Preparedness for when

Frugalsod

GreyQueen wrote: »

Thanks for that. I haven't got a food mixer or a blender and have nowhere to put one, unfortunately, but it may not always be so, and then I shall have the knowing of it.

There might be other ways. Put peanuts in a bag and crush with rolling pin for as long as needed to get as small as possible, it makes it easier to finish with the blender that is all. You might be able to use a £9 electric hand blender instead to finish the paste.



Peanut or groundnut oil is expensive but the first few attempts I used a dab of butter instead. It works.

GreyQueen

Mum has a Kenw00d Ch+f, which she bought used in the late seventies, which might come my way, one day. With lots of the accessories, too.

I bake bread twice a week, without the need to use a mixer or a breadmaker; a baking sheet, a bowl to mix in a jug for the hot water, a sachet of dried yeast and a glug of cooking oil. I knead it by hand once, for about 3-5 mins. These wholemeal rolls do me just fine, organic flour from the windmillers, no salt or other additives. Also make pizza - I'm famous for my pizza IRL, it's my signature dish.........:p

I find prepping reassuring. No need to panic if the water is off, I have plenty stored. If the leccy if off, I can retrieve my windup radio from the EMP-proofed tin. If the pooter crashes, I can get the cloned hard drive out of the tin that lives in. If I can't get to the shops, or there is no food in them, I won't be going hungry. If the banking system falters, I have very little cash in it, anyway. Got plenty of candles and matches, have firesteels, have candle lanterns, torches, means to move my 25 l water carriers if we're in a stand-tap situation, a kelly kettle and a handy supply of dried pinecones..........lots of little things to make awkward times less trying.

But my biggest asset is that I have an untrusting nature. I'm the one who always looks the wrong way up one-way streets to see if something is coming before I step out, who takes names and gets receipts, who questions what I'm told, and wonders why I'm being told that at all. I read the Daily Wail so I know which direction TPTB would like us steered-in, and other things, to try and get a fuller picture.

If you keep the thought cui bono? at the forefront of your mind as you travel through the mists of misinformation, you won't go far wrong, IMO.

Frugalsod

I am getting a couple of Kelly Kettles next month, as they are out of the items I want right now and so will be getting a bundle with them all in to save postage. This month I bought a small gas canister stove so only need to get some gas canisters and so will be able to cope with power outages. Everything is electric so a small gas stove will be enough for me to get the basics cooked. In the future I am looking at a small domestic solar system to cover my computer needs, though I will probably have to switch to a lower energy draining computer to have maximum flexibility.

I do find that reading a lot of different news sources does help sift the wheat from the chaff news wise. The other thing is with economic news is to know what school they are, to be able to filter what they are saying. If they exclude private debt then they are missing a big piece of the story. If they mention gold they are looking for suckers to help drive up the price and so on (especially with housing). This does resonate with your cui bono attitude.

daz378

have you noticed that advert on tv ....where the guy rudely interrupts people to inform them of the gold coin catalogue.....this advert taps into the current feeling of instability in society....... used to be the church was "the opiate of the masses" now its x-factor and britains got talent...... noticed how tvs are so cheap....... whats next the hunger games?

Frugalsod

daz378 wrote: »

have you noticed that advert on tv ....where the guy rudely interrupts people to inform them of the gold coin catalogue.....this advert taps into the current feeling of instability in society....... used to be the church was "the opiate of the masses" now its x-factor and britains got talent...... noticed how tvs are so cheap....... whats next the hunger games?

While they are trying to flog gold at a ridiculous margin it also highlights that the public know that something is wrong. Many try and block it out because the reality is so bad, and they think it cannot be true.

Hunger Games? They are here already though most would call them food banks.

armyknife

Frugalsod wrote: »

This will give you a start.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism

It broadly covers all the mainstream political parties who have adopted laissez faire policies which have basically thrown everyone under the bus for the benefit of corporations.

The problem is that commentators like Zerohedge clearly have Austrian/Libertarian leanings and all the Austrians were panicking about hyper inflation when QE started, yet we still have no inflation. Then you hear them claim that QE causes deflation but they have the wrong mechanism so again they are on a wild goose chase.

Austrians typically use the household budget as an example but what works for households fails to work for countries collectively, and that is the big failing of governments to realise that. Many also want a return to the gold standard. Many think that there is central bank rigging of the gold market. There might be but banks trade on the volatility rather than any direction. It was the near collapse of a gold bank in London in the 1990's that lead to the sale of 300 tons of UK gold at the very lowest price to rescue the bank. Though that is never mentioned. I suspect that the banks this time have been making losses on gold trading which might be why so much gold is now in China.

Then there is the recovery or lack of it. This crisis was caused by private debt in the US sub prime market yet the solution is to deal with the government debt caused by the policy response to it. So virtually all economists are ignoring private debt and concentrating on public debt and then wonder why customers are not spending. They also see that the private sector as are loaded up with cash and expect consumers to be out shopping. Yet they again ignore the power balance between workers and companies. The fact is that thanks to the erosion of labour rights they do not have the economic power to get higher wages and be able to spend. The money is stuck in corporations with no way to boost wages. Which is another reason why capital investment by companies is so dire. Without customers buying there there is no reason to invest to boost production.

Then you will hear about the productivity puzzle. Why with lower unemployment is the productivity gap so wide. They completely miss that the high paid jobs from before the crisis have been replaced with low income self employment and zero hour jobs on minimum wage.

You will also hear comments about the dangers of big government and again quote Hayek's work Road to Serfdom is quoted as a reason for smaller government. Hayek was impacted by the soviet occupations and wrote the Road to Serfdom as a response. Though in his later years he also saw the same threat from a corporatist/fascist state but you almost never hear mention of that. It is pretty much like the claims that over spending by government to get the economy going is Keynesian policy, yet there are no Keynesians in government and none in central banks either, or have been since the 1980's. What they have adopted is one half of a definition, just like they have adopted one half of Hayeks work. What Keynes also said which is always ignored by most economists and all politicians is that when the good times are going governments have to apply counter cyclical policy to stop things getting out of hand and even having a budget surplus. Yet when have you ever seen that?

So while I look at the data I come to a very different conclusion to many zero hedge commentators.

Excellent post, Frugs.

I would add, it's not really a productivity puzzle, it's only to those government who wilfully try and ignore it, that would find it a puzzle; you, us here and much of the population easily understand the phenomena, many of us being on the sharp end of it.

jk0

You know what worries me most?

It's the stupid short sighted shutting down of all our coal fired power generation.

Yes, I know coal is more polluting than gas. However, at least worst come to worst, we could dig it out of the ground. (Just been reading about 'Bevin Boys' during the war who were conscripted coal miners. Unbelievably, they were looked down on as 'draft dodgers'!)

elona

Sounds like the biblical story of saving corn in the seven good years
so the following seven years of famine were averted.

Even Shakespeare said it would not always be cakes and ale.
(Twelfth Night)

GreyQueen

elona wrote: »

Sounds like the biblical story of saving corn in the seven good years
so the following seven years of famine were averted.

Even Shakespeare said it would not always be cakes and ale.
(Twelfth Night)

Morning all.

elona, I've often noticed that an individual life seems to follow that pattern of spells of good years and spells of bad years, and doesn't the span of bad years feel the longer one? And aren't we inclined to regard the run of good ones and never-ending, and to be shocked and affronted when things get tough again?

jk0, I have concerns about the viability of the opening up of the now-closed coal mines, should urgent need arise. I can recall from reading sensible media at the time of the closures that what was being closed were very deep mines, including some which extended out under the bed of the North Sea. Even the landlocked mines were deep enough to require water and air pumping 24/7/365. It isn't a case, I believe, that these resources are effectively moth-balled and can be re-accessed without too much difficulty. It may well be that they are completely uneconomically unviable once they had been let go.

Coal mining started with open pits, and harvesting sea coal which was washed out of seams which came out at the coast, and only progressed to deep mining as we went through the industrial revolution and required more of this high-energy fuel for our industry and our homes. And we'd taken all the easily-accessible stuff already.

Of course, the issue with the mines wasn't about energy policy, it was about the ongoing PTB project of crushing Everyman. Documents which came to light under the 25 year rule showed clearly that the high-ranking politicians backing That Woman were determined to continue what they had begun and were openly referring to conducting a class war against ordinary people. They had a shortlist of half-a-dozen unions which were candidates to be provoked into action so that draconian anti-union legislation could be passed. The miners rose to the bait (and I don't blame them) and the Tories couldn't have been happier, as many of their senior men were still smarting from defeats by the miners in the 1970s.

It seems to me that a sensible energy policy would be one which reduced consumption as much as possible and maximised variety of generation methods, tailored to the unique properties of that region. For example, some areas are hilly and have water descending with sufficient 'head' to power mini turbines even in streams, some areas are very windy, some areas are sunnier than others (we're sprouting solar farms on low grade farmland around here, the NIMBYs are screaming in rage, they came to live In the Country to enjoy the fantasy good life FGS).

There are also well-reasoned arguments that nuclear is the only viable power source, repugnant though the unresolved (and possibly unresolvable) long-term consequence of the spent waste disposal are. I guess it will come down to how moral people feel they should be; will people want to change their way of life and suffer inconvenience and genuine hardship to protect the unborn generations? Evidence is that most cultures will not function with a sightline of centuries and will despoil whatever they can to reap the benefits now.

ivyleaf

Frugalsod wrote: »

This will give you a start.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism

It broadly covers all the mainstream political parties who have adopted laissez faire policies which have basically thrown everyone under the bus for the benefit of corporations.

The problem is that commentators like Zerohedge clearly have Austrian/Libertarian leanings and all the Austrians were panicking about hyper inflation when QE started, yet we still have no inflation. Then you hear them claim that QE causes deflation but they have the wrong mechanism so again they are on a wild goose chase.

Austrians typically use the household budget as an example but what works for households fails to work for countries collectively, and that is the big failing of governments to realise that. Many also want a return to the gold standard. Many think that there is central bank rigging of the gold market. There might be but banks trade on the volatility rather than any direction. It was the near collapse of a gold bank in London in the 1990's that lead to the sale of 300 tons of UK gold at the very lowest price to rescue the bank. Though that is never mentioned. I suspect that the banks this time have been making losses on gold trading which might be why so much gold is now in China.

Then there is the recovery or lack of it. This crisis was caused by private debt in the US sub prime market yet the solution is to deal with the government debt caused by the policy response to it. So virtually all economists are ignoring private debt and concentrating on public debt and then wonder why customers are not spending. They also see that the private sector as are loaded up with cash and expect consumers to be out shopping. Yet they again ignore the power balance between workers and companies. The fact is that thanks to the erosion of labour rights they do not have the economic power to get higher wages and be able to spend. The money is stuck in corporations with no way to boost wages. Which is another reason why capital investment by companies is so dire. Without customers buying there there is no reason to invest to boost production.

Then you will hear about the productivity puzzle. Why with lower unemployment is the productivity gap so wide. They completely miss that the high paid jobs from before the crisis have been replaced with low income self employment and zero hour jobs on minimum wage.

You will also hear comments about the dangers of big government and again quote Hayek's work Road to Serfdom is quoted as a reason for smaller government. Hayek was impacted by the soviet occupations and wrote the Road to Serfdom as a response. Though in his later years he also saw the same threat from a corporatist/fascist state but you almost never hear mention of that. It is pretty much like the claims that over spending by government to get the economy going is Keynesian policy, yet there are no Keynesians in government and none in central banks either, or have been since the 1980's. What they have adopted is one half of a definition, just like they have adopted one half of Hayeks work. What Keynes also said which is always ignored by most economists and all politicians is that when the good times are going governments have to apply counter cyclical policy to stop things getting out of hand and even having a budget surplus. Yet when have you ever seen that?

So while I look at the data I come to a very different conclusion to many zero hedge commentators.

Thank you very much indeed for such a clear explanation :T