acorn meal
4 cups water
1 cup corn meal
1 tsp. salt
Cook: Bring 4 cups of water to a boil in the top half of a double boiler. Add the salt. Sprinkle the acorn meal slowly into the boiling water and stir continuously. Then add the corn meal. When the mixture starts to bubble, it should be able to support a plastic or wooden stirring spoon in the center without the spoon falling over. If too thick, add a little water. If too thin, add a little more cornmeal.
Then put the mixture which is in the top half of the double boiler into the bottom half of the double boiler which contains boiling water. Simmer about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally to break up any lumps, until the mush becomes thick. Serve hot for breakfast, lunch, or supper.
Variation: May be served with a topping of milk, or butter, or grated cheese, or bacon bits, or honey, or sugar, or fruit, or jam.
Variation: Pour above finished, cooked mush into a greased loaf pan and put in the refrigerator for about 8 hours. It will become solid and then it can be sliced with a knife into 1/2 inch thick slices. Coat each slice with flour and fry in a very thin layer of oil, one side at a time. Serve with butter, or syrup, or jam (similar to French toast).
Acorn Bread
2 cups acorn meal
1/2 cup milk (or water)
1 tbsp. baking powder
2 cups wheat flour
3 tbsp. butt
er or olive oil
1 egg (optional)
Optional Sweeteners:
Add 1/3 cup honey or maple syrup or sugar, if available.
Preparation: Combine all the above ingredients and pour into a loaf pan.
Cook: Bake at 400ºF for 30 minutes or until done. Yields a moist bread with a sweet nutty flavor.
Glazed Acorn Treats
Boiled dry whole acorn kernels
2 cups sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. cream of tartar
1 cup water
Preparation: Mix and dissolve the sugar, salt, and cream of tartar in 1 cup of water.
Cook: Bring above mixture to a boil in a small pot. Continue to boil until the mixture first begins to show signs of browning. Then immediately put the small pot into a larger pot of boiling water to keep the mixture in a liquid state. (Or use a double boiler.) Use a pair of tweezers to dip individual whole acorn kernels (previously shelled, boiled and dried), one at a time into the mixture and then put each acorn onto a sheet of wax paper to dry and harden. Serve as a candied covered nut.
Acorn Cookies
2 cups wheat flour
1 cup white (or brown) sugar
1 tsp. baking powder (or baking soda)
1 cup acorn grits
1/2 cup shortening
1 tsp. salt
Preparation: Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. In a large bowl, cream the shortening and the sugar. Gradually blend in the dry ingredients. Then blend in the acorn grits. Pinch off walnut sized pieces of dough and roll into balls. Place 1.5" apart on a lightly greased baking sheet.
Cook: Bake at 350°F for 10 to 12 minutes or until lightly colored. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
Variation: Add 1 egg and/or 1 tsp. vanilla extract.
Nutritional Information About Acorns Acorn Nutmeats, Shelled, Dried
Actual Lab Analysis Results Vary for Different Acorn Varieties
and from One Growing Season to the Next
Nutrition Facts
Serving Size: 1 ounce (28.4 g)
Minimum and Maximum Values Shown Below
Category Amount % RDV
Calories 109.7 to 144.5 7 %
Calories from Fat 60.9 to 80.3
Total Fat 6.8 to 8.9 g 14 %
Saturated Fat 0.9 to 1.2 g 45 %
Polyunsaturated Fat 1.3 to 1.7 g
Monounsaturated Fat 4.3 to 5.7 g
Cholesterol 0.0 mg 0 %
Total Carbohydrate 11.5 to 15.2 g 5 %
Protein 1.7 to 2.3 g 5 %
Vitamins
Vitamin A 11.06 to 11.14 IU Less 1%
B1, Thiamin 0.03 to 0.042 mg 3 %
B2, Riboflavin 0.03 to 0.044 mg 3 %
B3, Niacin 0.52 to 0.68 mg 3 %
B5, Pantothenic Acid 0.20 to 0.27 mg 3%
Vitamin B6 0.15 to 0.20 mg 10%
Vitamin B12 0.0 mcg 0 %
Vitamin C 0.0 mcg 0 %
Vitamin D 0.0 mcg 0 %
Vitamin E 0.0 mcg 0 %
Minerals
Calcium, Ca 11.62 to 15.34 mg 2 %
Copper, Cu 0.18 to 0.23 mg 12 %
Iron, Fe 0.22 to 0.29 mg 2 %
Magnesium, Mg 17.58 to 23.29 mg 6 %
Manganese, Mn 0.38 to 0.39 mg 10 %
Phosphorus, P 22.40 to 29.25 mg 3 %
Potassium, K 152.81 to 201.36 mg 10%
Sodium, Na 0.0 mg 0 %
Zinc, Zn 0.15 to 0.19 mg 1 %
Amino Acids
Alanine 0.100 to 0.131 g
Arginine 0.135 to 0.177 g
Aspartic Acid 0.181 to 0.238 g
Cystine 0.031 to 0.041 g
Glutamic Acid 0.282 to 0.369 g
Glycine 0.081 to 0.107 g
Histidine 0.049 to 0.064 g
Isoleucine 0.081 to 0.107 g
Leucine 0.140 to 0.183 g
Lysine 0.110 to 0.143 g
Methionine 0.029 to 0.039 g
Phenylalanine 0.077 to 0.101 g
Proline 0.070 to 0.092 g
Serine 0.075 to 0.098 g
Tryptophan 0.021 to 0.028 g
Threonine 0.067 to 0.089 g
Tyrosine 0.053 to 0.070 g
Valine 0.099 to 0.129 g
Other
Ash 0.386 to 0.506 mg
Folate, DFE 24.66 to 32.66 mcg
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