Episode-1188- Survival Podcast Listener Calls for 8-16-13
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Join Me Today as I Answer Your Calls
Today on The Survival Podcast I take your calls on making alcohol, economics, BOLs, edible hedges, permaculture, energy, insulation, business, underground housing, teaching others about prepping and more.
Today also we also hear from panel member Steve Harris on two great subjects.
Remember to be on a show like this one just pick up your phone and call 866-65-THINK. The best way to improve your chances of being on the air is ask your question or make your point up front, then provide details.
Also please do your best to call from a quiet area with a good connection and speak up so you can be well heard. I can’t put all calls on the air but I do my best to get many of them on.
Join Me Today As I Respond to Your Calls and Discuss…
- Are “ants in your mash” a problem when making ethanol
- Are the Chinese angling to become “the global currency”
- Setting up a TuffShed as a BOL energy wise by Steven Harris
- Creating a useful hedge for privacy and food production
- Amending sandy soil
- Choosing a fuel oil tank and NOT getting ripped off by liars by Steven Harris
- Thoughts on a PIY (pick your own) business
- The ins and outs of owner financing as a seller of land
- The complexities of handgun ownership in Canada
- Building an underground shelter with a shipping container
- Determining when a car is no longer worth the repair costs
- A flip side of last weeks show, older survival minded folks reaching 30-40 somethings
- Thoughts on sharpening as a business in a rural area
Resources for today’s show…
- Become a stake holder in MT Knives
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- 13Skills.com
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- Walking To Freedom
- Shop for TSP Silver
- TSP Gear
- Sawtooth Tactical – (sponsor of the day)
- Knife Kits – (sponsor of the day)
- TSP Episode on Edible Hedge Rows
- Backyard Permaculture Video I mentioned
- Show on Shipping Container Houses
- Mike Oehler’s Books at Amazon
Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon. Also please enter our listener appreciation contest and help spread the word about our show. Also remember you can call in your questions and comments to 866-65-THINK (866-658-4465) and you might hear yourself on the air.
Also remember we have an expert council you can address your calls to. If you do this you should email me right after your call at jack at thesurvivalpodcast.com with expert council call in the subject line. In the body of your email tell me that you just called in a question for the council and what number you called in from. I will then give the call priority when I screen calls.
Our Expert Council is Made Up of…
- Frank Sharp Jr. – Fortress Defense Consultants – Weapons and Security
- Joe Nobody – Holding Your Ground – Bug-out and Societal Breakdown
- Darby Simpson – DarbySimpson.com – Livestock and Farm Management/ Homestead Consulting
- Ben Falk – Whole Systems Design – Permaculture (Specializing in North Eastern Climates)
- Paul Wheaton – Permies.com – Permaculture (Specializing in North Western Climates)
- Tim Glance – Old Grouch’s Military Surplus – Bug Out Vehicles, Military Surplus and Communications
- Stephen Harris – Solar1234 – All things Energy
- Chef Keith Snow – Harvest Eating – Cooking
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If you sell with owner financing in Arkansas at a higher then allowed interest rate, you can be forced to pay the buyer back twice the interest he was charged. If you sold a house and the buyer paid to high an interest rate for several years, you could end up owing him more then the house is worth. This was the case about 5 years ago, I dont know if it has changed.
Jack:
Steve “critter” Davis made a YT vid on his channel about his Moonshite still design …I sent you a link to it a while back, in that video he says it is not illegal in most states to make Moonshine in small quantities for personal use, I like you thought it was against the law but Steve is a senior instructor at the Pathfinder school and apparently really good at making shine, so I’m just wondering did they change the law?
Sadly being good doesn’t make a person right about something from a legal standpoint. Distillation of alcohol is illegal in the US in any quantity.
Work is being done to make it legal but for now it simply isn’t. Like I said no one is really going around trying to find a person making a few gallons a year for personal consumption.
I’ll tell you this though, Frank from Independence USA the show that was first Apocalypse PA made some corn shine on his pilot episode. Perhaps a few gallons, they drank a tiny bit at the fire on the show to celebrate it.
Now this is from the man’s own mouth strait to me, not hearsay. Almost a full year after it aired the ATF knocked on his door. They said they had shadowed and investigated him for a full year. That what he did was illegal but they felt it was truly for educational purposes only and that they felt he hadn’t made any more.
They told him if they had caught him making more he would be going up on a federal felony and NOT TO DO IT AGAIN on or off air.
So I feel this is something you can do and be left alone if you do it in very small quantities and don’t sell it. However, if you put it on youtube and what not you never know who you are going to tick off and what it might mean down the road.
I think the law is ridiculous but it doesn’t mean it won’t harm you if you get nailed breaking it. BTW the conviction rate in Federal Courts is much higher then in state courts.
I went back and looked for that vid on Steve;s site and it’s not there anymore…someone must have told him
Re: Handgun law in Canada:
It’s not legal to carry (open or otherwise) or fire a handgun on your own property in Canada. It can only be fired at a registered gun range, and you need a permit to transport it to and from the range (in addition to the permit for the gun itself, and the permit to own handguns in general), during which time it has to be in a locked container separated from any ammo. The only other place you can transport it to is a gunsmith for repair or sale. As if that was not enough there is a minimum barrel length for any handgun of 4.1″
What a horrible place.
No, I quite like it 🙂
That is awful
I still find the not on your own property thing stupid I lived on such a piece of land and could shoot my rifle and shotgun all day long but no AR-15 or handgun. Yup totally nutz Out there with friends shooting a Mini-14 and watching the Americans with fields touching ours out there shooting their ARs just did not seem fair.
Oh our Dear Leader in the U.S. will do whatever he can to make Canada look like a gun friendly country.
What are the knife laws like?
After they outlawed guns in England the knife crime shot up so high they outlawed most knives…just wondering if Canada had instated those laws .
Canada’s crime rate is quite low, but do have a fair number of stabbings. Most gang members have stolen handguns with the serial numbers filed off and mostly shoot each other. Once every few years an non-criminal gets shot and everyone goes batshit crazy talking about banning handguns outright.
On the positive side we’ve actually reduced the hassle in owning rifles and shotguns in the past few years by eliminating our national registry. You still need a licence though.
Jack-
I think Kerry would be a welcome addition to the expert panel. I think he needs to slow down a little bit while speaking and using definitions while explaining. I was able to keep up with him, but had to replay a few times to catch what the words he was using to describe a condition from stage 1 shock and tourniquet, for example.
I think its hard to get topics for the expert council when you are an expert on so many topics. Maybe sending them topics to comment on and you giving a contrary or complimentary followup? I think that would at least get the audience used to hearing them and asking them questions. Just my 2 cents.
Love the show, man!
-KC
Jack,
I agree on getting Kerry on the expert panel. I already have a question for him.
Also, I will try to come up with a good question for Joe Nobody. His books are awesome, and cover a lot of ground.
x “whatever” on Kerry. We’ve got experts on the survival basics like food prep/production, energy, security, comms, vehicles; we should have one on the health issues as well. His experiences on the combat/tactical side of things coul prove a valuable counterpoint to the primarily civilian side expressed by the great team of Doc Bones/Nurse Amy.
Hey brother I have owned 5 Honda’s in my life in fact I own one now as a spare car, Yes you do have to do regular maintenance…that includes tranny and all and on all of mine I had to replace the AC compressor at some point…but I have never owned a Honda that I didn’t get at least 500k miles out of it before i sold it, the only other vehicles that have come close to being as reliable is my 2003 Toyota pick up I drive…it’s only has 350k on it but it still purrs like a kitten and will blow the doors off of most cars on the road….Keep the Honda do the work on it and it will last you 10 more years if you treat it right!
I would just like to say that was really good info from Steve Harris. Steve we appreciate the work you do for the show.
Yes I agree its a good idea to ask him to join the panel.
If you go to Wranglerstar’s channel on youtube, in one video he restores and sharpens an old Ax, in the end he uses a belt sander to hone it razor sharp…send him a PM I’m sure he’ll tell you the best one to get
RE: getting a new car.
I deal with this situation all the time. Jack’s thoughts are pretty spot on. I will say it really depends on what is wrong with the car. If you live in the south, ac is very important. When I lived in Illinois, I never used my car’s ac. If your state does not have state inspections, you can wait on the catalytic converter.
It also depends on how much it would cost to replace the car. Lets say it will cost you $2000 in repairs, but your car is worth $2000. If you sold it for $2k and took the $2k you were going to use to make the repair, you (kinda) have $4k.
But can you get a car equal to what you want for that price? Would you be able to buy a similar car for $4k? What about $5k?
Another thing to consider. You have owned the car for a long time. You know the maintenance history. Buying another car you might be buying a poorly maintained car.
As Jack said, get a car inspected BEFORE you buy it. I do Pre-purchase inspections all the time. For some reason people like to do them after they buy the car. Once you buy a used car, it’s yours. There are no lemon laws on used stuff.
I actually thing that buying a used certified car is a great idea. You get a like new car, that is up on maintenance, and has a warranty. (FYI vw does have a $5o deductible on certified repairs) I bought my Passat that way. It was a great deal.
If you only need a cat, ac compressor, and windshield, I would say keep it. Get your cat replaced at a good muffler shop. You will save a ton of money. I always send my customers away when they have a failed vw cat. Dealer prices are $1000-$2500 for cats. Muffler shops can weld a new one in for a few hundred bucks.
Hope that helps
Cheers
Charles.
If you have any other questions I will be more than happy to help.
Reference the Canadian caller, while it’s probably worthwhile for someone who wants to target shoot to get a license and join a club, they are also subject to storage requirements that would restrict their practicality as home defence weapons, and certainly couldn’t be worn loaded on a rural property unless it was somehow categorized as an approved range, which is highly unlikely. Incidentally, centerfire semiautomatic rifles with less than 18.5″ barrels are classified the same as handguns, as well as AR15s regardless of barrel length (19″ barrels have been made for M1 Carbines to get around this). On the other hand, non-restricted shotguns only have to have an overall length of 26 inches, and a number of 8.5″, 12.5″ and 14″ barreled Remington 870 knockoffs that satisfy that requirement are available here as unrestricted firearms at decent prices (approx $300-400).
Nb. I was referring to handguns at the beginning of my previous post, as per the caller’s question.
I would like to see Dark Angel Medical added to the expert council if possible.
Thank you!
Older 30-40. LOL LOL LOL Try 50+. I wish I started in my 30’s….
Well I did kind of.. LOL 30 old; hee hee!!
To the guy who is thinking about a sharpening business, I have to concur with Jack. We had a guy with a mobile sharpening truck show up at our farmers market in Indy this spring. I remember thinking to myself “Gee, I hope it is worth his while to come.”. He now has so much business, he had to hire a second guy to help him on Saturday mornings, and they still can’t keep up. I took him all of my chain saw chains and had to wait two Saturdays to get them back. My .02: Go mobile, and strategically place yourself within driving distance (an hour or so) of a larger city (or cities) with a GREAT farmers market that doesn’t have a sharpener there. Even if you can’t go full time with it now, what a great side income on Saturday when you are off work from the 8-5 gig.
I have heard a lot of discussion over the years on the show about sharpening knives at a Farmers market, Here’s a great video about a man who used to sharpen knives for a living at trade shows and such, he invented what looks to me like the perfect sharpening device..take a look, if I were to go into sharpening knives this is exactly what I would use!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liJKYgO_P3I
Hey jack thanks for the answer today to my handgun question. I guess the best option for me is my trusty Winchester 1300 Turkey gun which i know very well because its my main hunting gun anyways. What about my carbine in a .22 Cal rimfire? There is a high rate of fire and no limit to magazine size here because its a rimfire and the powers that be seem to think a .22cal is a peashooter and not dangerous…we all know better of course. Just tossin that out there.
Outdoorjax:
I had a few thoughts while listening to Jack’s reply. You mentioned something about “[should there be] a breakdown” in introducing your question.
If things go sideways, I think legality is a bit of a secondary concern, though practically keeping a low-profile is still a consideration.
A few thoughts about handgun vs. long gun:
-a handgun is easier to conceal in certain situations (answering a door when you have a suspicion but are not in a clear-cut “defend the house” mode)
-a handgun is easier to wield with a young child under the other arm in your house
-should you be in a context of civil disorder, you can illegally conceal a handgun to protect your family but not an 18″ shotgun.
(reference Fernando Aguirre’s discussions about Argentina and how “you’re not going to strap your FAL to your back and ‘pull security'”).
Just my 2 cents… (1) I’m American and (2) have never got into a firefight in my house. 😉
I love Canadians but shudder at your gun laws.
Some good points there indeed.
Key is, is it worth all the crap in Canada just to have a handgun? I have to say I don’t really know, I do hope people got a taste of just how non common sense “common sense gun control” becomes if politicians get their way.
Thanks for the advise Jack doing some more research and going to try the hedge idea.
Btw – you said its not a place you would want to live. My wife and I were laughing. We dont want to live here either! We seem to be stuck here right now..but i am working on it!
Hey Jack,
Thanks for your detailed answer to my sandy soil improvement question! I started working on the first of the beds today and have completed the wood burial. You are correct in that my soil is easy to dig and makes working on projects like this much easier. I will be going with your advice re adding a layer of compost to the soil and will also layer some in as suggested. In addition I will add some bentonite because the soil drains quickly. Many Thanks.
Hedge –If the guy absolutely has his heart set that he must have an apples, he could use Belgium fence espalier for apples and fit many apple tree varieties @ 18″ apart into that area and prune for privacy, but Jack’s right that apples need a lot of active gardening to hold off the diseases and pests. On the west coast, I just found this new virus spray for apples that almost eliminate coddling moth. I’m extremely excited.
http://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/control-codling-moths.aspx#axzz2cGY6mStS
http://www.slideshare.net/ksplainfieldstation/virosoft-cp4-customer-web-2-211
A friend used it as directed @ the strength required and has absolutely NO larvae in his apples!
Sandy Soil guy–The jar method of checking soil texture, http://www.cmg.colostate.edu/gardennotes/214.pdf
when you are adding compost, you can check how close you are to having enough organic matter (silt) in your soil by using the jar method. The triangle graph in the article allows you to know if you have arrived at your great soil texture. The triangle graph’s use is by taking the amount of sand, silt and clay you find in your jar, and finding each of that percentage amount on the edge of triangle, then following the line into the graph towards the intersection of the lines, with the hope that you have added enough compost to create sandy loam.
On belt sharpening, I have one called a worksharp kife and tool sharpener. It is an excellent knife sharpener at a really reasonable price. I think you could probably run it off an inverter.
It comes with three different grit belts, and several preset common knife griding angles. My wife will not let me sharpen her kitchen knives with the finest grit because she says they are to sharp.
The only downside I have found is that you have to replace the belts often because they are so small, they wear out faster, but really not bad.
Jack… Just found Black Lace Elderberry and Viking Aronia at Lowe’s here in Grand Junction!!!
Re: Jon in Salt Lake, Steve gives awesome info, but I think he missed an important detail regarding the solar panels for the cabin. You stated that you are on the north side of the mountain and heavily wooded. Not sure you will have enough solar aspect to make it worth the expense of adding a solar system. I would spend a few days on site timing the amount of direct light at the cabin location and make my decision from that. Might be better to go with the battery bank and a small generator. Just my experience from living on the north side of a mountain in western North Carolina. Good luck with your new family retreat.
I think either Dark Angel or Dr. Bones would make a great addition to the Council…personally I would lean more toward Dr. Bones.
Re: Owner financing.
Damn, Jack! That made me realize the great deal my wife and I got on our five acres with a little cabin.
I proposed to the seller 5k down with “x” percentage rate for eight years. She came back and said she didn’t believe in charging interest and thought I would be good to the land because of my PDC. She ending up being a super cool, hippy chic that was just lonely in the woods and wanted to get back to a city with more relatives.
If we had to pay two points above market rate, we might not be able to afford our future homestead.
Thanks Jack.
Hi Jack,
Kerry from Dark Angle Medical would be a great addition to the Expert Council. I just just took his class in NC “it was great” worth every dime.
Take care.
Just listened to episode 1187: Good God yes, please get Kerry Davis on the expert council. Great episode!
Yes, I think that Kerry would be a very good choice for a member of the expert panel.
Speaking of Steven Harris, why has he NEVER been mentioned on Rawles’ blog? Jack has been mentioned a few times but nothing on Harris and he seems to know what he is talking about and Harris has been doing this for a while.
Why would you expect Harris to mention Rawles? Rawles does his thing we do ours, occasionally he mentions me or I the other way around but in general I doubt either of us pay much attention to the other. Why? We are both busy doing, rather then emulating the way so many others do out there. Steve is also a doer, he doesn’t come at preparedness from a preparedness angle to begin with, he is an engineer that understands science, engineering and energy from that view point. Like many he got kicked in the ass by life and saw others get worse, so he got interested in preparedness from his own angle.
When I started TSP I was active in a few forums like Frugal Squirrels and Backwoods Home, first thing I did was QUIT posting in them. Why? My goal with TSP was to build TSP as its own community. Sure people from other areas in the niche would show up but I would not be a sniper trying to pull people in from established communities. Same with Rawles, I reviewed his book because so many asked but that was pretty much it. Today TSP is what it is because so many of our community came from outside of the established niche, hence we have our own identity.
It isn’t that a Rawles reader isn’t welcome here and I am sure James feels the same way about TSP folks in his community, everyone is welcome. We just have respect for others sufficiently to do our own thing and make it or not make it on our own. Steve is the same way, no need to ride anyone’s coat tails or kiss anyone’s butt with a mention of them just to do so. I am sure if Steve ever picks up anything as survival blog he will give due credit.
However, Steve right now for instance is working on a show about water. He isn’t doing this by going to other sites and telling you what they say. He is investing time and money to create a complete system that will ensure water in any grid down scenario that any of us might experience. He is working to create this method from easy to acquire affordable items and make it a paint by numbers system anyone can follow.
After he does that what is he supposed to say, “James Rawles has a blog and he says water is important”?
Why would you expect Harris to mention Rawles? Rawles does his thing we do ours, occasionally he mentions me or I the other way around but in general I don’t either of us pay much attention to the other. Why? We are both busy doing, rather then emulating the way so many others do out there. Steve is also a doer, he doesn’t come at preparedness from a preparedness angle to begin with, he is an engineer that understands science, engineering and energy from that view point. Like many he got kicked in the ass by life and saw others get worse, so he got interested in preparedness from his own angle.
When I started TSP I was active in a few forums like Frugal Squirrels and Backwoods Home, first thing I did was QUIT posting in them. Why? My goal with TSP was to build TSP as its own community. Sure people from other areas in the niche would show up but I would not be a sniper trying to pull people in from established communities. Same with Rawles, I reviewed his book because so many asked but that was pretty much it. Today TSP is what it is because so many of our community came from outside of the established niche, hence we have our own identity.
It isn’t that a Rawles reader isn’t welcome here and I am sure James feels the same way about TSP folks in his community, everyone is welcome. We just have respect for others sufficiently to do our own thing and make it or not make it on our own. Steve is the same way, no need to ride anyone’s coat tails or kiss anyone’s butt with a mention of them just to do so. I am sure if Steve ever picks up anything as survival blog he will give due credit.
However, Steve right now for instance is working on a show about water. He isn’t doing this by going to other sites and telling you what they say. He is investing time and money to create a complete system that will ensure water in any grid down scenario that any of us might experience. He is working to create this method from easy to acquire affordable items and make it a paint by numbers system anyone can follow.
After he does that what is he supposed to say, “James Rawles has a blog and he says water is important”?
I don’t expect Harris to mention Rawles. I was surprised no one on Rawles mentioned Harris. Since Rawles hardly writes anything on his blog and it is mostly reader input, in a lot of ways it is a prepping aggregator. Since it is more like an aggregator, I would expect most resources or references to be mentioned there at least occasionally. I was not questioning anyone’s credibility or competence, merely expressing surprise.
I bounce around a lot of prepper sites as I expect many in the community do. I do this specifically to get differing opinions and insights. So while I do not want carbon copies of each other, I would expect a little tangential cross pollination on an aggregator site like Rawles. I would not expect FerFAL, for example, to mention everyone else because he is not an aggregator.
Since you have so many guests, it would be much more normal for you to have more references to different people in the community. For example, Glen Beck led me to Rawles which led me to his book on Amazon that led me to Glen Tate who led me to you and you led me to Harris. Hey, I didn’t mean to press any buttons. Sorry. (I hope this has nothing to do with Mulligan Mint, for crying out loud. I don’t need the drama and I personally buy silver local.)
I am currently having Nick Burtner help me establish a food forest at my farm. That was another reference from you, Jack. Thanks!
OK, I just started listening to today’s podcast. I think I stumbled into something bigger than I intended. I will write to Rawles myself and recommend Harris’s pages and links since I think he is a valuable resource. I will be a doer, instead of wondering why no one else has.
Kerry would absolutely be an outstanding addition to the expert council. I would take it one step further and suggest that you bring Kerry on to focus on trauma related medicine and find someone else to focus on less urgent/long term care. Kerry would be the guy I would ask about CAT vs SOF-T tourniquets or when to use/not use clotting agents, but I don’t know if he would be the best person to ask about infection management over the long term or birth under austere conditions. Just something to think about.
Jack! Speaking of fences and talking to your neighbors, you’ll love this one.
My homestead is in a rural area. I live RIGHT outside a little town, but everybody lives like you would in the country instead of the suburbs.
We have a neighbor whose plot takes a corner out of our lot. (The two used to be one plot, but at some point, a little .7-acre plot was pulled out for another house.) There’s pasture fence that runs along our property line, and I guess the new neighbor didn’t like it. OK… I can live with that. He wanted to build a privacy fence for his back yard. Again, I can live with that. But the fence was ON the property line, so you’d think he’d at least come and talk to us, right? Nope!
So picture this. My husband goes outside to find the fence mostly completed. What annoys the hell out of me though is that he came onto our property, cut a tree down (that was on the fence row), took the wood into HIS yard, and then proceeded to spray the entire fence row with some sort of herbicide. We have about 3 feet of dead zone on OUR side of the fence — grass, berry canes, thistle, and all the other stuff you’d expect to grow along rural fence rows is DEAD.
If we’d known what he was doing, my husband would have cut the tree down (’cause he wanted to take it down anyway and WE’D keep the wood), and he would have taken everything else down to the ground with our brush cutter. But no, the guy didn’t as much as LOOK our way to say, “Hey, I’d like to put up a new fence and…”
We have a flock of chickens, a dog, cats, and people with all kinds of allergies. Not to mention the fact that we try to limit exposure to that stuff whenever possible because one of my children is high-functioning autistic, and folks who’re part of the spectrum tend to have more chemical sensitivities.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been as angry as I am right this second. I hear your voice threatening to “punch people in the face”, and that’s how I felt for a fraction of a second. My husband’s going over to have a talk with the neighbor as soon as possible. Needless to say, I can’t do crap along that part of my property for a food hedge, and that would have been a really great place to grow a lot of food. 🙁
Find out what he sprayed. Some herbicides sterilize. Some kill leaf to root. Glyphosate (Round up) is supposed to degrade; however, the killed roots still provide a source of continued glyphosate contamination. If it was glyphosate, I would plant the food hedge and dump the fruit for 3 years. On the fourth year, with mature plants and lots of fruit coming, I would enjoy, enjoy, enjoy. I would not let this neighbor stop me from enjoying my property.
I had my plants on MY property, hacked and killed by a neighbor–I left that chainsaw massacre area in the front yard for 5 years without replacing or fixing the shrubs, couldn’t face the carnage. I wasted 5 years of gardening. I urge you not to let this neighbor stop you.
I definitely want to find out what he sprayed. This is probably the 3rd or 4th time he’s sprayed something along the fence row since moving in, but this time, the damage crossed 3ft onto our side. I didn’t LIKE it when he did that in the past, but the killing stayed on his side of the fence. I couldn’t BELIEVE it when my husband told me that it killed EVERYTHING (including our ‘grass’ which is mostly clover and stuff that you’d find in wild pastures.)
Because of the “privacy” fence too, I’ll have to look hard for plants that’ll do well with a lot of shade. Everything will be shaded by other old fruit trees, our house, and the fence. Definitely have some research to do at the very least.
My take on the “china as a global currency”:
I’ve been watching this for several years. Until recently I dismissed the possibility of China as a reserve currency, for the most part, at least in the near future. Longer term it could/might happen, but not in the short term.
Since the move with negotiating a currency exchange with AUS and the more recent moves in opening up their currency on the market in general along with the apparent “unofficial” gold flows which are substantially larger than officially released numbers, I suspect China has potentially made a significant step toward positioning itself as the global currency.
Before I make my next statement I’d like to point out I think of things in terms of “probabilities”, not absolutes, so I’m always adjusting my view and in my head the probabilities are continually changing…
Previously I thought the probability of the reminbi as “the” reserve currency in the next 10 years was low, now I think it’s medium-high. I suspect China *might* be working on a partially gold-backed currency. IF China can keep a lid on their economic problems and if they release a gold-backing, in 10 years the dollar might well be worth much less than right now. In that scenario, devaluation would be rapid. The fact that the big banks (JP Morgan, GS) are investing heavily in Chinese assets acts as confirmation this might be what’s going on behind the scenes. The global elites may be rapidly getting out of the dollar and we should be concerned about that.
I have never been of the thought the US dollar would devalue rapidly any time soon. This is mostly b/c there aren’t any good options. In the “old days”, people would just quit using a bad currency and gravitate toward the good one (this first appears in a market place as Greshams law but evolves into disuse of the “bad” currency). But in modern times, there ISN’T a “Good” option, really. If China can keep their economy more or less rolling and if they are working on creating an objectively better currency than the US dollar, then we might be in trouble and soon.
Jack’s point about the sledgehammer is a good one and a probable path that China tries to win the political/media war. They won’t have a hard time doing so especially if they can provide only a marginally better currency AND it could happen a lot faster than I previously thought.
My two cents.
If that all happens we’ll probably also go to war, imo.
Jack, Have you thought about adding Gregory Mannarino onto the expert panel? Also are you planning to have him back on the show? With how crazy these markets are I for one would like to see what he has to say.
Was wondering about the knife sharpening jig you talked about. Was it something like this one?
http://www.packardwoodworks.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=packard&Product_Code=148720&Category_Code=sharp-proed
Regarding buying raw land, it can be done and easily, at least it was for me. I (well, the wife and I) purchased 22 acres last Sept. The land is mostly wooded with approx 4-5ac cleared. We went through Farm Credit Services and couldn’t have been happier with the service.
Now, buying raw land does require a higher down payment, we put down about 1/3 the purchase price, got a good rate and then got a 1/2% discount for doing automatic bank drafts for the payments.
All you need to do is call some of the lenders that deal with farm land and explain what you want to do, honestly.
in addition to what Familyprepper mentioned about the northern exposure, maybe the questioner should consider a wood gasifier to power a genset and charge the battery bank, taking advantage of the timber there, in addition to the “Hunter” stove that Steven mentioned. Use what you’ve got!
Jack,
I think Kerry “Pocket Doc” Davis would be a welcome addition to the expert panel. I took his 3 day course at SigSauer Academy (Bullets and Bandages) and I must say Kerry is a solid instructor with a wealth of knowledge. He can explain things at the basic level for all of us who are not in the medical community.
Stay Safe!
On the ant issue, I have another suggestion, as well as the ones you gave Jack. I have been in the pest control industry for 15 years, currently working for a company that does only commercial accounts, like Tyson Foods, Walmart & Marriot to name a few of our clients. We are considered the ‘elite’ in the industry. And while your advice is great, and would work (though I am a bit leery of bringing an “ant magnet” into the home), but the first thought I had was petroleum jelly, aka, vaseline. It is a great repellant for many if not all insects. Our R & D department even uses it to ‘corral’ insects during demonstrations and tests. A thin band around the container could also stop the trail of ants.
That said I know little about the fermenting process and if the mash is exposed to high enough temperatures it could compromise the vaseline. Still, knowledge is power and given the variety of issues you deal with, Jack, even if the vaseline idea wont work here, having that info might help you with other situations…
Thanks for all you do, Jack. Your podcast is a regular part of my mental diet. You are a blessing. Keep it up!
Reply for Dan from Victoria
I had a similar questions with my place ( near Castlemaine Victoria) i have a complety different soil type as mine is very heavy clay with almost no topsiol due to goldmining.
Sounds like you are setting up a few small beds. I have a few acres so cannot really add mulch in the quantities i wouldike to. I visited an agricultural suppliers that specialised In soil amendments. I took a soil sample and they gave some advice.(I was adding minerals and gypsum).
I have a fairly large area and have been cover cropping this year. I have used a combitaion of straw , fertiliser, compost, and green mulch to revive things.
Contact me via my website if you want to chat further or even catchup sometime. Keen to know how you get on with the woody beds. I have a few and been getting good results ( although my soil is not really ready yet.
Regards
Paul