Fresh New Year

With the holidays almost over and my waist line expanded, it is time to get back to a healthy regimen and become a more regular blogger.

The healthy regimen started two days ago with interval training on the treadmill.  After having taken a holiday break from exercise, I am now paying for this with the excess lactic acid in my legs.  I'll be glad when this burns out so I can stop walking like a duck.

Christmas this year was rather subdued.  Visited my folks and celebrated Christmas with them, but noticeable absent were my two daughters; one visiting my son-in-laws family out of state, and the other stayed home as she had to work.

Christmas didn't seem the same without them, and I realized that I am getting of the age where I will face many Christmas's without all of my children being at home.  This did however allow me to meditate on what Christmas is really all about.  For all that God has blessed me with I am truly thankful.  He has given me the best present anyone could.

Not having the girls home for Christmas just capped what was otherwise a mixed year.  The good was that I challenged myself by joining IDPA and making several new friends.  I also got more involved with my Church.  The very good is that my family and I all seem to have our health (despite the fact that my oldest daughter and myself both passed kidney stones this year).

The bad was that several friends and acquaintances passed on.  In fact given the rate of change and the poor state of our economy and politics in general I decided to visit the one place on this planet that hasn't changed for as long as I can remember.

That oasis of constant sameness would be the  Penny Wise Drug Store in Caldwell, Idaho.  I'm not joking.  This place has not changed in the last 45 years.  The store and the products sold simply have not changed.  Everything is in the same place it has always been.  The druggist (a neighbor for years) recently retired, but the lady at the checkout counter told me that this would be her 35th year working there.  I didn't have the heart to tell her that she used to ring up my magazine purchases when I would ride my bike to the store......when I was 13.  Walking back out to the parking lot adjacent to the store I was reminded of the time when I was 4 and had been so excited to go to Penny Wise that I ran out of Dad's car right into the path of a moving car.  The car missed me, but Dad's hand generously applied to my butt did not.

Why did I find this all reassuring?  I have no idea.  It was just nice to know that some things just don't change.  Something to hold on to as I face the oncoming fresh new year.

The Best Candidate

Sad.  Seems as though the best candidate for president is someone most of us have never heard of.  If you are familiar with Bill Still, you know he is someone with uncommon common sense.

Give it a look.  It is worth the time.

Thanksgiving

Today we can all be thankful for the freedoms we still have.  How many more thanksgivings will we still be free?

A warning to gun owners of the world:  Its not about guns, its about freedom.

Islamophobia

The recently arrested New York terrorist was a Muslim?  Funny, I didn't hear that from the mainstream media....

New York Terrorist is a Muslim.

Strange.  Seems that all terrorists are Muslims.  If all the terrorists are Muslims, how does this fact make me Islamaphobic?

Whose freedom?

First, let me say that I appreciate, respect and honor all of our veterans and those currently serving in our Armed Forces.  The simple question that I ask is, how is the government currently protecting our freedom?

What does our freedom have to do with Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, etc?  These are political wars - they have very little if anything to do with protecting our freedom.

Where it counts - protecting our freedom by protecting our borders; protecting our freedoms by upholding the Bill of Rights, the government response and actions have been shameful.

It makes you wonder whose freedom is being protected?  Ours?  Or is our government simply protecting its own power at the cost of our liberty?

Sleeping with the Enemy

Here is an excellent article by John Guandolo on how our own government is suppressing fact based training for our military and police to appease radical muslims.

Is it any wonder why Islamic jihadist's have been so successful in their takeover of the middle east?  Could it be we've been helping......naw, that would be treasonous.

How the Muslim Brotherhood Censors Federal Counter Terrorism Training

The War on the Productive

This recent article by Mark Steyn, War on the Productive , makes a good point that I think many of us intuitively already knew.  I am concerned that many of the youth have spent so much time with their iPods, computers, computer games, and pampering by their indulgent parents that they have forgotten how to actually do anything meaningful and productive.  As such, many simply expect someone else to do the heavy lifting while at the same time being free to indulge in the latest hedonistic trend.

Yes there is a war on.  Not between the haves v the have nots, but more of the productive v the unproductive.  The productive always win in the end, as being loud, lazy and obnoxious is not a skill that builds anything.

Work hard and become a leader;

be lazy and become a slave.

Proverbs 12:24.

Sadly, we are becoming a nation of slaves.

What if Freedom is a myth?

Like a Dog returning to his vomit.

This video is amazing for two reasons; 1st this trader tells the truth, and 2nd his greed is palpable.  He sees the end coming (within 12 months), and readily admits that millions will lose their life savings, but also dreams of making big money from this event.  There is an answer to this craziness, but you won't find it from this man:

Shattered Dreams

Most of my life I have asked myself “what if?”  I have always thought that life can be more interesting than it already is by imagining the world in different ways.  Sadly, I came to a realization today that no matter how neat I think it would be, UFO’s and Bigfoot simply do not exist.  I know, bummer huh.

What was the impetus to this great awakening you ask?  Simple.  My cell phone.  I was messing around with it and marveling at what great pictures and movies it is capable of taking.  I got to thinking about all of the interesting clips on YouTube that people have taken with their cell phone.

And then it hit me; with literally millions upon millions of cell phones, all equipped with a fairly decent digital camera, why do we not have some decent pictures of UFO’s or Bigfoot?  Not those cheesy grainy fake pictures, or shaky movies that you just can’t make out.  I mean really good pictures.

With all of the hunters in the woods this time of year we should finally at last have a mug shot of Sasquatch – that is, we would if he existed.

Same for UFO’s.  Those alien abductions?  Someone should have by now captured someone floating out of his or her house and into a UFO on their iphone.  Or perhaps one of the claimed abducted could, while being shown the quadrant of the galaxy the aliens come from, exclaim “hey, could you stand next to the map with me while Zephod takes our picture with my cell phone?”

I’ll keep asking “what if” and looking, but I’m not holding my breath.

As you watch this, think to yourself "where are we as a country right now?"

Are you awake yet?

From Tunisia To The Justice Department: A Clean Sweep For Islam

Posted by Clare M. Lopez Oct 24th 2011 at 7:19 am in Afghanistan, Africa, Featured Story, Foreign Policy,Humanitarian, Iran, Iraq, Islam, Islamic extremism, Israel, Justice/Legal, Middle East, Obama,Strategy, Terrorism, human rights, sharia | Comments (27)

Across a vast expanse of the Muslim world, from Tunisia to Pakistan, the forces of Islam are rising. Tunisian voters have given the Al Nahda (Muslim Brotherhood) party a dominant position in the national assembly that will write the country’s new constitution. In Libya, Chairman of the National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, has declared he seeks to make Islamic law the basis for legislation.

In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood campaigns under the slogan, “Islam is the Solution” as Coptic Christians face the worst persecution in decades. Israel just released hundreds of Palestinian terrorists with blood on their hands to ransom Gilad Shalit, an IDF hostage long held by HAMAS in Gaza.

In Syria, Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite dictatorship faces a motley opposition grimly determined to bring it down. With United States (U.S.) backing, the Turks have arranged that most members of the just announced Syrian National Council are Muslim Brothers or like-minded shariah-promoters.

Afghan president Hamid Karzai (the one the U.S. has sacrificed thousands of dead and injured troops and billions of dollars to defend) announced that, should it come to conflict between Pakistan and the U.S., he wants to be clear that he will stand with…Pakistan. He’s in talks with the Taliban, too (so are we). And, just to round out the neighborhood, the powerful Pakistani army commander, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, issued a warning to the U.S. about any moves against the murderous Haqqani Network long sheltered and supported by our Pakistani “ally,” becausePakistan has nukes.

Here at home, the Obama administration’s Justice Department has launched a campaign to extirpate from all training courses under its purview (FBI on down to local law enforcement) any mention of Islamic doctrine, law, or scriptures as a source of motivation for jihadi terrorism. Instructors and trainers who dared inform government students that this is exactly what the jihadis themselves assert are to be blacklisted from ever teaching on a USG contract again.

Pretty much a clean sweep for the forces of Islam wherever one looks these days.

From www.newscientist.com:

I will let this article speak for itself.  Suffice to say that if something like this is said by someone like me I am considered a conspiracy theorist - which I am not.  However, this simply affirms what most of us intuitively have come to believe.  I especially like the comment "The real question, says the Zurich team, is whether it can exert concerted political power."  Duh. Do you think?

-Phaedrus

Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world

         19 October 2011 by Andy Coghlan and Debora MacKenzie

         Magazine issue 2835. Subscribe and save

         For similar stories, visit the Finance and Economics Topic Guide

AS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters' worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.

The study's assumptions have attracted some criticism, but complex systems analysts contacted by New Scientist say it is a unique effort to untangle control in the global economy. Pushing the analysis further, they say, could help to identify ways of making global capitalism more stable.

The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York's Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere (see photo). But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world's transnational corporations (TNCs).

"Reality is so complex, we must move away from dogma, whether it's conspiracy theories or free-market," says James Glattfelder. "Our analysis is reality-based."

Previous studies have found that a few TNCs own large chunks of the world's economy, but they included only a limited number of companies and omitted indirect ownerships, so could not say how this affected the global economy - whether it made it more or less stable, for instance.

The Zurich team can. From Orbis 2007, a database listing 37 million companies and investors worldwide, they pulled out all 43,060 TNCs and the share ownerships linking them. Then they constructed a model of which companies controlled others through shareholding networks, coupled with each company's operating revenues, to map the structure of economic power.

The work, to be published in PloS One, revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships (see image). Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What's more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world's large blue chip and manufacturing firms - the "real" economy - representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues.

When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a "super-entity" of 147 even more tightly knit companies - all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity - that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. "In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network," says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group.

John Driffill of the University of London, a macroeconomics expert, says the value of the analysis is not just to see if a small number of people controls the global economy, but rather its insights into economic stability.

Concentration of power is not good or bad in itself, says the Zurich team, but the core's tight interconnections could be. As the world learned in 2008, such networks are unstable. "If one [company] suffers distress," says Glattfelder, "this propagates."

"It's disconcerting to see how connected things really are," agrees George Sugihara of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, a complex systems expert who has advised Deutsche Bank.

Yaneer Bar-Yam, head of the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI), warns that the analysis assumes ownership equates to control, which is not always true. Most company shares are held by fund managers who may or may not control what the companies they part-own actually do. The impact of this on the system's behaviour, he says, requires more analysis.

Crucially, by identifying the architecture of global economic power, the analysis could help make it more stable. By finding the vulnerable aspects of the system, economists can suggest measures to prevent future collapses spreading through the entire economy. Glattfelder says we may need global anti-trust rules, which now exist only at national level, to limit over-connection among TNCs. Bar-Yam says the analysis suggests one possible solution: firms should be taxed for excess interconnectivity to discourage this risk.

One thing won't chime with some of the protesters' claims: the super-entity is unlikely to be the intentional result of a conspiracy to rule the world. "Such structures are common in nature," says Sugihara.

Newcomers to any network connect preferentially to highly connected members. TNCs buy shares in each other for business reasons, not for world domination. If connectedness clusters, so does wealth, says Dan Braha of NECSI: in similar models, money flows towards the most highly connected members. The Zurich study, says Sugihara, "is strong evidence that simple rules governing TNCs give rise spontaneously to highly connected groups". Or as Braha puts it: "The Occupy Wall Street claim that 1 per cent of people have most of the wealth reflects a logical phase of the self-organising economy."

So, the super-entity may not result from conspiracy. The real question, says the Zurich team, is whether it can exert concerted political power. Driffill feels 147 is too many to sustain collusion. Braha suspects they will compete in the market but act together on common interests. Resisting changes to the network structure may be one such common interest.

The top 50 of the 147 superconnected companies

1. Barclays plc
2. Capital Group Companies Inc
3. FMR Corporation
4. AXA
5. State Street Corporation
6. JP Morgan Chase & Co 
7. Legal & General Group plc 
8. Vanguard Group Inc
9. UBS AG
10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc 
11. Wellington Management Co LLP
12. Deutsche Bank AG
13. Franklin Resources Inc
14. Credit Suisse Group
15. Walton Enterprises LLC
16. Bank of New York Mellon Corp
17. Natixis
18. Goldman Sachs Group Inc
19. T Rowe Price Group Inc
20. Legg Mason Inc
21. Morgan Stanley
22. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc
23. Northern Trust Corporation
24. Société Générale
25. Bank of America Corporation
26. Lloyds TSB Group plc 
27. Invesco plc
28. Allianz SE 29. TIAA 
30. Old Mutual Public Limited Company
31. Aviva plc 
32. Schroders plc
33. Dodge & Cox
34. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc*
35. Sun Life Financial Inc
36. Standard Life plc
37. CNCE
38. Nomura Holdings Inc
39. The Depository Trust Company 
40. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance 
41. ING Groep NV 
42. Brandes Investment Partners LP 
43. Unicredito Italiano SPA 
44. Deposit Insurance Corporation of Japan 
45. Vereniging Aegon 
46. BNP Paribas 
47. Affiliated Managers Group Inc 
48. Resona Holdings Inc 
49. Capital Group International Inc 
50. China Petrochemical Group Company

* Lehman still existed in the 2007 dataset used

A breath of fresh air on a nice day.

It is people like this man that restore my faith and remind me that I am not alone.  There is still hope for our nation as a people.

God, Gold, Groceries, and Guns by Gary North Recently by Gary North: Government Money Masters: Anti-Gold Videos that Thousands of Tea Party Voters Think Are Conservative I wrote an article with this title on June 6, 1980 in my newsletter, Remnant Review. It is time for a follow-up. The four G's seemed prudent in 1980. In early 1980, the American economy was suffering from the worst peacetime price inflation in its history. That was about to reverse due to the Federal Reserve's decision under Paul Volcker the previous August to reduce the rate of growth in money and let interest rates soar. This would lead to a recession. By the end of summer in 1980, the United States was in a recession. The Carter Administration was running a deficit in fiscal 1980 of a then-shocking $74 billion.  Prices were then 40% of what they are today. A deficit that large would be the equivalent of $203 billion today. A $203 billion deficit would be hailed today as a political triumph by the Tea Party and cursed as a job-destroying catastrophe by Paul Krugman. Had you known generally what was coming in 1980, you would have put all of your money into 30-year T-bonds. You would have sold them in mid-August 1982 and bought a no-load mutual fund in the S&P 500. You would have sold that in March 2000 and put all of your money in silver. That was because silver had collapsed from $50 to under $5. Or you just bought Wal-Mart shares in 1980 and nothing thereafter. (I moved to Texas in 1980 and recall seeing a Wal-Mart store in some small town. I did not follow through. Too bad.) We are still around three decades later. The Soviet Union isn't. Red China is now the fastest growing large nation in history, due to the decision of Deng Xiaoping in 1978 to free up agriculture. Cuba and North Korea are that last nations committed officially to communist economics. They are universally acknowledged failures. Today, the world is safer in terms of nuclear war. It is far less safe in terms of the stability of financial institutions. It is also becoming clear that governments can default on their obligations. We watch the crisis building in Europe because of the inevitable default of the Greek government on its bonds. The European stock markets rally when Merkel makes some vague statement about German's commitment to something, but not much. The lemmings see what is coming, but they cannot bring themselves to get out of stocks and stay out. They buy for a day or two. I call these Merkel's gurgles. They mean little. Investors believe that something will save Greece and the big banks that stupidly believed the previous Greek government and bought Greek IOUs. They believe that the governments of northern Europe can save the big banks of northern Europe. They believe in deliverance by northern government debt – to save the banks from southern government debt. Why should you care about the four G's? Why should you imagine that things will not repeat? The financial system held up after 1980. Why won't it hold up today? Why won't things be business as usual? One good reason is that it is clearly not government as usual. The size of the deficit, the gridlock in Congress, the desperation of the unemployed, the ineffectiveness of the Federal Reserve, the inability of the economists to offer a solution, the unwillingness of small businesses to borrow, and $1.7 trillion in excess reserves in the banks all point to a continuing crisis that is not going away. The government is helpless. The Keynesian solutions are not working. This clearly cannot go on indefinitely. The federal government is absorbing too much of America's capital. Its deficits show no sign of ending. A recession will increase these deficits. When a nation's leaders are visibly helpless, a few people start looking for ways of protecting themselves. The vast majority have few capital reserves. They live from paycheck to paycheck. The very rich have their vacation retreats. They think they are in good shape. The middle class has little wiggle room. Along come critics of the system who tell people that they had better wiggle. This message is not well received. Many are called, but most are frozen. GOD In 1980, I wanted to recommend a good book on God. I could not find one that I thought spoke to the issues of the day. As I say, "You can't beat something with nothing." So, I decided to write one. I sat down in early July and started writing. I had no outline. I had an IBM Selectric III typewriter. Over the next 12 days, I wrote a book, Unconditional Surrender. In 1988, I added one chapter. In 2010, I added another. It's still in print. My position is clear: if you think you're 100% dependent on your own wisdom and efforts, you are asking for trouble. You have a heavy load. I know that atheists can sober up, but Alcoholics Anonymous begins with an open statement of dependence on God. I think that's a good place to begin. This world is governed by ethical cause and effect. When people vote for a living, they create an economy that is dependent on more theft. Theft-based economies are Ponzi schemes. It's not just Social Security that is a Ponzi scheme. So is Medicare. So is the FDIC. All governments over-promise. They ask us to become dependent on government promises. The governments issue more promises than taxes and borrowing can fund. Then they inflate. Government will prove to be the god that fails. That will be a good lesson in theology for hundreds of millions of voters. "Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote" will prove to have been a destructive principle, although widely believed. GOLD Gold is the asset that has the longest track record in history. Financial records survive even when written literature perishes. For as long as we have financial records, there are entries about gold. Gold has been the commodity of account in trading societies throughout history. It is the essence of the arrogance of modern economic theory that economists have dismissed gold as a barbarous relic, a thing of the past. It is a thing of the past, a thing of the present, and a thing of the future. Why? Because gold is one way that rich people can vote against policies of their governments. Rich people can buy gold and store it in Switzerland. They can get out of Dodge, wherever Dodge may be. They can get on a plane and buy their way into anywhere. The common man could do the same, but he won't – not until it's too late. He has heard of gold – mostly negative – and he has stayed on the sidelines, waiting. The common man can no longer afford to buy a dozen one-ounce gold coins. In 2001, yes, but not now. He missed the boat. There is no commodity, no strategy, no place of safety in a world dominated by governments who preach the gospel of salvation through legislation. There is no hiding place today in a world that really does believe in safety through voting. But for those who look for a tried-and-true port in the storm, gold is better than any other commonly marketable asset. It has been the focus of a move from $257 to $1600, 2001 to today. This, despite the nay-saying of the talking heads, the tenured economists, and the financial press. The run up has come from outsiders With the banks in panic mode, building excess reserves, prices have not risen much, despite the enormous increase in the monetary base since 2008. Gold is a crisis hedge. It is a buy-and-hold investment. The American public buys gold only when spooked. Then their fear subsides. That is why it went to $1900 and then fell back. The late-comers think there is something magical about gold. There isn't. Gold is an asset that rich people buy when they get frightened. But then there is a positive press release from Merkel, or some vague statement from Bernanke, and demand falls. Prices fall. The reality is clear: at some point, the vast increase in the monetary base will be monetized. The FED will inflate more in order to make a market for Treasury debt. Then gold will again be the focus of panic buying. We are seeing the decline of faith in the state, but nothing has replaced it in the thinking of the elite. They do not know where to turn. This decline of faith will create a decline in the demand for digital money. We do not know when. Prices are not rising much. The economy remains stagnant. But the central bank cannot keep recession away by adopting stable money. Volcker's FED did, but that produced two recessions and also Reagan's $200 billion deficits. The thought of what the next recession will do to the Federal deficit is frightening today. But it will come. We will have to deal with it. One way for people with extra money will be gold. But gold buyers must think through why they are buying gold. They must decide which form is best for their purposes. Here are traditional reasons: 1.To transfer to children at their death. (Buy small gold bullion coins.) 2.To invest in an SEC-regulated portfolio. (Buy Central Gold Trust.) 3.To sell for digital money. (Buy one-ounce bullion coins.) 4.To barter in a crisis. (Buy small bullion coins.) 5.To hold outside the country. (Buy GoldMoney or Bullion Vault.) 6.To sell to capitalize a business (Buy one-ounce bullion coins.) 7.To sell to pay off a mortgage (Buy one-ounce bullion coins.) The third use – barter with gold coins – is a long-shot. If it comes to that, you will not get a good return, compared to having the things you are trading to obtain. Think about such conditions. You are so desperate that you are willing to surrender gold coins. That indicates a desperate situation. The seller knows you are desperate. He will drive a hard bargain. I tell people to begin accumulating those things that would be so desirable in a crisis that they would be willing to pay for in gold. In most cases, these are common things in normal times. You can buy them at Wal-Mart or even Dollar General. You can buy them in bulk at Sam's Club or Costco. Why not buy them now? Why not buy them on sale in normal times? If your goal is to barter, then buy now. Barter is inefficient. It takes place when the division of labor has contracted. If we get to hyperinflation, which I doubt, we will be far better off with consumer goods in reserve. We can quietly consume our hoard, never calling attention to ourselves. When you go looking for goods that can be bought by gold coins but not paper money, you expose yourself. You must locate a reliable seller of desperately needed goods. You will not find this person on Craigslist. Would you respond favorably to an ad that announces this? "I can get you whatever you need for gold coins. Contact me today." I think I would skip that offer. Barter is a limited market. That means that transaction costs are high. That means losses when compared to transactions in normal times. Barter may pay better than not bartering, but not bartering is better if you possess the consumer goods that people are willing to pay gold to buy. What do you want to do with the gold? This scenario should determine how much gold you should own and in what form. GROCERIES I use this in the broadest sense: immediate consumer goods. These are goods that you must have. To get them, you must pay. Think of bottles of water two hours before a scheduled hurricane strikes. The bottles will not be on supermarket shelves. It will be illegal for retailers to hike the prices of these goods. It's first come-first served. Getting in line early pays. Waiting doesn't. Most people wait. Get in line early. The economic conditions that would make food scarce are either local (hurricane) or catastrophic (national). There are scenarios in which catastrophe is possible. Most involve plague. The recent movie "Contagion," presents such a scenario. It is possible; it is not likely. A complete failure of the banking system is another. This would be a black swan event. If the banks go down and stay down for two months, Western civilization collapses. The death toll would be enormous. Most people could not survive in such a scenario. I do not think it pays to prepare for such an event. The likelihood is too low, and so is your ability to survive for years on end under such conditions. The great advantage of storing up basic consumer goods is that you can rotate them. You buy on sale. You use these goods to replace what you are consuming. You therefore lower your cost of living by means of bulk buying. This is good economics. The fact that it serves as a cushion for a time of disruptions is gravy. Here is what could happen. You could lose your job. If you are in that form of crises, you want a cushion. You will be using money to make payments on your home. Maybe not even that. Maybe you pay the water bill and electricity. You dip into bank reserves. You watch every expense. That is when you start consuming your reserves. This is not eating your seed corn. This is living on reserves that you built up for a time of crisis. I have a theory about the collapse. Cities will keep public utilities operating. They do not dare let water and power go down for more than a week. The threat of panic is too great. Even in Baghdad, there are rolling blackouts, not constant blackouts. The city fathers know what would happen if there were no public utilities for a month. People would start moving out. The tax base would collapse. The people who have built their careers on getting elected know what has to be delivered by the state. They will allocate their money the way that anyone else that is buying something allocates his money. They are buying votes. You can be sure that they will not turn off the flow of funds to any sector of the economy that services the needs of every voter in the city. A garden is a way to store up food. It is expensive. Your time is valuable. But it has its own rewards. The food is better in all respects. It is there in an emergency. A garden does not identify anyone as a crackpot survivalist. It is a point of contact with neighbors. It is something that you can recommend to a neighbor as a way to reduce the vulnerability of the neighborhood in a crisis. I recommend non-hybrid seeds. You can re-plant the seeds produced by these plants. They build up immunities to local plant diseases over several seasons. GUNS Guns are controversial. I don't think you need an arsenal. You need a few simple weapons and the training to master them. This poem gets the point across. A .45 for the bedroom, A shotgun over the door, A 30.06 for distance, You don't need any more. I would add a snub-nosed .357 for a lady's purse. Two shots will normally settle the issue. Either the assailant runs or else he cannot run. You do not have to be an expert marksman. If you can hit a man-size target at 20 feet, you will do just fine. The idea that guns are required for defense against gangs is naïve. A gang that comes into your neighborhood to pillage is going to be better armed than the police. They will be carrying automatic weapons. You will not win a shootout with a determined gang. The best you can hope for is that the members decide that there are lower-risk victims nearby. A shotgun is your best means of persuasion. There is nothing like the sound of a shotgun being racked to persuade someone that he has other urgent business elsewhere. The goal is not to convince the gang not to come through your door. The goal is to convince the first three members not to come through your door. You do not want to go outside your home to confront an armed gang. The guns must be defensive. You want the invader to take the risk of coming through your door. He should bear the risk. I think you should take a firearms course from local authorities. Get certified. If there is a concealed carry permit in your state, apply for it. The United States has a long tradition of gun ownership. I hope this will continue. Support for an organization such as Gun Owners of America makes sense. It's not that you need guns to keep law enforcement officers away. That is suicidal. Guns are necessary to send a message to the kinds of college-educated voters who favor using the state to compel people to submit the their social reform programs. It makes those people very nervous that there are millions of gun owners out there. This is altogether positive. I think of the scene in The Day the Earth Stood Still, when the world comes to a halt. The professor, who knows why it has come to a halt, asks his secretary if this makes her nervous. She says that it does. "That's good," he replies. If the state can take away our guns it is because we have moved past the point of no return politically. Owning a gun testifies to yourself that you have still not crossed the line. In this sense, gun ownership is part of positive self- reinforcement. CONCLUSION The four G's are important for reducing our concern against unforeseen negative events. Instead of worrying about them, we take concrete steps to deal with them. Most of them will not occur. But if they do occur, we will be in a position to deal with them in the short term. Any series of events that cannot be dealt with with a two-month supply of food, water, and basic necessities will be so overwhelming as to make extreme preparations problematical. Most people cannot afford extreme preparations. They will not take even minimal preparations. If you are diligent about spending money and time wisely in order to reduce your vulnerability to the unexpected, that is sufficient. You cannot afford to deal with every contingency. But you should deal with those that could disrupt your life if you had made none. If you want to plan for a crisis, plan for unemployment for six months. That is scary enough. October 8, 2011