“Poore Endebted Discontented and Armed”

As I was reading A People’s History of the United States of America this morning, I came across this interesting quote:

Times were hard in 1676. “There was genuine distress, genuine poverty…. All contemporary sources speak of the great mass of people as living in severe economic straits,” writes Wilcomb Washburn, who, using British colonial records, has done an exhaustive study of Bacon’s Rebellion. It was a dry summer, ruining the corn crop, which was needed for food, and the tobacco crop, needed for export. Governor Berkeley, in his seventies, tired of holding office, wrote wearily about his situation: “How miserable that man is that Governes a People where six parts of seaven at least are Poore Endebted Discontented and Armed.” (p. 40)

As the author Howard Zinn points out, the “phrase ‘six in seaven’ suggests the existence of an upper class not so impoverished.”

When Is It Time to Exit America?

Yesterday I discovered that the TSA is expanding its operations. The TSA will no longer be confined to U.S. airports; they will now be conducting random searches and seizures at truck weigh stations and bus stops.

The TSA conducted a trial of the new program in Tampa, Florida, in December 2010 to see how people would react. Now, the TSA is rolling out checkpoints across the state of Tennessee where they will conduct random searches of semi-trailer trucks. They will also pat down passengers who choose to travel by bus.

Of course, this is all being done under the pretense of “fighting terrorism” and “keeping America safe.” In reality, it’s…

4 Reasons Food Prices Are Rising Fast

George Rapsomanikis, the senior economist at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), revealed two major reasons for the recent volatility in food prices in an article dated October 11, 2011. He says:

The main reason for increased price volatility is that supply production cannot catch up with demand. What is happening is that we have a steady increase in demand, mainly due to increase in the population, and also a change in the diet of population in emerging economies who are gradually changing their diets, including more meat and more grain.

On the other side, production cannot catch up with consumption. The global stock levels are becoming lower, lower than they used to be ten years ago and if there is an external shock in the market, this is going to generate volatility. So tighter markets means more volatility in the future.

What Rapsomanikis fails to mention is that

The River of Doubt: A Real-Life Tale of Survival

Today, I finished reading The River of Doubt by Candice Millard.

It is a detailed and thrilling account of Theodore Roosevelt’s journey down the River of Doubt in the Amazon jungle in 1914. Not only a fascinating bit of history, this is an heroic tale of suffering and survival in one of the most dangerous and inhospitable parts of the world.

What began as what was supposed to be a moderately difficult adventure — and an opportunity to chart a river no man had ever charted before — quickly became a fight to stay alive as the members of the party were plagued by heavy rain, bacteria, illness, injury, and the loss of precious supplies on the river.

Not everybody made it back alive. One man died of drowning in a section of rapids. Another was shot and killed by an insubordinate member of the party. And a third — the murderer himself — was abandoned in the jungle, hundreds of miles from civilization, and never seen again.

Trader Shocks World During TV Interview: “I Dream of Another Recession”

Yesterday, September 26, 2011, a stock market trader named Alessio Rastani shocked the world (and literally left his interviewer speechless) when he made multiple unexpected statements during an interview with the BBC. Here’s the 3-minute video clip:

Dip in Price of Silver = Buying Opportunity

Silver has been on my mind quite a bit lately, especially with the big drop in price this week. Silver dropped to $31.09/oz this week and gold dropped to $1,656.10/oz.

The last time silver was this low was mid-February of this year, more than 7 months ago. I see the lower price as the perfect buying opportunity.

Since I have an account with Silver Saver, it’s easy to make impromptu purchases when the price of silver drops. For example, I put in an order for an extra $100 of silver on Thursday evening (9/22/2011), which was then executed on Friday (9/23/2011). I plan to make additional one-off purchases in the coming weeks.

As you may know, I’ve written about the importance of investing in silver (also known as poor man’s gold) a few times over the last couple of months. This is because I feel you’d be hard-pressed to find a better way to invest your money.

An Amazing Year-Round Food Growing System (Video)

Here’s a quick 3-minute video about a non-profit organization that grows food year-round in Wisconsin.

They are able to grow food year-round by combining the following farming concepts and systems:

• Greenhouse
• Growing vertical
• Vermiculture + compost piles (for heat)
• Aquaponics (growing plants in water and using fish to provide nutrients)

It’s a fascinating video — definitely worth the 3 minutes it’ll take to watch it…

Inflation: The Story of a Texas Dairy Farm

According to a Texas dairy farm, the price of feed and hay has gone up dramatically in recent months. In some cases, the prices have doubled.

As a result of these price increases, they are now being forced to raise the price of the milk they sell to $6 a quart or $10 per half-gallon.

Here is the letter they sent to their customers:

Silver Investing Questions And Answers

I got more responses to my last article — Poor Man’s Gold — than I have to any other article I’ve ever published.

There were a few objections and concerns that were raised by Survival Joe readers, and I felt it was important to respond to them, so I recorded a quick video.

In this video, I talk about bartering, taking physical possession of silver, minimum orders, and why I still think Silver Saver is a good way to invest in silver.

Poor Man’s Gold

After sending out last week’s email about investing in gold, I got the following email from a reader:

“Hey Joe buying gold is a wonderful idea but…. what about the poor folks out there that cannot afford to do so?

“Many folks are disabled, elderly and plain out and out poor and cant afford to hardly do for them selves much less invest in GOLD.

“Any views on that?”

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