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From Notes from the bunker…

I  bought some magazine pouches from Maxpedition for my HK mags and although they are listed as ‘double’ magazine pouches you can really only fit one HK mag in there. Trying to stack two in a pouch just ain’t gonna happen. Not really Max’s fault, HK mags are just damn bulky. Their double MP5 pouches, though, do indeed take two Uzi mags per pouch. I’ll wind up picking up another of the Maxpedition Active Shooter Bags and festoon it with a few of these pouches. Normally, I’m a fan of overkill but according to my math, the bag will accommodate three double-2mag pouches, and two single-2mag pouches for a total of 16 32-round mags or…wait for it….512 rounds of ammo. And that’s not even including the spare ammo and gear that gets carried in the bag itself. For the first time in my life, after reviewing the bag and ammo pouches, I said out loud to myself “Ok, that might be a bit much.” But, dammit, when you gotta run out the door with just whatever you can carry it’s hard to not want every stick of ammo you can grab….at least, until you have to carry it any significant distance.

When I put a similar bag together for the PTR, that was easier because each pouch only held one mag instead of two. As a result, the bag only has five mags on the exterior. A lighter package, overall. It…

Tam finishes the cleaning process and reseasons the pan. For a finale she fries an egg to test her work! Bushcraft On Fire – www.yhwhswordoffaith.com

Are you ready for the challenges of tomorrow’s world? The Survival Center has the things you need to weather the storm. Give the Survival Center a call at 1-800-321-2900 and tell them Alex sent ya.
Video Rating: 4 / 5

From Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis

Since mid-2010, precisely the time millions of US citizens used up all of their 99 week of unemployment insurance, disability claims have risen by 2.2 million. Those on disability are not counted in the workforce and are not considered unemployed.

Please consider Disabled Americans Shrink Size of U.S. Labor Force

The number of workers receiving Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) jumped 22 percent to 8.7 million in April from 7.1 million in December 2007, Social Security data show. That helps explain as much as one quarter of the decline in the U.S. labor-force participation rate during the period, according to economists at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley.

The participation rate — the share of working-age people holding a job or seeking one — was 63.8 percent in March after falling to a three-decade low of 63.7 percent in January. Disability recipients may account for as much as 0.5 percentage point of the more than 2 point drop since the end of 2007, the economists calculate, and that contribution could grow when some extended unemployment benefits expire at the end of this year.

“How we measure and understand what’s going on in the economy can be influenced by the degree to which various public- support programs are available and being used,” said Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan in New York. “With a rising number of disability beneficiaries, there are both lower unemployment rates and lower

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Reginald Kaigler’s video about my preparation for what I believe to be an inevitable economic disaster. I think the US economy is going to collapse, so I have begun storing food, water and ammo. I talk about the importance of preparing for an emergencies, constructing a survival bag and owning a gun. I chose a Glock 21 and a Mossberg 500. This is not Armageddon or doomsday. It’s just preparing for a rainy day. I answer all of your bug out questions here. demcad.blogspot.com
Video Rating: 4 / 5

From The Economic Collapse

In recent days, New York Times economist Paul Krugman has been doing a whole bunch of interviews in which he has declared that the solution to our economic problems is very easy.  Krugman says that all we need to do to get the global economy going again is for the governments of the world to start spending a lot more money.  Krugman believes that austerity is only going to cause the economies of the industrialized world to slow down even further and therefore he says that it is the wrong approach.  And you know what?  Krugman is partly right about all of this.  The false prosperity that the United States and Europe have been enjoying has been fueled by unprecedented amounts of debt, and in order to maintain that level of false prosperity we are going to need even larger amounts of debt.  But there are several reasons why Krugman is mostly wrong.  First of all, we have not seen any real “austerity” yet.  Even though there have been some significant spending cuts and tax increases over in Europe, the truth is that nearly every European government is still piling up more debt at a frightening pace.  Here in the United States, the federal government continues to spend more than a trillion dollars a year more than it brings in.  If the United States were to go to a…

From Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis

Those who still have not gotten the message that China’s expected growth rate of 7% is not going to happen are advised to consider the viewpoints of Nicholas Eberstadt who studies demographics for the American Enterprise Institute.

Bloomberg covers Eberstadt’s demographic projections in an interesting article on China’s Pending Population Crash

Today’s most important population trend is falling birthrates. The world’s total fertility rate — the number of children the average woman will bear over her lifetime — has dropped to 2.6 today from 4.9 in 1960. Half of the people in the world live in countries where the fertility rate is below what demographers reckon is the replacement level of 2.1, and are thus in shrinking societies.

As Eberstadt points out, we can make predictions about the next 20 years with reasonable accuracy. The U.S.’s traditional allies in western Europe and Japan will have less weight in the world. Already the median age in western Europe is higher than that of the U.S.’s oldest state: Florida. That median age is rising 1.5 days every week. Japan had only 40 percent as many births in 2007 as it had in 1947.

These countries will have smaller workforces, lower savings rates and higher government debt as a result of their aging. They will probably lose dynamism, as well.

All these effects will, in turn, almost certainly make these countries even less willing than they already are to spend money

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From SurvivalBlog.com

JWR,
More than a year ago,
I bought a PTR91 MSG clone of the HK91 for my primary SHTF rifle. I thought I’d pass on some information collected after about 3,000 rounds down range. 

Note that I have no economic or personal ties to PTR Inc.

PTR as a company was responsive when asking questions about what mil-spec parts could be replaced and what could not.  You’ll have to email them about your specific rifle though.

Robustness

• Almost day one, I chipped the barrel paint taking off the hand guard – be careful, slide the handguard forward at an angle, after removing the attachment screw.
• S/F indicators on the safety side paint started to fade out after about 1 year. Indents for the S and F are still there and fine.  Probably my chemicals for cleaning stripped off the paint. No impact with using the safety.
• If you live in a humid environment keep an eye on the flash suppressor and the trunnion pin.  Easy to rust. I clean after every use, apply lots of BreakFree CLP, use dehumidifiers and still I got spot rust there.
• Speaking of flash suppressor, mine came loose after the first week – had to Locktite it. There was no flash suppressor pin like on the original HK91/G3 rifles.
• Other than those cosmetic issues, the rifle has been very…

From ModernSurvivalOnline.com

Over the past few months I have been taking health and exercise much more seriously.  Sylvester Stallone wrote a fitness book several years ago and in it he made a statement – Once you hit age 40 it is decision time. After age 40 things can go downhill pretty fast.

I am 42.

In a survival situation good overall health could provide the edge needed. Many armchair preppers out there stock up on some extra food, have the shotgun in the closet, and have a backpack in the trunk and feel they are ready. Try putting that backpack on and carrying that shotgun and some ammo a few miles walking AND running.

It’s not easy.

For the past few decades I have participated in several martial arts and weightlifting on and off. I always figured I was in decent shape and if needed I could walk/run and do what was needed. I was wrong. Several months ago I decided at the age of 42 to take my health more serious and signed up to do Crossfit.

push ups…..lots of push ups

Crossfit is likely unlike anything you have ever done unless you actually have done it. It is sorta like P90X if you are familiar with it. Basically Crossfit is a strength and conditioning program which combines weightlifting, cardio, and gymnastics(exercises like push ups, sit ups, dips).

Crossfit is very intense and requires enormous effort. I quickly found out in my…

xxsurl.com Food Storage Made Easy Newsletter: October 2010 Food Storage Made Easy Newsletter: October 2010 We’ve heard ALL the excuses, in fact we USED them all ourselves! … Do these sound familiarb… I don’t even know WHAT FOOD STORAGE ISb I barely have time to cook dinner every night, how am I supposed to plan food for a year, and make sure I use itb It would be nice if I had a few extra thousand dollars, then I could just buy all my food storage at once I can’t spare any money in our already tight budget to buy EXTRA food I don’t even know what wheat looks like! Why would I go out and buy 300 lbs of itb Are you kidding meb I DO NOT have enough storage space for all that foodb How can I cook this food without a generatorb I. JUST. DON’T. GET. IT. Our complete ALL-IN-ONE program makes Food Storage EASY! With the Food Storage Made Easy Binder, you’ll finally know how to build your Food Storage. Download your copy today, and immediately start putting your binder together. The Binder will serve as a tool that helps you know WHAT to buy, know HOW MUCH to buy, and know how to actually USE your Food Storage. With over 100 pages of checklists, recipes, informative articles, – all organized and formatted nicely, you’ll find yourself EXCITED to start building your Food Storage. You’re basically…

From The Economic Collapse

The unemployment crisis in America is much worse than you are being told.  Did you know that there are 100 million working age Americans that do not get up in the morning and go to work?  No wonder why it seems like there are so many people that do not have jobs!  According to the federal government, there are 12.6 million working age Americans that are considered to be “officially” unemployed, but there are another 87.8 million working age Americans that are not working either.  The federal government considers those Americans to be “not in the labor force” so they are not included in the unemployment rate.  In fact, this is one of the key ways that the government manipulates the unemployment numbers.  The Obama administration would have us believe that the unemployment rate is going down and that that since the start of the last recession about as many Americans have left the labor force as we saw during the entire decades of the 1980s and 1990s combined.  Of course that is a bunch of nonsense, but that is what the Obama administration would have us believe.  The truth is that the percentage of working age Americans that are employed is just about the same right now as it was two years ago.  It was incredibly difficult to get a job back then and it is incredibly difficult…