Poor Man
Survival
Self
Reliance tools for independent minded people…
A Digest of Urban Survival Resources
"At the end of a century that has seen
the evils of communism, Nazism and other modern tyrannies,
the impulse to centralize power remains amazingly persistent."
-- Joseph Sobran
the evils of communism, Nazism and other modern tyrannies,
the impulse to centralize power remains amazingly persistent."
-- Joseph Sobran
Like Pigs to Slaughter
Most citizens never learn
their lessons…even though fuel prices are falling (at least for now] many
idiots are already ordering gas hogs to drive…
A few fuel
stats…falling prices can be a two-edged sword
The US
government wastes/consumes the most fuel with the post office leading the way
[we’re excluding military consumption].
The Department of Energy estimates more than a billion gallons of fuel
are wasted because of poorly timed lights in cities…despite calls from the
Feds, cities have ignored timing lights more efficiently.
·
The price of gas has
fallen to $2.82 a gallon. That is lower than at all times in the last 4
years.
Remember that for every $0.10 gas prices decline, after you factor in the typical mileage driven for a vehicle, times the number of drivers in the US, that is something like another $36 billion a year that consumers can save or spend on other goods.
Update: Here are a few statistics to help understand how much the US consumer is saving on gas.
Remember that for every $0.10 gas prices decline, after you factor in the typical mileage driven for a vehicle, times the number of drivers in the US, that is something like another $36 billion a year that consumers can save or spend on other goods.
Update: Here are a few statistics to help understand how much the US consumer is saving on gas.
·
The average vehicle in
the US is driven 11,318 miles/year:
The average gas mileage
in the US fleet is about 24 miles per gallon:Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/12/13/cars-in-the-u-s-are-more-fuel-efficient-than-ever-heres-how-it-happened/
·
There are about 250
million vehicles in the US:
http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-ihs-automotive-average-age-car-20140609-story.html
That's about 9 billion gallons of gas per month total in the US.
http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-ihs-automotive-average-age-car-20140609-story.html
That's about 9 billion gallons of gas per month total in the US.
·
Every 10 cent decline put
$900 million dollars a month in consumers' pockets.
There has only been one other
time in history when the price of oil has crashed by more than 40 dollars in
less than 6 months. The last time this happened was during the second half of 2008, and the beginning of
that oil price crash preceded the great financial collapse that happened later
that year by several months. Well, now it is happening again, but this
time the stakes are even higher. When the price of oil falls
dramatically, that is a sign that economic activity is slowing down. It
can also have a tremendously destabilizing affect on financial markets.
As you will read about below, energy companies now account for approximately 20
percent of the junk bond market. And a junk bond implosion is usually a
signal that a major stock market crash is on the way. So if you are
looking for a “canary in the coal mine”, keep your eye on the performance of
energy junk bonds. If they begin to collapse, that is a sign that all
hell is about to break loose on Wall Street.
·
It would be difficult to overstate the importance of
the shale oil boom to the U.S. economy. Thanks to this boom, the United
States has become the largest oil producer on the entire planet.
Yes, the U.S. now actually produces
more oil than either Saudi Arabia or Russia. This “revolution” has
resulted in the creation of millions of jobs since the last recession, and it has been
one of the key factors that has kept the percentage of Americans that are
employed fairly stable.
Unfortunately, the shale oil boom
is coming to an abrupt end. As a recent Vox
article discussed, OPEC has essentially declared a price war on U.S. shale
oil producers…
For all intents and purposes,
OPEC is now engaged in a “price war” with the United States. What that means is
that it’s very cheap to pump oil out of places like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. But it’s more expensive to extract oil from
shale formations in places like Texas and North Dakota. So as the price of oil
keeps falling, some US producers may
become unprofitable and go out of business. The result? Oil
prices will stabilize and OPEC maintains its market share.
If the price of oil stays at this
level or continues falling, we will see a significant number of U.S. shale oil
companies go out of business and large numbers of jobs will be lost. The
Saudis know how to play hardball, and they are absolutely ruthless.
Useful Resources [Take a minute
& share]
- The Fear
of Freedom (Seth Godin)
The last American spending spree…
Remember when
Thanksgiving seemed solely about family, food and football? The American
holiday now includes the sport of shopping.
Americans are going to spend more than 600 billion
dollars this Christmas season, and on Friday we
got to see our fellow citizens fight each other like rabid animals over
foreign-made flat screen televisions and Barbie dolls. As disgusting
as this behavior is too many of us, there may soon come a time when we will
all fondly remember these days.
Most Americans are completely unaware of what is
currently happening in the financial world, but right now there are deeply
troubling signs that we could be on the verge of another major global financial
collapse. If the next great economic downturn does strike in 2015, that
could mean that we may have just witnessed the last great Black Friday
celebration of American materialism
In addition, it is important to remember that the
“real economy” in the United States is in far worse shape than it was just
prior to the last financial crash. Just consider these numbers…
-In the United States today, the number of payday
lending locations is greater than the number of McDonald’s
and the number of Starbucks.
-One recent survey found that about 22 percent of all Americans have had to
turn to a church food panty for assistance.
-This year, almost one out of every five households in the
United States celebrated Thanksgiving on food stamps.
-The rate of government dependence in America is at an
all-time high and approximately 60 percent of U.S. households get more in
transfer payments from the government than they pay in taxes.
-According to a report that was just released by the National Center on Family
Homelessness, the number of homeless children in the U.S. has soared to a new
all-time record high of 2.5 million.
Yours in freedom,
Bruce ‘the Poor Man’
Got a News Tip to Share With the Poor Man?
Send it to: PoorManSurvivor@Gmail.com
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