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Episode-304- Audience Questions 10-27-09

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After being preempted by the weather yesterday we are doing today’s show on listener questions.  Tune in today as we answer questions about surplus firearms, buying land, keeping and investing in silver, potential bank runs, alcohol as a gas and more.

Today I also tell you about an article I read on Lew Rockwell about coming food shortages and why food producing land will be one of the most valuable commodities in the coming future. The article is aptly titled “Food Will Never Be So Cheap Again“.

Resources for today’s show…

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

Comments

Episode-304- Audience Questions 10-27-09 — 25 Comments

  2. Jack, today you criticized alternative fuels and electric vehicles and said that it would be better for our policymakers to legislate more drilling instead. You said, \"there\’s plenty of oil.\" Do you really think so? In episode 189 you seemed to believe in peak oil theory, that the threat is real and imminent…

  3. On the rare-earth metals and their effects on the land … take a look at what the nickel mining industry did to a place in Northern Ontario, Sudbury.

    The land was so drained of life that NASA actually used it as a training group for the moon landings.

    (Or FAKED the moon landings there, if your tinfoil hat leans that way!)

  4. @Evergreen

    LOL clear our your ears man! I said alcohol based fuels, (ethanol) sucks. It is a terrible waste of energy, doesn’t transport well and is highly inefficient, not to mention that it is corrosive and destroys most vehicles that attempt to run it.

    I MOST CERTAINLY DID NOT put down electric vehicles. In fact I stated for the person seeking independence an electric car and a solar/wind system at home that can be used to charge the car was a better option then growing grain and trying to turn it into gasohol.

    Where in the world you got that I “criticized alternative fuels and electric vehicles” from that I have no idea? I criticized ONE fuel, ETHANOL and said NOTHING NEGATIVE about electric vehicles at all.

    Now I do believe the fastest route to energy independence from foreign oil is to drill domestic oil like crazy while aggressively developing alternatives. Wind makes sense, solar makes sense, tidal makes massive sense, geothermal has promise, natural gas and nuclear are bridges while we prefect technology and oil is the only thing that solves our problem for the next 15-30 years.

    I want alternative energy you can be sure but I want it in the hands of individuals far more then in the hands of the utility companies. As long as Shell oil is selling us gas or ethanol and the electric companies are selling us power (created by solar, wind, gas matters not) it is under control and TAXED. In fact it is taxed beyound belief, before, during and after production.

    There are two worlds here

    1. How we as individuals can develop independence from the systems of energy production/delivery

    2. How the mass population can gain independence from foriegn sources of energy.

    If you try to blend those two worlds you fall into the trap, the one that leads you to believe stupid shit like “Cap and Trade” will save our planet and the polar bears. Such thinking is utter nonsense.

  5. Hi Jack,

    Checked out the new TSP Gear Shop. I saw the round stickers but I was hoping you’d have bumper stickers for sale. Do you plan on having bumper stickers available in the future?

    Thanks for a great show!

    Jenelle

  6. Hey Jack,
    Enjoyed the show as always.
    You mentioned the destruction of war surplus collector type arms by the US in Iraq, after the invasion.
    I’ve been looking for something about this in the mainstream media to show to a friend who is quite skeptical of most anything that could be in any way anti-Bush. I have told him this happened under “pro-gun” Bush but I can’t prove it.
    Any help you can give will be greatly appreciated.
    Thanks Jack

  7. I agree with your comments on shifting to electric cars and plug in hybrids. I also agree with your comments on bio fuels. In the US it takes one barrel of oil to produce 1.3 barrels of ethanol from corn. It is not efficient or something we can count on in the future. In Brazil they get 8 barrels of ethanol out for every barrel of oil in because they use sugar instead of corn. If we could produce ethanol with cellulose instead of sugar then bio fuels may be useful in the future.
    I also agree with Evergreen in that I was concerned when you said there is plenty of oil in the US if we remove legislative barriers. I used to believe this as well, but I did some research and found that if you divide current US oil consumption by the amount of proven reserves in the US you get about 4.5 years worth of oil. If you include provable (50% chance of finding oil), and possible (5-10% chance) reserves you are looking at about 9 years worth of oil at our current rate of consumption. I’m starting to think that it might be a good idea to leave some of this oil in the ground as a strategic reserve in case Russia or the middle east try to use oil as a weapon. We need to reduce oil consumption as a matter of national security. Plug in hybrids are the answer.

  8. Don’t forget natural gas vehicles. Better than any other car for getting off foreign oil. Utah, California, Oklahoma all have great infrastructure for it. Natural gas is cheap and works great in a bi-fuel vehicle.

  9. @ken325

    The problem with most facts about oil in the US is they are not facts, they are propaganda.

    They ignore things like the oil in Colorado that is bigger then any known reserves in the world and are fully untapped. To the tune of 2 TRILLION BARRELS

    The vast off shore resources that are never included.

    The unknown oil that hasn’t been explored for because the exploration isn’t worth the risk because we can’t drill what we know about today.

    The key is no matter how much or how little oil we have preventing extraction isn’t helping us in a quest for independence.

    I suggest anyone concerned about this topic listen to the beginning of today’s show because as preppers you are all missing the real point anyway.

  10. @HoC

    Bush isn’t responsible for this one, it happened way lower then the executive branch. The only thing you need to ask your friend is…

    Where are the surplus weapons from Iraq? We just shut down one of the largest armies in the world one largely equipped by the Soviets and Eastern Europe with outdated weapons when those nations upgraded. Such a nation clearly had a tremendous stock pile of small arms. Our army is now training them and they are being equipped with U.S. weaponry so where did it all go?

    But sorry you can’t bash Bush on this. It was a not a presidential level decision.

    It is not isolated to Iraq, many weapons in many nations are now being destroyed at decommission rather then surplussed.

    http://www.routledgestrategicstudies.com/books/The-Politics-of-Destroying-Surplus-Small-Arms-isbn9780415494618

  11. I always listen to your show so of course I will listen today.
    About the oil in Colorado. I think that your talking about oil shale or oil locked up in rock. Most people don\’t count this because it is like ethanol from corn. You end up using a barrel of oil to produce a barrel of oil. Current plans to produce this involve pumping concrete around the formation then pumping boiling water under the formation to force the oil to the surface. This is a complex and energy intensive process so I don\’t think it will save us unless we develop the technology to produce it cheaply. The oil off shore is also expensive to produce. A huge reserve was found off of Brazil recently. It is under 5000 ft of water and 1000 ft of soil. Getting this to the surface is expensive and requires special equipment. The other depressing thing is when you divide the estimated amount of the reserve by the global oil consumption you see that it is really just a few months worth of oil. I don’t think that we will run out soon, but oil is going to be very expensive in the future.

  12. Thanks Jack.
    That makes sense about the small arms destruction in Iraq.
    I think I was thrown off because I found it so easy to find where we destroyed small arms in Bosnia and the lefties bragged about making the world safer.
    Anyway, thanks for the answer.

  13. @Ken

    Much has been made of the “shale” that is part of the Colorado reserves but much has been ignored about how much is instantly extractable and no it doesn’t take a barrel of oil to produce a barrel of oil with shale. You really need to stop listening to the parrot media and for instance take a look at the advances in Canada being done with shale.

    Additionally much of the “shale oil” in Colorado isn’t actually locked up, it is actually extractable with modern techniques. Further we really have no idea how much more is there to be discovered.

    Oh and the “few months of oil” argument is three things, old, tired and fallacious. Every time we find a huge reserve the environmentalists fall back to this total load of steaming bullshit. We find “more oil than is known to exist in all of Saudi Arabia” in a single reserve and we hear well “the polar bears are going to die, the planet is going melt and besides there is only a few months of oil there anyway”.

    Really? So that means there is only a few months of known reserves left in Saudi Arabia? This is all global environmentalist nonsense. These people are as invasive as lice and can not be trusted. If right now we found a quadrillion barrels of oil only 1000 feet deep in the middle of a barren piece of land that would flow as easily as water you know what they would say?

    “We can’t drill our way out of this problem, the environmental consequences are to severe and there is only a few months worth of oil there anyway”.

    Have you ever stopped and just used basic common sense to and asked, if all these reserves that are bigger then any other known reserves only provide a few months of oil then just how is there any oil at all left elsewhere”? The problem with lies is they never stand up when you examine them from a distance.

  14. Jack just went to a gun show in Springfield MO this past sunday they had surplus hope i spell this right Moisen nagant? 7.62-54 still in paper dont remember the price but they were like brand new.

  15. Regarding oil – the best way to figure out if it’s easily extractable, the size of the field, the quality of the oil, etc. is to freakin’ start drilling! In reality, it will take a lot longer to get the drilling process rolling, but the longer we wait to start the more dependent we are on nations that by and large do not like us. I personally think a lot of the claims are overstated, but who cares? Every barrel we can produce domestically is one less that we are dependent on somebody else for. I say “All of the above” to every energy option mentioned minus the ethanol b/c the energy balance just makes no sense and nuclear – just don’t like the waste storage options.

    Keep up the great shows Jack.

  16. Jack, I just read the latest edition of American Rifleman and they had an article on barrel cleaning/burn-in. It’s on page 66 and pretty well backs up what you were saying.

    About melting the icebergs/polar caps… Hypothetically speaking… If that were done slowly, I don’t really see the harm. The earth would probably be able to absorb the water, both on the coastlines and through the rivers. If the extra water were available, then people would be able to dig channels inland from the seas and irrigate into the deserts, thus allowing, over time, for more farmland. It’s just a thought that’s been rattling around my head…

  17. …and if Al Gore happens to be right about the low lands being flooded, well, maybe mountain top property would become prime lakefront real estate.

  18. Great show Jack. You confirmed what I thought in your response to my questions about barrel break in, fowled barrel accuracy and surplus.

    I really think the breaking in period is me getting used to the new gun. I have been around guns my whole life and never heard my dad, grandpas, or uncles ever talk about it. They did talk about being sure you hunt with a (slightly) dirty barrel.

  21. Jack ,
    About alcohol fuel , it has its place. Not as a big comercial operation but as an independent fallback for ocasional transport , generation of power , flame dirrect heat and light . It stores better than gasoline and at this point in time it is far better economically to just buy rather than make it. Making it would be a good skill to have , akin to mead or wine making , and federal law allows up to 100 gallon per adult per year.www.happymountain.net/the%20law.html
    Production of alcohol does not always take a grain or fruit crop but may yeild a smaller result and slower to acheive.attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/switchgrass.html
    If I have an electric car north of the Mason-Dixon and the SHTF occurs then I hope to have a little alcohol to keep the cab warm on runs (if there is anywhere to go).
    Best thing about small scale is you don’t have to pay taxes on it.

    Your audio podcast are the best I have heard on survival in over 20 years , you really inspire, THANK YOU !

  22. Hey- thanks for answering my question on how to get a job when more experienced people are out there. Before I do what you suggested, I’ll have to save up some money for gas to get to and from my job, since I won’t be making any money at that time- currently I’ve been doing labor projects and sign spinning for cash.

    Are there any particular job types you think might be the most open to this type of arrangement?

    Maybe night shift at a warehouse or something?

  23. I agree that corn as ethanol is not a good idea. Production from corn being approximately 300 gallons per acre is very low compared to other things that can be used. Things such as sugar cane, fodder beets, sorghum, and even the jerusalem artichokes can outproduce corn per acre many times over.

    I think that if people would get out of the “corn and soybeans” mentality, they being the farmers in my area, things could look much better from an ethanol viewpoint.

    I shudder when I think of how much ground that goes wasted because of the “corn for ethanol” farms.

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