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Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Buying in Bulk, Preparedness on a Budget, Dealing w/ Fraud on eBay


Bruce’s Poor Man Survival Bulletin

A Digest of Urban Survival Resources


For Independent Minded People!

ISSN 2161-5543

In This Issue:

1.       Dealing with fraudulent buyers

2.      Do’s & Don’ts of buying in bulk

3.      Emergency preparedness on a budget

4.      Debt-even a little can rock your world



"Be wary of strong drink, it can make you shoot at the tax collector...and miss."

--Robert Heinlein



Fraudulent buyers on eBay-What to do

There’s been an increase of fraudulent buyers, slow or no pay buyers and other problems with buyers on eBay and as any seller will tell you, eBay and PayPal usually take the side of the buyer first and can tie up your funds for weeks.

Because of the growth in fraud for online transactions, the FBI and government have set up a website to help…it’s worth using as it is free and it can certainly send a nice scary notice to these ‘buyers.’  Here are some resources to use:




www.stopfraud.gov/report.html IC3.gov)

The primary government agency to receive, develop, and refer complaints to regarding the rapidly expanding area of cyber crime.

>>The Internet Crime Complaint Center


If you’ve been burned or cheated by an online buyer (don’t rely on eBay to solve the problem, they always side with the buyer) consider using this resource in addition to filing a small claims suit. 


Most states have what is known as a “Long Arm” statute which allows you to file against someone out of your state.


Long arm jurisdiction refers to the ability of local courts to exercise jurisdiction over foreign ("foreign" meaning out-of-state) defendants, whether on a statutory basis or through a court's inherent jurisdiction (depending on the jurisdiction). This jurisdiction permits a court to hear a case against a defendant and enter a binding judgment against a defendant residing outside the jurisdiction concerned.


Each state may differ a bit on its criteria but contact your state Attorney General’s office to learn more (there is a link to almost every state at our PoorManSurvival.com site at the Consumer Help tab).





PM’s Compendium of Useful Resources



The Dos and Don’ts of Buying in Bulk

Every budget-conscious shopper knows bulk shopping can be either your

best friend or your worst enemy — the difference is in knowing what

to buy and what to avoid. Here are 10 tips for getting the most out

of your next shopping trip from Jackie Warrick, president and chief

savings officer of CouponCabin.com.



6 Things to Always Buy in Bulk:

Paper goods. Demand has been known to exceed supply for paper towels and

toilet paper at crucial times in everyone’s life. Stock up and minimize

those moments.

Coffee. Buying your favorite brand of coffee in

bulk saves money. “You can put it in the freezer

to extend the shelf life,” she says.

Feminine care products. “You know you’ll need

them every month, so why (make) constant trips to the store? Stock up and

save money,” Warrick says.

Razor blades. If you know you’re going to need them sooner or later, buy

them sooner and use them later. “Those are pricey, and they do get dull

pretty often,” Warrick says. “So buying in bulk definitely makes sense.”

4 Things to Never Buy in Bulk:

Cleaning products. They lose their effectiveness over time, so buy what you

need, use it up, then buy what you need again.

Diapers. “You don’t know how quickly your baby will grow, so you might need

a different size before you use them up,” Warrick explains. Instead of

buying in bulk, use coupon codes at stores like Target.com and Diapers.com.

Produce. It makes more sense to buy only a few days’ worth of fresh

produce at a time to avoid spoilage.

Vitamins/medicine. They carry expiration dates on the label for a reason.

“If you take expired products,” Warrick says, “you could get sick.”



Emergency Preparedness on a Budget


According to FEMA, only about 10% of Americans are truly ready for a major emergency. Though more than half of all Americans have made some kind of plans for a disaster, most have stopped short of stocking up on things they may need in a crisis. While a lot of people are under the impression that "it can't happen to me," many others have fallen into the money trap, convinced that they have to drop a small fortune on name brand supplies to be ready.

A major part of disaster relief efforts are making sure people are fed. After Hurricane Irene hit, towns as far north as Vermont were cut off from supply trucks for a week or more as roads and bridges were washed out. By having food on hand, you not only ensure you have something to eat in an emergency, but also that those around you can eat as well (assuming you're feeling generous). Every person with their own food is one less person that relief workers need to feed! Here are a few simple steps you can take to get ahead of the curve without causing a disaster of your own.

Leon Pantenburg of SurvivalCommonSense.com says that their hardtack recipe is among their most popular pages and for good reason. The main ingredient is flour. Not only is flour a key component in a wide variety of edible foods, but also it can be consumed all on its own in the form of hardtack. Hardtack is a tough, crunchy flour biscuit that if stored properly, keeps nearly forever. In fact, the National Civil War Museum in Pennsylvania actually has hardtack in storage that's still good today.



Eighty percent. That’s the number of Americans who spend at least part of

their week working to pay the bank because of accumulated credit card and

loan debt, according to AmericanDebtAdvisor.com.

The Federal Reserve tells us that 98 percent of the nation’s revolving

debt is made up of credit-card balances, steadily accruing interest at an

average 13.44 percent interest rate as of March 2011. Total U.S. revolving

debt stands at $796 billion, or $14,743 for each household with credit

card debt, according to CreditCards.com. It doesn’t take a financial

whiz to see what a heavy burden those figures represent to the average

American family.



Even people who advocate living within their means by eschewing credit

cards tend to carry some kind of debt, usually in the form of home mortgages

and car payments. In these weak economic times, that means most of

us are left in a precarious financial position, balancing on a razor-thin

margin that leaves no room for job losses, medical bills, or even miniature

household disasters. See our Debt Reduction page and more:




Long term? Buy a farm.

One way to counterbalance a declining dollar is to buy producing U.S. farmland,

says Mitch Kasper, founder of Midwest Ag Investors, a farmland fund.

The global population just rose past 7 billion and diets are improving in

emerging markets, with more demand for rice, wheat, corn, and oils, in part

to feed livestock.


The Parting Thought –


Why Central Banks are Bad and a Warning about what may be the end of the monetary system as we know it…

We have seen revelations out of the US dating back to 2007 that HSBC, Britain's biggest bank that forces ordinary citizens to jump through hoops to transfer small amounts of currency abroad has been engaged in systematic money laundering for the Mexican drug cartels to the tune $7 billion with potentially far worse across the world as HSBC affiliates apparently did business with rogue nations and terror organizations.


The truth is that BOTH stories could equally apply to major U.S. Banks but U.S.

politicians are choosing not to investigate / hold them to account. Compared to the master market manipulators such as JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, the likes of Barclays is just a mere amateur. The reasons why US politicians are looking the other way are the same that UK politicians and the Bank of England have ignored the crimes of Britain's biggest banks in that the politicians are in the back pockets of the bankster's and that the truth risks shaking the confidence of an already fragile financial system.


So the real story is why are U.S. politicians not holding their own thieving criminal banks to account ?

One possible answer may be found in the records of campaign donations


Bankers scheming, lying and cheating for bigger bonuses at the expense of anyone in their way...that's news?


No, but here's the real inside scoop...

They were told to do it -- both implicitly and explicitly -- by the central banks that are supposed to regulate them (as is the case with the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank) and provide a safety net that facilitates capital formation and commerce on a global scale.


Suffice it to say that global credit expansion due to artificially low interest rates caused the build up of leverage in a yield-starved investment environment and led to the housing bubbles that burst from sea to shining sea.

Who orchestrated the low interest rate environment? That would be the Federal Reserve Bank and central banks across the globe.


The tyranny of central bank manipulation and the suffocation of free markets has to stop.

There's only one way to do it. Dismantle all the big banks and limit the size of banking institutions so that any one or two or five or six that fail won't implode the global financial system. Let them fail and resolve ring-fenced fiascoes under existing bankruptcy laws.

If we get banks down to a sensible size, we won't need central banks. Sure, we can still have them, but they should be run by academics (not bankers) with a singular mandate, price stability, that's articulated in advance and achieved with total transparency.

The truth is that central banks are shills for the banking behemoths.



They manipulate politicians, overrun fiscal discipline at times (not that there's much of that anywhere in the world these days) and use their limitless powers to feed profitability pools at banks.


Aside from central bank manipulations, there are two big dangers looming quickly on the horizon which will potentially devastate the American financial system.  Details are contained in our PMPrivate briefing and I urge you to get a subscription now. 

There is a reason even staunch Partisan democratic super wealthy are defecting from the USSA: the slow crawl towards socialism and The End Of The Monetary System As We Know It. http://www.poormansurvival.com/Pages/Brucebulletin.aspx



Source:  Capital Wave Strategist & other inside sources



“Until the next revolution”, the Poor Man



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1 comment:

escapeartist said...

Remarkable insights but keep in mind, the majority of citizens don't have the intelligence to deal with anything above the mentality of Dancing with the Stars...