Bruce’s Poor Man Survival Bulletin
A Digest of Urban Survival Resources
For Independent Minded People!
ISSN 2161-5543
In
This Issue:
1. Tips for a Christmas budget
2. Are you prepared for a power outage?
3. Save on fuel tips
4. Clinton & Carter blast the war on
drugs
5. Part II of the Doug Casey interview
about out Police State
The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency.
By a continuing process of inflation,
governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved,
an important part of the wealth of their citizens.
- John Maynard Keynes
Tips to Create
a Christmas Budget
Since many people struggle to have a debt-free Christmas, it is important to make make a Christmas budget. Unfortunately, the popular approach to Christmas is buy now and then figure out the payments later. Instead, why not get the cash now and buy gifts according to the budget you created?
A
Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Frugal Christmas List that Blesses Others
1. Set your Christmas budget.
How much will you choose to spend on Christmas gifts this year? The first step here is to decide on something that fits within your budget. You don’t want to enjoy Christmas in December and pay for it (literally) till the summer. Don’t be ashamed if you can’t afford much for Christmas. Set your limits.
Consider Adding a Family Tradition That Involves a Service.
Personally, I think Christmas focuses too much on getting and not enough on giving. To instill the importance of service in our children, we’ve decided to add a ministry/service to part of our family Christmas tradition. For the last few years, it has been caroling with the church at the hospital and distributing Christmas gifts.
Start Making Homemade Gifts
My wife makes some of the best homemade Christmas gifts. As I look around my office, the most valuable items I see are the homemade gifts my wife and kids made. Most people complain that there is not enough time to make homemade gifts, but consider yourself forewarned! Get started now.
Don’t let this Christmas sneak up on you. If you wanted to change something about Christmas this year, now is the time to start making those changes.
http://christianpf.com/how-to-create-a-fantastic-yet-frugal-christmas-gifting-strategy/
Honey is antimicrobial, antibacterial, and antifungal—so much so
that it's even been used to treat wounds. Its distinctive brand of sweetness is
welcome in almost any dish. Just remember that it's not chemically the same as
sugar: If you're making a swap, substitute no more than one-third of the sugar
for honey
PM’s
Compendium of Useful Resources
Are
You Prepared for a Power Outage?
Ah, the beauty of winter! The snow gently falling, the crisp chill in the air, the frequent power outages. Here is what you can do to prepare to power through without any power.
Ah, the beauty of winter! The snow gently falling, the crisp chill in the air, the frequent power outages. Here is what you can do to prepare to power through without any power.
If you sell anything related to shooting or hunting there is a new auction
site called Freegunshow.com with no
fees. Like many new auction sites they take a while to take off, but
specialized sites tend to do better than the general ones and this one has no
fees.
Mini Consumer Guides
Save on Fuel
You can earn free gasoline when you go grocery
shopping. Large supermarket chains, such as Save Mart Supermarkets, S-Mart
Foods and Lucky.
How it works: Visit participating retailers to get your
rewards card. Scan your card when you check out and earn Fuel Rewards on qualified
purchases.
Recent examples: Buy two candy bars and get four
cents-per-gallon off your next fuel purchase. Buy $10 worth of merchandise and
get five cents-per-gallon off your next fuel purchase.
Note: The actual products will vary. Different
stores have different items at different times.
THE CHANGING WORKSCAPE, AND SETH GODIN - "ARTISTS" WILL
SURVIVE, "EMPLOYEES" WILL PERISH
The web (and for convenience' sake, let "web" include smartphones, tablets, and ubiquitous WiFi), as you know, is digitizing work. And once you digitize something, it can start anywhere and end anywhere. It can go anywhere, and take myriad forms.
Already, much work has no regard for borders. If you look at freelance marketplaces like Odesk and Elance and Mechanical Turk, you'll see the process in action. Work is offered and done internationally. As China and India come online, and the web continues to spread globally, work will increasingly flow across borders, like a rising ocean.
Or think of it in volcanic terms. We get in our cars and drive to the office, trusting that everything is at least somewhat reliable, little suspecting that a sea of magma - digitized work and online access - is rapidly liquifying and remolding the "plates" beneath our tires - beneath our lives.
In his new book "The Icarus Deception" Seth Godin talks helpfully about how we can deal with the strange new realities unfolding before us now. As I've done here myself, he urges that we cultivate flexibility and creativity, that we embrace change and a world filled with the unexpected. In short, we should think of ourselves as creators, as "artists."
The web (and for convenience' sake, let "web" include smartphones, tablets, and ubiquitous WiFi), as you know, is digitizing work. And once you digitize something, it can start anywhere and end anywhere. It can go anywhere, and take myriad forms.
Already, much work has no regard for borders. If you look at freelance marketplaces like Odesk and Elance and Mechanical Turk, you'll see the process in action. Work is offered and done internationally. As China and India come online, and the web continues to spread globally, work will increasingly flow across borders, like a rising ocean.
Or think of it in volcanic terms. We get in our cars and drive to the office, trusting that everything is at least somewhat reliable, little suspecting that a sea of magma - digitized work and online access - is rapidly liquifying and remolding the "plates" beneath our tires - beneath our lives.
In his new book "The Icarus Deception" Seth Godin talks helpfully about how we can deal with the strange new realities unfolding before us now. As I've done here myself, he urges that we cultivate flexibility and creativity, that we embrace change and a world filled with the unexpected. In short, we should think of ourselves as creators, as "artists."
You know how your grandmother's recipe for spaghetti sauce calls
for sugar? Try grated carrots instead. Their natural sugars bring just the
right amount of sweetness (and a dose of vitamin A and beta carotene)--with no
added sugar
The Nanny State Updates…
Clinton, Carter Blast ‘War on Drugs’ in
Documentary
Former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter say in a new documentary that America’s “War on Drugs” has been a failure.
"If all you do is try to find a police or military solution to the problem, a lot of people die and it doesn't solve the problem," Clinton says in the documentary, “Breaking the Taboo,” which debuts on Friday.
"It hasn't worked. The drug war has eroded the rights and freedom for all Americans.”
“Taboo” chronicles 40 years of the nation’s battle against drugs, according to U.S. News & World Report. Narrated by Morgan Freeman, it praises Clinton and others who "have had the guts to change their minds."
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/clinton-carter-war-drugs/2012/12/03/id/466311?s=al&promo_code=10F70-1
Former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter say in a new documentary that America’s “War on Drugs” has been a failure.
"If all you do is try to find a police or military solution to the problem, a lot of people die and it doesn't solve the problem," Clinton says in the documentary, “Breaking the Taboo,” which debuts on Friday.
"It hasn't worked. The drug war has eroded the rights and freedom for all Americans.”
“Taboo” chronicles 40 years of the nation’s battle against drugs, according to U.S. News & World Report. Narrated by Morgan Freeman, it praises Clinton and others who "have had the guts to change their minds."
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/clinton-carter-war-drugs/2012/12/03/id/466311?s=al&promo_code=10F70-1
The National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration is expected
to propose long-delayed regulations requiring auto manufacturers to include event data recorders — better known as "black
boxes" — in all new cars and light trucks. But the agency is behind the
curve. Automakers have been quietly tucking the devices, which automatically
record the actions of drivers and the responses of their vehicles in a
continuous information loop, into most new cars for years.
Applesauce (no added sugar, please) is a classic ingredient for
cutting fat and sugar out of recipes. Grated whole apples can work this way,
too. Try some in your next batch of whole-wheat pancakes and you may not even want
to reach for syrup. Diced apples also make a fiber-rich sweetener for plain
yogurt. Just don't peel the skin; that's where most of the disease fighting
compounds
The Parting Thought- Part II Doug Casey Interview
As the government becomes more powerful, it’s completely
predictable that everything — including the justice system — will become ever
more politicized. And government very rarely relinquishes a power it’s gained.
I particularly like the Supreme Court ruling in April 2012 that allows anyone
who’s arrested for anything — including littering or jaywalking — to be
strip-searched.
.
.
Privacy is now a completely dead concept, from both a
legal and a practical point of view. If you want to retain privacy, you now
have no alternative to relocating outside the US.
Louis: Or any advanced Western country. I’ve read that there are more surveillance cameras per square mile in London than anywhere else.
Doug: I’ve heard that too. The opposite being true in rural Argentina is one of the things I like about it. Back to the list:
Louis: Or any advanced Western country. I’ve read that there are more surveillance cameras per square mile in London than anywhere else.
Doug: I’ve heard that too. The opposite being true in rural Argentina is one of the things I like about it. Back to the list:
“National security” essentially amounts
to nothing more than government security, which amounts to cover for the
individuals in the government. Nazi Germany and the USSR were national-security
states. As I’ve tried to explain in the past, once a critical mass is reached,
it’s impossible to reform a government. I believe we’ve reached that state in
the US.
Torture by field operatives under the stress of combat is
one thing; torture as official policy is something else again. But torture is
now accepted in the US. Worse, there are far more serious war crimes than
torture being committed in the name of the US that are going unpunished.
Louis: This is, after all, a far darker version of the same US government that deliberately infected black US citizens with syphilis just to see what would happen, and sent US citizens of Japanese descent to concentration camps during WWII.
Doug: Exactly. The next point is:
Louis: This is, after all, a far darker version of the same US government that deliberately infected black US citizens with syphilis just to see what would happen, and sent US citizens of Japanese descent to concentration camps during WWII.
Doug: Exactly. The next point is:
|
Secret
court: “The government has increased its
use of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has expanded
its secret warrants to include individuals deemed to be aiding or abetting
hostile foreign governments or organizations. In 2011, Obama renewed these
powers, including allowing secret searches of individuals who are not part of
an identifiable terrorist group
|
You no longer live in a free country when there’s zero
privacy for citizens, but 100% secrecy for the government and those it employs.
|
Immunity
from judicial review: “Like the Bush administration, the
Obama administration has successfully pushed for immunity for companies that
assist in warrantless surveillance of citizens, blocking the ability of
citizens to challenge the violation of privacy.”
|
The government has outsourced some of its functions — not
least the use of contractors in war zones. Increasingly, being associated with
the government gives you a “get out of jail free” card. In the USSR they called
this a “krisha” — a roof.
Bad as this is, it’s just one example. There’s also the use
of domestic drones, and hundreds of thousands of cameras that take pictures of
everyone everywhere.
|
Extraordinary
renditions: “The government now has the ability
to transfer both citizens and noncitizens to another country under a system
known as extraordinary rendition, which has been denounced as using other
countries, such as Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan, to torture
suspects.”
|
Yes, if someone is kidnapped, there’s
plausible deniability if the torturing is done abroad by a third party. And
they’re likely to have even fewer compunctions.
Doug: This
just goes to reinforce what I’ve been saying for some time. As great as a US
citizen’s risk is in the marketplace these days, the greatest single risk to
their wealth and health is the government. People simply must internationalize
to diversify their political risk. I can’t stress that strongly enough.
Pick up our CD ROM – The No BS Survival
Manual and also get the DVD Final Warning with your order…
“Until the next
revolution”, the Poor Man
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