Poor Man Survival
Self Reliance tools
for independent minded people…
ISSN 2161-5543
A Digest of Urban Survival Resources
Americans are unprepared for the
next recession...
According to a 2015 Federal
Reserve survey, one-third of Americans reported they couldn't cover their
expenses for three months if they lost their income. That's even if they used
their retirement accounts as a lifesaver.
Part of that could be the result of consumer debt now approaching its 2008 levels, when it reached its all-time peak. Plus, debt is growing fast. Americans added $460 billion in debt this year alone, the largest increase in 10 years.
But financially sound Americans are not immune from a recession either, especially those with retirement investments and 401(k) accounts. After all, recessions do the most damage to the stock market.
Part of that could be the result of consumer debt now approaching its 2008 levels, when it reached its all-time peak. Plus, debt is growing fast. Americans added $460 billion in debt this year alone, the largest increase in 10 years.
But financially sound Americans are not immune from a recession either, especially those with retirement investments and 401(k) accounts. After all, recessions do the most damage to the stock market.
Given the number of current workers who lived through that ordeal, you'd think more folks would be taking steps to protect themselves from a recurrence. But a recent study by GOBankingRates shows just how unprepared for a recession the majority of us are.
Cartels, state-corporate governance. Structurally, large banks and corporations have aggregated wealth and political power to the degree that they can enforce cartels and quasi-monopolies with a combination of market heft and regulatory capture (a complicit state enforces monopoly under the guise of consumer protection or other cover). The owners/managers of the cartels skim enormous profits while providing poor-quality products and services to consumers who have little choice in a rigged market.
The Pie Is Shrinking So Much The 99% Are
Beginning To Starve
How much longer until the
pitchforks come out?
by Charles Hugh Smith
Social movements arise to solve problems
of inequality, injustice, exploitation and oppression. In other words, they are
solutions to society-wide problems plaguing the many but not the few (i.e. the
elites at the top of the wealth-power pyramid).
The basic assumption of social movements
is that Utopia is within reach, if only the sources of the problems can be
identified and remedied. Since inequality, injustice, exploitation and
oppression arise from the asymmetry of power between the few (the financial
and political elites) and the many, the solution is a reduction of the
asymmetry; that is a tectonic realignment of the social structure that shifts
some power—economic and/or political—from the few to the many.
In some instances, the power asymmetry is
between ethnic or gender classes, or economic classes (for example, labor and
the owners of capital).
Social movements are characterized by
profound conflict because the beneficiaries of the power asymmetry resist the
demands for a fairer share of the power and privileges, while those who’ve held
the short end of the stick have tired of the asymmetry and refuse to back down.
Two dynamics assist a social, political
and economic resolution that transfers power from those with too much power to
those with too little power: 1) the engines of the economy have shifted
productive capacity definitively in favor of those demanding their fair share
of power, and 2) the elites recognize that their resistance to power-sharing
invites a less predictable and thus far more dangerous open conflict with
forces that have much less to lose and much more to gain.
In other words, ceding 40% of their
wealth-power still conserves 60%, while stubborn resistance might trigger a
revolution that takes 100% of their wealth-power.
History provides numerous examples of
these dynamics. Once the primary sources of wealth-generation shifted
from elite feudal landowners to merchants and industrialists, the wealth (and
thus the political power) of the landed elites declined. As the industrialists
hired vast numbers of laborers drawn from small farms and workshops, this mass
industrialized labor became the source of the wealth generation; after decades
of conflict, this labor class gained a significant share of the wealth and
political power.
The civil rights and women’s liberation
movements realigned the political and economic power of minorities and females
more in line with their productive output, reducing the asymmetries of ethnic
and gender privileges.
In broad-brush, progressive social movements
seek to broaden opportunities and level the playing field by reducing the
asymmetric privileges of dominant classes defined by power and privilege.
The core mechanism of this transition is the recognition and granting of
universal human rights: the right to vote, the right to equal opportunity, and
rights to economic security, i.e. entitlements
that are extended universally to all citizens for education, healthcare,
old-age pensions and income security.
Again in broad-brush, these movements
have largely been categorized as politically Left, though many institutions
deemed conservative (for example, various churches) have often provided bedrock
support for progressive movements.
Social movements which seek to limit the
excesses of state power tend to be categorized as conservative or politically
Right, as they seek to realign the asymmetry of power held by the state in
favor of the individual, family and the traditional social order.
The Expanding Pie Fueled
Expanding Entitlements
Writer Ugo Bardi recently drew another
distinction between Left and Right social movements: “Traditionally, the Left has emphasized rights while the Right
has emphasized duties.”
As rights manifested as economic
entitlements rather than political (civil liberty) entitlements, rights accrue
economic costs. As Bardi observes: “Having rights is nicer than having duties,
but the problem is that human rights have a cost and that this cost was paid,
so far, by fossil fuels. Now that fossil fuels are on their way out, who's
going to pay?”
I would argue that the cost was also paid
by higher productivity enabled by the technological, financial and social
innovations of the Third Industrial Revolution, roughly speaking the
interconnected advances of the second half of the 20th century.
These advances can be characterized as expanding the economic pie;
that is, generating more energy, credit, technological tools, opportunities,
security and capital (which includes financial, infrastructural, intellectual
and social capital) for all to share in a socio-political-financial allocation
broad enough to make everyone feel like they were making some forward progress.
This long-term, secular expansion of the
pie naturally generated more demands for additional entitlements and rights, as
the economy could clearly support the extra costs of allocating additional
wealth and resources to the many. From the point of view of the few (the
elites), their own wealth continued expanding, so there was little resistance
to expanding retirement, education and healthcare entitlements.
But in the 21st century, the
expansion of the pie stagnated, and for many, it reversed. Adjusted for
real-world inflation many households have seen their net incomes and wealth
decline in the past decade.
Despite the endless media rah-rah about
“growth” and “recovery,” it is self-evident to anyone who bothers to look
beneath the surface of this facile PR that the
pie is now shrinking. This dynamic is increasing inequality rather
than reducing it.
Part 1: The Pie Is Shrinking So Much The 99% Are Beginning To
Starve, available free to all readers, please click here to
read it first.
Special Offer for our Readers
72-hour Emergency Meal kit that's being
offered contains 16 total servings of such delicious meals as Blue Ribbon
Creamy Chicken Rice, the always-loved Granny's Homestyle Potato Soup and the
stick-to-your-ribs breakfast favorite Maple Grove Oatmeal.
This kit normally sells
for $27, plus shipping and handling and is rated 4½ out of five stars by
customers.
While supplies last,
these kits are available for only $21.95 and that includes Priority Shipping
[we were force to increase prices due to another round of USPS price hikes]. Go
here for this deal:
Yours for
smarter living,
Bruce ‘the
Poor Man’
Additional FREE Resources
14 of the best reports I’ve assembled on protecting your freedom…Here is the download link.
http://1drv.ms/1d9kfiU
The Poor Man’s
Essential Survival Package
--The Doctors Protocol: Secrets of Survival
--How to Survive the Coming Economic Collapse
--Guide to Self Reliant Living
--Becoming Self Sufficient for Six Months
--How I Found Freedom in an Un-free World
http://1drv.ms/1d9kfiU
Living
Frugally In Suburbia
You live differently than your neighbors.
You live differently than your neighbors.
Food Storage Inventory Spreadsheets You Can Download For Freehttp://prepared-housewives.com/food-storage-inventory-sheets-lists/
8
Reasons Why You Don't Have an Emergency Fund
Are any of them reasonable?
Are any of them reasonable?
14 Frugal
Food-Rescuing Tips from Grandma
These depression-era frugal tips still work today!
These depression-era frugal tips still work today!
8
Simple Ways to Put More Money in Your Pocket
Have more money without working harder!
Have more money without working harder!
Other
notes of interest…
|
Arguably as exciting as Halloween or
Christmas, January 28th, was Data Privacy Day. A creation of the National Cyber Security
Alliance, a
consortium that includes ADP, Cisco, Google, Visa, and a lot of other groups
that make money with your private data, it's a good reminder to shore up your
digital privacy. PCMag can help. First, set up two-factor authentication on the services that support it.
Next, hit your social networking accounts and perform privacy checks. If you want to go the extra mile,
sign up for a VPN service. If all of this is too much, just delete your accounts from the internet entirely.
Sometimes, it's only the way to be sure.
|
|
The Dutch security service known as
the AIVD reportedly spied on the Russian hacking team Cozy Bear as it
breached the Democratic National Committee.
|
Contributors and subscribers enable the Poor Man Survivor to post 150+ free essays & free reports that I provide annually. It is for this reason they are Heroes and Heroines of New Media. Without your financial support, the free content would disappear for the simple reason that I cannot keep body and soul together on my meager book sales & ecommerce alone. You can make a donation at top of this page via PayPal.
Find survival related books here!
Support our efforts by shopping my storefront…
A Smoking Frog Feature, Shallow Planet Production
2 comments:
We are plagued by a lot of non-thinking souls in this nation...look at how many are still protesting against Trump for instance despite his efforts at helping our economy and job picture [which seems to be working]...
You're one of the FEW bloggers who actually provides useful tools one can use to really survive when the SHTF-thanks!
Post a Comment