Scattershooting in the end of May
5/29/09 - 6th Day - Preparation of the Sabbath. After Breakfast. Thank you all for your participation in the May Project. Thanks go out to all of you who wrote articles and all of you who read and/or commented on the submissions. I really am thankful for you all, and I appreciate all of your opinions, comments, and stories. Based on the response and on my emails, it seems that many people were positively affected by the things you all wrote and shared, and I am very grateful for your endeavors. So now we move on to June and The June Project, which I will talk more about towards the end of this post.
Things are going well here at the ranch. Pretty much everyone has been working on fencing since we had set a deadline here in the community for everyone to have their homestead areas fenced so we can free-range our pure Longhorns starting June 1. We've also received a fair share of rain, which is always nice, and I believe we have received just about our monthly expected rainfall in May. After the big 2" rain we received last weekend, we got another 1/2" a few days later, then probably close to another 1/2" last night when we really weren't expecting any. Things are beautiful and green here, and we haven't had to water the gardens in a few weeks. The gardens are doing well, especially the tomatoes, and, if the Lord wills, I will be harvesting my garlic crop starting on the 2nd Day. I still have two heifers who are getting close to dropping calves - one is our full-blood Holstein who is going to be our milk cow (lots and lots of milk) and the other is Bonita, one of our pure Longhorn heifers who is due to drop her first calf. That should be it, then, for me in 2009 (at least I think it should be it) on new cattle. I do try not to count my cattle, though, before they are hatched.
Hey, do you have some money in your wallet? Go get some and take a look at it for a moment. Think about what that much money will buy right now. Do you have a $20? Think about how many groceries you can get for $20. Then think... "How much will this $20 be worth with inflation running at 231 MILLION PERCENT?". Just for a gauge, inflation is less than 2% right now. Well, one of the most well known Amerikan investors and prognosticators, a man named Marc Faber, says that he is "100% sure" Amerika is moving into a period of hyper-inflation and that inflation rates will be "close to" Zimbabwe's inflation rate, which reached 231 MILLION PERCENT before they just stopped counting. Now, look back at your $20. If hyper-inflation even half as bad as Zimbabwe's were to hit Amerika, and you woke up to find out a dozen eggs cost $20 at the store, by the time you got to the store, you couldn't buy 1 egg (or even the carton) for $20.
Now let's look at the same scenario under a Christian Agrarian situation. The Agrarian wakes up in the morning during a situation of hyper-inflation and he decides he needs a dozen eggs. Later that day, he walks up to the chicken coop and finds 24 eggs, which is basically the same amount he received yesterday. Oh, but you say "Yes, but the FEED he is buying will be subject to hyper-inflation!". Only if it is absolutely necessary that he buy feed. Me, I would just open up the chicken pen and let the chickens feed themselves all they want. I don't need to buy feed. Now, let's say that the people who are suffering from hyper-inflation want eggs, but they cannot afford to buy them from the store. How much are my eggs worth now? What will they be worth in barter and trade? You see, now I am on the other end of the hyper-inflation situation. Unhappily, most people, even most of you (not all of you, I know, so don't email me Beth!), do not really think that such a thing is possible. You say, "tomorrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant!" (Isa. 56:12). The Christian Agrarian has his faith in God and in God's favor and abundance. He does not have his faith in man. You live in the world and you say you do not have your faith in man? Really? Listen to what the pollyanna-things-are-gonna-work-out-alright monkeys have to say:
"There are some concerns of a risk from inflation from all the liquidity injected into the banking system but it’s not an immediate threat right now given all the excess capacity in the U.S. economy, I have a little more confidence that the Fed has an exit strategy for draining all the liquidity at the appropriate time." (David Cohen, head of Asian economic forcasting at Action Economics in Singapore).
If you live in the world and you are subject to it's whims, and if you are dependent on this current economy, then you absolutely must trust David Cohen, who is telling you that he has put his confidence in the Federal Reserve. He agrees that there is a huge ax hanging over your head, but he has confidence that the Federal Reserve will spare you at the last moment. "It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man" (Psalm 118:8).
If you don't think that the powers that be are trying to soothe you into complacency, here's your brilliant Internet deceptive economic quote of the week from Yahoo finance:
"The government says the economy sank at a 5.7 percent pace as the brute force of the recession carried over into the start of the year. However, many analysts believe activity isn't shrinking nearly as much now as the downturn flashes signs of letting up"
In other words, as you plummet off a cliff, you hear the comforting words "You have slowed your rate of descent". But, upon reading the actual article from Yahoo finance, you learn that the paragraph is misleading in many ways. First, the rate of descent hasn't slowed at all. In fact, the 5.7 percent drop just turned out to be a bit less than the 6.1 percent which was "estimated last month", so the drop wasn't a decline from the previous drop, it was a decline from the estimated decline! None of that means anything anyway, since rates of decline during a precipitous descent change regularly as consumers react to situations going on in their lives. A lower drop may just mean that people began spending large amounts of remaining cash on cheap products as businesses dump inventories, and as consumers try to make use of dollars which they expect will decline in value as inflation increases. You can expect that phenomena to increase as things go on, which gives the economy the appearance that it might be improving, when in fact it is all a dead cat bounce.
I remember way back when it was announced that the U.S. Gov't was 1 Trillion dollars in debt and we all were shocked. Well, as of today, Uncle Sam owes 63.8 Trillion and the meter is running. You better just hope the Chi-coms and their 200 million man collection army don't decide to repossess what they actually own.
At least oil is on the way back up... can you say "back over $3 by mid summer?" I wonder what a horse will cost when inflation hits 231 MILLION PERCENT.
A White House official who was in France to prepare for Obama's visit next week caught the Swine Flu. Despite the early victory, France, when it learned Obama still planned to visit, promptly surrendered. A government spokesperson from the wine-guzzling cheese eating surrender-monkeys said, "A U.S. citizen, who is in France as part of an official delegation preparing the D-Day ceremonies, has tested positive for H1N1 flu and has been hospitalized in Caen". When asked why the French did not invite England's Queen Elizabeth to the D-Day Celebration, the French spokesperson said, "I give up".
Ok, so the June Blog project...
We are going to write a book, you and I.
I have decided to turn the Off-Grid Living series I did last year on this blog into a book tentatively entitled...
Real Survival: Living Off-Off-Grid
I hope to capitalize on the current "survival" interest and give people a completely different philosophy than they've ever read about real survival.
I am going to almost completely re-write the series and put it into book form. Re-writing means that I am going to add a lot of things I have learned in the last year or two, and add more information that really wasn't conducive to the blog series.
I intend to post each Chapter (maybe 1 every week) on A Process Driven Life, then I will ask you guys to comment, edit, and help out with improving the chapter. What I would like is comments (such as.. "you might say something about X"), edits ("Bunker, you idiot, you misspelled X"), and even suggested improvements. In fact, you can write or re-write whole paragraphs that you think would be a help for the reader, and if I like it I will plagiarize it and put it into the book.
Here are the rules:
1. You can't get mad if I do not use, or if I ignore or reject, your idea or suggestion. Some of you are very good writers, but I do have an overall impression and idea of what I am trying to accomplish and what the philosophy is. A very, very great idea, may still not make it into the book if I feel it won't be right. In fact, some ideas may be included already in unpublished parts I have already written but have never put online.
2. I really want some participation. I want your help and you are able to make any and all suggestions for changes, additions, subtractions, etc. Don't think I will be mad because you say "this part stinks" or "just delete this part". Again, I may not follow your suggestion, but I sincerely do want to read them.
3. You aren't going to get any credit, except a general "thanks to the blog folks" in the beginning. You also aren't going to get any money, since there will never be much, and what little there is will go to support my family.
4. Your suggestion may be included in the book in its entirety, and then again, it may not get posted on the blog at all much less be in the book. It depends, and I claim sole authority and discretion over how the project progresses.
5. I won't be posting all the articles online for participation. Some are going to be top secret, after all - there still has to be a reason for you to go buy 10 copies of the book to give to your friends and family.
Ok, so let's start today. What do you think? Do you have any ideas already?
I am your servant in Christ Jesus,
Michael Bunker
Things are going well here at the ranch. Pretty much everyone has been working on fencing since we had set a deadline here in the community for everyone to have their homestead areas fenced so we can free-range our pure Longhorns starting June 1. We've also received a fair share of rain, which is always nice, and I believe we have received just about our monthly expected rainfall in May. After the big 2" rain we received last weekend, we got another 1/2" a few days later, then probably close to another 1/2" last night when we really weren't expecting any. Things are beautiful and green here, and we haven't had to water the gardens in a few weeks. The gardens are doing well, especially the tomatoes, and, if the Lord wills, I will be harvesting my garlic crop starting on the 2nd Day. I still have two heifers who are getting close to dropping calves - one is our full-blood Holstein who is going to be our milk cow (lots and lots of milk) and the other is Bonita, one of our pure Longhorn heifers who is due to drop her first calf. That should be it, then, for me in 2009 (at least I think it should be it) on new cattle. I do try not to count my cattle, though, before they are hatched.
Hey, do you have some money in your wallet? Go get some and take a look at it for a moment. Think about what that much money will buy right now. Do you have a $20? Think about how many groceries you can get for $20. Then think... "How much will this $20 be worth with inflation running at 231 MILLION PERCENT?". Just for a gauge, inflation is less than 2% right now. Well, one of the most well known Amerikan investors and prognosticators, a man named Marc Faber, says that he is "100% sure" Amerika is moving into a period of hyper-inflation and that inflation rates will be "close to" Zimbabwe's inflation rate, which reached 231 MILLION PERCENT before they just stopped counting. Now, look back at your $20. If hyper-inflation even half as bad as Zimbabwe's were to hit Amerika, and you woke up to find out a dozen eggs cost $20 at the store, by the time you got to the store, you couldn't buy 1 egg (or even the carton) for $20.
Now let's look at the same scenario under a Christian Agrarian situation. The Agrarian wakes up in the morning during a situation of hyper-inflation and he decides he needs a dozen eggs. Later that day, he walks up to the chicken coop and finds 24 eggs, which is basically the same amount he received yesterday. Oh, but you say "Yes, but the FEED he is buying will be subject to hyper-inflation!". Only if it is absolutely necessary that he buy feed. Me, I would just open up the chicken pen and let the chickens feed themselves all they want. I don't need to buy feed. Now, let's say that the people who are suffering from hyper-inflation want eggs, but they cannot afford to buy them from the store. How much are my eggs worth now? What will they be worth in barter and trade? You see, now I am on the other end of the hyper-inflation situation. Unhappily, most people, even most of you (not all of you, I know, so don't email me Beth!), do not really think that such a thing is possible. You say, "tomorrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant!" (Isa. 56:12). The Christian Agrarian has his faith in God and in God's favor and abundance. He does not have his faith in man. You live in the world and you say you do not have your faith in man? Really? Listen to what the pollyanna-things-are-gonna-work-out-alright monkeys have to say:
"There are some concerns of a risk from inflation from all the liquidity injected into the banking system but it’s not an immediate threat right now given all the excess capacity in the U.S. economy, I have a little more confidence that the Fed has an exit strategy for draining all the liquidity at the appropriate time." (David Cohen, head of Asian economic forcasting at Action Economics in Singapore).
If you live in the world and you are subject to it's whims, and if you are dependent on this current economy, then you absolutely must trust David Cohen, who is telling you that he has put his confidence in the Federal Reserve. He agrees that there is a huge ax hanging over your head, but he has confidence that the Federal Reserve will spare you at the last moment. "It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man" (Psalm 118:8).
If you don't think that the powers that be are trying to soothe you into complacency, here's your brilliant Internet deceptive economic quote of the week from Yahoo finance:
"The government says the economy sank at a 5.7 percent pace as the brute force of the recession carried over into the start of the year. However, many analysts believe activity isn't shrinking nearly as much now as the downturn flashes signs of letting up"
In other words, as you plummet off a cliff, you hear the comforting words "You have slowed your rate of descent". But, upon reading the actual article from Yahoo finance, you learn that the paragraph is misleading in many ways. First, the rate of descent hasn't slowed at all. In fact, the 5.7 percent drop just turned out to be a bit less than the 6.1 percent which was "estimated last month", so the drop wasn't a decline from the previous drop, it was a decline from the estimated decline! None of that means anything anyway, since rates of decline during a precipitous descent change regularly as consumers react to situations going on in their lives. A lower drop may just mean that people began spending large amounts of remaining cash on cheap products as businesses dump inventories, and as consumers try to make use of dollars which they expect will decline in value as inflation increases. You can expect that phenomena to increase as things go on, which gives the economy the appearance that it might be improving, when in fact it is all a dead cat bounce.
I remember way back when it was announced that the U.S. Gov't was 1 Trillion dollars in debt and we all were shocked. Well, as of today, Uncle Sam owes 63.8 Trillion and the meter is running. You better just hope the Chi-coms and their 200 million man collection army don't decide to repossess what they actually own.
At least oil is on the way back up... can you say "back over $3 by mid summer?" I wonder what a horse will cost when inflation hits 231 MILLION PERCENT.
A White House official who was in France to prepare for Obama's visit next week caught the Swine Flu. Despite the early victory, France, when it learned Obama still planned to visit, promptly surrendered. A government spokesperson from the wine-guzzling cheese eating surrender-monkeys said, "A U.S. citizen, who is in France as part of an official delegation preparing the D-Day ceremonies, has tested positive for H1N1 flu and has been hospitalized in Caen". When asked why the French did not invite England's Queen Elizabeth to the D-Day Celebration, the French spokesperson said, "I give up".
Ok, so the June Blog project...
We are going to write a book, you and I.
I have decided to turn the Off-Grid Living series I did last year on this blog into a book tentatively entitled...
Real Survival: Living Off-Off-Grid
I hope to capitalize on the current "survival" interest and give people a completely different philosophy than they've ever read about real survival.
I am going to almost completely re-write the series and put it into book form. Re-writing means that I am going to add a lot of things I have learned in the last year or two, and add more information that really wasn't conducive to the blog series.
I intend to post each Chapter (maybe 1 every week) on A Process Driven Life, then I will ask you guys to comment, edit, and help out with improving the chapter. What I would like is comments (such as.. "you might say something about X"), edits ("Bunker, you idiot, you misspelled X"), and even suggested improvements. In fact, you can write or re-write whole paragraphs that you think would be a help for the reader, and if I like it I will plagiarize it and put it into the book.
Here are the rules:
1. You can't get mad if I do not use, or if I ignore or reject, your idea or suggestion. Some of you are very good writers, but I do have an overall impression and idea of what I am trying to accomplish and what the philosophy is. A very, very great idea, may still not make it into the book if I feel it won't be right. In fact, some ideas may be included already in unpublished parts I have already written but have never put online.
2. I really want some participation. I want your help and you are able to make any and all suggestions for changes, additions, subtractions, etc. Don't think I will be mad because you say "this part stinks" or "just delete this part". Again, I may not follow your suggestion, but I sincerely do want to read them.
3. You aren't going to get any credit, except a general "thanks to the blog folks" in the beginning. You also aren't going to get any money, since there will never be much, and what little there is will go to support my family.
4. Your suggestion may be included in the book in its entirety, and then again, it may not get posted on the blog at all much less be in the book. It depends, and I claim sole authority and discretion over how the project progresses.
5. I won't be posting all the articles online for participation. Some are going to be top secret, after all - there still has to be a reason for you to go buy 10 copies of the book to give to your friends and family.
Ok, so let's start today. What do you think? Do you have any ideas already?
I am your servant in Christ Jesus,
Michael Bunker
posted by Michael Bunker at 5/29/2009 07:22:00 AM
7 Comments:
I, personally, am excited about the book project. I don't have the wherewithal (I had to look that one up)or the patience to write one myself though I've always wanted to. Being able to help is the next best thing.
Judy
Unfortunately, you're very right about most people trusting the economists evaluations of things and that all will be o.k. with such things as their retirement plans. My parents talked alot of what the depression years were like for most people; (they were quite young yet), but how it was better for their families, due to their agrarian living/provisions/bartering abilities. Though the economy was o.k. as I grew up; it's ups and downs didn't affect us until we started relying on the grocery store more. Most often as you stated, it just put us in a more secure position than most; plus able to help others out in their need, as we desired.
As I reflect on Gods Word about marriage, submission, "coming out of her"; my desire is to fully obey. I just don't see as a woman, how obeying all is possible, when unequally yoked and in subjection to my husband's will, since he chooses to stay married. A question I asked via e-mail; that I'd like answered, when you have time. Thanks.
Will be praying for your book project to get good participation and to be a success in it's publication/sales. Look forward to participating myself, if the Lord Wills. Thanks for sharing the opportunity.
Beth
I don't particularly remember if this was mentioned in the beggining of the series, but I was wondering how a paycheck to paycheck family would start an off grid homestead. The problems involve not having money to buy land, or even making a down payment. Moving a semi small family with small children to undeveloped property with no tools or materials. I suppose that the chains rest heavier on those that are less prepared. But what can we do to escape?
hey pal, next time warn the men, so when my wife says "honey, did you read bunker.....bwaaa blahh blah we got to....whats going to.....we need to...." i can be prepared a little bro.....
KJV... Just trying to make your life more spicy. It's the least I can do.
M
I think this is a wonderful idea! I have been reading your current Off-grid living series and your blog with great interest.
I wonder if you would consider writing about wives who want to live off-grid (or at least away from the city), who have husbands who don't see the dire necessity to do so. I fear for our family, living in the suburbs. I would like you to address this topic seriously, and with more than just a, "Pray for your husband." I suspect that I am not alone in my thoughts.
I respectfully remain anonymous merely out of respect for my husband.
We currently live in the country and made some steps toward independence. One big fear is we have a mortgage on our land and small home. I am worried about paying for it. Right now there is no way to pay it off--and real estate is not selling too well. I'd like to see you address this topic. thanks!
Also, like the other poster--what do you do when the dh is not concerned??
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