Legendary Investor Jim Rogers Warns: “Most People Are Going To Suffer The Next Time Around”

by | Feb 7, 2016 | Headline News | 208 comments

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    Back in the 1970’s as recession gripped the world for a decade, stocks stagnated and commodities crashed, investor Jim Rogers made a fortune. His understanding of markets, capital flows and timing is legendary.

    As crisis struck in late 2008, he did it again, often recommending gold and silver to those looking for wealth preservation strategies – move that would have paid of multi-fold when precious metals hit all time highs in 2011. He warned that the crash would lead to massive job losses, dependence on government bailouts, and unprecedented central bank printing on a global scale.

    Now, Rogers says that investors around the world are realizing that the jig is up. Stocks are over bloated and central banks will have little choice but to take action again. But this time, says Rogers in his latest interview with CrushTheStreet.com, there will be no stopping it and people all over the world are going to feel the pain, including in China and the United States.

    We’re all going to suffer… I can think of very few places that won’t suffer. But most people are going to suffer the next time around.


    (Watch at Youtube)

    Central banks will panic. They will do whatever they can to save the markets.

    It’s artificial… it won’t work… there comes a time when no matter how much money you have, the market has more money.

    I don’t know if they’ll even call it QE (Quantitative Easing) in the future… who knows what they’ll call it to disguise it… they’re going to try whatever they can… printing more money or lowering interest rates or buying more assets… but unfortunately, no matter how much P.R. or whitewashing they use, the market knows this is over and we’re not going to play this game anymore.

    The entire world is about to get hammered and the average person on the street is the one who will pay the price, as is usually the case.

    We can expect more losses in markets, more losses in jobs and more losses to freedom as governments and central banks point the finger at everyone but themselves.

    For more news, commentary analysis and interviews like the one above, visit Crush The Street

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      208 Comments

      1. Commodities are currently depressed. Overproduction is now. When the dollar falls, prices explode?

        Not for a while.

        • Thanks dk

          • No, not DK.

            If the $ doesn’t tank. Corn will. Looking to add 5-7 mil acres in the March planting intentions report. Price will drop short-term. May stay down. Soybeans facing export challenge from SA. Particularly Argentina.

            My point? Less $ in ag, less $ in the economy as a whole. It mostly starts with commodities of all sorts.

            • Not as long as people are starving.

              Beans and corn will still have reasonable value, however; the corn prices of the past ten years will be directly affected by the continued low crude demand. Those ethanol plants have lost their demand as well.

              justsayin’

              • Inflation in the things we need, deflation in the things we don’t.

          • “Central banks will panic. They will do whatever they can to save the markets.” – Jim Rogers

            This is pretty much the assumption that many pundits/economists are making, like Peter Schiff; which is the rationale for his hyperinflation theory.

            I am not buying that scenario. Not even from Jim Rogers.

            This time around when the markets fall, the FED will let them fall, and find a level congruent with earnings. In fact, I am expecting another rate hike later this Spring, in spite of the down turn. There is no “bang for the buck” now from QE. QE stimulus has reached a level of diminishing returns.

            Fundamentals must eventually be restored to the markets if the status quo is to continue in power, therefore, the FED will use the depression to reset rates to a low “normal”.

            Those ten dollar bills in number ten cans will have real purchasing power again when no one has cash; or not enough of it.

            Go Denver !!! 🙂

            • I will have cash, but not much larger than coins and $1 bills.

            • What you are not being told about the Zika virus

              “Of the initial 4,180 suspected cases of microcephaly, only 270 cases have been confirmed by Brazil’s Health Ministry as actual microcephaly.

              Of the 270 cases, medical researchers could only correlate six cases of microcephaly to the Zika virus. This means 264 confirmed microcephaly cases didn’t even show a trace of Zika virus! So why is Zika virus being blamed for the birth defect?”

              Is Zika a bio-weapon?

              “Zika was first isolated in 1947 by scientists working for the Rockefeller Foundation. Zika was “discovered” in a rhesus monkey that was being held in captivity. Many people still wonder if Zika was created in the lab for experimental purposes.

              For decades, Zika transmission was extremely rare. The virus didn’t start spreading until after 2012 – right after the biotech company Oxitec released genetically modified mosquitoes en masse in Brazil.

              Zika outbreaks quickly exploded from sites where genetically modified mosquitoes were released to combat dengue. Zika has now spread to 21 other countries and territories.

              What’s appalling is that Zika virus (ATCC® VR-84™) can be purchased from ATCC labs.

              The question remains: Is Zika virus a bio-weapon, intentionally released via genetically modified mosquito? Perhaps it wasn’t intentionally released but instead was an unintended consequence of releasing GM mosquitoes into the environment to eradicate dengue. Maybe this Zika strain is a resistant, mutant viral strain – the evolution of a mosquito-borne virus caused by a biotech experiment gone bad?”

              The most likely cause behind the spike in Brazilian infant birth defects

              “In the wake of Zika’s spread, Brazil is now mobilizing 220,000 soldiers to try and eradicate mosquitoes that carry the Zika virus. This means that tons of insecticide will be sprayed in and around homes, further exposing pregnant women and young children to brain-damaging chemicals.

              In 2014, the Brazilian Minister of Health mandated that all expectant mothers receive the new Tdap vaccine. This meant that, at 20 weeks gestation, a vulnerable, developing young life would be exposed to aluminum adjuvant, mercury preservative, formaldehyde, antibiotics and a host of other chemicals that could damage a fetus’s developing brain. It’s no coincidence that birth defects have spiked in Brazil because of the toxic elements that fetuses have been exposed to.

              It’s also very obvious why Zika is being blamed for the birth defects. The biotech industry is using Zika virus to cover up three science experiments that have gone bad (Tdap vaccines, insecticides, GM mosquitoes). In this way, nature can be blamed, more insecticides and vaccines can be sold, and more GM mosquitoes can be released. The public is taught to fear nature even more and stop reproducing.”

              Natural News

              • KYM: I agree. There was an excellent interview last week on Caravan-to-Midnight.

                Quote from Jon Rappoport’s website:

                https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2016/02/02/zika-biggest-news-service-in-america-absolutely-clueless/

                “So far, there are only six confirmed cases where a baby was born with microcephaly and also had the Zika virus. Six cases. That’s six.

                And on that basis, health agencies and governments and media outlets all over the world are going crazy with warnings about the Zika virus.

                There is absolutely no evidence that Zika is causing anything here. Zero evidence.

                To even begin to think a virus is causing a condition, you must be able to show that the virus is present in the overwhelming majority of cases.

                That test has not been passed re Zika. It has utterly failed thus far.

                With this information, the Associated Press did nothing. They didn’t press the experts. They didn’t go anywhere. They didn’t ask questions. They reported the bombshell…and then they walked away.

                There’s more. In their story, AP reaches out to a representative of the CDC. The subject is the number of microcephaly cases in the US every year. They’re doing a comparison between the US and Brazil. AP states:

                “The United States, with about 4 million births a year, has an estimated 2,500 cases of microcephaly a year, said Margaret Honein, a CDC epidemiologist.”

                The reader of the article shrugs and moves on. There’s only one problem. The CDC epidemiologist is dead wrong. Or the AP misprinted the number. Incompetently. Or on purpose. Who can say? I can’t, because although I phoned the AP yesterday and left a message about the egregious error, they haven’t gotten back to me. The AP error, you see, is this:

                It isn’t 2,500 cases a year. It’s 25,000. As in thousand.

                Every year in the US—and the conventional medical literature is very clear on this—there are 25,000 babies born with microcephaly.”

                So basically this is a made up disease and the media are distorting the facts.

                • Philosopher,

                  I read this morning that the Zika virus is being used to change abortion laws in Latin America and promote abortion.

                  • Yes it is. And the Malthusians are recruiting for execs in Central America to head up a new push.

                    With this new Anti-Pope in charge, it may be easier. A lot of bishops will push back but the Jesuit have the most political clout of the Roman orders. Strong evangelical presence lessens that.

              • thanks Mom. Good read.

              • Hi folks been gone a long time all good enuff. Ohio county KY have removed lojacks from gov’t gifted humvees and the like they will not bow down. Keep up the good work

              • Thanks, KYM. Yes, Rapoport’s No More Fake News also stated the same thing. Very good post… as always from you.

              • @KYmom, You sound like one of the crazy Republicans. Maybe you are genetically modified to believe crap so stop spreading conspiracy theories (junk). If it weren’t for vaccines, you probably wouldn’t be alive.

                Mosquitoes are just carriers from human or animal blood so making GM modified versions that stop reproduction has nothing to do with a virus outbreak except to lessen it.

                From a Huffington Post article about GM Mosquitoes: Oxitec’s solution is an advancement of SIT, which involves the insertion of a lethal gene into male mosquitoes that prevents them from being able to successfully reproduce. Although the insects are not truly sterile, they can be considered sterile because they die before reaching sexual maturity. Released “sterile” males will therefore seek out females to mate with, competing with wild males, and the resultant progeny will contain the lethal gene and therefore die before they can mate. If a sufficient number of mosquitoes are released, the females will be more likely to find a “sterile” male, and a substantial drop in population can be achieved in a remarkably short period. The flight range of dengue mosquitoes is also around only 200 yards and they’re restricted to urban areas, making it easy to control populations with this technique as “zones” of release can be established to ensure sufficient area coverage.

                http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/25/brazil-genetically-modified-mosquitoes_n_5618014.html

                • Unintended coonsequences, cover ups. Not the 1st time.

              • another good post, kymom!..keep ’em comin’!

            • DK

              “There is no “bang for the buck” now from QE”

              Are you saying that any QE injection would not raise prices?

              W/O QE intervention what would be your guesstimate of the DOW drop? Where are the fundamentals, 8000 or less?

              • K2: I’m saying that there will not be a QE “injection”. QE has reached a point, after a long period of diminishing returns, where there is no measureable “stimulus” from that program.

                Fundamentally speaking, consumer prices do not rise without strong consumer demand. Where is that? Wholesale prices rise if there is excessive demand for their product, or if there is an increase in their costs of production, for say energy, as an example.

                All companies with demand for their product will continue to push profit margins as far as they can and still retain customers: either by directly raising prices such that the market will bear, or shrink the shape of size of their product and change the wrapper, leaving the cost of the product to consumers at current levels.

                That is the nature of capitalism.

                With respect to the FED, I believe that they will continue to purchase securities backing NPL to support Member Bank balance sheets and thus liquidity requirements; on an ongoing basis, but not to the MASSIVE extent that they did in the past.

                I believe that the FED WANTS a major downturn to “reset” the American economy, and the World economy, but with a soft landing. Meaning that they want stock multiples to retreat to historical norms.

                This business cycle is over and some folks suggest the US has moved into Recession already and they are waiting for two consecutive quarters to make it official. Whatever.

                The FED is more sophisticated than the Central Bank of China, for example; more practiced, and more likely, it will be able to manage our economy better than China has managed its economy, to conform to their REAL goals.

                I believe that this IS in fact happening, fueled by the volatility of the markets and a very small rate hike to mitigate the froth. I said some months ago (last Aug/Sept) that I expected the markets to be “choppy” for the next two years.

                If prices (in the economy, ie inflation) start to rise above the intended threshold, the FED will raise rates again to dampen any enthusiasm remaining in producers and consumers.

                My guess is late Spring for another rate hike if China has managed to keep its economy from crashing completely in the interim, because I believe the FED wants to raise rates to more historical levels. This should be possible due to demographics also suppressing demand.

                If China should implode creating a string of falling dominos in Asia like in 1998; all bets are off. It is the wild card in the global economic equation, beyond negative interest rates and the elimination of cash.

                Personally, I wouldn’t put it past the FED to establish NIR’s but I also believe that if they tried to do that to American consumers, the violence would be unimaginable.

                I think it more likely for the Global Gangster Banksters to initiate the elimination of cash FIRST before ever moving to negative interest rates for consumers.

                That would be the logical next step. Once they have all of our money on digital deposit, it is so much easier to steal. 🙁

              • K2: If I remember right, normal levels of Dow stocks reflect about 12x earnings; the S&P a bit higher because there are more technology stocks in that Index reflecting more speculation; even on a normal basis.

                Normal does not support unicorns.

                In either a bear market, or with a crash, stocks tend to fall well below “normal” as Traders seek to escape the carnage and exit the markets until trends and momentum stabilize.

                In the USA, and to the benefit of our markets’ stability, most investment money is allocated by professionals; who are not nearly as emotional about equity markets, as say China which is dominated by small individual investors following a trend and momentum rather than identifying value.

                US Professional investors can make money whether the market is moving up or down because they are number oriented; while the Chinese government is jailing short sellers who are emotionally based. Its hard to make money on the downside when it could include a prison term.

                These small individuals in China are not typically sophisticated and panic; while professionals in the USA limit their down side risk and buy again when a stock is showing substantial value. The professionals average their gains and losses over the year and hope that they made more money than lost while investing.

                This reflects the weakness of the Chinese Investment Model in relation the strength of the US Model and explains the underlying support for US Equity prices given that mentality and regulatory trading breakers.

                So to answer your question directly, it is hard to put a number on the bottom for US Equities, other than somewhere below normal before the carnage stops. 🙂

        • We can expect more losses in markets, more losses in jobs and more losses to freedom …..

          The FEDS just said unemployment rate is going down. Surely they would not lie….

          http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000

          • I’m glad I went Galt years ago and don’t have a job to lose.

            • Please elaborative us the benefit of your experience.

              • I work for myself and live on less.

          • I agree with Jeremiah. Seven indicators to watch.

            Forecasting an Economic Collapse: These 7 Indicators Are All You Need to Know
            By Jeremiah Johnson

            Macro- and Microeconomic Factors To Look At
            “So there are a few things you can watch from a Macroeconomic perspective to give you the “heads up” on when things are really going into the end-game, and they are as follows:

            1. As mentioned, the BDI: the most accurate tool you can use, as these raw materials drive virtually every industry in the world.

            2. As mentioned, the price of crude oil per barrel…oil drives the world’s economies…and therefore drives the world

            3. Precious metals: what you’re looking for are a substantial rise or fall in the spot price per troy ounce…and also, concentrate on what the nations are doing…buying a lot or selling a lot of it

            4. T-Bills and Treasury securities: other countries buy our debt, such as Japan, China, and Great Britain. When countries begin to dump these securities and cash them out, it shows they either lack confidence in our money or in our economy. Research will show that several nations have made large dumps within recent months

            5. S. Corporations relocating: …significant in the fact that the domestic tax base is reduced, as well as domestic manufacturing/production

            6. Severe market volatility: this isn’t the regular “belching” of a few hundred points up or down…but major movements either all at once or successively over a period of days.

            7. Government-Instituted Cash Controls: A nationwide “bank holiday” and bank closures, directed by the Federal Government. This also includes cash controls at the nation’s borders and airport terminals…this is a very late sign. If you see this? Then you need to batten down the hatches, because the storm is imminent.”

            Ready Nutrition

            • but the most important one is left out….#8 would be the “employed percent of the working-age population”….it’s burried right there in the gubmint’s own employment report, realeased on the first friday of every month….but of coarse, nobody TALKS about that….no, that’s what’s REALLY important.

              • oh,…it was under 60% percent recently.

              • bcod,

                I agree!

                I wonder how many realize that the terms “labor force participation rate” and the “employment population ratio” are different and that they base the employment figures on a “household survey.”

                The term “Labor Force Participation” includes people LOOKING for work.

                From the BLS news release – employment January 2016
                Household Survey Data, Page 2
                “the labor force participation rate, at 62.7 percent, was little changed. The employment-population ratio (59.6 percent) changed little over the month but was up by 0.3 percentage point since October.

                “In January, 2.1 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, little different from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were NOT in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were NOT counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.”

                ht tp://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

                • thanks for the follow-up, KY!

        • Thankfully, we can ALL rest assured here in flyover country, that while the fascist left impoverishes us (e.g., the socialist War on Poverty has now spent around $20 freaking TRILLION… done a lot of good, hasn’t it!; meanwhile, the first major city to adopt it’s sister prog, the Model Cities Prog., was Detroit. Y’now, Detroit… the only city you can walk 12 blocks and STILL be at the scene of the crime)… but back to my point: we can all at least be thankful that Michelle-Marie Antoinette Obama won’t have be giving up her monthly uber-luxe vacations, nor Obama his massive number of golf outings. And of course the Learjet leftists in Hollywierd will still be rolling in dough.

          So, don’t despair, peons like us! We can still watch as the leftist royalty parades by….

        • And, for your reading pleasure, 35 years ago the head of the USSR, Leonid Brezhnev was in power. One day his very elderly grandmother, who dated from the pre-Bernie Sanders Bolshevik days (oh wait… that was Bernie’s grandfather. Never mind) visited him in his office. He proudly showed her his many Zil limousines, the gold plated handles on his mahonany desk, all his dachas, his multiple fine silk suites in his closets, and much, much more.

          Finally, the end of the day came, and all the assistants, servants and aides went home. After everyone had left, the aged grandmother looked around very, very carefully, then sidled up extremely close to her grandson and whispered very, very quietly in his ear:

          “This is all very well, Leonid. But… *****what if the Communists come???”****

          Of course, today we would apply this same story to all the Hollywood Learjet leftists, Michelle-Marie Antoinette Obama and her monthly uber-vacations, the John Kerrys with their mega-yachts, the Nancy Pelosis who increase their net worth by tens of millions while in office, etc., but the “Yes we can/Yes we have no bananas” chanters are too utterly dense to get it.

      2. Jim knows his stuff, I follow him and try to do the same.
        He did not get wealthu by being stupid….

        • “Few Are Yet Willing To Admit The Harsh Reality…”

          “A multi-decade Credit Bubble is coming to an end. The past seven years has amounted to an incredible blow-off top and the ongoing worldwide collapse in financial stocks provides powerful support for the bursting global Bubble thesis.

          Few are yet willing to accept the harsh reality that the world has sunk back into crisis as mal-investment, over-investment and associated wealth destruction remain largely concealed so long as financial asset inflation persists.”

          “The dominos have started falling.”

          Zerohedge

            • buried in that “news” was this in the comments;
              ht tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pyW6w5B7Aw
              ( remove space in ht tps)

              Those people were ALL driving better cars than me.
              But I’m going to eat chicken tonight and
              whenever I want.

              • Sav-A-Lot in my town has leg quarters for 29 cents a pound. They’re supposed to get in a shipment on Monday. I plan to get as much as I can.

                • Where r u?

                  • Eastern NC.

                • Chicken breast 98 cents this week at Smithfield nc.

                  • Us? Or China chicken? That would be my question

                • you can ‘can’ them too!!

                • Well, I went for my leg quarters this morning. I could only get 30 pounds. The checkout clerk seemed to think that it was a limited sale in a number of their stores. I might look in tomorrow morning, the last day of the sale. BTW, they were frozen, so I have to thaw them out to repackage them into usable portions.

                • we’ve seen that recently too….might just be the reason is that the bird flu is forcing ranchers to send their flocks to market now, while they can still get SOMEthing for them…sooner or later, there will be shortages…and prices will be MUCH higher….that’s why eggs are higher already…it will take a while for chickens and turkey prices to catch up.

              • @rellik

                What’s their problem? Any urban fast food joint has a ready supply of Plan B protein on the hoof … they can send the hourly help to round up all the rats and roaches they can catch.
                Do they want fries with that?

                Which is what the dindu nuffins will be eating in the foreseeable future.

              • I just watched the video. I don’t even know what to say.

                I watched the video. Some of those folks are seriously obese.

                Imagine those folks when the grocery store shelves are empty like they are in Venezuala (now), or used to be in the former USSR, and they have to stand in line and wait for a loaf of bread. Or a ration of wheatberries. I can see them now: “Wheatberries? what am I supposed to do with wheatberries? This is all I get today?”

                Has anyone heard if FEMA has been purchasing grinders or mills to grind wheat and corn? It may be a way to corner the market! There was a philospher in Greece that did something similar when he purchased all of the olive oil presses and there was a shortage. 🙂

              • “Peoples haves kidz….” LOL!

            • Quote from the Zerohedge article linked by KYM: “The U.S. economy has been perceived as the envy of the world. The bulls must be watching the big financial stocks in complete disbelief. I would argue that the U.S. has among the widest divergences between inflated financial wealth and deflating real economy prospects. It’s worth noting that Amazon and Netflix have lost more than a quarter of their value over the past five weeks. LinkedIn dropped 44% Friday.

              The unfolding adjustment cycle will be especially burdensome for beloved companies that generate little or no profits/cash flow – and the Bubble has cultivated scores of them. And as equities prices and wealth deflate, faltering profits will soon follow. Industries, companies, combinations, entities, deals and structures – that looked fruitful in the age of abundant cheap finance and risk embracement – will now be viewed through a gloomy prism. Bond and derivatives investors will become much more cautious. Financial conditions will tighten significantly.”

              • I wonder if this means Zuckerberg will reap his just rewards?

          • Spot on KYM. I have been reading Zerohedge, daily, since last year. Partly for the articles, partly for the comments, and partly because they actually have breaking news that is never posted on the MSM news channels.

            • Philosopher, zerohedge is a very good site. Never depend on MSM for anything but lies. All MSM sources are owned by only six corporations and those corporations are run by a certain ‘tribe.’ Same ‘tribe’ owns and controls Hollywood.

              • The only reason I watch the MSM media, now, is to see the daily pablum being fed to the sheeple.

                • “Modern media fills the cultural airwaves with a mist of anesthesia, so that principles and values are slowly desensitized to the coming onslaught. The new culture arrives on the heels of this propaganda. It simply moves in and takes over, like slipping a fine new glove over a numbed hand. The outcome of the war is just as devastating, but without bombs bursting , twisted bodies to bury, or rubble to rebuild. A new class, a different culture, simply takes over.””

                  – Charleton Heston

              • zero hedge only keeps the posters who agree with the tyler who has written the article you are reading. Take them with a grain of salt. There is a lot of disinformation on no hedge.

                • Excellent! As I am quite capable at applying critical thinking skills and logic to discern the truth and to sift the wheat from the chaff. I am always a skeptic. Most of what I read and hear I throw away as nothing but rubbish. It goes into my mental dustbin quickly.

                  • Excellent,Do you know [does anyone in here] what happened to the fella that spent 20k+ on SB 50 tickets and didn’t tell his wife? I don’t know, I’m really curious.

                    • follow up-I looked up the info but no response from the wife on the issue “yet”. SHTF soon.:)

                • TRUE!!!

                  Got my acct locked out for not agreeing with them on the zika thing.

                  ‘tards!!

                • Theres a lot of disinformation on ALL the media,,,

          • Reminds me of Venice. After trade routes to the New World were opened, Venice – arguably the leading power of the day – slowly became a backwater, increasingly losing money and influence decade by decade. Yet people lived in denial and increasing decadence, living off inherited wealth, until it became today’s museum piece. A romantic, beautiful piece, no doubt, but it’s galleys roaming the Mediterranean dont exactly strike terror into opponents today….

            Increasing decadence and living off accumulated capital of the past. Kinda like the West today.

          • the entire world economy is crashing if you think thats going to happen with no effect on the u.s. economy you are a fool and ignorance is bliss.a new world currency will be here sooner than you think followed by a world government

      3. Jim knows his stuff, I follow him and try to do the same.
        He did not get wealthu by being stupid….

        • Eppe,wealthu?!And a double tap,is it beer oclock in your parts?!

          • Freaking new phone, and fat fingers…

            • Someone mentioned cheaper lighters on Amazon by the 50,they are OK but prone to issues,still,worth it for short money.The Bics solider but like I said,about 33 is best I can find for 50.I may order another 50 cheapos tonight,what the hell,one way or another will use em.

              Side ?,you away from home,why the phone and not laptop/home computer?

              • Ya, bro in laws, watching the game.
                I only watch Superbowl and World Series.
                And the alcohol is flowing.
                Ain’t there yet, about 6 more drinks I’d say.
                Who will win???

                • You realise the NFL organisation caters to the anti-firearm crowd,shame on you Eppe!

                  • Hanging my head in shame…

                    But at least I don’t watch them all year.

                    Go Falcons, got money on them / sarc…

                    • Following the liquid line. Who’s playing? It’s Superbowl tonight, oh shit.

                    • Eppe, how could you? I don’t even have TV or a TV service. How about that one? [just kidding with the chastisement]

                    • A by note: Vaseline on cotton balls: another item in each of my bobs for fire!

                    • Nels, I use the flat cotton squares with vaseline. I use a clean used spam can to put the Vaseline in then place it in a cook pot with water and heat the water up (like a double boiler) and liquefy the Vaseline. Then pour in over the pads and allow them to soak it up. Place them a clean empty pill bottle (water tight) for storage and back pack. Them things will burn for quite awhile plus they are good for first-aid duty. Also keep a ball of jute twine. Its easy to separate the strands and makes an excellent tinder bundle when everything is wet from rain. Keep in a ziplock bag.

                    • Denver won.
                      Decent game.

                      Be well all…

                  • The NFL has to be anti-gun just to keep their THUG football players from shooting each other.

                    • You know why thugs hold thier pistols sideways???

                      That’s how they come out of the box.

                      I know, old joke…

                    • john stiner

                      Many (certainly not all) of the black guys in sports, if they didn’t make their living in that field, would have promising careers in armed robbery. The white guys in football are more commonly country boys that would just be back on the farm. Just at a glance, its my personal observation that its more common to see the black professional athletes in legal trouble.

                      There is a huge cultural divide in the US.

                    • I’m not a sports fan, but even I can see that blacks destroy everything they touch. They have ruined the NBA and NFL as they dominated each. 2 of 3 former NFL players are broke 2 years after they stop playing. The whole ‘concussion’ bit is simply an effort to funnel an ongoing income to former players. For most of them, head injuries have the effect of RAISING their cognitive ability.

                    • I watched some for the commercials, that’s all

                • Who will win?

                  Budweiser and the other advertisers, along with the advertising/marketing companies; AND….. a bunch of grown men in tight pants playing with their balls.

              • You and I are on same page. I have been following Jim Rogers for years .Really believe in him. I also would like to know where the safest places to be that won’t suffer as much.

                • JL, been following Rogers since ’93.
                  Met him twice, he signed books he wrote.
                  Also had cd’s of his 99-02 trip, signed also.
                  Probably the only ones that exist.
                  He tells it like it is, that is what I liked about him. No BS, like others.
                  He is the real deal…

              • I used to buy cheap lighters at the dollar store at five for a buck…. now you only get four for a buck… but I’ve never had any problems with them… they light up without fail and last quite a long time. Best bargain out there for a quarter!

                I often scoop up candles that other people discard at the local Transfer Station. Usually it’s just a few votives or tapers but last week there was an entire boxful that looked like it came from a church… some larger candles about 1.5″ thick and dozens of the skinny candles that are distributed to crowds for a memorial service or something. Yard sales are always great for picking up candles at a very low price.

                In a long-term crisis, candles and lighters will be prime trade goods. The time to stockpile them is right now, when they cost little or nothing.

              • Why not buy the Ronsons and refuel them as needed. Saves money in the long run and more reliable. Can order online or pickup at ChinaMart

            • How do you make ice without electricity, like in Florida where it doesn’t freeze? Or San Diego?

        • I agree. I think I am one of the lucky ones because at least I know what is coming. Most people don’t have a clue. Lambs ready for slaughter.

        • I second that second post as well….mr. eppe.

      4. Well, that’s what the chart says. I somehow believe accelerating inflation will be more probable. But, probably the governments have become so bloated they simply cannot keep themselves pumped up. What’s another trillion into the hole? I guess eventually, as the hole becomes such a void of productivity, the trillions just go into annihilation.

        The chart say very high chance of collapse in the next months. TPTB will probably pull all stops to pump it. They, and we, know their scheme and scam is up if they can’t prop up the market.

        • Eppe, you’re MUCH better than that with jokes. You can do better.

      5. We’re all going to suffer… I can think of very few places that won’t suffer. But most people are going to suffer the next time around.

        Hey Jim,wanna share with us what those places are that won’t suffer,the right thing to do.

        Yes,we know there is going to be a crash,tis why folks prep.You have not started very late in the game but you still can prep/stock till the minute the hammer falls,maybe even a few after if you have cash and see the final signs of crash but would not recommend this approach,prep more or get started,you will use the goods/info./skills wether it crashes or not so nothing to lose prepping!

        The recent snows in New England got me to check items like stoves(portable)/flashlights/lamps ect.They all good but was a nice excuse to look over stock.

        A recent full gear check up showed only 6 125 grain Montec broad heads,ordered a 1/2 dozen more and already have em. These are me favourite,probably order a dozen more time permitting,if not,better then I was a few days back in that dept.

        Things fall apart wish you all the best,been a fun ride prepping/sharing ideas/practicing new skills,an example would be storing ice cubes in Molle as fire starters(thanks again Woog!)!The fall will mean we all need to be much more serious 24/7,ah well………..

        • “Hey Jim, wanna share with us what those places are that won’t suffer,the right thing to do.”

          Switzerland. Liechtenstein. Bermuda. Cayman Islands. The Vatican. Isle of Man. And Greece.

          Greece has already adapted. 🙂

          • I thought he and his family moved to Hong Kong.

            • Singapore, cleanest nation in the world.

              Don’t even spit bubble gum on the street.

              No pollution like in China.

              Smart man…

              Everyone should research him and his accomplishments.

              • I didn’t know that, thanks for the information. It is always interesting to listen to what a man (or woman says) but the ultimate proof is how they act. Interesting that he chose to leave the country and chose Singapore. I just read an article on Zerohedge about increasing numbers of Amercians giving up their citizenship.

                Each time I have been in a large urban city in the US in summer, and walking about to get coffee and breakfast, I have observed how the hotels and shops must wash the sidewalks very early in the day. Even after washing the smell of urine lingers in the air. I find most cities dirty and disgusting places to visit, overpriced, and not worth my time or my money. However I have not been to the Far East. Yet.

              • My understanding is that he moved to China so that his daughters would learn to speak Chinese like a native.

                Whether that is Hong Kong or the mainland I do not know, but I would think Hong Kong given its proximity to the Investment Architecture and Infrastructure there. 🙂

          • @ DK

            Places with a high concentration of well-paid Federal employees, civilian or military, or govt contractors, whose checks may say Lockheed but who are being paid by the taxpayer.
            Warmonger corporations whose largest or only client is the fed gubmint.

            Greater DC Metropolitan Area extending to enclaves of Western MD and West Virginia.
            There’s a big difference between Mc Lean, Virginia 22101 and Arlington, VA 22204 but they’re both feeling little pain compared to most places.

          • Don’t know if they’re quite adapted yet. Appear to still be rioting as of late I hear tell.

            • Greeks have been rioting since after WW II. Its what they do best. I wouldn’t use that as an indicator, POP. 🙂

        • Rogers said that the only countries (people) that won’t suffer, as much, are North Korea and Cuba. That send a jolt up my spine. Dread and fear can have that effect.

          • Its their isolation. They won’t be affected by the bad because they aren’t affected by anything. I’m sure he didn’t mean that people there won’t suffer, they simply won’t suffer because of the crash. They are already suffering, it just won’t pile on for them.

            • RR: Yes. I understood Roger’s meaning. But thank you for the additional clarification.

      6. We are being given bread and circuses. The game is on here- I am not into football per se, but even I enjoy some of the aspects. The athleticism. The commercials:)
        Superbowl Sunday is the 2nd biggest food eating day after Thanksgiving in the USA. It would be ironic if food shortages started soon after this.
        How very unaware the masses are, that their food is now getting to them by a thin fragile line of truckers. An industry that is now going into hibernation. I’d be willing to bet a Silver Eagle that those promised new Walmart supercenters will NEVER materialize. This is all election year BS.

        • In some of my classics courses one of the first things professors taught was how modern football is very similar to the gladiatorial fights in Ancient Rome. It was interesting to hear about the Coliseum and the Ciricus Maximus, it was even better to see them up close. The Latin phrase, “Panem et circenses” was reintroduced in the Hunger Games series.

          I don’t see football continuing on, as it is currrently played, for much longer due to increasing awareness of permanent brain damage that can be caused by each hit. Parents that are educated will not want their children to play such a sport so it may result in only lower-class children playing as a way to escape grinding poverty. Oh wait, those are the people that play now.

          The thing that annoys me the most about football is that the NFL is tax-exempt because it is a Non-profit organization. Don’t believe me? Look it up. Absolutely disgusting how the wealthy owners flaunt their wealth and then force local people through taxation to subsidize their stadiums. I don’t hate people that are wealthy but I do hate it when they don’t pay their fair share of taxes and exploit communties for personal gain. If the owners want to build a stadium they should pay for it to be built. Every single penny. If they can’t make a profit oh well.

          • Philosopher, excellent post. Nothing in it I can dispute.

            • Thank you! It seemed apropo given today’s big event.

          • In my classics courses I dealt with Greek, European, and Asian, prose, philosophies and art. I didn’t have to listen to Political hacks pressing a political agenda, and when they tried to, I could press back at them without fear of reprisal( private school). I hope you didn’t pay much for something you could get on MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, et al. for free.

            • I was free to speak my mind at the university I attended. The department was too small for anyone to care what they said or taught. Tenure can be liberating for some. Back when I went to university it didn’t cost a fortune.

              If you were inferring that my classics professors are the ones that linked the non-profit status of the NFL to Ancient Rome, no, they did not. That is based upon my own research. The last time I watched CNBC they were not saying anything about the non-profit status of the NFL. But they were cheerleading the US economy, to hold stocks for the long term and to buy the dips. Good advice if you are five years old.

              If anyone wasted their money on their education it sounds like you did.

              • Not to start a war with you, I like most of your posts.
                I agree with you about the NFL non-profit BS, but that is a symptom of Democrats running the show. One can observe that Man is a creature of war, and his sports represent a “safe” way to play that “game” and prepare for it. Ever been elbow fouled in Basketball? Got a “donut” in Racquetball, blindsided in Football, enforced in Soccer, all of which nobody sees?

                My point was meant to say not to cheapen classic studies by bringing modern MSM politics into parity with ancient philosophy and learnings.
                My apologies if I was not clear enough.

                P.S. You probably paid for most my education, G.I. Bill and corporate tax subsidies. In my time most classes were $1000 each.

                • In my time, an entire semester of courses, including room, meals, books, clothing, incidentals, courses, and lab fees was only $1,000. The tuition was only $250.

                • Did you actually do any research about the NFL being a non-profit? Apparently not. If the NFL is a non-profit that means everyone is paying to support a rich man’s game. I am not against being wealthy and I am not a communist. However, When the wealthy are able to avoid taxation while the middle-class suffers under heavy taxation, and an even heavier regulatory burden, does that make me angry? Hell yes!

                  • Rich people and corporations have never really paid one cent in taxes. Taxes are written off as costs of doing business and passed down to consumers. If taxes are increased to ridiculous amounts, the rich simply live off their accumulated wealth and stop creating income. And when they do that, the economy suffers.

                    Ultimately, taxes come from ultimate producers, which are farmers, miners, loggers, etc., that is, those who bring natural resources into the market, and those who add value to those resources by crafting or manufacturing those resources into finished goods.

                    Because of inefficiencies, taxing the rich and corporations costs the middle class more than simply taxing the middle class the entire amount from the start.

                    This is the way it is now, the way it always has been, and the way it will always be.

                    Being angry about it has never changed the way the world works and never will. You are free to work at becoming rich or owning a corporation. I know people who came from nearly nothing and are now rich and own corporations.

                    • I have no problem with people becoming wealthy. The current taxation scheme and regulatory burden in the US is a burden for the middle class.

                      Based on your comment do you want to live in a country that only has the wealthy and the poor? Because if there is no relief that will be the outcome. I don’t take any joy or pleasure in that point of view. I am well aware of how there has been an inversion and how companies have offshored their profits. I support capitalism. Ethical capitalism. Without ethics everything devolves.

                    • I’m not saying that the total tax bill of the country isn’t outrageous. If the federal government only did what the Constitution said it should, taxes would be easy to pay. We wouldn’t even need the income tax or most of the other taxes.

                      I’m just saying that the rich don’t pay taxes and never will. Producing individuals are the only ones that will ever pay taxes.

                      That’s part of the reason I went Galt years ago. I have minimized my taxable income the simple way by not working for anyone.

                    • I am not sure I understand what you mean when you say you have “gone Galt.”

                      I advise people to opt out of the system as much as possible. I think we agree more than we disagree.

                      I call it opting out of the system. You all it “going Galt.” I have read Ayn Rands books, not recently, but many years ago, so am familiar with the term. I am guessing that goes over the head of many young people. My favorite book by Ayn Rany was “Anthem.” An excellent little dystopic novel. Short and to the point,

                      “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged.” I remember writing a book review for one of them in the school newspaper long long ago and in a time far far away. It makes me smile to think that they actually let me publish that article back then. I had no idea that I was even a radical at that point in time. I was young back then. Such is life.

                    • Yes, “going Galt” means withdrawing from the system as in “Atlas Shrugged.” I wasn’t appreciated for my computer skills and was being micromanaged. So I “retired” when I was 50.

          • You sound exactly like my wife. She said “if the owners want a stadium they can build it, not me”. Yup, that’s what she said. Personally, I can’t stand FB. I’m a big bicycle racing fan. Was an Armstrong fan but the betrayer blew that. Anyway, I still enjoy the sport. cheers

            • above meant for – Philosopher
              Comment ID: 3517181

              • ONV: Cheers! Give my regards to your wife 🙂

            • ONV: Your wife sounds like a very intelligent woman.

              My sport of choice are equestrian events. I love stadium jumping and dressage along with three-day eventing (but that is usually only televised during the Olympics). Anyone that can train a 2,000 pound-plus animal to jump six feet high and eight feet across or that can make a horse dance on command has my respect. Those riders are real athletes. So are the horses.

          • I played football at university back in the early 70s Played with some guys that made the pros, and if fact played with the brother of the guy who backed up Franco Harris… how’s that for trivia!). Anyhow, was talking with my wife about this, and while, yes, it can lead to injuries, I would have been DEAD or in jail without football the way I was heading.

            But here’s the think. I remember the first true 300 pounder, guy named Roger Brown, in the 1960s. He was with the Rams, but I think (not sure) started with Detroit. He was an oddity. Today, EVERYONE is 300 pounds (heck, even the cheerleaders are 300 pounds… at least in Buffalo!), and MUCH, MUCH faster. Training techniques, diet, all have changed the game incredibly, and I don’t think equipment or rules have kept up. Maybe equipment can now never make up the delta between safety and the game, but I hope they try. Interestingly, last I heard, basketball actually had more overall injuries, but maybe they were of less severity, I don’t remember.

            I worked with a guy who was a star in the Canadian Football League, and he said he never watched the game. Same with me. I would rather play that sit on my derriere. Seems a lot of non-athletes are the ones who get into it heavily as part of the panem et circenses thing.

            Sports are great, and football itself is a great sport – wonderful for boys who are headed for trouble otherwise… and even then, looking at Johnny Manziel, not even THAT will help. But the panem et circenses thing disgusts me. And now watching the NFL being taken over by the politically correct fascists is even worse (been reading how team are being forced to hire women is just one example.)

            Hopefully, equipment and revamped rules will fix things. But the bread and circuses mentality – joined by the Obama “Yes we can/Yes we have no bananas” chanting mob can probably never be fixed in a majority of cases….

        • 2isone, once the supermarket shelves get emptied the free shit army will be the most dangerous people to deal with. They will be going to other people’s homes trying to turn those into their ‘stores’. If those homeowners don’t have some means of protecting themselves against the scum, they are screwed. The obese among the FSA will be the most dangerous and harder to deal with. A huge percentage of the FSA have drug and alcohol problems also. a double tap to the head of the obese will be the only way to stop them. Same goes for the smaller ones.

          • Braveheart, I agree. Matt Bracken wrote about this back in 2012 in an article on Western Rifle Shooters. I am not sure if every detail will be correct but the possible breakdown of society after the EBT cards are not refilled is quite plausible. I don’t see any flaws in his scenario other than he wrote that article in 2012.

            This is the title of the article, written September 3, 2012: “Bracken: When The Music Stops – How America’s Cities May Explode In Violence.” I consider Bracken to be one of the prescient minds of our time.

            • Philo, I have the entire Bracken trilogy and highly recommend those to everyone. It feels like we’re living in one of those scenarios right now. I remember the article you mentioned. If I remember correctly, Mac posted that article on here. I try to read everything I can written by Bracken. I agree he is a damn good writer.

              • I read all of Bracken’s books in December 2015, in about a week.. I was familiar with the article I mentioned above but reading his books was like getting a glimpse into a possible future. Reading that series was like reading tomorrow’s headlines. Or today’s.

          • Braveheart1776

            I agree on the FSA and what they will do. They have no idea what I am going to do to them.
            Again a good article but for the Old Timer’s it’s Blah, Blah, Blah. How many more warnings? I do hope those who have read here over the months have paid attention and picked up a few defensive tricks and survival tips.
            One day all this will be gone and that one tip that may save a persons life will never make it to print. So we continue as long as we can with the best info we can exchange.

            • Slingshot, AMEN to that. The FSA doesn’t know what I’ll do to them, either. Once I bugout, I’ll be staying put at the BOL. I hope to get out early so I won’t have any confrontation with the FSA. As far as survival information goes, I’ve got FMs, articles, books, etc. I’m an old-fashioned believer in having hard copies of everything since I know the world wide web will be lost one day. I’ve got a library that might make some people here jealous.

              • Except for me, of course. I have hundreds of books, plus tens of thousands archived on disk with multiple backup computers and solar power.

                Everyone needs to have a good hard copy library. Also, entire websites can be downloaded using a program such as HTTrack Website Copier, which is a free download.

                One tip with downloaded text is to copy it into your favorite word processing program and reduce the font, line-spacing, and margins so you can print it out on fewer pages. That saves time, ink, paper, and space.

                • Thank you! Excellent suggestions. Each medium has its own advantages.

                  May I ask if you use thumb drives for storage? Or do you keep seperate hard drives? I have some small SSD drives and the price for those has decreased greatly over the years. I am not a fan of “the cloud” for obvious reasons.

                  What type of Faraday cage do you use? The cheapest I have heard of is to use a galvanized trash bin that is grounded. One with a lid and grounded via a copper rod and grounding wire, directly. By directly I mean independent of the standard electrical household grounding system.

                  • I use multiple hard drives because of the volume of material. I have many terabytes of files, so any solid state media would be financially out of reach. Also, there’s too much to backup onto DVD discs, although my most important files are copied onto multiple DVDs and CDs, such as my photos. So I have multiple hard drives and extra copies. I buy new hard drives every year and make more backups. I use the old drives until they fail or until there are too many to hook up at one time (which is about 20 drives on one computer).

                    I do have backup drives in storage. I wrap each drive, cable, and power adapter in plastic, then in aluminum foil, then another layer of plastic, and then another layer of aluminum foil. Then I store them in banker boxes on a shelf. I also have printouts of the directory listings from each drive in a notebook. Each drive is also labeled on the drive and on the outside of the wrapped package.

                    • Excellent! I just about fell off my couch!

                      If you have not read the book “A Gift Upon the Shore” you remind me of that story. You will be a gift in case things get rough. The burning of the Library of Alexandria was a tragedy than has not been forgotten and which some of us willl never forgive.

                      It has cost me a small fortune to move my personal library more than once.

                    • I started building my library back in the late 1960s.

                      A friend of mine in high school was the first prepper I ever knew. The fear at the time was Russia. He was learning and practicing survival skills. He and some of his friends were learning strategy by playing Avalon Hill war games. If he’s still alive, he’s probably living in the woods somewhere. He planted the idea of a collapse, which I still think is possible.

                      My original purpose in buying books was the fact that I thought I would never be rich, and buying the books while I had income would give me reading material when I was old and on Social Security. Of course I never imagined that we would have computers with almost limitless information available.

                      I first bought classics, such as Shakespeare, Plato, Tacitus, etc. Then as I learned more about politics and how the world situation kept getting worse, I started worrying more about a total collapse of civilization and the destruction of the great libraries. So then I expanded to technical books and survival books.

                      I now have a large library, along with many thousands of digital files. I have a copy of the Project Gutenberg collection, backup copies of Wikipedia, downloads of free books from archive (dot) org and Google Books, and copies of entire useful websites. I have been printing out the most useful web information since the internet has been available and much before that from CompuServe, AOL, Delphi, and private BBS systems. Many of the websites that I have copied from in the past no longer exist. For some of those, you can go to archive (dot) org and use their “Wayback Machine” to look at past versions of websites.

                      If everyone would do some of the above, we would never lose any useful information.

                  • Philo, I use a galvanized trash can [$25 at home depot] and I also use packing bubbles for insulation which can be bought at any office supply store, Fed Ex, or UPS store. And I’ve been told by numerous people NOT to ground it.

                    • Why would you not ground it? The galvanized trash bins are excellent, as they are metal.

                      I advise people to also put in moisture packs in the bottom to absorb any moisture.

                      But as to not grounding them what is the evidence for that decision? Certainly it is cheaper and easier to not ground them but if you have critical comm gear or back up drives why would you not spend the extra money for a copper grounding rod and the wire? They don’t cost that much. I would estimate $25 or less. So for $50 (galvanized garbage can and copper grounding wire) you have protected critical gear.

                      I am former Signal Corps / EW. I could be wrong. Unless you have some source with evidence as to why not to ground I will continue to give that advice. A grounding cable connected to a grounding rod means that any excess electrical build up will be discharged to the grounding rod and eliminate any negative effects.

                      You can buy a grounding rod at any home improvement store and they don’t cost that much. The investment and technical skill are minimal.

                    • Off Google

                      There are two cases where grounding for EMP is useful. One is in making the ground connection for large surge suppressors (such as for whole-house or standby generator protection) if the surge suppressors are fast enough for EMP. The other is for the outer shield on faraday cages that have conductors penetrating into the faraday cage. Small faraday cages with no conductors penetrating the shield do NOT need to be grounded. Large shields that do have conductors penetrating the shield need careful filtering and transient protection (surge suppression) to insure that electromagnetic fields are not re-radiated into the interior of the shielded volume.

                    • I believe that if a Faraday cage is grounded, the current might flow through the cage to the ground and perhaps induce currents in circuits inside the cage.

              • I agree about having hard copies. I like the convenience of electronic media but it is fragile.

                There was a book I read many years ago, “A Gift Upon the Shore.” It was a post-apocalyptic novel like “The Postman” or “On the Beach.” A little too liberal for me but it was interesting. Been building a real library of books ever since.

                • Philo, I don’t have any evidence to support whether to ground it or not. I don’t know enough about EMP to make that final call. Just trying to preserve several electronic items I think will be essential in a post-EMP scenario and don’t want to make a mistake. Maybe I’m wrong about not grounding it, but I just don’t know.

                  • I agree. I did a search about the matter and found various points of view.

                    I would rather be safe than sorry. I consider a grounding rod / connection cheap insurance.

          • Braveheart- we are close to it now. Every big event like the 50th Superbowl, has a “let them have their last hurrah” feel to it. I will be very surprised if Brazil pulls off a successful Olympics this year given the economy and the Zika scare. I even wonder if Zika is a manufactured excuse to cancel the games since Brazil is too poor to air condition the athelete’s rooms! They even are canceling or attenuating Carnivale. Big deal for a major tourist draw.
            The semblance of normalcy will fall like a cloak off a stabbed corpse soon. I feel like I am the only sober person in a stadium full of drunks- they can’t see the darkness closing in, no matter how many signs they are given.
            A lot of us grew up in the days of “duck and cover”. We grew up sublimating the thought of what could happen on a daily basis. We don’t scare easily. Maybe that’s why there’s so much normalcy bias out there. I only know that there is a great chance that over half of all my aquaintances are going to be in big trouble when the page turns. If Citibank is talking openly about a death spiral, even with caveats, you know things are bad.
            I went to my favorite supplier’s website looking for tray MREs and guess what? They were out of stock. Trays feed groups. There’s a lot of individual meals available. That tells me that groups, families… are buying the better values. A great chasm will exist between the prepared and unprepared.

            • 2I: thanks for the report about MREs being out of stock. Damn. That doesn’t sound good at all. I haven’t been on base recently but the next time I go I will check on the current price of MREs and availability.

              I appreciate the heads up on a shortage. Never heard of a shortage for MREs before.

              • Phil- You’re welcome. They had a bunch of singles, but not the trays I wanted. The tray MRES feed from 15 to 20 servings each, and my supplier used to have them in stock. I could have 10-15 people (kids, grandkids, spouses, sister and spouse) here easily within 2 days of an emergency, so I am trying to think big. We are the bug out for them. Adding to a good base this week.

                They did have something called “lurps” that are a military overrun, that I hear sells out fast when offered.

      7. I may not be the brightest light in the room but, I’ve been busy starting seeds. I used to buy plants and plant them, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to afford it this year…

        • Despite fears of collapse, I think it is a good idea to try to grow your own food. It’s just generally more healthy. And rewarding too. I always feel so blessed when I am able to step outside my door and go to my walnut and apricot trees and there is fruit and nuts (in season of course) I can just eat straight from the tree. It’s a gift God has given me and my family, to be able to enjoy the bounty. We’ve had a drought here in California so the yields haven’t been all that great. So anything I get I am grateful for.

        • I think you are being smart and practical. I am starting a garden for the same reason. I buy produce, now, but I am not sure if I will be able to afford it in the future. The prices for organic produce is crazy.

      8. Mr. Rogers , What action can It take to get by with the least amount of suffering ?

      9. Ice: how do you make ice from fire? I really want to know because when shtf, he who can make ice without electricity will have a great commodity!

        • Kerosene or propane powered refrigerators and freezers.

          The fire doesn’t necessarily have to be kerosene or propane either.

        • You can also use fire to create electricity using solar cells. I just found this today:

          “Thermophotovoltaic (TPV) is a direct heat to electricity conversion method that was first suggested in the 1950s. The TPV conversion concept is straightforward. Thermal or infrared radiation is converted by a photovoltaic (PV) cell into electricity, just in the same way as solar radiation is converted by a PV cell into electricity.”

          Thermophotovoltaics: Basic Principles and Critical Aspects of System Design, Thomas Bauer. Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg, 2011, p. v.

        • It is called “portable ice maker”, or “counter top”.

          Yes it does require electricity, however; it operates so efficiently that it can be powered by solar and a couple batteries, or four in my case which are six volt, and an inverter.

          When the grid dies, just keep your refrigerated perishables in a Yeti type cooler with ice, and keep it tucked away in an earthen tunnel or root cellar. I have a six ft. deep concrete tile buried over a spring head (two ft. water level) with a good cover on it.
          Lowering and lifting a 40 lb. cooler is easy with a tripod and pulley system.

          I can keep stuff cold all year.

          Growing up in the early sixties, Grandparents had two milk cows. When both were putting out at the max, we were always carrying excess milk down to the spring house, or spring box, to keep it cool until it was needed.

          Years later, grandpa acquired another used, but still working, refrigerator, which he put on the shady side of the porch.

          I miss those days of old timey churns, fresh butter and homemade ice cream. Grandma’s cat head biscuits smothered with the fresh butter and a couple tablespoons of Sourwood honey or sweet sorghum molasses, and washed down with cold, fresh, unadulterated cow’s milk.

          • They have some cool 12v icemakers,, if i had money i would get solar panels etc and set up a refer and ice maker on them, along with water pumps etc,,,
            But ya gots to have money, ah well, such is life,

            • We have a couple of the table top ice makers and they are great. 110 volt ac about 120 watts easily powered by the solar system. And the idea of using propane refrigerators is great too. You can adapt a burner using kerosene or alcohol or whatever will make a 1/2 inch flame. Look around for people scraping old rv’s and get the stove and fridge out of them cheap. You can also find used large propane tanks (100-500) gallon for a good deal.

      10. In Ohio a store call MARKS has these lighters for 10 for $1.00 ….. I got hundreds of them. Good barter item!!!

      11. I just checked the price of silver via Kitco app, staying steady at $15.03. If it drops under $15.00 I may sell some Swiss francs and top off my silver stash.

        • Me to!@ http;//eenie-meenie,chile beanie-the-spirits-are-about-to speak.com

          • Your a crackup POP

          • Pop, you channeling Bullwinkle???

            • Boris and Natasha, Peabody and Sherman, and Moose and Squirrel. My favorites!

              • Rocky and Bullwinkle lol and my personal favorite…..Underdog! With Miss Polly Purebred… sigh, I wish I had a way back machine…. or a Delorian lol I probably misspelled that.

      12. Point of order.

        The NFL is currently a non-profit corporation (but not a charity. Such things do exist.) That is the mother ship. They are in the process of changing over to a For-profit corporate structure mostly because all the bad PR.

        All the franchises, however, do indeed pay corporate income taxes on their yearly business. Some of the money that NFL takes in gets smeared around the League (like TV $)

        And one more thing – Corporations do not pay taxes. Corporations are made up of three types of people – Owners/Shareholders, Employees, and Customers.

        Any taxes (of any kind) the Corporation are an expense of doing business and are paid for by one or more of the three groups – Owners would see a lower dividend than they would otherwise, Employees might see lower compensation than they would otherwise, or customers might see higher prices for the goods or services than otherwise.

        People pay ALL taxes – Corporations don’t

        <bb

        • “corporations are people too my friend”

          Mittens Romney

      13. Free shit army becoming desperate that’s what people around my parts call a turkey shoot.

      14. Go to Forecasts.org. Most all forecast shows anything but a downhill trend. Gold being an exception but not by any wide margin. 2016 is shaping up to be a rough year.

        Forecasts.org
        Economic Outlook and Price Forecasts
        U.S. GDP Forecast
        Inflation Forecast
        Gold Price Forecast
        Oil Price Forecast
        Unemployment Rate
        U.S. Jobs Forecast
        Housing Starts Forecast
        Retail Sales Forecast

      15. The great thing about being poor is you suffer daily. So when financial collapses happen you don’t notice much.

      16. They closed a SAMs club near my house that was built and only open for 6 months. There is a lowes that was close not far away too. Take a look around you’ll see a lot of big retail space for lease. I was in my local super Walmart and it was a ghost town food shelves looked a little bare. People are hurting now and cheap gas isn’t gonna do anything to help. People need raises. I’ve been told by a lot of people that they are making the same $ as they did in 93. That was over 23 years ago.

      17. Hi friends, a book all of you should add to your libraries and read NOW is “Alas Babylon by Pat Frank (1959). It tells the story of a group of people who figured out how to survive a SHTF WW3 event.. its still easily found (cheap if used) in print as it was reprinted numerous times. This is a book my class read in a public school back in 7th grade… back when education taught kids stuff that they needed to know…

      18. Whatayamean? ,we been suffering ever since this band of idiots took over

      19. why do people mak a big deal about commercials during Super Bowl. I hate commercials I don’t care how they wanna advertise I’m not buying shit. They should save their $.

      20. Looking at the DOW Futures, the market should go down today.

        So what exactly is the SUFFERING we will experience.

        Not enough beer or smokes. No more Starbucks coffee. Large soda drinks or Burgers.

        Does it mean we will all have to cut back on our materialistic and gluttonous form of lifestyle?

        We will have to leave behind the flamboyant vices and begin to once again enjoy the smaller pleasures in life.

      21. Flaming ghaaaay Starbucks slippery burgers beer piss smokes stink. Don’t need any of that crap. Still waiting for the collapse to kick off. It coming just not as fast as I hoped that’s all.

      22. Sling,grow your own tobacco and stills,there,problem solved!Coffee,that I cannot grow,best keep stocking it up!

        • Yaupon for caffeine and roasted dandelion roots for taste.

      23. I see some here asking what to expect and my opinion is that since most in the usa are carrying debt of credit cards, cars, house and maxed out on living expenses; so many people will be defaulting on car loans, credit cards, and houses next time that it will affect them to the point that they will have nothing left but money for food and the rest will be spent on paying creditors. they will probably lose their house and a car and will never get back the income they had before because that job will never come back.

        imo, best you can do is to stay out of debt except the house and keep your expenses down to about 50% of your income and keep 3 months of savings so you can survive some tough months. if you can do that and keep a couple weeks of food and water for any supply shortages, i would think you’d be okay.

        if it gets worse than that, i bet not even rodgers is expecting it and past that, it’s probably every man for himself.

        • Yes. Excellent advice.

        • WD and lena

          Contrary to popular belief, I have done mostly away with the smokes and alcohol. More of a celebratory on occasion.

          The real hurt is not being able to acquire the material to fabricate or manufacture what you may need in the future. Those of you who have your special projects may find certain items hard to get even now.
          The more exotic the project the harder it is to get items to complete the tasks.

          I would caution that any project that is crucial to preps, that you get it done as soon as you can. I have many in storage. Hoping that I have worked all the bugs out. My experience is that if you are winging it without directions or blueprints you get to make lots of trips to the hardware store. Will you be able to do it later.

          That is when the suffering starts. Unnecessary suffering. Woulda, Coulda Shoulda.

          How many times have I envisioned a project only to have it drasticly change with the modifications needed to make it work properly.

        • A free and clear domicile should be at the top of the list.

          People have gotten above their raising, and made the bad decisions of borrowing hundreds of thousands so they can start at the top of the social ladder.

          In earlier times, it was prudent and commonsense, to start with something small and affordable, and then work…key word…work their way up to something a little bigger or just remodel, without adding a lot of debt, or preferably, any at all.

          Unless, folks have parents or grandparents homes to fall back on; the banks will take the roofs right out from over their heads.

          Maybe they will think about their stupid mistakes while they are sleeping in their cars and expensive gas guzzling big trucks. That is if they can out-maneuver the repo-man. lol.
          Did the repo-man deal for a while, and talk about an adrenaline rush. Many good stories, that all ended without me getting shot or beaten with a tire tool.

          • I agree that free and clear house should be a priority, but most cant do that.

            with family expenses and limited income, its nearly impossible unless you change your entire mindset and only maybe 5% of the country will ever do that, even after losing their house.

            • One year of food Lena. Fill the entire 3rd bedroom.

          • So…. my SIL is a Captain in the NG, and they were at drill talking about the “zombie apocalypse” the other day. Seems as though it’s on the young men’s minds… hmnnn.
            Anyway, he got teased for going up to drill in their recently purchased 20 year old camper van. When asked what he would do in the ZA, he just replied that at least his family would have a roof over their head with his paid off van-
            They would definitely bug out of Katy, which is really part of greater Houston now.

      24. Peck, peck, peck away coward boot lickers of fascist America, but it will not save your collapsing Corporatist Fascist Police State hell on earth you cowards are leaving the children you should of NEVER had. There will be no heaven for Christian keyboard cowards huddling and shuttering themselves in front of their keyboards, while genocidal fascist criminal monsters destroy your world and children’s health and future. The only thing waiting for you keyboard coward fascist boot lickers is the eternal hell of the soulless cowards, who hand over their children to fascist criminal genocidal monsters.

      25. Feb. 8. This AM the ten year note is at 1.77! The BDI is at 293! Duck!

      26. Few weeks ago i mentioned makeing a hot water tank for the top of the wood stove for hot water for dishes and bath when the time comes no electricity but i think instead im going to find some softball size smooth river rocks and just have them on top of the stove to put in the tub of water or sink so as to heat the water when needed ill get a pair of real thick leather gloves ans metal bucket to move them i figure this will be safer and less hassle

        • River rocks can explode from thermal shock. I would go with the water tank with a heat exchanger pipe in or next to the heater.

          • The stove i have is a wonderwood its enclosed in a metal cabinet but the top lifts up so as to cook on but sides are safe for the kids i suppose i could wrap copper tube around stove between cabinet and stove

        • You can make a heat exchanger with a pipe running through your wood stove, into and out of a tank, the water will automaticly move as it heats, they call that thermosyphon, all the old wood stoves had reservoirs and heating coils in them.

          • Sen. Roscoe Bartlett has that setup in his cabin in the boonies. He has the hot water storage tank upstairs.

            Watch his videos. He’s pretty smart about things.

        • The tank can be as complex as an inline pressurized unit that goes in the bottom and feeds out the top similar to your standard hot water heater, or as simple as an open top tank that you fill manually that has a spigot on it, the main component is the loop that runs through your stove, and again that can be as simple as a 1″ or 1.5″ pipe run through from side to side or end to end or an elaborate coil that has more surface area,,,
          On journey to forever (google journey to forever) they have plans for a waste oil heater, can be used to heat water, have some other cool stuff on there too

          • I heat my outdoor hot tub 2 ways. I have 2 solar water heating panels on the roof with a 12 volt circulating pump (got to be careful, it gets extremely hot) And on the side of the gazeebo it is in I have an old wood stove with a 20 foot coil of 1/2 copper tubing attached at the inside top of the stove. I just switch the circulating pipes to either the panels or the woodstove to heat it. Works great just be sure to put the fire out and open the door to the stove when your done/ shut off the pump also. You can make a solar water heater out of an electric water heater by changing out the lower element with a dc rated element and connect it through a thermostat and to a solar pv panel. The conversion kit is under 100 bux (element and thermostat) a 10 gallon heater can be heated with just one 250 watt panel. A 40 gallon tank would take about 750 watts of panels. Depending on the power of your house solar you can also use a diversion load controller to power it. For the cabin I just use an on demand small propane water heater. Uses very little propane and works fine. It was about 150 bux at camping world.

            • The electric solar setup can also be used to keep stock tanks thawed out and also outdoor water storage tanks. I have a 1500 gallon above ground tank I am going to do this with this summer. I am going to put up 2 -230 watt panels and install a bulkhead fitting for the element next to the valve at the bottom. Wrap the tank in reflective bubble wrap and paint the outside black. Hopefully this will keep it from freezing during winter.

      27. Off Topic.
        Did you see the Colgate commercial? They where the first on TV that I have seen starting the Bullshit about wasting water.

        Here go the Bullshit on bad or no water.
        CAN YOU SAY WATER WARS!!!!!!
        If you are prepper it won’t bother you.

        Sgt.

        • California wouldn’t have a water shortage if they didn’t have 10 million migrants. The Sierra Club took a $100 million private donation to keep quite on that one.

          • Sorry. Quiet.

          • I’ve rarely know the Sierra Club to remain silent on anything. Do you have proof of this?

        • Saw it and shook my head. I’ve got water and will run that faucet as long as I wish. Their message about third world countries only getting available water to drink every two or three days didn’t cut any ice with me. Frig ’em!

          • People in northern India, supposedly a smart country, can’t even figure out how to dig a well. My church has sent people over there to dig wells for them.

            There’s plenty of water on Earth. It’s just an energy and distribution problem, along with the will to actually build the water plants.

        • Saudi Arabia (and The United Arab Emirates) are Farming Arizona Land After Depleting Domestic Water Sources – no limits on THEIR water use.

          “Outside of Phoenix, in the scorching Arizona desert, sits a farm that Saudi Arabia’s largest dairy uses to make hay for cows back home.

          That dairy company, named Almarai, bought the farm last year and has planted THOUSANDS OF ACRES of groundwater-guzzling alfalfa to make that hay. Saudi Arabia can’t grow its own hay anymore because those crops drained its own ancient aquifer.”

          “They got about 15 water wells when they purchased the property. Now, each one of those wells can pump about 1.5 billion gallons of water. It’s an incredible amount of water they’re going to be drawing up from that aquifer underground,” Halverson says.

          On regulating the practice of exporting water in the form of alfalfa hay
          “The laws were put in place in the ’70s … But the laws were really designed for local or domestic farming. The idea that another country would come and essentially export your water via crops just wasn’t really around 30, 40 years ago. And so the laws that are in place are really inadequate for dealing with this new trend.

          This is occurring in a part of Arizona that is unregulated for groundwater. So there are NO LIMITS on how much water they can pump.”

          The United Arab Emirates doing something similar nearby
          “They are growing hay. They are using the groundwater. And they are shipping it overseas — in this case, we were told, to China.

          ht tp://www.mintpressnews.com/saudi-arabian-company-buying-up-private-land-in-arizona-for-crop-production-after-depleting-domestic-water-sources/210948/

          Water Grabbing: How Saudi Arabia is Growing Wheat in Arizona
          ht tp://european-americanblog.blogspot.com/2015/11/water-grabbing-how-saudi-arabia-is.html

        • Hmmm… maybe they should reduce Obungler’s golf from, say, 8000 games a week to 7,750? Do ya think?? Then there are all those Learjet leftists in Hollywierd with their massive pools. But, as Leona Helmsley famously once said, “rules are for little people.” People like Hilary don’t need to abide by laws!

          Here’s the actual Obama golf count: http://obamagolfcounter.com

      28. Yep the market is a good show to watch today they halted Chesapeake energy trading for news realease they are in okla

        • They’re also in Florida. I use to work with some people who now work with the company. They own a lot of propane companies and other fuel related business. They supply many municipalities on the eastern seaboard with Nat gas. They spoke briefly of restructuring but then came back and denied it. They have a large debt payment coming up March/April and might not be able to make payment. Possibly looking for buyers/merger. Rips and tears starting to be really visible in the fabric.

        • I’ve been shorting the mkt for a while, definitely enjoyable day for me.

          do have plans to get out and put the profits into hard assets before it drops 50%. at some point, I have full confidence that my measly little profits will be held from me for the good of the country or some other BS.

      29. on Drudge Report this morning

        Selloff in European banks ‘ominous’…

        Greek stock market meltdown…

        Russia shuts two more…

        Dow Jones is -335.81, 15,869.16

        • European banks making some noise about possible ‘bail-ins’. You’re going to see with drawls until the banks catch on and limit it. Besides it ain’t your money. It belongs to the banks.
          And remember if you’re a business owner, you did not build that.

        • Some experts think this is all just a correction in a bull market in spite of the fact that the market has been trending down since August 2015.

          “Success or failure in testing the Jan. 20 support levels ‘could indicate if we are really heading into a big bear market or nearing the end of a big correction within a bull market,’ said Colin Cieszynski, chief market strategist at CMC Markets, in emailed comments.”

          ht tp://news.morningstar.com/all/dow-jones/us-markets/201602086360/market-snapshot-stocks-drop-on-global-growth-fears-dow-down-340-points.aspx

          Goldman Sachs is leading the charge downward at over 6% in the red so far today.

      30. What we are seeing is the end result of Keynesian policies, living beyond your means (deficit spending).
        A fiat currency that went from being backed by gold (Bretton Woods), and then backed by oil (1971 Nixon-Saudi agreement), and is now backed by US debt. The debt load around the world has stolen future purchasing power, and deflation is now battling against the central banks. Despite what liberals preach, debt does matter. The US will not survive the loss of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. What are they going to do now? Deficit spend 2 trillion a year? Continue lying and say the unemployment is now 4%, and all is well? Show 200k bartending jobs were created each month? Go for it, keep the lie going as long as possible. Everyday, the debt grows and the US economy is in greater peril. I see a not too distant future where the US is forced to withdraw virtually all of our military from around the world due to economic reasons. Fort Knox has closer to 820lbs of gold than the 8200 tons they still have the audacity to claim exists. Just like after WWII when the Bretton Woods agreement was created, a totally new system is needed going forward. The US however will hold onto the old system as long as possible. How long is the question, a few years, maybe a decade tops. The US will have succeeded in making itself irrelevant on the global scale. This country may very well tear itself apart as a result of all of this terrible socialist spending over the past 50 years.

        • ‘This country may very well tear itself apart as a result of all of this terrible socialist spending over the past 50 years.”

          “Defense” or rather offense accounts for 25% of Federal Spending and the loss of manufacturing with the result of job eviscerating Free Trade made tax payers welfare recipients.

          The increase in social spending, with the 22 million person (roughly) increase in EBT card use is large a symptom of the Free Trade fallout.

      31. What did you expect when you have companies like Facebook who never showed a profit, go public and create a new 4th richest man who really did nothing. Hype & hopium!! Dittos for twitter, netflix, alphabet, instagram, linkedin and many others.

        • PO: nailed it.

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