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From Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis

Shoe stores are increasingly fed up with customers trying on pair after pair of shoes and not buying any of them.

Worried shopkeepers are increasingly frustrated by people they dub “fit-lifters” who use stores to find the best-fitting shoes before buying them online at a lower price says the Financial Times in Shoe stores sock it to online buyers.

If the shoe fits . . . but you don’t buy it, you could soon be tarred with the same brush as shoplifters by shoe store owners.

Bricks-and-mortar shops have higher salary and rental costs than internet rivals and store owners say some online buyers are freeriding on their resources. “You’ve come in and stolen that service basically,” said Richard Napier of Idaho Mountain Trading, an outdoor sports store in Idaho Falls, who calls fit-lifting unethical.

“It’s not that the salesperson didn’t have somebody else to serve who would have bought something. So not only have you stolen the wages. I have a loss of revenue that he would have collected from another customer.”

It is common for online shoppers to research products in stores in other retail sectors such as bookselling – a practice named “showrooming” – and smartphones make it possible to buy online even while still in a store. But the trend is particularly contentious in footwear because staff spend so much time fetching boxes and advising customers on comfort.

Gary Weiner, owner of Saxon Shoes in Virginia

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From SurvivalBlog.com

Traditions Training Cartridges are weighted and built like real cartridges.  They include a rubber insert to function as snap caps. Unlike most aluminum snap caps, however, they are heavy and strong enough to properly cycle, without becoming damaged. I recently tested these in 12 gauge, .223 rifle and .45 ACP. 

The .45 ACP pack contained 5 cartridges with 6 rubber inserts.  They were "loaded" with 230 grain ball projectiles, and apart from their black coating, were almost indistinguishable from live ammo.  I cycled these through an Auto Ordnance 1911 clone, through a dozen different magazines with no problems with the cartridges. In fact, they helped me identify two problematic magazines.  They fed flawlessly.  The hammer drop felt noticeably different due to the rubber primer insert, but there were no issues with the action.  They ejected very positively, just like real cartridges.
I tested the pair of 12 gauge cartridges (two in the pack, inserts already in place) in both a side by side ERA coach gun and a Remington 870 riot gun.  They held up well to the mechanical ejection, and loaded perfectly.

The two-pack of .223 were tested in an M4 clone. Again, they cycled just like real ammo.  I randomly loaded both into a magazine of live ammo to practice stoppage drills.  There was no detectable difference in the load part of the cycle, and upon the hammer dropping, they extracted exactly as a dud round should.
These are a…

From Total Survivalist Libertarian Rantfest

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From Rural Revolution

I was reading the comments on an article recently when I came across this gem. I don’t know if the poster wrote it or if it was one of those things circling the internet, but at any rate I thought it was well-written and worth highlighting.
______________________________

My Medical Appointment

I visited a physician last week who was quite enthusiastic. It was a “new” doctor in the practice, a young lady (at MY age, EVERYBODY is “young”! When I was born, the Dead Sea wasn‘t even sick!) She was obviously a liberal by her dress and manner. She asked me what was wrong, and I replied, “I have a cut on my leg; and I think it may be getting infected.”

She said, “Before we start, I have to ask you a few questions. Are you allergic to any medications?”

I replied, “No.”

She said, “Do you have any guns in the house?”

I said, “HUH??”

She replied, “Guns. Do you have any guns in the house?”

I asked, “Why?”

She said, “I’ve got to ask this question. It is required under the Affordable Care Act.”

I asked, “What are you going to do with the data?”

She said, “We compile it, amalgamate it, and submit it to the government.”

I said, “Well, I have a Tommy Gun. I let my kid Tommy play with it.”

She said, “What’s a Tommy Gun? I…

From Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis

Obamacare and Part-Time Jobs Yet Again

At
a business level, the penalty for not offering a qualified healthcare plan is
$ 2,000 per person, for companies that have more than 30 full-time
employees. 

As I have discussed before, Obamacare is
behind the surge in part-time employment as corporations have been
cutting hours worked and hiring more part-time workers to make up the
difference.

Part-time employment rose this month by a whopping 441,000 as private average weekly hours fell 0.2 to 34.4 hours and average weekly earnings fell from $ 824.52 to $ 821.13 due to fewer hours worked.

For details see Jobs +165,000, Part-Time Employment +441,000; Unemployment Rate 7.5%; Dow Tops 15,000

Nullification Bill Passes South Carolina House

A constitutional showdown may be coming up as South Carolina House passes bill making ‘Obamacare’ implementation a crime.

The South Carolina state House passed a bill Wednesday that declares President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to be “null and void,” and criminalizes its implementation.

The state’s Freedom of Health Care Protection Act intends to “prohibit certain individuals from enforcing or attempting to enforce such unconstitutional laws; and to establish criminal penalties and civil liability for violating this article.”

The measure permits the state Attorney General, with reasonable cause, “to restrain by temporary restraining order, temporary injunction, or permanent injunction” any person who is believed to be causing harm to

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From What if IT is today? – A Survivalist’s Blog

I was able to borrow a friends trailer and buy 45 cattle panels.  I also picked up more t-posts just for good measure.  I got the front fruit trees all paneled in and the sheep got moved to the front pasture.  They are happy because there’s lots of food growing.  Due to the lack of rain the back 3 acres have anywhere between none and 6 inches of forage.  That’s all.  Normally at this time of year the pasture is almost waist high.  The next door neighbors have about 10 acres that’s in beautiful grasses and they can’t get anyone to mow and bale it.  Instead they asked if I want to figure out how to put up an electric fence and move the sheep into their yard.  Free.  I have to research those types of fences because I’ve never had one. 

After returning the trailer I drove right by GI Jim’s store so I stopped in for an excellent use of 3/4 of an hour.  I picked up a 55 gallon drum with a good lid.  I’m not sure what’s going in it yet.  Probably a combination of supplies. 

Another customer came in and the subject of fires came up.  (Is everyone who walks into GI Jim’s former firefighters?  Sometimes it seems that way!)  It was enjoyable hearing everyone reminisce about their old fire stories.  The large fire going on in Southern California is my old childhood stomping grounds.  I…

From Modern Survival Blog

Food. We need it. Today it’s easy to get. We just buy it. What would we do though if we couldn’t just go out and buy it, or if there were scarcity at the grocery stores?

Here are a few notes outlining methods which may lead you in the right direction…

 

First of all, in ‘good times’, before TSHTF, you could just buy it…

You should seriously consider storing ahead a supply of food, to be used as a crutch while you work up a sustainability plan. A 1-year food storage is not difficult to obtain.

Purchase Food Storage

-Quick short term solution
-Advantage of buying anything and everything
-Advantage of storing ahead as much as you wish to spend
-Food rotation, first in – first out (until it runs out)
-NOT SUSTAINABLE

 
Consider one of the following methods to procure sustainable food…

Growing Crops

-Sprouting seeds (fast and easy)
-Hydroponics (unique knowledge, know-how, and equipment)
-Container gardening
-Square-foot gardening
-Large scale gardening
-Land, good soil
-Crop rotation
-Growing season, grow-zone limitations or advantages
-Fertilizer
-Compost
-Knowledge and experience
-Equipment
-Irrigation
-Harvest and preservation
-Heirloom varieties, save seeds for next season

Raising Livestock

-Selecting livestock
-Food and water
-Containment and equipment
-Butchering
-Knowledge and experience
-Land
-Health and medical issues
-Breeding

Aquafarming

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From The Economic Collapse

If you think that the latest employment numbers are good news, you might want to look again.  In April 2013, 58.6 percent of all working age Americans had a job.  But three years ago, in April 2010, 58.7 percent of all working age Americans had a job.  Well, you may argue, that is not much of a difference.  And that is precisely my point.  The percentage of Americans that have a job fell like a rock during the last recession.  It dropped from about 63 percent all the way down to below 59 percent, and it has stayed below 59 percent for 44 months in a row.  So where is the recovery?  This is the first time in the post-World War II era that the employment-population ratio has not bounced back after the end of a recession.  So anyone that tells you that we are experiencing an employment recovery is lying to you.  Yes, the U.S. economy added 165,000 jobs last month.  But it takes nearly that many jobs just to keep up with population growth.  The truth is that we are just treading water.

So why has the unemployment rate been going down?  Well, it is because the government has been pretending that millions upon millions of unemployed Americans “don’t want jobs” anymore.  In fact, an astounding 9.5 million Americans have “left the workforce” since Barack Obama took office.

Some in the mainstream media have started calling them “missing workers”. …

From Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis

Spain’s “bad bank”, Sareb to speed up distressed property sales in an ambitious new timetable for liquidation.

The bad bank is hoping to sell almost 42,000 housing units in the next five years. This is about half of the properties in its €50 billion (£42.5 billion approximately) portfolio.

However, falling house prices and a desire among buyers for modern properties in prime locations could hamper these plans for swift sale. Already the value of assets is being slashed by Sareb to clear their books, but attracting investors is proving to be no easy task.

At the beginning of March the International Monetary Fund (IMF) declared: “The clean-up of undercapitalised banks has reached an advanced stage, and key reforms of Spain’s financial sector have been either adopted or designed.” Sareb has also been praised for its receipt of distressed real estate assets from the country’s weakest banks. The bad bank has also finalised agreements with participating banks to manage the transfer of assets.

Cleanup “Advance Stage” Nonsense from IMF

To suggest the cleanup of undercapitalized banks is in an “advance stage” is complete nonsense. It only makes partial sense if there is a zero percent probability of haircuts on Spanish sovereign debt.

I suggest the probability of haircuts on Spanish government bonds is far greater than 50%. And since Spanish banks are loaded to the gills with sovereign debt, the banks are severely undercapitalized by implication.

S&P…

From SurvivalBlog.com

Hi JWR,
Just a quick note regarding the posting of “One Year Food Supply at COSTCO”. Just in case Walt G. and others are not aware, that particular food storage system has no meat
In Costco’s THRIVE special, it’s all TVP. True, there is milk and egg protein, but if someone needs actual meat, there isn’t any–it is [soy-based] TVP (textured vegetable protein).
 
Take care, and thanks, Steve N. in Arizona

JWR Replies: There are other food storage packages on the market that do have real meat. And one alternative is to supplement with real canned meats (such as tuna, salmon, ham, and chicken), or retort packaged meats (such as smoked salmon fillets). These are available in case lots at COSTCO and other Big Box stores. I describe how to do an "11th Hour" food shopping trip at any of these stores in the Rawles Gets You Ready Preparedness Course.