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Saturday, January 21, 2012

How Americans Waste Time and Money


Bruce’s Poor Man Survival Bulletin

A Digest of Urban Survival Resources


ISSN 2161-5543

A Free Press is the Guardian of a Free People

In This Issue:

1.      How Americans waste time and money

2.      Wilderness Survival Training

3.      Free help with farm leases, etc.

4.      A town which lives off-the-grid

5.      Homemade self-defense weapons



Dr. Laurence J. Peter…
America is a land of taxation that was founded to avoid taxation.



How Americans Waste Time and Money…


Why do we spend so much time on things that simply do not matter?


Americans spend about 15% of their household incomes on things that they do not need to satisfy their vices or to keep themselves amused.


Americans have certainly not cut back on vices because of the recent difficult economy, with the exception of casinos which were hurt badly by the slowdown. Money spent on alcohol and tobacco is about the same as it was two decades ago. Sin and vice apparently has not suffered because of hard times.

Real incomes have not risen over the course of the last ten years, something that has not happened in any decade since the Depression. Over the course of the last two decades the increase in real income was only 10%.


In the U.S. we waste an unappetizing amount of food (while somewhat ironically still adding to our waistlines). Estimates of how much food we toss vary, but according to Jonathan Bloom, author of American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do About It), we’re wasting around 40 percent of the total.


Or take this from an article in The Economist published in late 2009:

The average American wastes 1,400 kilocalories a day. [Kilocalories is another word for what Americans generally just call "calories."] That amounts to 150 trillion kilocalories a year for the country as a whole — about 40 percent of its food supply, up from 28 percent in 1974. Producing these wasted calories accounts for more than one-quarter of America’s consumption of freshwater, and also uses about 300 million barrels of oil a year.

Despite the dismal economy and an increase in credit card debt, Americans increased their spending this holiday season.  Indeed, shopping for non-essentials accounts for an average of $8000 annually per household.  Shopping, it seems, remains our number one hobby.


So where else do we blow our money and time?  The number one time waster is spent on celebrity gossip and unproductive activities such as facebook.  (Celebrity gossip includes so-called reality TV shows such as Survivor).


Alcohol, drugs, entertainment equipment and tobacco top the list for non-essential money wasters. 


Although “I need more time in the day,” is a common lament…keep in mind we have more labor and time saving devices than ever before in history, yet much of our time is wasted anyhow.  Turning off the television and other electronics, getting up an hour earlier, planning out the day the night before, etc. would make our lives more productive and could save a lot of money.



Cooking spray can damage the coating on nonstick pans, which could cause food to stick. Very high heat can also break down the coating.



PM’s Compendium of Useful Resources



WANT TO LIVE OFF-GRID?

Many people fantasize about moving "off-grid," and getting back to a simpler, saner way of life. If this might be you, check out Nick Rosen's website here.

The UK-based Rosen has specialized in off-grid advice for years. Besides his site, check out his book, Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America.
http://www.off-grid.net/



Training programs for desert, tropic and cold weather survival, wilderness medicine, fall protection, climbing safety and rescue, and snow cat safety.etisurvival.com



Best Google Alternatives


You might want to move away from Google entirely, whether you're tired of things like the Google Plus-ification of your search results or the fact that Google's mining ridiculous amounts of data and selling you to advertisers, or maybe you're just plain tired of Google creating services it doesn't actually improve over time. You may scoff at the idea of using Bing or other less popular competitors, but they're quite good—sometimes even better—than Google. We've just become too entrenched to notice.

If you want to take a serious look at the alternatives, we did some digging and a lot of experimentation to find the best alternatives to Google's most popular services (and we also asked you guys to share your favorites). Most of these services are still from big companies, like Microsoft or Yahoo!, but we've tried to include a few services off the beaten path as well.




Help with drafting farm lease agreements-Free

Small farmer or land owner, learn the ins and outs of lease agreements, cash rentals, crop share, pasture rental agreements and more. 




RipOffReport.com

Report and learn about scams and frauds - their motto is “Don’t Let them get away with it.”

Homemade self defense weapons - Resources






Placing aluminum foil directly on the bottom of your oven can trap heat and throw off oven performance, and might even void the manufacturer’s warranty. The foil can also melt, which can damage the oven or even cause a fire.

Instead
Use a sheet of
heavy-duty foil (a few inches bigger than the cooking pan) on the rack below the one you’re using. It will catch drips and allow heat to circulate.

The Nanny State Updates…


Edible Microchips being created - 1984 Accelerated…

The use of implantable RFID chips in humans and animals is rapidly spreading. A lot of employers now require that their employees take them for identification purposes. Some cities in the U.S. are actually making it mandatory to put microchips into your pets.


IBM is aggressively developing new biometric identity systems that could significantly change the way that we live our lives. The following is from a recent IBM press release....

You will no longer need to create, track or remember multiple passwords for various log-ins. Imagine you will be able to walk up to an ATM machine to securely withdraw money by simply speaking your name or looking into a tiny sensor that can recognize the unique patterns in the retina of your eye. Or by doing the same, you can check your account balance on your mobile phone or tablet.

Each person has a unique biological identity and behind all that is data. Biometric data – facial definitions, retinal scans and voice files – will be composited through software to build your DNA unique online password.

Referred to as multi-factor biometrics, smarter systems will be able to use this information in real-time to make sure whenever someone is attempting to access your information, it matches your unique biometric profile and the attempt is authorized.



When biometric identity systems become widespread enough, authorities will pretty much know where you are and what you are doing at all times.



War On Bank Privacy: US Extends Its Influence
Some foreign countries used to protect the fundamental right of bank privacy. The US has thrown its weight around to make formerly banking friendly countries far less friendly.




Bar Keepers Friend has rhubarb as its active ingredient and will really cut through grease and grime on just about any surface.



The Parting Thought – Oh, this will never happen!


Sowing the seeds of our own destruction…Are We on the Verge of a Devastating Global Recession?


America’s middle class, or what I call the ‘Whittled Class’ has fallen by 10% in less than a decade.  No elected politician has had the cajones to push for real solutions!


Signs of discontent with growing income gaps and economic problems stemming from the global debt crisis were already on the rise in 2011, as evidenced by the Occupy movement that began on Wall Street and quickly spread to other cities in the United States and around the world


A decade ago, the United States was ranked number one in average wealth per adult. By 2010, the United States had fallen to seventh.


According to one study, between 1969 and 2009 the median wages earned by American men between the ages of 30 and 50 dropped by 27 percent after you account for inflation.


The number of middle class neighborhoods also continues to decline. In 1970, 65 percent of all Americans lived in "middle class neighborhoods". By 2007, only 44 percent of all Americans lived in "middle class neighborhoods".



From a recent article by Paul Craig Roberts....

In the first decade of the 21st century, Americans lost 5,500,000 manufacturing jobs. US employment in the manufacture of computer and electronic products fell by 40%; in the production of machinery by 30%, in motor vehicles and and parts by 44%, and in the manufacture of clothing by 66%.


Americans are becoming really desperate. For example, a recent Mother Jones article detailed how large numbers of formerly middle class Americans are now actually growing marijuana in an effort to make ends meet.



Meanwhile, government schools continue to dummy down the population…



Approximately a third of all U.S. high school students did not know that the Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of religion.


The following is from an article written by reporter Mark Morford in which he described his conversations with a longtime Oakland high school teacher that was nearing retirement....

It's gotten so bad that, as my friend nears retirement, he says he is very seriously considering moving out of the country so as to escape what he sees will be the surefire collapse of functioning American society in the next handful of years due to the absolutely irrefutable destruction, the shocking — and nearly hopeless — dumb-ification of the American brain. It is just that bad.


As a result, the average person today has a limited understanding of global politics or global economics. They fail to grasp the big picture of what is taking place or why or how the system is breaking down.  Why it’s no longer working.


Ed Yardeni, an independent economist in New York, lists this as one of his “four horsemen of the apocalypse” for 2012. The others, cited in a note to clients, are: a severe global credit squeeze stemming from the crisis in the euro zone; social upheaval in China and India; and a severe global recession emanating from Europe.


All of the long-term economic numbers are progressively getting worse. The seeds of revolution are being planted and watered by government stupidity and a loss of confidence (worldwide) in the system which no longer seems to be serving the people.


Few people want to hide from the world in a cabin in the woods while life goes on in the mainstream, but nobody wants to get caught once the gates clang shut on the police state the US is becoming…


Will the stupid inherit the earth?



“Until the next revolution”, the Poor Man



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Get your “We don’t need another election” Protest T-Shirt Now




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1 comment:

MinimalistGroup said...

Your crew are quite the survival engineers...Congress could learn a lot from you and your site.