Update

This is a small update to the readers of this blog (all six of you). There will be no posts May1-4 2008, since I'm going away on a camping trip to the Florida Pagan Gathering. I don't intend to blog from the Ocala National Forest, and I certainly don't expect to do much work. But afterwards, I'll get back on a regular schedule.

Will be trying out a few camping ideas, and might post on which ones work.

There is no spoon.

So it's a Friday night and all this talk on the news has me craving Persian food. Persian food, specifically the good folks over at Rice House of Kebab in Doral. For those of you not down with life in the 305, Doral is the newest subdivision in the Dirty dirty's collection of ethnic enclaves. Mostly Venezuelan and nuvea riche. The kind of place you see a lot of SUV's and fresh housing tracts.

So back to Rice. It's an awesome idea, fast food Persian style. Get your Kebabs or Kubideh to go, or eat them while watching CNN or ESPN on the big screen TV. Nice place, super clean, friendly staff.

So I go in and see the owner, super nice guy named Reza. From Iran, lived in the US a long time, lived in Texas, Iowa and now Miami. So I walk in and jokingly ask him how the business is given rioting over rice and limits of rice sales at Sam's Club and Costco.

Dead seriously, he looks at me and says it's bullshit. There's no shortage of rice. There's rioting because dealers raised the prices in poor countries, and then are using fear of riots to imply that there's a shortage, raising prices and encouraging hoarding. He should know, he buys it in quantity.

He goes on to tell me that the vendors have been pushing this for months. Ratchet up the price, and then offering "discounts" on bulk.

What he says is indicative of how the market in the current long collapse is getting played. Everyone is on edge. People expect a riot or something in response to the $120/barrel price of oil. Hoarding would have been a good idea if you'd gotten started years ago.
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Keeping with this, James Rawles on survivalblog.com posted a letter from a fan reporting at what he'd seen in the warehouse clubs. It's pretty indicative of what's really going on.

James,
I visited COSTCO store in Woodinville, Washington Saturday morning, right at the store's opening time. I had my doubts about the reality of the shortages, and needed to shop, anyway, so I thought I'd check it out for myself. They had eight big warehouse guys escorting two pallets of rice out to the showroom floor just about the time I arrived. Six of the eight then stayed with the rice, handing it out to customers as needed. Both pallets were completely sold out by the time I left the store about 45 minutes later.

I talked with two of the warehouse guys independent of each other, playing dumb and asking what was going on. Both said they were receiving normal shipments, just as they always had, but that customers were spooked and buying a lot more than normal. Both told me they expected their next rice shipment on Tuesday. One of them also told me (then showed me) that they were completely out of "general purpose" flour, and only had specialized bread-making flour in stock. Both swore up and down (and I have no reason to think they were being less than honest) that there were no shortages, just a run on things that they blamed on the media. There was enough cooking oil to fill a swimming pool, no shortages there. - Jeff F

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So what does one do? Well, clearly with the Wall Street Journal calling for "load up the pantry" as a hedge against food prices, folks who don't do this need a plan from those who do. The alternative is getting a lot of food you won't eat, don't know how to cook, or don't know how long to keep.

My advice, talk to your local Latter Day Saints.

The Mormons? The Mormons. They've had this preparation mentality for 150 years, and these guys are the experts on how to load a pantry for self sufficiency. The recommend their members stock up for a year minimum, and will teach you how for free. You don't have to become a Mormon either.

http://www.providentliving.org/channel/0,11677,1706-1,00.html

Another direction is the $5/week food storage plan, where you add $5 worth of food every week to your regular grocery bill. While not all of the suggestions are great (I mean, really, are you going to eat that much tomato soup?), the idea is sound and builds good reerves of staples.

http://www.themormonchannel.net/tmc/1yrfor5.html

Another track is canning and drying food to maximize storage life and space.

http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/

At the end of the day, this crisis is going to last a long time. Food preparation is not as sexy as discussing what caliber of rifle works best against mutant zombie bikers, but a smart plan about storing food is more apt to keep you alive.

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This has to be the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. It's the "Lil Looming Disaster Pillow" from the Baby Bush Toy Company.

"This bright and charming pillow ensures that your child never forgets that the world is full of bad people plotting evil deeds."

Check 'em out at Baby Bush Toys.

Rental slavery replaces wage slavery

So I happen upon this site www.insurgentamerican.net, and while the politics can get a little lefty for my tastes (I'm neither left nor right, I'm "Leave me alone"), there's and incredibly thoughtful pdf on that site about how we got into the credit crisis we did.

Short version of the story is that we put ourselves in the crunch by buying into something we should never have. In short, everybody wanted to become Petit-bourgeoisie by becoming landowners. Those that had the means were making money without working by renting property to those who couldn't afford to buy. The article refers to them as rentiers. The rentier class makes money for free, after the costs are paid for: mortgage, taxes, upkeep. This is how fatcat landlords become fat.

The problem is that banks make money on long term investments like mortgages, so they have an interest in getting more debtors owning land and assets under mortgage or as security for loans. So began the two-pronged attack - make more homeowners through predatory lending, and hook them into a cycle of debt when the bubble collapses. So credit became a drug, people could borrow on interest onlys, negative amoritization, and zero downs. Folks could make money renting off lots to others, and since all land appreciates, everybody would be leisure class, living the rentier lifestyle of making money from nothing.

Of course, the bubble has to burst at some point, and it did. The problem was that the Fed kept pushing interest rates down to combat inflation, adding more cheap money to an already flooded economy. Everybody's property value soared, disguising the fact that that price reflected speculation and hid the declining value of the dollar. Wealth moved to real estate, and the fallout was that homebuilders built, rentiers bought on credit, and eventually no one but rentier class could afford a house. Then the bottom dropped out.

This who scenario happened once before, in the 1920's, as the Fed made cheap money available and the rentier hopefuls looked to the Stock Market as the source of free money. We all know how that bubble burst, and we are living the early stages of it again, only this uses our houses as collateral.

The road to serfdom.

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This comes courtesy of my brother, and the AP.

Shiller: Housing slump may exceed Depression

Bailouts will be needed so millions don't lose homes, top economist says

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - An influential economist who long predicted the housing market bubble cautioned Tuesday that the slump in the U.S. housing market could cause prices to fall more than they did in the Great Depression, and bailouts will be needed so millions don't lose their homes.

Yale University economist Robert Shiller, pioneer of the widely watched Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index, said there's a good chance housing prices will fall further than the 30 percent drop in the historic depression of the 1930s. Home prices nationwide already have dropped 15 percent since their peak in 2006, he said.

"I think there is a scenario that they could be down substantially more," Shiller said during a speech at the New Haven Lawn Club.

Shiller's Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index is considered a strong measure of home prices because it examines price changes of the same property over time, instead of calculating a median price of homes sold during the month.

Shiller, who admitted he has a reputation for being bearish, said real estate cycles typically take years to correct.

Home prices rose about 85 percent from 1997 to 2006 adjusted for inflation, the biggest national housing boom in U.S. history, Shiller said.

"Basically we're in uncharted territory," Shiller said. "It seems we have developed a speculative culture about housing that never existed on a national basis before."

Many people became convinced that housing prices would increase 10 percent annually, a notion Shiller called crazy.

Shiller, who said it's difficult to forecast prices, endorsed legislation proposed by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., that would allow the Federal Housing Administration to back as much as $300 billion in mortgages for struggling homeowners.

Gas, path to freedom.

This is the first in a series of photos that will be published on this blog on a running basis. Pictures say more than words can sometimes, so a running tally of gas prices will be posted.

While gas prices alone do not a collapse make, they can be indicative of the direction of the economy. Cheap gas = strong economy. Almost everything you get comes to you from somewhere, and that requires fuel.

It's also an indicator of what your money is worth. When the cash becomes worthless, then the amount of FRNs required to buy something goes up.
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One of the solutions I love is the one taken by a family in California who publish a website called
Path to Freedom at http://www.pathtofreedom.com/. They aren't just talking the talk, they are walking the walk.

I'd like to wish those concerned a happy Earth Day. Truthfully, Earth Day hasn't meant much more than advertising just how green people who aren't usually green are. You don't see much greeness from MSNBC, but the Today show had a segment on recycling your electronics, and their logo was green.

Big deal.

Real green would include ways to get off oil entirely. Convince people to carpool, to ride bicycles or motorbikes. What a scam.

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I participate regularly on survivalistboards.com, and last month we had an interesting post about the economy. Someone posted from another source the following list. It gives one pause to consider the state of the economy.

12 Steps towards economic collapse.

1. Housing recession.
2. The subprime mortgage loss continues.
3. Losses on unsecured debt: Credit cards, car loans, student loans.
4. Downgrading of monoline insurers' credit rating.
5. Meltdown in the commercial property market.
6. Bankruptcy of large regional or national banks.
7. Big losses on leveraged buyouts.
8. Wave of corporate defaults - insurers bankrupt.
9. Meltdown in shadow financial market: Hedge funds, margin calls and short sells.
10. Collapse in stock prices
11. Drying up of liquidity in financial markets, interbank loans, and money markets.
12. Vicious circle of losses, capital reduction, credit contraction, liquidation, and fire sales of assets.

The real question wasn't if these are truly a problem, but guessing where the US economy is right now. Kind of a pin-the-tail on the donkey exercise.

After some thought, I'd have to say that Ben Bernanke is really screwing the pooch. We've seen examples of #'s 1, 2, and 4, plus the Bear Sterns thing last month, it's hard to say what's the real state of the economy.

At least in my area, I haven't seen a meltdown in the commercial property market, but I have seen slowing. Why unsecured debt hasn't shown big losses yet is unknown - I imagine that the subprime crisis hasn't really hit it's stride, but may when the majority of adjustable mortgages reset this summer. Combine that with $4.00/ gallon gas, and you may be looking at the formation of an economic perfect storm.

So what to do? Most importantly, pay off your debts. Shrink your credit exposure. Pay off the highest interest rate credit card first, then the next highest, etc. Get a smaller car or a motorcycle. Get off petroleum as much as possible. Carpool and combine trips.

Next is get out your adjustable rate mortgage NOW. If you can find a lender you can work with, get into a fixed before they screw you. Find a good 30 year fixed with a doable rate.

After that, work on lowering your expenses.

Edit: Some interesting news I happened upon today through JWR's Survivalblog.com.
Retailing Chains Caught in a Wave of Bankruptcies

Maybe I spoke too soon about the meltdown in the commercial markets.

Introductory post

Greetings:

Firstly, I need to lay out the philosophical groundwork of this blog. I believe that the modern oil-fed First World economy is completely untenable, that it carries within itself the seeds of it's own collapse. I contend that the present "Long Crisis" is symptomatic of a deeper problem, not the problem itself as the government and media focus on.

Which leads to two logical questions:
What sort of events should we expect with the collapse of western culture and how do we get ready for it?
What should we replace it with?

The answer to the first is pretty grim. Bad stuff, in all kinds of different spheres. I'm no anthropologist, but I will attempt to document aspects of the Collapse and present practical information for surviving it. None of it is good, most of it is angst ridden, doomer and dark. The short term is to adopt a survivalist/prepper attitude. Good sites and blogs exist for the survivalist, and information I have gathered will be presented from time to time. Practical stuff, smart stuff, stuff I have tried personally, and stuff I'm considering.

The answer to the second is much more positive, yet a bit revolutionary. We as a culture need to radically rethink the way we do things. We need to create a sustainable basis for human existence in a way that will ensure the continued existence of ourselves, our culture and our children. To this end, there is a very pro-sustainable and pro permaculture trend in this blog.

In addition, I believe there needs to be a radical rethinking of how we interact with each other from a social POV. To this end, I advocate a neo-tribalist POV, and a near anarcho-capitalist POV. Goverment, if any, should be the size of a postage stamp.

I don't think the transition will be easy, even if it goes along with my hopes. But no doubt a transition is taking place, and we can either benefit from it, or be consumed by it.

Let the games begin.