The Non-Stop Conflict Between the Common Man & the State

Poor Man Survival

Self Reliance tools for independent minded people…

www.poormansurvivor.net

 

ISSN 2161-5543

A Digest of Urban Survival Resources

 

"A government that is big enough
to give you all you want
is big enough to take it all away."
-- Barry Goldwater

 

 

The Misuse of Police and Resources Against Citizens is Bad Now-It Will Only Get Worse

On last night’s news I heard a SWAT team in Texas raided a man’s home to deliver a warrant for an outstanding student loan of $1500 from 1987 – and you wonder what the hell is wrong with America?!

Using a SWAT team to deliver a minor warrant is bad enough and such stupidity has increased from an average of 100 such raids per year to 100 per month in our so-called free society.  I guess local governments have massive amounts of [our] cash to waste so their boys can play commando!

For the past 20 years Washington, much like Nazi Germany did,  has been enacting laws which exert much tighter controls on cash and its citizens…allowing zero privacy, for instance, on the opening of any kind of financial account domestically or overseas [FINCEN laws, IRS searches of American Express card holders, the new Obamacare laws, cancelling passports without notice on delinquent tax citizens, etc].

No doubt you’ve heard the phrase that “freedom isn’t free.”  That’s because the state is continually trying to rob the common man of freedom.

There is a non-stop conflict between the individual and the state.

Governments around the world have demonstrated that they are willing to trample on individual liberties with no thought to the larger implications.

The following is observed by Gary Gibson…[Read to the end about our Recession Rescue program]

“What holds society together is not a bunch of strict laws and a brutal police force -- it’s basically peer pressure, moral ‘suasion, and social opprobrium. Look at a restaurant. The bills get paid not because anybody is afraid of the police, but for the three reasons I just mentioned.”

[What’s your take? Could we survive without a state? Is the complete absence of government superior to limited government? Are you, as they say, a “minarchist” who believes in limited government?

Americans long ago settled for convenience over freedom: Paved roads and more commercial space per capita than any other nation on earth… to go along with various prohibitions on personal behavior, expanded domestic spying by police, the TSA and the biggest prison population per capita in the world.

Why be concerned with the prison population? Because the state is caging a lot of people who have neither killed, nor raped nor stolen. According to Wikipedia:

Perhaps the single greatest force behind the growth of the prison population has been the national “war on drugs.” The number of incarcerated drug offenders has increased twelvefold since 1980. In 2000, 22 percent of those in federal and state prisons were convicted on drug charges.

But don’t drugs get to the end user by criminal means that often involve violent cartel conflict somewhere along the line? Absolutely, but only because the state makes drugs illegal, resulting in extralegal black markets. The state says it’s for own good, but we can’t help but notice that it also serves to increase the power of the state to monitor and to police.

It’s bad enough that inflation-fueled nationalizations have become the norm in the U.S., that the government crowds out real job growth by stifling small business while bailing out failed big ones.

But what about the other legal indignities, all the other ways the authorities remind you that you and your property aren’t really yours?

Why can’t we drink on the sidewalk? Or smoke in bars? They manage to do it in other parts of the world without civilization collapsing around their ears…or even an increase in violence or cancer rates!

In Acapulco at night the streets are crowded both with parents, their young children, the elderly and tipsy young men holding bottles of Corona. It is lively but peace reigns. Perhaps people are just nicer when they aren’t constantly stressed out by being over-regulated.

People smoke in restaurants and as long as the air is circulating, no one else seems to be bothered.

Since 2006 it has been legal to possess varying amounts of “hard” drugs for personal use -- though, comically, selling these drugs technically remains illegal.

Prostitution is also technically illegal, but pretty open. Every strip club doubles as a bordello, and of course there are the actual bordellos!

A mark of true civilization is civility. The people peacefully seeking their own enjoyment are able to mingle with people raising their families, all without discomfort or conflict. Sure their officials are all probably thieving criminals -- this is still Latin America -- but the people of Acapulco themselves live blissfully free of the state’s heavy handed interference in their personal goings-about.

“All well and good for the rest of the world,” says the American conservative who claims to love “freedom” (as long as it’s done his way), “but I don’t want to be surrounded by drug use and prostitution!”

But, dear conservative control freak, you already are! This stuff goes on all around you anyway. It’s probably going on in at least one house within a couple miles of yours as you read this. And it manages not to bother you because it really isn’t any more your business than other habits and pleasures your neighbors may have.

No amount of “war” on the arbitrarily declared vice crimes (alcohol is okay, but marijuana is not?) by the state with your blessing will end practices you don’t like… unless maybe you turn the joint into a theocratic tyranny of the Middle East variety.

Criminalization just drives the behavior underground while giving the state the authority to regulate more and to seize property and cage any of us in an effort to fight “wars” against personal practices. Such laws are just prejudices backed by guns.

And in the U.S. we get it with both barrels, both financial and personal interference a la the state. They overtax us, steal from us by means of inflation and then tell us what we can do with willing partners and with ourselves. The liberals cheer on the seizure of property for redistribution while the conservatives cheer the government’s ownership of our bodies.

Yet Americans are still convinced that they love freedom. Personally we scarcely know anyone in the States who has a clue what that particular word means. And most of that small number who do are heading for the exits so they can experience it.

When they leave they leave the white, white world of Western Civilization entirely. They head for Asia…or Latin America. The latter seems to be especially popular.

Maybe it’s something just basic to the essence of the West. It’s the West after all that prides itself on being the birthplace of democracy. As if that’s something to crow about!

Democracy is just a system of mass mutual slavery. Everybody owns everybody else and this power of ownership is represented by the vote. Woe be to the people -- and their property -- in the minority group when it’s time to count those votes.

Maybe it’s genetic. The typical American comes from European stock and though he reflexively yells “liberty” and “freedom”, he has a hard time letting go of slavery. He stopped thrusting it on imported Africans, but seemed to miss it so much that he started inflicting it on himself and his kin.

He enslaves the unborn to debt, the worker to the unproductive, the hedonist to the moralist, and so on.

Yet it’s this same set of hypocrites who gave us a higher standard of living due to technological innovation in robust free markets. It was their European ancestors who gave the world most of the advances in the hard sciences in the first place.

We’re not entirely sure what to make of it. It warrants further consideration. We suspect this would best be undertaken on beach somewhere south of the U.S. border.

Gary Gibson
Managing editor, Whiskey & Gunpowder

Post Script

The Federal Reserve and US Government Have Warped the American Economy

In just the past decade, the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet has grown from roughly $800 billion to over $4 trillion. Our central bankers engaging in massive asset purchases to pummel interest rates downward is not news to anyone. We’ve been living in a world of falling interest rates since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Yet, few mainstream economists have taken a good look at the destructive effects of this unprecedented monetary expansion. The calamitous distortions Fed policy has created for actors on both Main Street and Wall Street since 2008 have laid the groundwork for yet another crash.

 

Low interest rates stemming from a growing money supply are the only reason the US government has managed to service its gargantuan debt in recent years. The Congressional Budget Office itself has pointed out that even a slight rise in interest rates could potentially result in anywhere from $700 to $900 billion in annual tax payments just to service the interest on our debt. At this pace, paying the republic’s creditors will become our largest government program in no time. Future Americans might go to work and have 50 percent of their paychecks seized not to pay for government services, but simply to service debt forced on them by central planners.

 

But public debt is far from the only distortion artificially low rates have wrought. Mortgages, auto loans, credit cards, and student loans have ballooned total consumer debt to $12 trillion, and this number is only trending upward. 

 

The easy credit economy manufactured by central bankers has obliterated American savings and replaced them with debt. The average American consumer has less than $1,000 in his bank account. He lives praying for no car trouble or a broken arm. There was a time when Americans were rewarded for saving their earnings with double-digit interest rates but this is a distant memory. If Americans want to earn a return nowadays they must play the central-bank sponsored stock market casino…or the state sponsored lottery where the odds are even worse!

 

 

 

 

JP Morgan: 92% chance of recession...

Recession Rescue: Surviving the Coming Debt Crisis- Prepare Now while you still can!

Many trusted financial analysts are advising their clients that another recession is about to hit…well known advisor Peter Schiff says it will be worse than the 2008 financial crisis and will be harder on Americans because debt levels are so much higher today!

According to The Urban Institute 35% of Americans have at least one debt in collections. Typically for a debt to be in collections it has to be at least 6 months past due! The 77 million Americans with debt in collections owed an average of $5,200.

Although some might not see it but our nation is facing another recession, investors are being warned by analysts to brace for a ‘cataclysmic year’ akin to the Lehman crisis of 2008-This year saw the worst opening month for the stock market EVER and most Americans are unprepared with little or no savings.

If that describes you, please consider getting yourself a copy of our special CD ROM containing [here’s a sampling] these reports:

·        Sideline income strategies

·        Surviving a job loss

·        How to build a financial safety net

·        How to thrive in a bad economy

·        67 firms that will pay you to work from home

·        Debt beaters report

·        Super simple money saving tips

·        Re-financing tips

·        Solving the money puzzle

·        How to live dirt-cheap

·        Recession Rescue – finding emergency cash

·        Surviving a debt crisis

·        Budget plans for a recession

·        Bankruptcy Recovery Report

·        28 credit secrets they don’t want you to know

 

·        Plus, I’ll include a link where you can download 3,612 Legal Forms & Docs as a bonus…also, I’m always working on updated information and will send new reports to you as I complete them AT NO additional charge.

 Go here to learn more and to order:

http://www.bonanza.com/listings/Recession-Rescue-Surviving-the-Coming-Debt-Crisis-Prepare-Now-while-you-still/322957094

 

Yours for Survival,

Bruce ‘The Poor Man Survivor’

A Smoking Frog Feature, Shallow Planet Production

Escaping Serfdom-Getting Your Affairs in Order

Poor Man Survival

Self Reliance tools for independent minded people…

www.poormansurvivor.net

 

ISSN 2161-5543

A Digest of Urban Survival Resources

The one who dies with the most toys...still dies.
- Unknown

 

 

Everything is a Lie. Everything

 

"The whole drift of our law is toward the absolute prohibition of all ideas that diverge in the slightest form from the accepted platitudes, and behind that drift of law there is a far more potent force of growing custom, and under that custom there is a natural philosophy which erects conformity into the noblest of virtues and the free functioning of personality into a capital crime against society."
-- H. L. Mencken

 

One of our partner sites surveyed their readers about why Americans are so disillusioned about our elections and government in general.  Their responses mirrored what our readers said when we had our full blown Poor Man Survivor site and in recent conversations I’ve had with people across the country who have expressed sentiments such as “I can barely make it on $45,000 a year-everything in this country costs so damned much now compared to just a few years ago…car insurance, mortgages, car payments…who the hell can afford a new car?!”

 

The government, at every level, continues to push the cost of living up for everything we do through inflation and red tape…there is a new regulation or law which we pay for and the bottom feeding bureaucrats and politicians either don’t care or they are too stupid to see it.  After all, they vote themselves non-stop raises all the while denying COLA raises for Social Security recipients or for our military…it’s criminal that we need to have fund raisers for our wounded military because the government won’t properly take care of their needs!

 

For example, residents of Flint, MI are forced to pay for water they cannot use and get sick from [we live nearby and our water rates were jacked up more than 1200% as a result] – government extortion at best…activists are coming out of the woodwork pointing fingers at the governor [they seem to forget the water was polluted by area manufacturers and local politicians led the charge to change the water system] and others. 

 

“Our current malaise,” Douglas K. writes, “is due in large part to our loss of confidence and respect for our government and for those who govern.

“There exists a nearly a total loss of confidence in our government, and the average person is angry -- mad as hell, and isn't going to take it anymore.

“But sadly it's an unfocused anger because it's very difficult for a social order or a society to function that has no vision, no confidence and have learned that nothing in governing is as it seems. Government itself is unfocused.

“Everything is a lie. Everything.

“I sometimes think that we are living in a second medieval age,” writes the veteran Washington journalist Sam Smith, “in which the strong have enormous power but can only exercise it behind moats and in heavily walled castles because, in the end, they are truly scared.

“The rest of us live in villages on farms owned by the lords but in a culture that still retains some of the traditions, freedoms and values the elite no longer experiences. We are victims, but also models and preservers.”

Many Americans already live a serf-like existence, says the urban studies scholar Joel Kotkin.

“Housing now takes the largest share of family costs,” he explains this week in The Daily Beast, “while expenditures on food, apparel and transportation have dropped or stayed about the same. In 2015, the rise in housing costs essentially swallowed savings gains made elsewhere, notably, savings on the cost of energy. The real estate consultancy Zillow predicts housing inflation will only worsen this year.”

The Baltic Dry Index has fallen below 300 for the first time ever, and export numbers are way down for almost every major exporting nation…

The phenomenon is worst on the coasts -- where land-use regulations have served to limit the housing supply, especially single-family homes. Cities are increasingly home to only wealthy elites and inner-city poor. The dwindling middle class is confined to ever-more pricey rentals…

On a national basis, the homeownership rate sits near its lowest point in 30 years. And among homeowners who have a mortgage, 14.4% are still underwater -- owing more money than the house is worth.

 

“The middle class will have little chance to acquire any assets for their retirement and increasingly few will choose to have children. Imagine, then, a high-tech Middle Ages with vast chasms between the upper classes and the poor, with growing dependence — even among what once would have been middle-class households — on handouts to pay rent.”

 

The political class has completely disrupted the American structure of production, made American workers uncompetitive, snuffed the life out of entrepreneurs, and burdened the entire nation with a debt obligation the size of Jupiter. The US economy is not the strongest and most durable in the world -- it is an unskilled thirty-two-year-old waiter crashing at his parent’s place and trying to pay down an $80,000 international relations degree.

 

 

Parting Note…

 

The epicenter of “higher learning” has become, and for good reason, the butt of a whole lot of hilarious jokes. It’s expensive. It’s divisive. It’s impractical. That’s because the university of the future, it’s said, will be three things: scholarly, high-tech and cheap.

The Khan Academy, for example, a free “learn anything” website, is the poster-boy for the new virtual-ed movement, and all the proof we need that there’s demand aplenty for alternative education.

And this trend is nothing exceptionally new:

“More than 2 million users watch his videos every month,” a Wired article reported back in 2011, “and all told they answer about 15 questions per second. Khan is clearly helping students master difficult and vital subjects. And he’s not alone: From TED talks to iTunes U to Bill Hammack the Engineer Guy, new online educational tools are bringing the ethos of Silicon Valley to education.”

“With technology pushing the price of instruction dramatically lower, what reason will there be in the future to shell out upwards of $60,000 a year for the privilege of being intimidated and propagandized?  So Bernie and Obama want to push for free college…great.  It’s already free in Europe to many students, so what is taking so long for America to catch on?

 

 

More Resources You Can Tap

 

·  Easy Ways to Build an Emergency Fund

You know you need to have an emergency fund. Here's how to accumulate one pain free!

·  9 money skills you need if you want to get rich

Would you like to be rich? Take your financial destiny into your own hands: Master these money moves

 

·  The "Envelope System" In a Cashless Society
Mom used to put her grocery money in an envelope to keep from overspending. Worked great then, but it's out of date now. We'll show you how to update it for today's lifestyle

 

Get your affairs in your order now…

 

3,612 Legal Forms & Docs

 

   I thought about enrolling into a pre-paid legal plan via AARP but once I studied the pros and cons, decided against it…most folks rarely need anything other than a will, power-of-attorney, medical end of life forms and the life along with some real estate related matters…therefore, you’ll probably find this useful:

 

Files you can use: Fill & Print-in ZIP file [most MS programs have a free unzip program or search the net for a free program]

 

Some examples below:

Banking, Collections, Finance, Business Agreements, Consumer,  Corporate,  Formalities,  Divorce,  Employment,  Family, Children,  Child Support, Financial & Investments,  Health Care,  Insurance,  Legal Utilities,  Loans,  Marriage & Partnerships,  Media & Broadcast,  Non-Profit Organizations, Business & Partnerships,  Power of Attorney,  Promissory Notes,  Real Estate Contracting,  Real Estate Deeds,  Real Estate Landlord & Tenant,  Real Estate Ownership,  Technology,  Contractor, Patient, Trusts, Abatement,  Credit,  Debt, Independent Contractor, Marketing, Salvage, Damage, Borrowing, Homesteading, and so much more....

You can customize any form with your logo or business name. Or change wording with your word processor. Upon payment you will be sent a link where you can download the complete file…or for $1.50 additional I will mail you a CD ROM.  Go here:

http://www.bonanza.com/listings/3-612-Legal-Forms-Docs-CD-or-Download/321691649

 

In a recent article entitled “70 Tips That Will Help You Survive What Is Going To Happen To America“,  readers can find some basic pieces of advice on how to get prepared for what is coming.  In my opinion, everyone should have an emergency fund that can cover at least six months of bills and expenses.  And now is not the time to go into debt.

 

My gift to you:

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

 

Bruce ‘the Poor Man’

 

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

http://RetroGuy.net

Even Main Stream Media Figures out Few Can Afford the American Dream

Poor Man Survival

Self Reliance tools for independent minded people…

www.poormansurvivor.net

 

ISSN 2161-5543

A Digest of Urban Survival Resources

"To oppose corruption in government
is the highest obligation of patriotism."
-- G. Edward Griffin
Historian, Author
Source: his book, The Freedom Manifesto

 

If you haven’t heard already, the sandwich chain Subway raised the cost of its $5 footlong specials to $6, effective last week.

“We launched the $5 footlong in 2007,” said a Tweet from the company on Tuesday. “Since then our costs have gone up greatly, but we try to balance that with promotions.”

Say this much: Subway is more or less keeping pace with the government’s bogus consumer price index. Using CPI as a yardstick, the $5 footlong of 2007 should cost $5.71 now.

I’ve written for years that government stats on inflation and labor are pretty mere nonsense used to bolster whatever party is in power.  The reality for the United States is that the wealthiest 62 people now own as much as half the world’s population, or 3.5 billion people according to a new study by Oxfam.  The wealth of the richest 62 people has risen 44 percent since 2010, while the wealth of the poorest 3.5 billion has fallen 41 percent during that time! 

Mrs. Clinton raked in more than $600 million in speaking fees alone from the Wall Street, the very firms which very nearly destroyed this country a few years ago but she wants you to believe she will protect you as our President…minorities are still falling for her nonsense.

Another survey has found that there is nowhere on the entire planet where the average wage earner is making enough money to live “the American Dream”.  Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now the middle class makes up a minority of the population, 51 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year, and poverty is growing rapidly.  The American Dream is essentially dead, and even the mainstream media is starting to figure this out.

Just today, someone sent me a U.S. News & World Report article entitled “Even Americans Can’t Afford the American Dream”. The following is an excerpt from that article…

The study goes country by country, factoring in average local wages and prices to calculate the regional costs of luxuries such as midsize homes (by U.S. standards, 1,480 square feet); electricity and high-speed Internet; cars and enough money for gasoline; food for a family of four; and enough disposable income to periodically dine out and attend movies or other events.

Researchers ultimately found there isn’t a country on the map whose average wage earner could afford all of these expenses together. What’s more, average consumers in Saudi Arabia and Oman are actually closer to financing these socioeconomic goals than the average American. The average Saudi household would only need to see monthly salaries climb by about $74 to realize the American dream in their own country, while U.S. workers would need hundreds of dollars in additional income.

Friends of mine in the real estate business in Arizona saw residential home prices rebound to unaffordable rates recently but confided to me during my recent trip that they expect another crash soon.

For decades I have warned that government policies have hollowed out our middle class and that it made long term prospects much dimmer than those of our parents.  We have witnessed the folly and creative destruction of liberal policies of politicians from both sides of the aisle destroy millions of formerly secure livelihoods.

Economics isn’t complicated. The Universal Law of Prosperity is very simple: produce more than you consume.

Despite the “rosy” jobs picture painted by the Obama White House, more people are falling into poverty than ever before…that might explain why that auto industry leases more cars than it sells despite offering six and seven year financing deals!

As our nation hits the $19 trillion debt mark citizens are going deeper into debt again as well using credit cards at unprecedented rates.  During our trip I noticed it was not uncommon to see folks swipe a card for a $2 charge – that’s pitiful in my book [I don’t want to hear the nonsense about building points for this BS or that BS, it just makes no sense to me].

The USA cannot afford to fix its own infrastructure or pay decent wages and is becoming a third world nation by many accounts.  The odds of another major recession in the US are the highest since 2011, according to a CNBC survey of money managers, economists and strategists – about 29% this year!

Additional Resources…

·  How to Sell Your Stuff at Consignment Getting the most for your old stuff

 

·  Cheap Emergency Foods We Often Overlook
Did you know that you can get 'prepper' foods at your local grocery store?

 

How to Start a Website for a Home-Based Business

 

Money-Making Mom: How Every Woman Can Earn More and Make a Difference by Crystal Paine: I picked this book up in the airport yesterday and enjoyed the read (even though I'm not a mom). Now my wife is reading it. It's a great source of motivation, particularly for mom's looking to make extra income from home.

 

The Alpha Strategy: The Ultimate Plan of Financial Self-Defense for the Small Investor.

by John A. Pugsley

The Alpha Strategy is a refreshing, common-sense idea that can completely and permanently insulate your assets from all investment risks, including inflation, depression, taxation, and market manipulation. In the rush for illusory profits promised by investment hucksters, there is a very good reason why The Alpha Strategy has been overlooked: because it totally thwarts the investment schemes that allow others to profit at your expense. It prevents anyone in the financial industry from chipping away at your wealth.

Best explanation I've read of the inner workings of our Federal Reserve System, and well-worth the read just for that. Clear explanation of basic economic principles, and the nefarious impact of government intervention--put simply, bureaucrats destroy value (through price controls), demand taxes, and cause inflation (monetizing debt), thereby stealing your money in three ways.

The second half of the book is devoted to preserving wealth in the face of inflation. Some say that inflation is no longer a problem and they scoff at tangibles (even as the purchasing power of your dollar plunges), but the lessons found here are worth considering, in case they're wrong…older hardbound that is still worth the read. [Hardbound, 1980, 280pp] To order a hardcopy version, go here:

http://www.bonanza.com/listings/The-Alpha-Strategy-by-John-Pugsley-Hardbound-Used/320004799

Use this link to get a free PDF version:

Link: The Alpha Strategy: The Ultimate Plan for Financial Self-Defense for the Small Investor

Yours for better living,

Bruce, the Poor Man