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Showing posts with label 4th of July. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 4th of July. Show all posts

Friday, July 3, 2015

Freedom, Self Reliance & Action-The Alpha Strategy for Keeping Your Freedom Alive


Poor Man Survival

Self Reliance tools for independent minded people…


 

ISSN 2161-5543

A Digest of Urban Survival Resources

"Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty." — John Basil Barnhill (often incorrectly attributed to Thomas Jefferson)

 

 

How Politics are Manipulated to Dupe the Masses

 

Many of us are becoming Ashamed to be an American-What many of us are thinking about this 4th of July

 

My annual “State of Freedom” message…

 

Those who have studied history, should perhaps not find it surprising that the political outrage that is felt so keenly by people on all sides of the political “spectrum” should be controlled by spinning them off into partisan politics.

“Nor should they be surprised to see how effective this technique is.

“After all, the strategy of keeping people pitted against each other instead of against their oppressors is one of the oldest political stratagems known to human civilization.”

The strategy is simple: “Divide and conquer.”

Wikipedia’s two cents:

Elements of this technique involve:

  • creating or encouraging divisions among the subjects to prevent alliances that could challenge the sovereign

  • aiding and promoting those who are willing to cooperate with the sovereign

  • fostering distrust and enmity between local rulers [or groups]

  • encouraging meaningless expenditures that reduce the capability for political [organization or opposition]...

Keep in mind the lies Mrs. Clinton has gotten away with regarding her home server & emails or her role in Benghazi or their foundation slush fund…

 

   Since 2005 we’ve lost 40% of our purchasing power and since 2009, we’ve lost 8-10% of our middle class.  Few jobs pay a living wage any longer and many, many Americans can barely afford their rent payments [now in excess of 45% of income in the United States].

 

Corporate America and Washington has broken the social contract which used to exist…college graduates can’t find decent jobs to pay down the excessive tuition loan payments they have and families are finding it tough to feed their families – even with food stamps at an all time high.

 

Just what the hell went wrong with this country?

 

Some of you know I’ve spent a lot of times [more than six months total] in the hospital during the past couple of years and my conversations with nursing and other professional medical staff tells me that even these folks are having a hard time making ends meet and hospitals too are paying less or cutting benefits.

 

It used to be corporations paid for health care and pensions and more…no longer.  Firms like Walmart expect taxpayers to support employees with food stamps and Medicaid – all at taxpayer expense.

 

Congress critters and their employees face no problems as they get gold plated benefits and automatic annual pay raises while living a lavish lifestyle paid for by special interests who are busy buying selling politicians at the state and federal level…insider trading among many members of Congress allowed many to amass huge wealth while you and would be arrested if we did the same.

 

Congress is busy gutting the Bill of Rights, our treasury, our privacy and more all the while enriching their campaign donors while ignoring how inflation is killing the middle class’ purchasing power.

 

“The mere fact that all the items that the average person buys increase in price every month is of no interest to economists. They rely instead on government statistics.”

 

We now live in a nation where ‘freedom’ is becoming just a memory as bureaucrats and politicians at every level create so many ‘laws’ that no one can keep up…creating an atmosphere where everyone is a lawbreaker.

 

We have too much government and especially too many unelected pinheads who create red tape out of thin air without benefit of public input or proper legislation.  This is not how our forefathers envisioned our lives to be.

 

Their goal was to keep government off our back and out of our lives…today EVERY damned thing we do is looked at by Big Brother who sticks its nose into all elements of life.

 



Us ‘old timers’ have also noted the lack of tolerance in America too…

 

No longer is anyone permitted to speak their mind freely.  We live in a land where intolerance in the name of tolerance is the new norm…otherwise, the media is quick to condemn!

In America, we have to tiptoe around on ever thinner eggshells” and “the forces of ‘tolerance’ are intolerant of anything less than full-blown celebratory approval.”

 

Beloved children's book author Judy Blume warned recently that the left's unyielding effort to create a world where no one is ever offended by anything is a threat to literature…

 

In such a climate of intolerance, there can be no freedom speech, expression or thought.

 

How much freedom do you still have?

 

·         don’t expect privacy in public,

·         don’t let your kids walk to the playground alone,

·         don’t engage in nonviolent protest near where a government official might pass,

·         don’t try to grow vegetables in your front yard,

·        don’t play music for tips in a metro station

·       don’t expect to do anything on your own property without permission from an unelected bureau-twit

·       don’t expect to feed the poor without permission

·       don’t expect to govern your financial affairs, enroll in school, receive medical care, etc. without government monitoring [aka: social security numbers]

·       don’t expect to travel the roads, trains or airports without government inspections [after all, it is for your safety]

 

Far from being a shining example of democracy at work, America has become a lesson for the world in how quickly freedom turns to tyranny.

 

Sadly, most young Americans don’t seem to have a clue what freedom is or how it was achieved or how it is being lost in this nation.

 

The failure of the two-party system is merely a symptom of a larger disease…

“In a society where a government is weak, decentralized, and unable to enact the more radical wishes of any majority group,” Ryan McMaken writes on Mises.org, “a losing side is less likely to regard the winning side as a genuine threat to one’s daily life.

There’s  precious little difference, in the big scheme of things, between the political parties. Anyone who’s paying attention can see that party elites get along fine while most of the rancor can be found among the naive rank and file.

“There’s a reason for this.

“Regardless of who wins, virtually nothing will be contemplated that might lead to meaningful reductions in regulation, taxation, or the punitive excesses of the criminal justice system. The larger trend in the growth of the state overwhelms any tiny adjustments that D.C. is willing to make in the present political climate.”

Reminds me of NAFTA and one of the reasons I no longer trust politicians…

“In 1992 Bill Clinton promised that NAFTA would result in an increase in the number of high quality jobs for Americans, and it would reduce illegal immigration.

That worked well, didn’t it.  Just like our current set of –un-Patriot Act laws…more hogwash that mainstream Americans have swallowed hook, line and sinker.

 

Is it any wonder why we’re witnessing an America where freedom is shrinking?

 

I feel life in America has become an episode of the Twilight Zone where the ever-increasing story has become 1984!

 

It’s why my motto is:

 

We don’t need another election, We need another revolution!  It’s why since 1999 I’ve been preaching…


Freedom, Self-reliance, and Action
 

This Independence Day, let us reclaim the power of our Declaration of Independence

How to Survive the…[FREE-Donations Appreciated]

War on Middle Class and All 10 Bonus Reports can be downloaded here:


 

P.S.  Consider what the late John Pugsley thoughts were on a prosperous strategy for living:
Pugsley was one of the pioneers of the 1970s “hard money” movement, publishing a newsletter that urged readers to buy gold as soon as gold once again became legal for Americans to own in 1974.  Here’s his Alpha Strategy in a nutshell.

The Alpha Strategy entailed three levels…

  1. Invest in production. If it’s something you need to make a living -- education, a skill set, tools -- this takes priority over anything else.
  2. Save consumables. This is the stuff you use on a day-to-day basis -- razor blades, pasta, tires -- if you use it up and it has a decent shelf life, it falls under Level 2.
  3. Save real money. If after Level 2 you still have savings left, then you can put them into precious metals and other tangible assets.

The best part about the Alpha Strategy is you can start with any amount of capital. “If you have only $100, you can protect it completely against inflation and all investment risks by simply buying things now that you know you will have to buy next week, next month, or next year. If you have $1,000 or $10,000, the same thing holds true.”

Better yet, all your “gains” are tax-free.

 

“The greater the investment you make in education [real world education, not college] and tools,” Pugsley wrote in The Alpha Strategy, “the more you will produce and the higher your income and standard of living will be.

 

Still have some cash left after building up your stash? “You are ready to explore the third level of the strategy: the accumulation of real goods that you can eventually sell or exchange.”  Things I’ve addressed for nearly 10 years in this newsletter.

 

Pugsley refined his guidance in a pathbreaking book called The Alpha Strategy: The Ultimate Plan of Financial Self-Defense. Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, and Pugsley defined the Alpha Strategy as “the first plan for any individual to protect his wealth.”

 

I found copies of his book on eBay & a few copies were still available at the time of this essay.  Plus, here is a similar tome which I wrote along with several bonus ebooks – it is yours free but a donation would be appreciated.

 


How to Survive the…FREE [Donations Appreciated]

War on Middle Class and All 10 Bonus Reports can be downloaded here:


 

Bruce ‘the Poor Man’

 

 

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Stop Feeding the Beast


Bruce’s Poor Man Survival Bulletin

A Digest of Urban Survival Resources


For Independent Minded People!

ISSN 2161-5543

 

"When you run in debt; you give to another power over your liberty."
-- Benjamin Franklin

 

The Frozen Dog Ranch Files

 

In This Issue:

1.       Stop Feeding the Beast-Shattered Dreams in America

2.      Choose Homesteading Today

3.      11 Ways to earn money quickly

4.      Debt: the good, the bad, the ugly

5.      Obama still collecting your private info without a warrant

 

 

Shattered Dreams…

 

The way things were supposed to be or how the Middle Class got left behind.

The financial crisis, despite what news reports tell us, has gotten worse since the $700 billion bailout package was initiated, and it threatens to squeeze the middle class like never before, robbing people of homes, life savings and the economic security that has long been a staple.

Already, real income (which adjusts for inflation) has been stagnant since the 1970s, straining middle-class budgets and pushing wealth and power into the hands of the very few. Now some economists and sociologists fear the current crisis could make it all even more inequitable, putting the American Dream, the inspirational foundation of the middle class, at risk.

The White House and Congress are still bankrupting the nation with its fear-mongering security and spy programs rather than focus on rebuilding our nation.  Despite massive amounts of money fed into our educational system, it is still failing.  Our infrastructure is decaying (but we can spend trillions fighting undeclared wars).

We’ve lost an estimated 10% of our middle class beginning in the 1980s when firms such as General Electric led the way in off shoring US middle class jobs. Wall Street started our demise with Blue Collar workers and then white collar jobs began to get shipped to India and other countries.

When I first began writing about this in the mid 1980s I cautioned the Fortune 1000 (in a Wall Street Journal article and in a business column I wrote at the time) that “Burger flippers can’t afford $40K cars.”  My predictions came true when the housing market and employment picture in the United States fell apart. 

"The major reason I think the middle class is threatened is because most of the things we describe as revolving around the American Dream — owning a house in a good neighborhood and sending your children to good schools, owning and paying for a car or two, and saving money for retirement — all of that depends on having steady jobs with incomes that rise," said Kevin Leicht, a sociologist at the University of Iowa. "People are supposed to accumulate … a lot of debt when they're young and gradually pay it off as they age, and go less and less into debt."

 

The middle income is now between $46,000 and $54,000 a year, a surprise perhaps to countless people who make significantly more and yet struggle to pay their bills.  Inflation, especially in areas such as fuel, health care costs and groceries have risen significantly since Obama took office and the number of families requiring food stamps is now near 50 million – not a good indicator of well employed nation.

Census data and other demographic and economic statistics, paint a picture of today's middle-class American:

  • 14 percent of the middle class lost their jobs in the past year. About 7 percent of the middle class say they fear they'll lose their job in the year ahead.
  • 39 percent of the middle class said (when the survey was done earlier this year) they are "living comfortably," and about a quarter say they are just able to meet expenses or fall short.
  • 40 percent of middle-class homeowners have paid off less than half of the money they owe on their homes.
  • 67 percent of the middle class say they are doing better than their parents. But only about half expect their children to do better than they're doing, down from 61 percent in 2002.
  • Baby Boomers are particularly morose compared to younger and older generations, with 55 percent of Boomers saying their income won't keep up with the cost of living in the coming year.

On the threatened list

At this point, due to Wall Street greed and stupid government policies, the middle class as we know it may go the way of the dodo.

"Certainly the current financial crisis represents a substantial threat to a lot of people in the middle class because it threatens their savings; it threatens their wealth, mainly the homes they own, because that's the principal wealth of most families," Sullivan said. "And if there's widespread job loss, and it's not clear there will be, but if there is, it'll threaten income as well."

Inequality between income brackets has shot up in the past few decades. Between 1969 and 1997, the share of total household income controlled by the lowest income group has decreased from 4.1 percent to 3.6 percent, while the share to the highest income group increased from 43 percent to 49 percent, according to the Census Bureau.

In 2006, the top 5 percent of households in terms of income were making some $297,405, compared with the lowest fifth of the population, who had an average household income of $11,352, according to Census data.

Such concentrated wealth was seen right before the Great Depression, said Richard Levins, professor emeritus in the department of applied economics at the University of Minnesota. "And then it gradually became spread out more during the 60s and 70s. "By the 70s, we had a very different distribution of income and wealth that, in my view, favored middle class."

But by 1980, Levins said, "that trend has gone back the other way to where we have a very large percentage of income and wealth in the hands of barely one percent of the people."


No More Gold Watch or Pension

 
The 1950s and the 1960s were the “golden age” of America.  We emerged from World War II as the wealthiest and most powerful nation on the planet.  During that time period, just about anyone that wanted to get a job could find a job and the U.S. middle class expanded rapidly.  Back in 1950, America was still considered to be a “land of opportunity” and the economy was growing like crazy.  There was less crime, there was less divorce, the American people had much less debt and the world seemed a whole lot less crazy. 

 
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, spending in America has increased tenfold since 1950.  That increased spending means that not only are Americans saving less, in many cases they are over-extending themselves and living on credit (aka, living in debt).

 
Americans worked hard to achieve a middle class lifestyle beginning in the 1950s.  However, since the late 1970s their wages began to shrink, pensions and other benefits began to vanish, real estate prices escalated to 43% of oncome, health care costs began to skyrocket, taxes went up and most families required both parents to work outside the home in order to afford the middle class lifestyle.  Families, like the US government, also began their credit binge, living beyond their means.

 
Even today, our politicians continue to maintain policies which discourage employment or even erect new barriers to decent wage US jobs. The new immigrant amnesty bill provides employers incentives to fire Americans and to hire immigrants.  Illegal immigrants have bankrupted many segments of society such hospitals in CA where 85 have closed after years of providing free health care to illegal residents.

 
Were there flaws in society during the 1950s and 1960s?  Of course, women and minorities were still second class citizens.

 
No one knows clearly where we will wind up as a nation.  The incredible debt our nation has, government attacks on personal privacy and other civil rights and lack of job opportunities for our young will most likely turn the clock back.

 

Stop feeding the beast.  If enough Americans would stop financially supporting the two parties, they might finally wake up and stop screwing the people they serve.

 


PM’s Roundup of Useful Resources…

Choose Homesteading Today


Homesteaders find the lifestyle fulfilling with good neighbors, wonderful farmers’ markets, and seedlings for transplanting.

Do you dream of your own homestead? From last year’s Homesteaders of the Year come six inspiring stories of those who have made the change and are loving every minute of it. Thomas, writing in his A Homesteading Grimoire blog, calls homesteading a lifestyle, and Meg wants her children to know where their food comes from and how to enjoy the homesteading life. The Homestead Redhead finds her lifestyle fulfilling and full of purpose, and believes you would too. Shana relates how her good country neighbors helped out during an equine emergency, and a Good Old Days letter allows you to catch a glimpse of the festivities surrounding an old-fashioned husking bee. Bring home fresh produce from the farmers’ market for these 11 great recipes. Check out GRIT’s LIVE brooder webcam to watch the roaming hatchlings this week, and read Hank’s tips for transplanting seedlings before you watch the gardening episode of TOUGH GRIT.

Read more:
http://www.grit.com/community/people/choose-homesteading-today-zwaz13ztel.aspx#ixzz2XW3xG6d3

 

Fast Food
"
Recent research by the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development found that Americans
spend 1 hour and 14 minutes eating each day.
 We're the third fastest eaters amongst those in the 34 countries
studied. Turks, the slowest eaters, spend an average of
2 hours and 42 minutes eating per day. The French also
take their time at the table, spending an average of 2 hours
and 15 minutes daily".


Source:
http://www.livescience.com/33657-8-weird-statistics.html

 


You may think that money is invented to make exchange easier. You could imagine that at some point in prehistory. A hunter just shot a deer and a farmer has some carrots and they want to exchange but the meat is worth much more than the carrots. Watch now...

 


 


Frugal fresh fruits and veggies
read more here

 

Our economy is like a tattooed thug living in Detroit. In between burning broken-down cars and selling crack, he makes $16,000 a year working "security" at a local nightclub. Outside of busting heads, he has no real skills.
 
 
 

The Nanny State-We love our government

DHS Report Points To Armageddon Scenario
With something that can impact millions of people in the US alone it's amazing that few people have heard that such a report exists.

Just Another Small Town FEMA Camp...
In getting footage for a mini-doc we're working on, we passed the small town of Taylor, Texas and came across one of our nation's many lovely Homeland Security family detention facilities.

 

In the U.S., median wages are declining. Taxes are rising. Healthcare costs are increasing. Education costs are through the roof. Most of the new jobs created are low wage and part time.

 

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

 


Obama Collecting Citizens’ Financial Info Without Warrants

Judicial Watch never rests, and they announced today that they’ve obtained records from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) exposing that millions of dollars have been spent by the agency on the warrantless collection and analysis of Americans’ financial transactions

The full extent of the CFPB personal financial data collection program is revealed in a document obtained by Judicial Watch entitled “INDEFINITE-DELIVERY INDEFINITY-QUANTITY (IDIQ) STATEMENT OF WORK.” According to the IDIQ document’s stated Objective: “The CFPB seeks to acquire and maintain a nationally representative panel of credit information on consumers for use in a wide range of policy research projects… The panel shall be a random sample of consumer credit files obtains from a national database of credit files.”
Read more:
http://conservativebyte.com/2013/06/obama-collecting-citizens-financial-info-without-warrants/#ixzz2XWnt73nS

 

 “Until the next revolution”, the Poor Man

 

 

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