PM's Self Reliance Tools: DIY Apple Cider Vinegar, Are College Degrees Worth the Cost? Government Doomsday?

Bruce’s Poor Man Survival Bulletin

A Digest of Urban Survival Resources

http://www.PoorManSurvival.com

For Independent Minded People!

ISSN 2161-5543

Every increase in the size of government necessitates a decrease in an individual's freedom. - Christian Harold Fletcher Riley

From The Smiling Dog Saloon Files

In This Issue:

1. Make your own apple cider vinegar-the health benefits of cider vinegar

2. Meeting your basic needs for off grid living

3. Life After Doomsday & Other Free Downloads from the Poor Man

4. DIY SHTF Battery Recharging how-to/Business

5. College degrees, are they worth the cost?

One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it’s worth watching.
- Unknown

Meeting Your Basic Needs for Living Off-the-Grid, Homesteading, Urban Living

The Poor Man devotes a lot of space to creating multiple sources of income, sideline income strategies and so forth. It is a part of our overall plan for assisting those ravaged by the economy and lack of decent jobs.

You cannot be self reliant if you cannot pay your bills and/or plan and stockpile for the future. Having adequate finances is a priority for most.

Every family should consider developing circles of income which generate at least $200 or more a month just to keep up with the rising cost of living. As the government prints more fiat money, the less value it has. One trip to the supermarket will wake you up to that fact. Also, if one source of income dries up, you have other income. Most Americans have only a two week financial window before they are insolvent.

After recent uninsured medical expenses for my open heart surgery, we were pretty well cleaned out and I seriously thought we might lose our mini-farm. All work on the farm has stopped but at least there was no danger of foreclosure (we paid cash for everything).

For many families facing financial challenges, friends and family come to the rescue. We weren’t so fortunate as our parent’s are now gone. For awhile, we were spending $200 a week for prescriptions and long distance drives to various medical providers.

One aunt helped out quite a bit until we were able to rearrange our financial affairs, cash in retirement accounts, etc.

These are some of the reasons I promote our Sideline Income newsletter and resources as well. I was shocked so few took advantage but then again, I no longer have a clue what people want…certainly not extra cash!

Our Boot Strap Business section offers dozens of practical ideas for you to create a value-added home business (and don’t forget the tax advantages, one of the few left to the little person).

Self employment, even as a sideline, requires a do-it-yourself mentality in regard to work habits and household finances. Most Americans have lost much of that discipline. Indeed, our slowest selling product is the one we offer devoted to Finances/Self Sufficiency. Yet we derive income from several sources including writing, lectures, eBay, our own website, auctions, etc.

http://www.poormansurvival.com/Pages/selfsufficiencyprogram.aspx

PM’s Roundup of Useful Resources…

Get your free ebooks today – Download these valuable resources:

Compliments of the Poor Man – Free ebook downloads. Click on the folder and get the titles you want!

-Capt. Dave’s Survival Guide, Combat Survival/Evasion Guide, Outdoor Survival, Get Self Sufficient for 6 months, Secrets of Street Self Defense, Life After Doomsday…

http://www.poormansurvival.com/Pages/citizenpreparedness.aspx

Enjoy the many health benefits using apple cider vinegar
(NaturalNews) Apple cider vinegar has been used in folk medicine for hundreds of years. Apple cider vinegar has also been utilized to treat allergies, acne, flu, pets, and dermatitis. Apple cider elevates pH levels, increasing alkalinity in the body....

DIY Home Apple Cider Vinegar

Did you know that you can make your own apple cider vinegar with just some apple peels and cores, sugar, water...and a bit of patience? I didn't know either until I started doing a bit of research.

Read more: http://www.grit.com/farm-and-garden/make-your-own-apple-cider-vinegar.aspx#ixzz2gNTr0z44

The EPA Takes an Ax to Self-Sufficiency: Most Woodburning Stoves Will Soon Be Illegal
In the never-ending battle for total control, heating your home self-sufficiently with wood could soon become illegal - or at the very least, insanely expensive.

How to Create Your Own SHTF Battery Recharging Business People Will Beg You to Use!

Years ago I took my first steps into creating my very own off-grid solar power setup. Since then I’ve upgraded a bit by adding more solar panels and deep cycle batteries and, honestly, I never feel like it’s enough. I could, in fact, spend $20K and not have what I wanted!

Now, if you’ve never thought about off-grid power there are plenty of resources available, from power-related videos I keep in the Video Vault to a variety of “how to” posts and even people who know this stuff much better than I do. I’m sure there are plenty of other videos and references I’ve found in the past if you wanted to search for them on my site. And, of course, there’s all-knowing Google Search.

That said, having some ability…

Continue reading How to Create Your Own SHTF Battery Recharging Business People Will Beg You to Use!

How To Start A Great Compost Pile This Fall – For Free! (link)

Creating your very own compost pile isn’t that difficult, it just takes dilligence and sometimes a strong stomach because of decomposing food waste. Regardless, here’s some good thoughts on how to make a good compost pile this fall if you’ve never done so before: “There is no better time to get loads of compost materials…

Continue reading How To Start A Great Compost Pile This Fall – For Free! (link)

The Nanny State-We love our government

Government Shutdown – Another Fairy tale…

The stroke of midnight has just passed and the US government has turned into a pumpkin. Well, we wish. In fact the US government like some eternal zombie continues to walk the Earth even without the souls of taxpayers upon which to feast. And, even that isn't totally true. Like any zombie it still collects the blood of its victims (taxes) even while most of its zombie army (federal government employees) sit at home on a paid vacation... and most of their oppressive "services" continue on, like the CIA, NSA, ATF, DEA, Executive branch, police and more.

Government, in order to control its population uses three main areas…

Enforcement of laws – the more laws a society creates, the more controlling it is
Creating what is used for money for their own riches and to pay minions.
Media propaganda to “cover” these crimes.

It’s pretty obvious the Washington-Wall Street Cartel has been achieving their objectives, even during the fairy tale shutdown…

Who Buys Our Politicians?

If you want to see who is funding your representatives, you can go to the following website: http://www.opensecrets.org

Click on the link that says, "Who Funds Your Rep?" and you'll get a map of the country.

From there you can click on your state and look up the contributions going to your representatives. When I searched our reps I found that sugar companies give them a lot of money. In fact, sugar growers have spent $3.6 million in campaign contributions for this election cycle, hoping to maintain price supports that inflate the cost of our foods (of course they portray it as an effort to preserve jobs, not to make bigger profits). Democrat Bill Nelson received $42,000 in contributions, the largest amount so far, but looking at the data from over the years, Republicans have received almost twice as much as Democrats from the sugar industry. Apparently sugar company executives are confident that Republicans are not really against corporate welfare.

The Parting Thought – Not to worry in the land of the free!

College Degrees – Are they worth the cost? You Decide!

Student debt is now twice what it was in 2007 at just over a trillion dollars, surpassing credit card and auto loan debt.

The college debt fiasco we are currently in has nothing to do with the free market and everything to do with government meddling. No one in their right mind would loan money at 2-3% interest to an 18-year-old with no collateral or experience to pursue their education in whatever they choose, unless of course you could just create the money out of thin air and had some friends in the university cartel. The GI Bill, federal grants, state grants and government guaranteed student loans have made university tuition prices go into the stratosphere. The once romantic idea of putting yourself through college by waiting tables is now just a memory from decades past.

Reminiscent of the housing bubble in which there was an underlying societal myth that everyone should own a home and that all houses were good investments, this bubble is fueled by the myth that everyone should go to college and that all college is a good investment. Just like the housing bubble this is believed by just about everyone until it’s not - and then it’s too late.

The culture, and of course government schools, tell the youth (and older displaced workers) that in order to get a good job one only needs to go to college. Colleges, much like the National Association of Realtors during the housing boom, take advantage of this combination of government subsidies, cheap credit and free marketing (propaganda) to fuel a speculative bubble. In the past decade college debt as a percentage of household debt has exploded becoming the second biggest form of household debt outpacing credit card and auto loan debt

As with any time that market forces are absent we see not only the price climbing but the quality of the degrees themselves diminishing. The quality of most of the degrees today are so removed from any type of marketable skills that in many cases it could be seen as a negative for someone to have wasted so much time and money to have gone to university at all. This hilarious video by Peter Schiff (Preview)

Play

Peter Schiff

President Obama promotes the myth that everyone must go to college. That if you don't go, your life will be ruined -- that you will end up waiting tables, or trapped in some other mundane occupation. The truth is, even with a college degree, you may still end up waiting tables, you'll just begin your "career" four or five years later, tens of thousands of dollars in debt. Here is an example of some of the plumb jobs college grads were able to land during the Obama administration. Not just liberal arts majors mind you, but graduates with degrees in mathematics, robotics, neuroscience, engineering, accounting, business administration, economics, biology, communications, graphic design, marketing, and linguistics. Of course when it comes to education, it's not just the Obama administration that deserves a failing grade. For years, politicians of both parties have pandered to students by promising more aid in the form of direct or subsidized student loans. As a result, colleges and universities are freed from competitive forces that would otherwise keep tuition low. Easy access to cheap credit enables students to bid up tuition, benefiting the educational establishment at their expense. Politicians secure student's votes by promising relief from skyrocketing tuition by providing even more loans. Ironically, the loans themselves are the very reason tuition is so high in the first place. Before the Federal Government got involved, college degrees were much more affordable, and ambitious students from poorer families could easily work their way through. In addition, as fewer high school graduates actually went on to college, not only were college degrees much less expensive to obtain, they were far more valuable to have. With so many high school grads now going on to college, a college degree is actually less valuable in today's job market, despite its inflated price tag, than was a high school diploma in the 1950s. The only solution is to get the Federal Government completely out of higher education, and let the free market fix what the government broke! For those of you who feel a college degree is essential to financial success consider John D Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and Cornelius Vanderbilt. Rockefeller dropped out of high school and began working full-time at age 16. Carnegie didn't even go to high school and began working full-time at age 13. Vanderbilt dropped out of school at age 11, and by age 16 had started his own ferry business. All three were born poor and became self-made billionaires, who attained estimated net worths (in today's dollars) of approximately $670, $300. and $175 billion respectively. To put those numbers into perspective, the richest living American, Bill Gates, who dropped out of Harvard during his sophomore year, has an estimated net worth of just $65 billion.

demonstrates perfectly how utterly worthless most degrees have been to obtain the high paying job that was said to come about by possessing one of these sacred documents.

There have been many factors that have been at play to cause this market to be perverted in such a way. You could more accurately call most degrees “Union cards” as they act as a state-sanctioned conditioning seal of approval for the union leader of the specific field the student is entering. Although there are great classes online for free, in order to get an accredited degree you must attend one of the approved Universities. Getting a degree from one of these accredited schools is of course a prerequisite for the next hoop you must jump through; getting a license to practice.

Once the university cartel has been established the only thing left to do is to hand out cheap money. This has been done through a variety of ways but mostly through federally guaranteed or directly issued student loans. Under the old federal lending program loans were made by private banks with federally backed guarantees. Many financial institutions wanted out of the market so in 2010 President Obama attached an overhaul of the student loan program to the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act. This overhaul was in essence a takeover of the student loan market by the federal government by stopping the subsidies given to the banks to make the “private” loans and instead have the government lend the money to the student directly. Along with this they increased Pell Grants and allowed students to only be liable to pay 10% of discretionary income for loan repayment, the loans could then be forgiven after 20 years of timely payments. This excess of cheap credit in this specific market has caused college tuition to rise dramatically faster than the rate of inflation.

As the fundamental economic conditions have not improved and with youth unemployment at 20+ percent the delinquency rate of these loans have been on the rise. Some state the rate of loans that are behind 90 plus days are reported as 13% while the Federal Reserve itself admits that the actual number is probably more than double that.

Ben Vincent www.fiatvigilantes.com Gold and silver commodity and mining investor, energy analyst, economic and financial commentator and student of Austrian economics. As a graduate of Indiana University in business, economics and public policy and of the Ludwig von Mises institute and former communications analyst for the Economic Freedom Project he advocates free markets, free people and free minds.

Is a college degree worth the cost? You decide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXpwAOHJsxg

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