Prepping

Why Are Thousands Of Millionaires Fleeing Chicago And Other Major Cities Around The World?

The Elite Fleeing - Public DomainThe elite are fleeing major cities around the globe at a staggering rate.  In fact, the Chicago Tribune is reporting that approximately 3,000 millionaires left the city of Chicago alone during 2015.  The same study discussed in that Chicago Tribune article found that 7,000 millionaires left Paris, France last year.  So why is this happening?  Why are thousands of millionaires suddenly packing up and moving away from the big cities?  Could it be possible that they have many of the same concerns that “preppers” do about what is coming?

For quite a while, I have been writing about how the elite have been preparing for the coming collapse.  But I had no idea that literally thousands of them are packing up and permanently leaving our major cities.  As I mentioned above, the Chicago Tribune is reporting that about 3,000 of them left the city of Chicago alone during the previous calendar year…

Millionaires are leaving Chicago more than any other city in the United States on a net basis, according to a new report.

About 3,000 individuals with net assets of $1 million or more, not including their primary residence, moved from the city last year, with many citing rising racial tensions and worries about crime as factors in the decision, according to research firm New World Wealth.

But of course this is not just happening in Chicago, nor is it just an American phenomenon.

Actually, the two cities that lost the most millionaires last year are both located over in Europe…

Paris saw the largest exodus.

The French city lost 7,000, or 6 percent, of its millionaires, followed by Rome, which lost 5,000, or 7 percent.

It is true that some of these millionaires are moving for tax reasons, but many others are quite concerned that humanity is hurtling toward a deeply apocalyptic future, and they want to get prepared for what is about to happen while they still have time.

In eastern Germany, one company known as “Vivos” has spent an enormous amount of money converting an underground facility built by the Soviets during the Cold War into the largest private shelter on the planet.  It is called “Europa One”, and it is being billed as an ultra-luxury survival bunker for the elite.

The following comes from their official website…

Located in the heart of Europe is one of the most fortified and massive underground survival shelters on Earth, deep below a limestone mountain. Built by the Soviets during the Cold War, this shelter was a fortress for military equipment and munitions. Now privately owned, this 76 acre above and below ground hardened facility is capable of withstanding a substantial close range nuclear blast, a direct airliner crash, biological and chemical agents, massive shock waves, earthquakes, electro-magnetic pulses, and virtually any armed attack.

This irreplaceable complex is now being re-tasked as Vivos Europa One, becoming the world’s largest and most fortified underground shelter for long-term, uncompromising protection of high net worth individuals, their families, and most precious assets when no other above-ground exfiltration solution will suffice.

The complex includes over 21,108 square meters (227,904 square feet) of secured, blast proof living areas; and, an additional 4,079 square meters (43,906 square feet) of above-ground office, apartments, warehouse buildings, and its own train depot. Collectively there are over 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) of continuous tunnel chambers.

An RT report that was posted on YouTube right here contains some stunning visuals from the inside of this facility.  Personally, I was quite stunned when I saw the extent of their preparations for the first time…

This is something that I could go on and on about, but I won’t.  If you are interested in reading more, please see my previous article entitled “Superyacht Getaway Subs And Luxury Bomb Shelters: The Elite Are The Most Paranoid Preppers Of All“.

As I was preparing for this article, I remembered something that Zero Hedge just reported that I think relates to this subject.  It turns out that “the smart money” has been net sellers of U.S. stocks for 11 weeks in a row…

Last week, during which the S&P 500 was down 1.2%, BofAML clients were net sellers of US equities for the 11th consecutive week. Net sales of $1.7bn were smaller than in the prior week, but all three client groups (hedge funds, institutional clients, private clients) remained net sellers, led by institutional clients.

So why are the elite dumping stocks like crazy right now?

Don’t they realize that the stock market has been going up?

Could it be possible that they have information that the rest of us do not?

Most people have absolutely no idea how vulnerable our society truly is, or how very easy it would be to plunge the general population into a state of utter chaos.

That is why I am so glad that Mike Norris (the son of Chuck Norris) is coming out with his new movie entitled “AmeriGEDDON”.  This film imagines a time when a global terror organization disables the U.S. power grid and martial law is instituted.  Rioting, looting and civil unrest break out, and the government moves in to disarm the citizens and “restore order”.  You can watch the official trailer for this new film right here…

Could we actually witness such a scenario in our future?

Well, I don’t expect to see anything like this next month, but in my new book I explain why I believe that America is heading for a future that is even more apocalyptic than the one portrayed in “AmeriGEDDON”.

Everywhere you turn, our world is becoming increasingly unstable.  Economic collapse has already gripped some areas of the planet, there is tremendous geopolitical instability in the Middle East, Islamic terror is on the rise, there have been outbursts of civil unrest all around the world, and just this week we have seen a series of very alarming earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Many people believe that we are entering a period of time when an unprecedented confluence of events will combine to create a “perfect storm” which will shake the world to the core.

And it isn’t just “preppers” that feel this way.  As you have just seen, thousands of millionaires are so concerned about changing conditions that they are fleeing the major cities.

So before you dismiss all of this apocalyptic talk as “nonsense”, perhaps you may want to consider what the elite may know that you do not.

*About the author: Michael Snyder is the founder and publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog. Michael’s controversial new book about Bible prophecy entitled “The Rapture Verdict” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.*

Superyacht Getaway Subs And Luxury Bomb Shelters: The Elite Are The Most Paranoid Preppers Of All

Superyachts - Public DomainWhen it comes to “prepping”, many among the elite take things to an entirely different level.  As you will see below, the elite are willing to pay big money for cutting edge home security measures, luxury bomb shelters and superyacht getaway submarines. Some of the things that the elite are demanding for their own protection go beyond even what we would see in a James Bond film, and serving the prepping needs of the elite has become a multi-billion dollar business.  Meanwhile, the media outlets that the elite own continue to mock the rest of us for getting prepared.  All the time we see headlines like this one that appeared in a major American news source: “Preppers: Meet the paranoid Americans awaiting the apocalypse“.  Well, if we are paranoid for setting aside some extra food and supplies for the future, what does that make the people that you will read about in this article?

The elite live in a world that is completely different from the world that you and I live in.  In wealthy enclaves of major global cities such as London, elitists are willing to shell out massive amounts of money to ensure that everyone else is kept out.  The following comes from an article that was just published a few hours ago by the London Evening Standard entitled “The paranoid world of London’s super-rich: DNA-laced security mist and superyacht getaway submarines“…

Business is booming because billionaires are a paranoid bunch. Take one who recently moved to Mayfair. ‘He wanted everything, from protection from cyber hacking through to physical intrusion and kidnapping,’ says Bond Gunning. ‘We ended up installing fingerprint-activated locks for family members and programmable keys for staff that limit the time they are allowed into the property and the rooms they are able to enter and exit.

‘Inside and outside we installed 24-hour monitored CCTV cameras that are so hi-tech they can tell the difference between a dog, cat and a person. In the garden there are thermal-imaging cameras that can detect heat sources in the undergrowth. One thing intruders can’t hide is the heat of their bodies.

‘Should an intruder evade the cameras or ignore the warnings they automatically broadcast, the property itself is protected by bulletproof glass and alarm sensors in all rooms. There is a bullet, gas and bombproof panic or safe room, with its own food and water, medical supplies and communications, and an impregnable supply of fresh air. Just in case the family cannot make it there in time, key rooms are sealed by reinforced shutters.’

But for many elitists, those kinds of extreme security measures are simply not enough.  That is why sales of “luxury doomsday shelters” are absolutely soaring.  If “the end of the world” arrives unexpectedly, high net worth individuals want to know that there will be somewhere for them and their families to go.  The following is an excerpt from an article about one such facility located in Indiana…

As we roll down US Highway 41 in Terre Haute, Indiana , my guide insists I give him my iPhone. Then he tosses me a satin blindfold. The terms of our trip were clear—I wasn’t to know where we were going or how we got there.That’s because we’re on our way to the undisclosed location of an underground bunker designed to survive the end of the world, whatever form that apocalypse takes.

When I remove my blindfold, I am standing in a grassy clearing looking at a boxy concrete structure that serves as the entrance to a Cold War–era government communications facility gutted and reborn as Vivos Indiana. This is the Ritz Carlton of doomsday shelters, a hideout where residents can wait out a nuclear winter or a zombie apocalypse in luxury and style while the rest of humanity melts and disintegrates. The living area has 12-and-a-half-foot ceilings, sumptuous black leather couches, wall art featuring cheerful Parisian street scenes, towering faux ferns, and plush carpets. Faith Hill croons from a large-screen TV set in front of three rows of comfy beige reclining chairs. The cupboards are stocked with 60 varieties of freeze-dried and canned foodstuffs; an evening meal might include spaghetti aglio e olio topped with skillet fried steak chunks, a fresh tomato-and-zucchini salad fresh from the hydroponic garden, and decadent turtle brownies. An eight-by-nine bedroom is designed for four people (there are larger units for six) and comes with double-queen bunks clothed in 600-thread-count ivory sheets and duvet covers worthy of a four-star hotel, a comparison highlighted on the Vivos website.

That sounds lovely.

But normal people like us cannot afford something like that.  It will only be the elite that will be able to afford to hole up in underground bunkers while the world above descends into madness.

Other elitists will be taking off in their superyachts and heading out into the open ocean when things really start falling to pieces.  And if their superyachts are threatened, some of them even have “getaway subs”.  Here is more from the Evening Standard…

The ultimate vehicle of choice is no longer an armoured limousine or a private jet. They’re so Noughties. If you want bragging rights these days, you need your own submarine, which floats out of a sub-sea compartment in your superyacht. ‘It’s a toy, but if the worst happened, it could also be an escape route,’ says one prominent London tycoon with a weakness for Monaco-berthed superyachts — provided they have military-grade radar jammers and missile and torpedo defences.

So exactly why are so many among the elite so concerned about their own security these days?

Why are so many of them going to such extraordinary lengths to prepare for worst case scenarios?

Do they know something that the rest of us do not?

In a previous article, I included a quote from an article in the Mirror that was published earlier this year entitled “Panicked super rich buying boltholes with private airstrips to escape if poor rise up“…

Robert Johnson, president of the Institute of New Economic Thinking, told people at the World Economic Forum in Davos that many hedge fund managers were already planning their escapes.

He said: “I know hedge fund managers all over the world who are buying airstrips and farms in places like New Zealand because they think they need a getaway.”

The next time that someone criticizes you for prepping, just point out what the elite are doing.

Clearly, many of them are deeply concerned that something may be coming.

So are you preparing?

If so, what are you preparing for?

Please feel free to join the discussion by posting a comment below…

20 Reasons Why All The People That Quit Prepping After September Are Dead Wrong

Wrong Way - Public DomainMillions of Americans were gearing up for some huge event to happen in September, but the world didn’t end and now many of them have given up entirely on prepping.  Of course the truth is that some absolutely earth-shattering events did take place last month, but because September did not play out exactly as some were anticipating, a lot of people feel very let down.  My contacts in the emergency food industry tell me that sales have dropped off dramatically, and yesterday I was told by someone that I trust that the same is true for those that sell precious metals.  But this should not be happening.  What we witnessed in August and September was just the warm up act, and all of the numbers are absolutely screaming at us that we are right on track for a major global crisis.  In this article I am going to focus on economic and financial issues, but there are so many other things going on around the planet right now that threaten to throw our world into turmoil.  Anyone that thinks that it is safe to “relax” now is simply not paying attention.  The following are 20 reasons why all the people that quit prepping after September are dead wrong…

#1 U.S. exports are down 11 percent for the year so far.  The only other times they have fallen this dramatically since the turn of the century were during the last two recessions.

#2 Since March, the amount of stuff being shipped by truck, rail and air inside the United States has been falling every single month on a year over year basis.  This is a clear indication that economic activity is really slowing down.

#3 Wholesale sales in the U.S. have fallen to the lowest level since the last recession.

#4 The inventory to sales ratio has risen to the highest level since the last recession.  This means that there is a whole lot of unsold inventory that is just sitting around out there and not selling.

#5 Industrial production declined for five months in a row during the first half of 2015.  That is something that has never happened outside of a recession.

#6 Wal-Mart is projecting that its earnings may fall by as much as 12 percent during the next fiscal year.

#7 Don’t expect U.S. consumers to rush in and save the day.  According to brand new numbers from the Social Security Administration, 51 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year.

#8 And remember, there are 102.6 million working age Americans that do not even have a job of any kind.

#9 According to Challenger Gray, layoffs at major firms have risen to the highest level that we have witnessed since 2009.

#10 The number of job openings in the United States declined by 5.3 percent during the month of August.  That was a huge plunge for just one month.

#11 According to British banking giant HSBC, the world is already in a “dollar recession“.  Global trade has fallen 8.4 percent so far this year, and global GDP expressed in U.S. dollars is down 3.4 percent.

#12 In September, Chinese exports were down 3.7 percent compared to one year ago, and Chinese imports were down a staggering 20.4 percent compared to a year ago.

#13 During the month of August, we witnessed the 8th largest single day stock market crash in U.S. history on a point basis and the 10th largest single day stock market crash in U.S. history on a point basis.  It was the first time ever that the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined by more than 500 points on two consecutive trading days.

#14 On August 24th, we also witnessed the greatest intraday stock market point swing of all time.  From the high point of the day to the low point of the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 1,089 points before recovering.

#15 At one point in September, approximately 11 trillion dollars of stock market wealth had been wiped out around the globe.

#16 At one point in September, Chinese stocks were down about 40 percent from the peak of the market.

#17 At one point in September, German stocks were down about 25 percent from the peak of the market.

#18 Since the last financial crisis, the global economy has added another 50 trillion dollars to our colossal pile of debt.  That means we are far more vulnerable to a crisis than we were the last time around.

#19 The list of global financial giants that are rumored to be in very serious trouble includes Deutsche Bank (the biggest bank in Germany), UBS (the biggest bank in Switzerland) and three of the largest commodity trading firms on the entire planet: Glencore, Trafigura and the Noble Group.  The total collapse of any one of them would easily be another “Lehman Brothers moment” for the global financial system.

#20 Stocks are still in a massive bubble.  In fact, stocks in the U.S. are going to have to fall more than 30 percent from the current levels just to get back to what is considered “normal” or “average”.  The following is an extended excerpt from one of my previous articles…

*****

In recent years, stocks have soared to unbelievably unrealistic levels.  One of the most popular methods of measuring the true value of stocks is something called the cyclically-adjusted price to earnings ratio.  It was developed by economist Robert Shiller of Yale University, and it attempts to accurately show how much we are paying for stocks in relation to how much those corporations are actually earning.  When this number is very high, stocks are overvalued, and when this number is very low stocks are undervalued.

Earlier this year, CAPE hit a peak of about 27, and by the beginning of August it was still sitting up around 26.  The only times CAPE has been higher have been just before other stock market bubbles have burst…

CAPE - from Wikipedia

It would take a total drop of about 40 percent from the peak of the market just to get back to average.  So far the Dow has fallen about 10 percent or so, so it is going to take another 30 percent crash just to get to a point where stock prices are considered “normal” once again.

*****

In this day and age, we are so impatient and our attention spans are pitifully small.  We live in a world of instant coffee, video on demand, and 48 hour news cycles.  Very few of us are willing to take a long term view of things because we have all become accustomed to “living in the now” and focusing on what is in front of us this very instant.

Yes, the headlines are not screaming about a “stock market crash” or an “economic depression” on this particular day in October.

But that doesn’t mean that we are out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination.

The biggest bank in the western world (HSBC) says that a global recession has now begun, and the pain that we have experienced so far is just the tip of the iceberg.

So please don’t think that it is time to relax.

The month of September was not “the end” of anything.

Rather, it was just the beginning…

The Elite Have Prepared For The Coming Collapse – Have You?

New Zealand - Public DomainWhy are the global elite buying extremely remote compounds that come with their own private airstrips in the middle of nowhere on the other side of the planet?  And why did they start dumping stocks like crazy earlier this year?  Do they know something that the rest of us don’t?  The things that I am about to share with you are quite alarming.  It appears that the global elite have a really good idea of what is coming, and they have already taken substantial steps to prepare for it.  Sadly, most of the general population is absolutely clueless about the financial collapse that is about to take place, and thus most of them will be completely blindsided by it.

As I discussed the other day, the only way that you make money in the stock market is if you get out in time.  The elite understand this very well, and that is why they have been dumping stocks for months.  This is something that has even been reported in the mainstream news.  For example, this comes from a CNBC article that was published on June 16th…

The so-called smart money is pulling back from market risk, with fund managers taking down exposure to stocks, increasing cash holdings and buying protection against a sharp selloff.

About two weeks before that, I discussed the same phenomenon on my website.  The article that I published on May 30th was entitled “Why Is The Smart Money Suddenly Getting Out Of Stocks And Real Estate?”

Did the “smart money” know what was about to happen?  Since the peak of the market, the Dow has already lost more than 2200 points.  All of the gains since the end of the 2013 calendar year have already been completely wiped out.

And of course the truth is that you didn’t really need any inside information to see that it was time to get out.  I have been warning my readers for months about what was coming.  The signs have been clear as a bell if you were willing to look at them.  Just consider the following excerpt from a recent piece by Michael Pento…

Earlier in the year margin debt had risen over $30 billion or 6.5% to $507 billion and was equal to a record 2.87% of U.S. GDP. This surpasses the previous all-time high of 2.78% set in March 2000 – the top of the last largest stock market bubble in history.

And despite the assurance of every mutual fund manager on TV that they have boatloads of cash ready to deploy at these “discounted” levels, in early August cash levels at mutual funds sank to their lowest level in history, 3.2% (see chart below). As a percentage of stock market capitalization, fund cash levels are also nearing the record low set in 2000 when the NASDAQ peaked and subsequently crashed by around 80%.

The financial markets are absolutely primed for a major crash, and when that happens many among the elite will be hightailing it to the middle of nowhere.

Earlier this year, the Mirror published an article all about this entitled “Panicked super rich buying boltholes with private airstrips to escape if poor rise up“.  Here is a brief excerpt…

Robert Johnson, president of the Institute of New Economic Thinking, told people at the World Economic Forum in Davos that many hedge fund managers were already planning their escapes.

He said: “I know hedge fund managers all over the world who are buying airstrips and farms in places like New Zealand because they think they need a getaway.”

Keep in mind that these are not just some rumors that Robert Johnson has heard.  These are people that he knows personally and that he interacts with regularly.

And Robert Johnson was not alone in this assessment.  Here is more from the Mirror…

His comments were backed up by Stewart Wallis, executive director of the New Economics Foundation, who when asked about the comments told CNBC Africa: “Getaway cars, the airstrips in New Zealand and all that sort of thing, so basically a way to get off.

“If they can get off, onto another planet, some of them would.”

For some reason, the global elite seem to have a particular affinity for New Zealand.  Perhaps it is because of the great natural beauty of the nation combined with the fact that it is in the middle of nowhere.  The following comes from the Daily Mail…

New Zealand, which is about the size of the UK, but has a population of just 4.4 million, offers them all the modern luxuries they have come to expect – but miles from any country which may implode into chaos.

The country is 11,658 miles away from the UK, while its closest neighbour is Fiji – 1,612 miles away, more than double the distance between Lands End and John O’Groats.

Homes at the top end of the market come with tennis courts, swimming pools and media rooms – and some even boast their own personal jetties where a family can moor their boat.

But the icing on the cake for those looking to make a quick escape comes in the form of private helipads or, better, your own airstrip.

For most of us, buying a luxury bolthole with a private airstrip in New Zealand is not a possibility.

But we should all be getting prepared.

I have a contact in the food industry that has told me that her company’s sales have “been through the roof” over the past 10 days as people stock up for what is coming.  In fact, she even used the word “panic” to describe what was happening.

And Americans have been buying a record number of guns as well…

Newly released August records show that the FBI posted 1.7 million background checks required of gun purchasers at federally licensed dealers, the highest number recorded in any August since gun checks began in 1998. The numbers follow new monthly highs for June (1.5 million) and July (1.6 million), a period which spans a series of deadly gun attacks — from Charleston to Roanoke — and proposals for additional firearm legislation.

For a very long time, I have been warning my readers to get prepared.

Well, now we are getting so close that panic is starting to set in.

Hopefully you are already well prepared for what is about to happen.  If not, you need to kick your prepping into overdrive.

These next few months are going to change everything.  Get ready while you still can.

Did You Know That The U.S. No Longer Has Any Strategic Grain Reserves At All?

Desolation - Public DomainOnce upon a time, it was popular to say that the U.S. government only had enough wheat stored up to provide everyone in America with half a loaf of bread.  But that is not true anymore.  Recently, I discovered that the U.S. does not have any strategic grain reserves left at all.  Zero.  Nada.  Zilch.  As you will see below, the USDA liquidated the remaining reserves back in 2008.  So if a major food crisis hit this country, our government would have nothing to give us.  Of course the federal government could always go out and try to buy or seize food to feed the population during a major emergency, but that wouldn’t actually increase the total amount of food that was available.  Instead, it would just give the government more power over who gets it.

The U.S. strategic grain reserve was initially created during the days of the Great Depression.  Back then, the wisdom of storing up food for hard times was self-evident.  Unfortunately, over time interest in this program faded, and at this point there is no strategic grain reserve in the United States at all.  The following comes from the Los Angeles Times…

The modern concept of a strategic grain reserve was first proposed in the 1930s by Wall Street legend Benjamin Graham. Graham’s idea hinged on the clever management of buffer stocks of grain to tame our daily bread’s tendencies toward boom and bust. When grain prices rose above a threshold, supplies could be increased by bringing reserves to the market — which, in turn, would dampen prices. And when the price of grain went into free-fall and farmers edged toward bankruptcy, the need to fill the depleted reserve would increase the demand for corn and wheat, which would prop up the price of grain.

Following Graham’s theory, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created a grain reserve that helped rally the price of wheat and saved American farms during the Depression. In the inflationary 1970s, the USDA revamped FDR’s program into the Farmer-Owned Grain Reserve, which encouraged farmers to store grain in government facilities by offering low-cost and even no-interest loans and reimbursement to cover the storage costs. But over the next quarter of a century the dogma of deregulated global markets came to dominate American politics, and the 1996 Freedom to Farm Act abolished our national system of holding grain in reserve.

As for all that wheat held in storage, it became part of the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust, a food bank and global charity under the authority of the secretary of Agriculture. The stores were gradually depleted until 2008, when the USDA decided to convert all of what was left into its dollar equivalent. And so the grain that once stabilized prices for farmers, bakers and American consumers ended up as a number on a spreadsheet in the Department of Agriculture.

Of course if there are no major national emergencies of any kind and life just continues on normally for decades to come, this will not be an issue.

But what if something does happen?

Right now, we are already witnessing all sorts of “mini food cataclysms”.  For instance, bees just continue to die in unprecedented numbers all over the globe.  During the most recent year, U.S. beekeepers lost approximately 40 percent of their colonies…

Widespread deaths among bees, known as Colony Collapse Disorder, were first reported about a decade ago, but the problem has not diminished and may have been especially bad recently.

Beekeepers across the United States lost roughly 40 percent of their colonies from April 2014 to April 2015, according to an annual survey conducted by the Bee Informed Partnership and Apiary Inspectors of America, with funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Another cataclysm is happening with bananas.  In fact, it is being reported that the specific type of banana that we eat right now is in danger of being wiped off the face of the globe…

Bananas are in big trouble. While the beloved fruit remains as popular as ever, its crops across the world have been hit with an infectious fungus and the damage is irreparable.

The Cavendish species of banana, which was introduced in 1965, is currently the primary banana export in the world. And it’s being completely ruined by Tropical Race 4, a fungal disease that began in Malaysia in 1990 and has since spread to Southeast Asia, Australia, and finally Africa in 2013.

Believe it or not, this is not the first time a fungus has wiped out an entire species of the bright yellow fruit. By 1965, the Gros Michel species of banana—which lasted longer, were more resilient, and didn’t require artificial ripening—was eradicated after what was called the Panama disease, a different strain of a similar fungal disease wiped out the world’s commercial banana plantations.

In addition, the recent bird flu epidemic was responsible for the deaths of 48 million turkeys and chickens.  This has driven egg prices through the roof…

U.S. egg prices continued their upward climb following the most devastating outbreak of bird flu in decades, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report this week.

Prices of large Grade A eggs delivered to store doors in the Midwest Regional area hit a range of $2.73 to $2.81 per dozen, the report showed.

Indianapolis Business Journal notes this is the most expensive eggs have been, according to data that stretches back to 2000.

More than 48 million birds have been affected since avian flu first was spotted in the U.S. in December.

And of course there are many, many more examples of significant problems that are hitting our food supply.  The following short list comes from one of my previous articles…

-More than 40 percent of our fresh produce comes from the state of California, but thanks to the worst multi-year drought in the history of the state much of the region is turning back into a desert.

-Also due to the persistent drought, the size of the U.S. cattle herd is now as small as it was during the 1950s, and the price of beef has doubled since the last recession.

-Over the past few years, something called “porcine epidemic diarrhea” has wiped out approximately 10 percent of the entire pig population in the United States.

-Just off the west coast of the United States, a wide variety of sea creatures are dying in unprecedented numbers.  For example, the sardine population along the west coast has dropped by a staggering 91 percent just since 2007.

-Down in Florida, citrus greening disease is absolutely crushing the citrus industry.  Crops just keep on getting smaller year after year.

Are you starting to see what I am talking about?

In many years, the world already eats more food than it produces.  We don’t have much room for error, and there are some countries that are already experiencing a full-blown food crisis.  The nation of Guatemala is one of them…

Nearly one million people in Guatemala are struggling to feed themselves as poor rainfall has led to drought and shrunken harvests, worsening hunger among the poor, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said.

Linked to the El Nino weather phenomenon, this year’s drought has hit subsistence farmers living in Central America’s “dry corridor” that runs through parts of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, hard.

“In Guatemala, 170,000 families, approximately 900,000 people, have no food reserves left. This is the third consecutive year they have been hit by drought,” Diego Recalde, head of FAO in Guatemala, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

In recent articles, I have also mentioned the growing food crisis in Venezuela.  Things have gotten so bad that soldiers dressed in riot gear are now policing supermarkets…

Soldiers with riot shields, tear gas canisters, and rifles patrol lines in Maracaibo, a major city in the northwest.

Scarcity is particularly acute here because smugglers — taking advantage of the leftist government’s policy of fixing prices on some goods — buy products to sell for profit in nearby Colombia.

“We have to maintain control otherwise there would be chaos,” said Lieutenant Carlos Barrera, 21, pushing back crowds at one supermarket.

As you read this, intense food shortages are also affecting Syria, the Soloman Islands, Yemen, Zimbabwe, and several nations in southern Africa.

Just because you may live in a “wealthy western nation” does not mean that this will not impact you someday as well.

In fact, a major study was just released that came to the conclusion that global “food shocks” are going to become much more common in the years ahead.  The following comes from the Guardian…

The likelihood of such a shock, where production of the world’s four major commodity crops – maize, soybean, wheat and rice – falls by 5-7%, is currently once-in-a-century. But such an event will occur every 30 years or more by 2040, according to the study by the UK-US Taskforce on Extreme Weather and Global Food System Resilience.

Such a shortfall in production could leave people in developing countries in “an almost untenable position”, with the US and the UK “very much exposed” to the resulting instability and conflict, said co-author Rob Bailey, research director for energy, environment and resources at Chatham House.

Sadly, I believe that things are going to turn out to be far worse than even that report is projecting.

I am convinced that we are moving into a time when increasing volcanic activity, shifting weather patterns, geopolitical instability and severe economic problems are going to create critical shortages of food all over the planet.

So what will you and your family do when those times arrive?  Please feel free to add to the discussion by posting a comment below…

The War On Preppers: Obama Bans Ammo For The Most Popular Rifle In America

Barack Obama Giving Orders - Public DomainBecause he can’t get Congress to approve the things that he wants to do, Barack Obama has apparently decided to rule by decree for the rest of his time in the White House.  One of Obama’s latest moves is to try to ban some of the most popular ammunition for the most popular rifle in America.  Previously, the Obama administration attempted unsuccessfully to ban the AR-15.  That didn’t work, so now Obama is going after the ammunition.  This is yet another example of the war on preppers that is going on all over the nation.  Whether you are a gun owner or not, this assault on our constitutional rights should disturb you greatly.  Barack Obama has promised to try to squeeze as much “change” as possible out of his last two years, and in the process he is “fundamentally transforming” America.  But what will our country look like when he is done?

At the top of the Drudge Report today, there was a story from the Washington Examiner detailing this ammo ban…

As promised, President Obama is using executive actions to impose gun control on the nation, targeting the top-selling rifle in the country, the AR-15 style semi-automatic, with a ban on one of the most-used AR bullets by sportsmen and target shooters.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives this month revealed that it is proposing to put the ban on 5.56mm ammo on a fast track, immediately driving up the price of the bullets and prompting retailers, including the huge outdoors company Cabela’s, to urge sportsmen to urge Congress to stop the president.

And here is more on this ammo ban from the NRA…

As NRA has been reporting since the night the news broke, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) is moving to infringe upon the rights of law-abiding gun owners with a drastic reinterpretation of a nearly 30-year-old law regulating so-called “armor piercing” ammunition. So draconian is BATFE’s new “Framework” that it would prohibit the manufacturing, importation, and sale of M855 ball ammunition, one of the most popular cartridges for the most popular rifle in America, the AR-15. Not coincidentally, the AR-15 is among the firearms the Obama Administration has unsuccessfully sought to outlaw. If they can’t ban the pie, so the thinking apparently goes, they might at least get the apples.

In an effort to thwart BATFE’s attempted action, NRA has worked with U.S. Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, to draft a letter to BATFE expressing the lawmakers’ opposition to the proposed Framework. To read a copy of the letter, please click this link.

According to the letter, “The idea that Congress intended [the ‘armor piercing’ ammunition law] to ban one of the preeminent rifle cartridges in use by Americans for legitimate purposes is preposterous.” It goes on to state that the law “should be construed in accordance with the American tradition of lawful firearms ownership, as protected by the Second Amendment.” This includes due consideration of “the many legitimate uses Americans make of their firearms including target practice, hunting, organized and casual competition, training and skills development, and instructional activities.“ The letter concludes with several pointed questions for B. Todd Jones, BATFE’s director, including why the agency bypassed the Administrative Procedures Act in proposing such a radical change to its prior interpretation and enforcement of the law.

The crazy thing about all of this is the fact that this ammunition has never met the legal definition of being “armor piercing”.  So what the Obama administration is attempting to do is outside the law.

A recent Infowars article broke this down…

The ATF is trying to ban M855 AR-15 ammunition by declaring it “armor piercing,” despite the ammo containing lead which exempts it from the classification according to law.

To be considered “armor piercing” under 18 U.S.C. 921 (a)(17)(B), a bullet must have an entirely metal core or have a jacket weighting more than 25% of its weight, which wouldn’t include M855 rounds because their bullets are partly lead.

The definition in full:

(17)

(A) The term “ammunition” means ammunition or cartridge cases, primers, bullets, or propellent powder designed for use in any firearm.

(B) The term “armor piercing ammunition” means- (i) a projectile or projectile core which may be used in a handgun and which is constructed entirely (excluding the presence of traces of other substances) from one or a combination of tungsten alloys, steel, iron, brass, bronze, beryllium copper, or depleted uranium; or (ii) a full jacketed projectile larger than .22 caliber designed and intended for use in a handgun and whose jacket has a weight of more than 25 percent of the total weight of the projectile.

(C) The term “armor piercing ammunition” does not include shotgun shot required by Federal or State environmental or game regulations for hunting purposes, a frangible projectile designed for target shooting, a projectile which the Attorney General finds is primarily intended to be used for sporting purposes, or any other projectile or projectile core which the Attorney General finds is intended to be used for industrial purposes, including a charge used in an oil and gas well perforating device.

Needless to say, this ban is creating quite a bit of panic among gun owners.

Many gun owners are stocking up on this ammo while they still can…

Word of ATF’s proposal sparked a run on ammo at some Springfield gun stores, and steep price spikes for steel-tipped military surplus ammo at some online ammo dealers. Rounds that sold for 25 to 30 cents apiece tripled at some some stores after BATF posted its proposal on its web site.

“We sold out of what we had in stock,” said Ryan Cook, manager of Eagle Armory in Springfield. “We didn’t have a lot in the store but I might have sold four or five cases after ATF’s statement came out. I called our suppliers but they said there was none available to order. It’s like the ammo shortage before. People are going to panic.”

Like I said earlier, even if you are not a gun owner you have got to be extremely concerned about this erosion of our constitutional rights.

We have a man occupying the White House that seems absolutely determined to stretch the limits of presidential power as far as they can possibly go.

And at this point he has become so arrogant that he doesn’t even care if Congress believes that what he is doing is legal.  Just consider what he said during one recent speech…

Pres. Obama is daring Republicans to vote on whether or not his executive actions are legal.

Discussing opposition to his executive amnesty orders at an immigration town hall Wednesday, Obama said he would veto the vote because his actions are “the right thing to do”:

“So in the short term, if Mr. McConnell, the leader of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, want to have a vote on whether what I’m doing is legal or not, they can have that vote. I will veto that vote, because I’m absolutely confident that what we’re doing is the right thing to do.”

This is how republics die.  When one man starts grabbing more and more power and nobody stops him, eventually a dictatorship is born.

This is not what our founding fathers intended.  If they could see us today, they would be rolling over in their graves.

And a lot of Americans are getting fed up.

In fact, according to one recent survey only 47 percent of Americans still believe that Obama loves this country…

While the creepy #ILOVEOBAMA continues to trend on Twitter, fewer than half of American adults, 47 percent, say they believe that the president loves his country.

According to a survey conducted by Huffington Post/YouGov and released this week, a whopping 35 percent of Americans, more than one in three, believe that Obama doesn’t love the United States, while 17 percent said they weren’t sure.

The poll was conducted in the wake of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani telling a gathering in Manhattan that “I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America.”

So what do you think?

Do you believe that what Obama is trying to do is legal?

And do you believe that Obama actually loves this country and everything that it is supposed to stand for?

Please feel free to add to the discussion by posting a comment below…

89 Tips That Will Help You Prepare For The Coming Economic Depression

89 Tips That Will Help You Prepare For The Coming Economic DepressionWhat do we need to do in order to prepare for the coming economic collapse?  Are there practical steps that we can take right now that will help us and our families survive the economic depression that is approaching?  As the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, I get asked these kinds of questions a lot.  Once people become convinced that an economic collapse is coming, they want to know what they should do.  And so in this article I am going to share some key pieces of advice from some of the top experts in the entire country.  If you are not convinced that economic disaster is on the way, this article might not be for you.  Instead, I would encourage you to go to my website where you will find more than 1,200 articles that set out the case for the coming economic collapse in excruciating detail.  For those of you that are interested in getting prepared, I apologize in advance for the outline format of this article.  To examine each of these points in detail would take an entire book.  In fact, I am the co-author of a book that will soon be published that discusses many of these things in great depth.  But you don’t have to wait for a book to get prepared.  Mostly, it comes down to common sense.  In this article, I share 89 common sense tips that will help you get prepared for the coming economic depression.  Hopefully a lot of people will find these to be very helpful.

This first set of tips are 11 things that I strongly encourage my readers to do…

#1 Have An Emergency Fund – This is so important that I wrote an entire article about this recently.

#2 Don’t Put All Of Your Eggs Into One Basket – In addition to having an emergency fund, you will also want to have gold, silver and other hard assets.  It is also a very good idea to keep a limited amount of cash at home in case you can’t access an ATM during a major emergency of some sort.

#3 Reduce Your Expenses And Get Out Of Debt – During a time of crisis you want to be as “lean and mean” as possible.  If you simplify your life and reduce your debt load now, you will be in much better shape when the next economic depression does arrive.

#4 Move Your Money Away From Unsafe Investments – When the financial world falls apart, you don’t want your finances to be exposed.  Markets tend to go down much faster than they go up, and during the next great financial crisis millions of Americans that have their life savings in stocks and bonds are going to get totally wiped out.

#5 Store Food And Supplies – Your dollars will never stretch farther than they do right now.  You probably will not need emergency food and supplies in the short-term, but the truth is that none of us ever knows when a major emergency will strike.  During 2014, my wife and I felt more of an urgency to stock up then ever before, and I hope that people are using this brief period of relative stability to do what they can to get prepared.

#6 Learn To Grow Your Own Food – Anything that you can do to become more independent of the system is a good thing.  This includes growing your own food.  And the truth is that some of the most expensive items in the grocery store these days are fresh fruits and vegetables.

#7 Defending Yourself And Your Family – As our world become increasingly unstable, people are going to become a lot more desperate.  And desperate people do desperate things.  You are going to need to have a plan for that.

#8 Move Away From The Big Cities If Possible – For a lot of people that are dependent on their current jobs, this is simply not possible right now.  But if it is possible for you, this is something that I strongly recommend that you think about.  Being stuck in the middle of a major city is not going to be a good place to be in the years ahead.

#9 Be Ready To Bug Out – There may come a time when you are forced to evacuate from your current location.  This may happen with very short notice.  If this ever does happen to you, the key will be to be prepared for it.

#10 Build A Community – Your neighbors and close friends can be an invaluable resource.  A cord of multiple threads is not easily broken, and if you have people that you can depend upon during a crisis that can make a world of difference.

#11 Have A Back-Up Plan And Be Flexible – Mike Tyson once aptly observed that everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. The years ahead are going to require a great deal of flexibility, and you may find that the plans that you have made need to be altered.  So don’t get fixated on just one approach.

When there is a major emergency, some of the most simple items suddenly become some of the most important.

The following are 11 items that I recommend that every household have on hand…

– an axe

– a can opener

– flashlights

– battery-powered radio

– extra batteries

– lighters or matches

– fire extinguisher

– blankets

– sewing kit

– duct tape

– tools

And here are about a dozen more key items that should be on your list from Survival Mom…

  • Lightsticks.  You can pick up one of these every time you wander into a Home Depot.  They don’t need batteries and can be hung around the neck with a string making it easier to spot everyone in your party when it gets dark. An alternative is the UVPaqlite, which never needs batteries.
  • Wool socks and sweaters.  People have literally frozen to death wearing their layers of cotton knit tees and hoodies.  For true survival conditions, nothing beats wool.
  • Upholstery needles and thread.  What if a sleeping bag or tent rips and you have no way of mending it?
  • Roll of quarters.  Handy for phone calls, although payphones aren’t as common as they used to be, and laundromats, but if you put it in a sock and wield it like a sling, you have a handy-dandy weapon! If the quarters are pre-1965 and 90% silver, you have a whole new type of currency.
  • Pencils.  Forget the pens.  They can run out of ink and freeze in cold weather.  With a pocket knife, you’ll always have a sharp pencil.
  • Super glue.  Professional hockey players always have this on hand to seal up small cuts, and the glue itself is harmless.  Unless you get it in your eye, like I did.  But that’s a story for a different type of post!
  • Rubber bands.  String just doesn’t cut it when what you really need is a rubber band
  • Tampons in a cardboard tube.  Did you know a tampon can be fit snugly into a bullet wound?  Guys on the battlefield carry these with them.  Just be aware that the blood in the wound will begin to clot.  Leave it to a medical professional to remove the tampon from the wound.  They’re also good for kindling.
  • Paracord belt.  It’s an accessory and survival tool in one!
  • Waterproof wrist watch.  Makes perfect sense.  I had just never thought of it.
  • Animal repellant trash bags.  Use these when you’re camping and animals will stay the heck away from your trash.
  • Safety pins.
  • Dental floss.  Besides helping to keep your teeth clean, it makes sturdy thread for mending.

But don’t just get focused on acquiring things.

Some of the most important elements of preparation involve things that we need to do for ourselves.

Acclaimed survival expert James Wesley Rawles has put together a “personal list” of things that everyone should think about before a crisis strikes.  A lot of these things are topics that “preppers” never seem to write about…

*****

Spare glasses.

Prescription and nonprescription medications.

Birth control.

Keep dentistry up to date.

Any elective surgery that you’ve been postponing

Work off that gut.

Stay in shape.

Back strength and health—particularly important, given the heavy manual tasks required for self-sufficiency.

Educate yourself on survival topics, and practice them. For example, even if you don’t presently live at your retreat, you should plant a vegetable garden every year. It is better to learn through experience and make mistakes now, when the loss of crop is an annoyance rather than a crucial event.

“Comfort” items to help get through high stress times. (Books, games, CDs, chocolates, etc.)

*****

If you have a serious illness or disease, that is going to need to be one of your top priorities when making preparations for the coming crisis.

This next tip comes from an excellent article that Dave Hodges published recently…

If you or your family has a chronic health condition, it is critical that you have 6 months to a year in medicine. Also, you should research natural alternatives to treatment for health conditions in case you are not able to meet this goal due to the inability to obtain prescriptions. Don’t forget to obtain some pain medication and antibiotics in case of unforeseen emergencies.

Probably one of the most popular topics for preppers to write about is food storage.

But those that are new to prepping are often very confused about how to get started.

It doesn’t have to be complicated.  If you start out by focusing on staples that you eat all the time, you should be in great shape.  The following are some recommendations about food storage that Pat Henry of the Prepper Journal has shared…

  • Rice – First off, buy a 50lb. bag of rice. These contain 504 servings and I don’t know too many people who won’t eat rice. It is simple to cook and stores for years if you keep it cool and dry. This bag at Sam’s costs about $19 now.
  • Beans – Next buy a bag of dry beans. This will check off the Beans part of your Beans, Bullets and Band-Aids list. A good size bag is about $5 and makes 126 servings. Buy two if you think your family would like them.
  • Canned meat – Cans are great for fruits and vegetables and anyone can find something they will eat. For canned meat, I recommend tuna or chicken because it tastes a heck of a lot better than Spam and you can easily mix that into your rice. For the meat you will need approximately 35 cans. Each can has about 3 servings and this will be the most costly, but they last over a year usually and your family probably eats chicken or tuna on a semi-regular basis anyway so restocking this should be simple.
  • Canned Vegetables – you will need about 40 cans of vegetables and again this can be whatever your family will eat. Expect to pay around a dollar each so $40 for veggies to last your family a month.
  • Canned Fruit – again, simple fruits that your family will eat. These can even be fruit cocktail if that is the safest thing. At Costco they have the #10 cans of fruit like pears or apple slices and each of these has 25 servings. 5 of these will cost about $25 and give your family their daily dose of fruit.
  • Oatmeal – Good old-fashioned oatmeal is simple to cook and store. A normal container has 30 servings each so purchase about 4 of these and your family won’t starve for breakfast. At $2 each that is about $8 for breakfast for a month for a family of four. Could you exchange Pop-tarts? Maybe, but I find oatmeal more filling and less likely to be snacked on.
  • Honey– Honey is a miracle food really as it will never go bad if you keep it dry and cool. Honey will last you forever and Sam’s has large containers that hold 108 servings. You can use this in place of sugar to satisfy the sweet tooth. Honey even has medicinal properties and you can use this to add some flavor to your oatmeal for breakfast.
  • Salt – Same as honey, salt will never go bad if you keep it dry and helps the flavor of anything. You can buy a big box of salt for around $1 and that will last your whole family a month easily.
  • Vitamins – I recommend getting some multivitamins to augment your nutrition in the case of a disaster or emergency. Granted, rice and beans aren’t the best and you won’t be getting as many nutrients from canned fruit and vegetables so the vitamins help to fill in the gaps and keep you healthy. One big bottle costs about $8. You will need to get a kids version too if you have children small enough that they can’t or won’t swallow a big multivitamin.

And as I mentioned above, another key to getting prepared is self-defense.  If you make all the preparations in the world, but somebody comes along and steals them from you, they won’t end up doing you any good.

The following are some basic tips about home security from prepping expert Todd Sepulveda…

*****

Front Door – Your front door is a layer. But it shouldn’t be your only layer. Besides reinforcing the strike plate with 2 inch screws, you should have a solid deadbolt. Another layer could be a storm door with a lock or even burglar bars. A good latch is valuable too! If you want to add even more layers, utilizing a security door bar is a good idea. But you don’t only want to make sure that your front door is securely layered. Take some time to layer all the doors in your home.

Windows – Every window has a lock. But you can add a layer by including sliding window locks for about $5. Other options would include tint or blinds, which would make it harder for someone to look inside your house.

Burglar Alarm – A burglar alarm is a serious layer. Alarms can be monitored by an alarm company or they can be self-monitored. Self-monitored systems have greatly advanced and will even allow you to view your home on your smartphone.

Dogs – A dog or dogs can be a great layer, especially if they bark. My dogs alert me the minute someone is in the front of the yard. They run and bark at the door and don’t stop until I open it. Outside dogs are a layer to your perimeter. A big dog on the other side of the fence will make any criminal think twice.

Outside Lights – Lights that are mounted on the outside of your home, especially ones that are triggered by motion sensors are a must! Roaches run when you turn on the lights! Someone who is watching your house will not want to approach it if they know the lights are going to draw attention to them.

Outside Landscaping – Bushes can be a layer around windows. It is important that you don’t create an environment that will create a hiding place for someone to lay in waiting. Make sure that the bushes you choose to plant are thorny and cause a lot of discomfort if someone wants to go through them.

Personal Defense – A firearm is a layer that you would want to have if needed. If you want to use something that is not so deadly, you can always pick up a can of ColdSteel Inferno to spray in someone’s face. Having a few of these cans hidden in different parts of the house is a good idea.

Safe Room – A safe room would be a last ditch layer. Some people are putting them into their homes. If this is a scenario you want to take, you should research the necessary components for a “safe” safe room.

Neighborhood Watch – Although a Neighborhood Watch isn’t just focused on your home, it is a layer that could cause the bad guys to go looking in a different neighborhood altogether. Neighborhoods that have a Neighborhood Watch usually post signs in the entrances of their neighborhood.

Neighbors – Even if you don’t have a Neighborhood Watch, you should get to know your neighbors, especially those pesky ones that stay in everyone’s business…because they are going to keep a lookout! You gotta take some bad with the good!

Street Lights – Sticking with your neighborhood, it would be a good idea to immediately report any street lights that are out to the city or county that manages them. Again, light causes the roaches to run for cover!

Signs – Don’t underestimate the power of a cheap sign. A sign on a fence that reads “Beware of Dog” or a Security company sign on the front lawn somewhere will cause the bad guys to think twice before attempting to break into your house.

*****

If you do need to leave your home during a crisis, you should have a “bug out bag” ready for each member of your family.

The following are 7 key items that Survival Cache recommends including in each bug out bag…

1. Water

2. Food

3. Clothing

4. Shelter

5. First Aid Kit

6. Basic Gear

7. Weapons

Finally, it is important to remember that nobody is perfect and that everyone makes mistakes.

The following are 14 common mistakes that Backdoor Survival says a lot of preppers make…

1. Failure to inventory stored food supplies

2. Failure to perform a risk analysis and prepping for the most likely disruptive events first

3. Preparing mostly to bug out rather than bugging in

4. Failure to evacuate at just the right time

5. Having the gear but not knowing how to use it

6. Underestimating other humans as a threat

7. Spending your entire budget on gear instead of on food, water, and medical supplies

8. Lacking the knowledge to properly store your food supplies

9. Buying gear and supplies while ignoring the need to develop skills

10. Relying only on yourself and ignoring like-minded members of your community

11. Just because someone else does something does not mean that you should do it to

12. Falling victim to prepper procrastination

13. Obsessing about being behind the curve-ball

14. Forgetting that there is a life beyond prepping

Are there any additions that you would make to this list of tips?

Please feel free to add to the discussion by posting a comment below…

 

All Over America, Government Officials Are Cracking Down On Preppers

Police State Big Brother Prison Grid - Public DomainWhy would the government want to punish people that are just trying to work hard, become more self-sufficient and take care of their families?  There are approximately 3 million preppers in the United States today, and often they appear to be singled out for punishment by bureaucratic control freaks that are horrified at the thought that there are families out there that actually want to try to become less dependent on the system.  So if you use alternative methods to heat your home, or if you are not connected to the utility grid, or if you collect rainwater on your property, or if you believe that parents should have the ultimate say when it comes to health decisions for their children, you could become a target for overzealous government enforcers.  Once upon a time, America was the land of the free and the home of the brave, but now we are being transformed into a socialist police state where control freak bureaucrats use millions of laws, rules and regulations to crack down on anyone that dares to think for themselves.

For example, people have been burning wood to heat their homes since this country began.  And this is still very common in rural areas.  But the Obama administration does not like this at all.  The Obama bureaucrats at the EPA fear that our little wood stoves may be contributing to “global warming”, so they have outlawed the production and sale of 80 percent of the wood stoves that are currently in use.  The following comes from a recent Forbes article…

It seems that even wood isn’t green or renewable enough anymore. The EPA has recently banned the production and sale of 80 percent of America’s current wood-burning stoves, the oldest heating method known to mankind and mainstay of rural homes and many of our nation’s poorest residents. The agency’s stringent one-size-fits-all rules apply equally to heavily air-polluted cities and far cleaner plus typically colder off-grid wilderness areas such as large regions of Alaska and the American West.

While EPA’s most recent regulations aren’t altogether new, their impacts will nonetheless be severe. Whereas restrictions had previously banned wood-burning stoves that didn’t limit fine airborne particulate emissions to 15 micrograms per cubic meter of air, the change will impose a maximum 12 microgram limit. To put this amount in context, EPA estimates that secondhand tobacco smoke in a closed car can expose a person to 3,000-4,000 micrograms of particulates per cubic meter.

Most wood stoves that warm cabin and home residents from coast-to-coast can’t meet that standard. Older stoves that don’t cannot be traded in for updated types, but instead must be rendered inoperable, destroyed, or recycled as scrap metal.

Does that make you angry?

It should.

There are other preppers that try to use very “clean” methods to power their homes, but that is still not good enough for some government control freaks.

For example, one prepper down in south Florida that had gone “off the grid” was recently ordered by a court to connect back to the grid or face eviction from his home.  The following is an excerpt from a recent article by Guiles Hendrik…

Think you are still free to make choices in your life? Do you think the government will allow you to live independent of their utility monopolies? If you think so, try opting for renewable non-grid tied power and utilize environmentally friendly composting toilets and your own self-sufficient water supply. Today, those life choices could land you in jail if you live in South Florida. Take the case of Robin Speronis.

Robin Speronis has lived off the grid, independent of the city’s water and electric system. A Florida court ruled this off-the-grid living illegal last week and has given Robin until March to connect her home to a municipal water line or face possible eviction. Further, officials in the city of Cape Coral have justified this by deeming Robin’s home “unsanitary,” citing the International Property Maintenance Code. First of all, since when did we begin to locally recognize “international codes?” Where in the US Constitution does it provide for international jurisdiction over local codes? Ironically, this “international” code mandates that homes be connected to an electricity grid and a running water source, even though most of the world lives without reliable electricity and municipal water and sewer. Further, the code is outdated and obsolete because it was written without consideration to both old and new technologies that relegate the need for grid tied power and municipal water as unnecessary and expensive; especially, in locations where it simply isn’t feasible to have grid tied utilities. Nonetheless, Speronis’ home does in fact have power and water through far cheaper and more environmentally friendly means — solar panels and rainwater, but that reality is ignored by the local government.

Incredibly, most Americans still seem to believe that we live in a “free country”.  But we don’t.  Our lives are very tightly constrained by literally millions of laws, rules and regulations, and more are being added every single day.

Even some of our most basic fundamental rights have been seriously eroded.  One of these is the right to make basic health decisions for our own children.  In New York state, children that have not received all of the designated vaccines can now be banned from attending public school, and this requirement was recently upheld by a federal appeals court…

New York state’s requirement that children be vaccinated before attending public school does not violate their constitutional rights, a federal appeals court in Manhattan said on Wednesday.

In affirming the requirement’s constitutionality, a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also upheld a previous ruling by a federal judge that students exempted from the requirement for religious reasons can be barred from school when another child has a disease preventable by a vaccine.

The decision was the latest to go against three parents from New York City who say their religious rights were violated when their children were kept out of school as a result of the immunization policies. The parents’ lawyer, Patricia Finn, said her clients planned to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

So what are we free to do without government interference these days?

Not much.

In fact, in some states we can’t even sit on our own land and collect the rain as it falls from the sky for our own personal use.

If you do this in the state of Oregon, for example, you could go to prison…

Gary Harrington, the Oregon man convicted of collecting rainwater and snow runoff on his rural property surrendered Wednesday morning to begin serving his 30-day, jail sentence in Medford, Ore.

“I’m sacrificing my liberty so we can stand up as a country and stand for our liberty,” Harrington told a small crowd of people gathered outside of the Jackson County (Ore.) Jail.

Several people held signs that showed support for Harrington as he was taken inside the jail.

And of course these are just a few examples.  Almost every single day there are more stories in the news about government bureaucrats cracking down on preppers.  They almost seem to relish the opportunity to go after the “non-conformists”.

But the good news is that the number of Americans that are seeking to become less dependent on the system just continues to grow.

So what about you?

Are you a prepper?

My friend Daisy Luther recently wrote a piece entitled “45 MORE Signs That You Might Be One of Those Crazy Preppers“.  The following are some of the most interesting “signs” from her list…

*You spend your days off digging an underground bunker in your backyard.

*Your family doesn’t dare take something from the food stockpile without marking it off the list.

*Your kids know how to don a gas mask in 30 seconds.

*Everyone in your survival group carries the same firearm so that ammo is standardized.

*Your family is no longer surprised when you announce, “Hey, we’re going to learn how to make (insert anything here)!”

*You have long since accepted the idea that if you’re not on someone’s list, you’re probably not doing it right.

*You don’t just rotate food, you rotate ammo.

*Moving to a new house is no longer “moving”, but “strategic relocation”.

*Your kids think it’s a fun game to see who can find the most potential weapons in a room.

*Your EDC includes a knife, firearm w/extra mag, flashlight, mylar blanket, Chapstick, and an ounce of silver — and that’s just for when you’re walking the dog.

*One criterion for your new winter coat is that it fits over your body armor.

You can read her entire article right here.

America was built by people that loved their families, worked hard and were self-sufficient.

Now our government is specifically targeting those kinds of people.

What in the world is happening to us?

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