Tuesday, March 17, 2015

We've Become a Nation of Serfs in the New World Order

Poor Man Survival

Self Reliance tools for independent minded people…

www.poormansurvivor.net

ISSN 2161-5543

A Digest of Urban Survival Resources

A Nation of Serfs in the New World Order

We’ve become a nation of lowered expectations. For the first time in several generations we no longer believe our children will live a better life than we do.

At no time in our history have so many citizens held such a low view of Congress and our national leaders. Voting, for the most part, has been a waste of time for the past 50 years.

Despite endless political promises from either party, we’ve seen our rights diminished, the cost of living increase dramatically and a never-ending crush of costly and unjust rules, regulations and laws which have robbed us of our privacy, our world ranking in free enterprise and the American way of life.

For the most part there is no longer a social contract between corporations and workers and many Fortune 500 firms don’t even pay their fair share of taxes. They have shifted that burden to what is left of the middle class while parking record profits overseas.

The following is my opinion on how our nation works today.

The Fed, Bankers [multi-national and federal chartered]

· Controls the money supply. Formerly, the Treasury Dept. controlled our money. Now the Fed ‘loans’ the government fiat money and charges interest, creating an artificial national debt and inflation. We’ve lost 40% of the value of a dollar since 2005 and 95% since the Fed was created.

· The IRS and the income tax on individuals [created at about the same time]. The IRS acts as its collection agent. After the IRS was created, most states duplicated the process to collect money from citizens. Citizens are collateral for the money the Fed lends to the government which is why we’re all assigned a Social Security number at birth.

Corporate Cartels-An average of five corporations control everything.

EXAMPLES

FOOD=Nestle, General Foods, Kraft

PHARMACEUTICAL=Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Astra Seneca

MEDIA=Time-Life Warner, ABC

The Military-Industrial Complex controls the defense industry and the surveillance industry [both domestic and international], aircraft, etc.

When profits need boosting, we wage another war or the equipment and spy technology is further sold to governments to be used against our own citizenry.

Beginning in the 1960s corporations managed to ‘persuade’ politicians to shift the tax burden from corporate America to the Middle Class. By the mid-1980s corporations began shedding their social contract with workers by offshoring jobs and factories and eliminating pensions and other perks and by lowering wages.

Corporations such as WalMart and McDonalds’ subsidize their profits by offering low wage jobs and by encouraging its workforce to apply for government assistance [food stamps, medical care].

The Political Elite

Politics have proven very profitable for many. Insider stock trading among members of Congress has been very lucrative. Perks provided by special interest groups are often lavish and there has been no slowdown in this form of bribery despite rhetoric to the contrary.

The Clintons and President Obama along with the Bush family, the Kennedy family and many others have reaped large rewards for their activities which is why so many scrabble so hard to remain in one office or the other. Mrs. Clinton even went so far as to move to another state in order to continue feeding at the public trough. Pensions and other perks for politicians are highly lucrative despite the lack of anything meaningful returned to the people.

THE RESULT

By 2008 America had lost roughly 10-15% of its middle class. President Clinton eliminated laws that kept Wall Street in check, effectively turning Wall Street into a casino which ultimately crashed and had to be bailed out by cash strapped consumers who had previously paid for the bailout of the Savings and Loan industry, and eventually General Motors.

Taxpayers were rewarded with additional offshoring, weak wages and no benefits. Many consumers foolishly ran their household budgets as if they were the government, using home equity to ‘buy up’ into more expensive homes and live the ‘good life,’ which ultimately could not be supported by lack of decent jobs.

The Decline of Entrepreneurship in the USA

One path to financial independence and job creation in the United States has been small business. Unfortunately, government red tape and over regulation has discouraged business startups here and we’ve actually dropped to number 13 in terms of free enterprise. New Zealand, and several Asian countries now lead in small business creation.

What’s left of living wage middle class jobs?

The bulk of such jobs are taxpayer supported occupations such as law enforcement, fire and emergency services, teachers and administrators, and bureaucrats at every level of government. These are the only sectors which still offer generous health and retirement benefits, paid holidays and vacations.

The majority of new jobs that Obama brags about are low paying service jobs.

Occupations such as medical and legal still offer a living wage but it has become more difficult to maintain a middle class lifestyle because of insurance costs and shrinkage of benefits to workers and most lawyers rely on government work, property and casualty claims against insurance firms or class action style lawsuits against ‘deep pocket’ opponents.

During the time that blue collar and white collar jobs are being decimated, we’ve seen a large rise in the working poor, families who are working, often two jobs but unable to afford the high cost of living now associated with the United States. In California for instance, it is estimated a bare-bones lifestyle for a family of four is nearly $47,000.

Personally, more of my outgo is dedicated to government taxes and mandated costs [auto insurance for one] than for anything else. Government at every level nicks taxpayers…all of our utilities, our phones, our water, our fuel, etc. is taxed. Although we live frugally, no mortgage, no credit cards, no fancy vacations, drive a 10-year old vehicle, no fancy cell phones, etc. – supporting government is our largest annual expense.

Our antiquated and complex tax system has evolved into a scheme to reward and punish rather than fund legitimate government activities. For more than a decade I have maintained we need a system wide overhaul where the first $25,000 of income is not taxed at ANY level and that Fortune 1000 firms and foreign entities operating in the USA need to pay their fair share.

This is unlikely to ever take place so long as corporate America is able to buy and sell politicians just like any other commodity.

As a college education becomes more unaffordable and less meaningful I see a continued decline for this country…a nation of serfs who don’t have the gumption to question authority and insane rules and regulations.

Frankly, I find it disgusting that we live in such adversarial times, us against them. I suspect our children are deliberately being dummied down [despite large expenditures] in our public school systems. Today, few college grads are able to pass school exams routinely given to 8^th graders from 1912.

Coming next: Government Stupidity: The Never Ending Story

Yours for a life fulfilled

[or,is the future useless]?

Bruce ‘the Poor Man’

Books, Art, Video – the saucy, the odd, the retro, even the practical…

http://RetroGuy.net

A Shallow Planet Production

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Are We on the Verge of Another Financial Crisis? We have too much stuff, More

Poor Man Survival

Self Reliance tools for independent minded people…

www.poormansurvivor.net

ISSN 2161-5543

A Digest of Urban Survival Resources

"Politics doesn't work. Look at the parts of America where government has had
the most power, where government has spent the most money. Look at the housing
projects we've got the poor people in."
-- P. J. O'Rourke

Civil War, Anarchy, Breakdown of Society?

We are on the verge of a great financial crisis which will cause economic conditions in our cities to deteriorate rapidly…civil strife is likely and the White House has preparations in place across the nation’s police departments to deal with it via martial law. Why do you think so many local police agencies have been armed by the Feds to the point where they more closely resemble paramilitary groups?

Bill O’Reilly suggests there are a lot of people out there that actually want to turn [Ferguson, MO} this into a full-blown war. Some want a race war, some want a “war on cops”, and others just seem to want a general excuse for crime, looting and mayhem.

So many of our elected officials and bureaucrats seem so far out-of-touch with the anger and frustration the average person feels about the coerciveness, incompetence, the high cost and lack of good will toward the people they supposedly serve.

I subscribe to John Whitehead’s newsletter and I think he summarizes it well in one of his recent commentaries…

For those of us who have managed to survive 2014 with our lives intact and our freedoms hanging by a thread, it has been a year of crackdowns, clampdowns, shutdowns, showdowns, shootdowns, standdowns, knockdowns, putdowns, breakdowns, lockdowns, takedowns, slowdowns, meltdowns, and never-ending letdowns.

We’ve been held up, stripped down, faked out, photographed, frisked, fracked, hacked, tracked, cracked, intercepted, accessed, spied on, zapped, mapped, searched, shot at, tasered, tortured, tackled, trussed up, tricked, lied to, labeled, libeled, leered at, shoved aside, saddled with debt not of our own making, sold a bill of goods about national security, tuned out by those representing us, tossed aside, and taken to the cleaners.

As I point out in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, we’ve had our freedoms turned inside out, our democratic structure flipped upside down, and our house of cards left in a shambles.

We’ve had our children burned by flashbang grenades, our dogs shot, and our old folks hospitalized after “accidental” encounters with marauding SWAT teams. We’ve been told that as citizens we have no rights within 100 miles of our own border, now considered “Constitution-free zones.” We’ve had our faces filed in government databases, our biometrics crosschecked against criminal databanks, and our consumerist tendencies catalogued for future marketing overtures.

In the grand scheme of things, most people are not paying attention. In most regards I feel I am surrounded by the mundane, the trivial, the trite, the bland, and the superficial when it comes to television, government and an ill-informed citizenry who have their collective noses buried into a cell phone, oblivious to the world around them.

If you are among the thinking, what are your thoughts?

We Have Too Much Stuff!

My husband and I decided that the best way to get rid of the cost and inconvenience of storage, as well as things we had "stuffed" into our small house, was to consign our items to auction. The auction house sent a team of people to pack up and move the items from the house as well as the storage. For a fair percentage of the total sale, everything was done for us. Individual items often don't sell at expected prices at auction, but others can be very exciting. I had an old brass planter that I bought for $40 at an auction only three years before our move. It sold at auction for $350. In all, we avoided the hassles of a garage sale, got rid of a storage fee, made space in the house, and made a fine profit. I have one caution. Most auction dealers will offer to purchase your goods outright. My experience is that the price they quote will be quite a bit lower than what you could make by consigning. It was worth the risk

NOTE: When cousins of mine from Germany and Poland spent time visiting me in the US they often commented on how much stuff Americans have to the point where we are often unable to use our garage to house our vehicles because they’re already over flowing with STUFF!

Resources you can use and share…

Cheap Composting
Composting is definitely not a case of garbage in, garbage out. Your garbage going in will magically cheapest way to fertilize a garden is to make your own organic compound by composting. Even if your property only has shrubbery and not a garden, homemade compost has many benefits.

35 Ways to Cut Your Water Bill

Reduce your water bill, and your impact on the environment with these water-saving tips.

Cook and boil water using no fuel at all!

A passive solar oven system is a handy tool to have in your preparedness kit. When it's sunny out, you can use your passive solar oven for fuel-free cooking. You can even use it to boil and purify water... it really does get that hot!

Repurposing items for your garden and outdoor living space
read more here

Top 5 Ways To Have An Amazing Spring Garden This Year

Build Your Own Self Sustainable Aquaponics Ecosystem

101 Gardening Secrets The Experts Never Tell You

15 Insanely Clever Ways to Repurpose Everyday Things

Yours for a life fulfilled

[or, is the future useless]?

Bruce ‘the Poor Man’

Books, Art, Video – the saucy, the odd, the retro, even the practical…

http://RetroGuy.net

A Shallow Planet Production

Thursday, March 12, 2015

The Future of a Sharing Economy, How to Escape Duct Tape & Other Useful Nuggets

Poor Man Survival

Self Reliance tools for independent minded people…

www.poormansurvivor.net

ISSN 2161-5543

A Digest of Urban Survival Resources

If you buy what you don't need you might have to sell what you do.
- Irish Proverb

The Future of Sharing

Was it really that long ago, that we used to brag that the next generation of Americans would be better off than their parents?

Living comfortably has always, to some extent, relied on owning many goods. But this is becoming less and less the case. A new worldwide “sharing economy," composed of startup ventures whose products consumers rent or share instead of own, is blossoming across the globe.

Some sharing services are already quite famous: Zipcar, Craigslist, and AirBnB, for example. Others are very new on the scene and just starting to gain widespread recognition, such as the book-exchange Web site Paperbackswap.com and the Lego-set-swap site Pleygo. All these services and more get the spotlight in Beth Buczynski’s new book Sharing is Good: How to Save Money, Time and Resources Through Collaborative Consumption (New Society, 2013).

Buczynski examines the collaborative-sharing phenomenon and sees big things in store for it in years ahead: Its myriad services, she says, give consumers everywhere opportunities to enjoy more creature comforts while spending less money and using fewer material goods. It all adds up to a big win for consumers, and for the environment, too—the more we share our existing consumer products, the less we need to mine raw materials and burn polluting energy sources to make more new products.

Buczynski discussed her book and her outlook on collaborative-sharing enterprises in this interview. More at:

http://www.wfs.org/futurist-interviews/future-sharing

How to Escape Duct Tape

When we come across these kinds of tips, we hope to high heaven that we never have to use them. But better safe (and prepared) than sorry. If you ever find yourself in a situation where your wrists are bound together by duct tape, there is in fact an easy way to escape. Here’s the important trick that Dateline learned:

The original clip from Dateline was taken off YouTube. It showed how to escape duct tape in a hostage situation. To escape, the journalist simply raised her hands, tied together with duct tape, over her head and brought them down quickly in front of her and used the extra force to break free. I’ve also include another video below that shows an alternative method. I hope you never need to use these tips but you can definitely break free from duct tape if the need arises. More at:

http://tiphero.com/emergency-escape-tip-that-could-save-your-life/

The steady derailment of the U.S. financial system

Consumer spending in the U.S. accounts for approximately 70 percent of gross domestic product, though it is important to note that the manner in which “official” GDP is calculated is highly inaccurate. For example, all government money used within the Medicare coverage system to pay for “consumer health demands,” as well as the now flailing Obamacare socialized welfare program, are counted toward GDP, despite the fact that such capital is created from thin air by the Federal Reserve and also generates debt for the average taxpayer. Government debt creation does not beget successful domestic production…More here:

http://personalliberty.com/steady-derailment-u-s-financial-system/

The Weekly Roundup of Useful Stuff

Should you buy rural property? Or is there a catch?
read more here

3 Ways To Get Rid Of Mold Naturally

7 Great Depression Era Tips To Stretch Your Food Budget

14 Gardening Tricks From A Master

How To Grow Ginger At Home

Save Money With This Alternative To Dryer Sheets

Soap Making 101 - How To Make Cold Process Soap

Tips for Storing/Using Food to Reduce Waste

Bruce, the Poor Man

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Yours for a useful life!

Bruce ‘the Poor Man’

Books, Art, Video – the saucy, the odd, the retro, even the practical

http://RetroGuy.net

A Shallow Planet Production

Monday, March 9, 2015

Genetic Privacy, Executive Bomb, DIY Blowgun

Poor Man Survival

Self Reliance tools for independent minded people…

www.poormansurvivor.net

ISSN 2161-5543

A Digest of Urban Survival Resources

By sowing frugality we reap liberty, a golden harvest.
- Agesilaus

Personal debt in America is approaching $17 trillion. So the American consumer isn’t much better off than the American government —

Consider some recently reported data points that underscore the desperation percolating through the typical American household today:

Nearly one in five American children living with married parents receives food-stamp assistance today, almost double the rate prior to the Great Recession.
More than 60% of Americans do not have enough savings to cover a $500 repair bill or a $1,000 emergency-room visit.
More than half of American households have less than one month of income in savings.
Nearly 40% of existing jobs on America pay less than $15 an hour. Worse, nearly half of all new jobs are low-wage jobs, and about 48% of the projected job openings nationally do not even pay $15.
Finally, the American middle class, once more than half the households in the country, has continued to shrink and is now about 43% of the country — and a large portion of those are retirees who have pensions to supplement their Social Security income.

Those are not the statistics of a fundamentally strong nation.

We are internally weak — a service-sector economy populated by low-wage workers who live their life on credit, one paycheck to the next, struggling to feed their children without government support.

Our greenback faces challenging days ahead because of the level of American debt (both government and consumer), the incompetence in Congress and the Catch-22 that the Fed faces. It needs to raise rates to correct imbalances it has created, yet doing so risks a potential crisis that kneecaps the U.S. economy and calls into the question the wisdom of a dollar-centric world.

A Useful Set of Tools for getting out of debt…

http://www.bonanza.com/listings/Get-Out-of-Debt-Get-Prosperous-Get-Independent/138008299

Goodies you can use and share…

The Costs of Corruption

Government corruption costs U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars a year, and education programs typically end up shortchanged by compromised state...

War on Whistle Blowers

In the face of potentially life-threatening dangers, they dare to speak truth to power. They're the whistleblowers; the crusaders for truth who often stand as the lone link between corrupted corporate and governmental interests and the public's right to know. The stirring film...

Watch now...

Here’s a nifty site we can all use…

ExecutiveBomb.com -- provides e-mail addresses and direct phone numbers for highly placed executives at thousands of companies. Helps you to bypass the peons and get to someone who has the power to actually do something.

Secrets of keeping a Youthful Look-Free

No sales pitch, no come on, no cost!

http://1drv.ms/1BPMoeL

Don't Throw That Out Yet!

If you find a can or package of food in your cabinet that has recently passed the "best by" date, call the toll-free number on the product and ask the manufacturer's representative if the food is still good to eat without any significant loss of quality or safety. I have found in such calls that many canned products maintain good quality for many months after the "best by" date. It pays to make a call before you toss out a product.

genetic privacy
Your DNA Can Now Be Used Against You In Court Without Your Consent
A recent refusal by the Supreme Court means that involuntary DNA [READ FULL STORY]

diy for guys
How To Make A Laser-Sighted Blowgun For Only $3
Broken window repairs not included!
[READ FULL STORY]

Yours for a useful life!

Bruce ‘the Poor Man’

Books, Art, Video – the saucy, the odd, the retro, even the practical

http://RetroGuy.net

A Shallow Planet Production

Friday, March 6, 2015

The Sovietization of the United States

Poor Man Survival

Self Reliance tools for independent minded people…

www.poormansurvivor.net

ISSN 2161-5543

A Digest of Urban Survival Resources

The Patriot Act Violates Virtually
The Entire Bill Of Rights

“You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.”—George Orwell, 1984

The Patriot Act vs. the Constitution…Congressional flatworms allow this vile Act to continue…no better than Benedict Arnold. Our government cannot control itself, why would I expect it to control me?

Law is a lot like medicine. When you have too much it can be fatal. It’s insanity to think the government can or should protect us from every conceivable negative consequence…

The so-called Patriot Act was a large step in what I call the Sovietization of the United States. Stalin would be proud at how our government[s] have eliminated privacy and have restricted our freedom to travel both domestically and internationally through the vast imposition of passports, socialist slave numbers and more on everyday Americans.

One need simply follow the money to see who benefits-Wall Street. As our multiple wars wind down, Wall Street began earnestly selling spy technology to the NSA and other arms of the government. Wall Street often writes the rules and lobbies hard for what they want and they learned long ago who to buy and sell among the political elite.

Along with many other Americans, we’re damned sick of the parasites in Washington who ruining our nation, depriving us of our civil liberties and bankrupting our economy.

Today, there’s little room for indiscretions, imperfections, or acts of independence—especially not when the government can listen in on your phone calls, monitor your driving habits, track your movements, scrutinize your purchases and peer through the walls of your home. That’s because technology—specifically the technology employed by the government against the American citizenry—has upped the stakes dramatically so that there’s little we do that is not known by the government.

By Katarina Uhalova

The Patriot Act was established after the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and its main point was to protect people from terrorism. Specifically, it allows FBI agents to search personal information of people, to read their emails, and listen to their private phone calls. Before the Patriot Act, the agents were not allowed to do this kind of research. They would need to have the permission of a judge.

The Patriot Act breaches the First Amendment, which declares our rights to freedom expression, speech and information. Freedom of information and individual liberty had a tremendous impact on the people in the 20th century, which allowed them to have their perceptions and examine situations from their own point of view. The Fourth Amendment should also protect us from search and seizure. Our society should deny the Patriot Act because it raises controversial issues, such as violating the Constitution and having a tremendous impact on our social lives.

One of the first reasons why the Patriot Act violates the First Amendment rights is because, as it states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

These words are stated in the Constitution and they should be respected at all times. Evidently, the Patriot Act violates freedom of speech in the way that people are losing the right to say what and how they truly feel. We have to be careful with the use of words about politics or government because we can be prosecuted. To illustrate it another way, the Patriot Act violates the democratic rights of the freedom of political expression. Furthermore, the Patriot Act researches what people are saying, which makes them very careful with their vocabulary and the meaning of words they use. Even though the government cannot deny our rights to react on certain political issues, the Patriot Act restricts what we can say.

EDITORS PARTING NOTES:

"They [the founders] proclaimed to all the world
the revolutionary doctrine of the divine rights of the common man.
That doctrine has ever since been the heart of the American faith."
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

And this doctrine has been under attack ever since by both Democrats and Republicans!

The America we live in today is not the America I once knew. Everywhere I look I see the erosion of American ideals, the loss of individual freedom…our nation was founded during the Age of Enlightenment or Reason. Now, our so-called leaders are taking us back to the Dark Ages by undermining of our freedoms and privacy.

http://www.kean.edu/~eslprog/accents/2006/page2006_13.html