Gerald Celente on what to do in a crisis

Eric King interviews Gerald Celente of the Trends Research Institute:

Part 1:




Part 2:




Part 3:




Mr. Celente states that he only has about a three week supply of food stored, which is probably more than the average (or even most) New York City dweller. I disagree, however, that a three week food supply is anywhere near adequate. Of course, Mr. Celente's stated plan is to leave the country in the event of a larger crisis -- most folks won't have that option. Still, that plan assumes that you will be able to leave the country, which may or may not be a viable option, depending on the crisis.

[Via LewRockwell.com]

Cold water shock survival

From Cottage Life, comes this article on the effects of cold water immersion on the body:

The lake’s November chill arches my back, pries my mouth open, forces my eyes wide until, overhead, I see the pewter sky through a cloud of bubbles. A second ago, I was up there, on the dock. Now I’m below the surface, flailing in liquid that feels as thick as gelatin, surprised by the water filling my mouth. A small voice, distant and oddly detached, muses: Am I going to drown?

The answer comes a second later, when my PFD delivers me, spluttering and gasping, back to the surface. Thank God, I think, still troubled by the underwater voice. Now I’ve got to last another 10 minutes, in a lake that’s nearly ice-water cold...

What is cold water shock?

A sledgehammer blow that can cause drowning, trigger heart failure, or chill victims so rapidly they’re unable to swim, hang on to a rope, or pull themselves to safety.

Cold water has been claiming lives as long as we’ve ventured near it, but it’s only during the past few decades that scientists have solved an ancient mystery: Why does cold water kill so quickly? How do strong swimmers succumb in seconds or minutes—long before hypothermia can set in?

The answer is the “huge, huge shock to the system” that comes with sudden, unexpected immersion in cold water, says Stephen Cheung, holder of the Canada Research Chair for Environmental Ergonomics. Known around St. Catharines’ Brock University as Dr. Freeze, Cheung is his own lab rat, dunking himself in chilled water while wearing nothing more than swim trunks. “People worry about falling in cold water and dying from hypothermia, but with cold shock, you’re not in the water long enough for that,” he says. “You die from drowning.”

So that’s why I’m a sodden and chilled guinea pig in Lake Muskoka. To help Cottage Life’s readers understand the threat that lurks off their docks and beneath their boats, my editor (in his warm, dry office) says, “We want show, not tell.” ...

Read the whole thing here. The article notes this important point about treating the cold water victim once he or she is out of the water:

The danger's not over once you're out

In one of the Second World War’s cruel medical mysteries, severely chilled sailors and airmen would routinely collapse and die after being plucked from the sea. Only after the war did researchers discover the victims were being killed with kindness. As rescuers tried to warm their charges, urging them to get up, sitting them next to the stove, plying them with soup or tea, they shifted cold blood from the extremities to the body’s core, chilling the heart, triggering a dramatic fall in blood pressure, and bringing on heart failure.

Anyone exposed to prolonged cold, or suffering from hypothermia, needs to be warmed slowly, under medical supervision. If paramedics aren’t yet on the scene, lay the victim in a plastic sheet and a blanket or sleeping bag, bundled up, and let shivering do the warming.

I spent almost as long lying on the dock in a sleeping bag as I did in the lake, but after eight minutes or so I was able to shuffle to the dive team’s heated truck and change into dry clothes. In another hour, with a couple of cups of coffee, I was over the immediate chill. By the next morning, after a good night’s sleep, I felt close to my pre-immersion self. [emphasis added]...

Urban survival

Fox News recently did a segment on urban survivalists:



Note the (mostly) lack of discussion of the importance of weapons until the very end, until Hannity brings it up. Weapons and the knowledge and will to use them are an integral part of survival, urban or otherwise. Certainly only a part, but an essential part nevertheless.

Note also the typical clueless reporter, who herself is admittedly unprepared, even apparently on a very basic level. Hopefully she and others will at least start the process of basic preparedness. Otherwise, when a large-scale emergency strikes, these sheep-like folks will become lambs for the slaughter, unable to take care of themselves or provide even the most basic necessities for their own survival. No doubt with lots of plaintive bleating for others to help them.

Surge in "Suburban Survivalists"

From AP, via Yahoo News:

SAN DIEGO – Six months ago, Jim Wiseman didn't even have a spare nutrition bar in his kitchen cabinet.

Now, the 54-year-old businessman and father of five has a backup generator, a water filter, a grain mill and a 4-foot-tall pile of emergency food tucked in his home in the expensive San Diego suburb of La Jolla.

Wiseman isn't alone. Emergency supply retailers and military surplus stores nationwide have seen business boom in the past few months as an increasing number of Americans spooked by the economy rush to stock up on gear that was once the domain of hardcore survivalists.

These people snapping up everything from water purification tablets to thermal blankets shatter the survivalist stereotype: they are mostly urban professionals with mortgages, SUVs, solid jobs and a twinge of embarrassment about their newfound hobby.

From teachers to real estate agents, these budding emergency gurus say the dismal economy has made them prepare for financial collapse as if it were an oncoming Category 5 hurricane. They worry about rampant inflation, runs on banks, bare grocery shelves and widespread power failures that could make taps run dry. ...

More here. I wouldn't describe what the folks in the article are doing as a "hobby". What they're doing is probably no more a "hobby" for them than stocking up for a hurricane or natural disaster is a hobby. Rather, these folks have a desire to prepare for what they see as the potential consequences of further and more severe economic turmoil.

Personally, I don't talk about my emergency preparations to newspaper reporters. Or other strangers. But that's just me.

Swine Flu outbreak hits Mexico, parts of Texas and California

From Bloomberg, on the outbreak of swine flu in Mexico and Texas:

April 25 (Bloomberg) -- The World Health Organization is set to declare the deadly swine flu virus outbreak in Mexico and the U.S. a global concern, potentially prompting travel restrictions, said a person familiar with the matter.

An emergency committee of the WHO in Geneva will declare the outbreak “a public health event of international concern” in a 4 p.m. teleconference today, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting is confidential. In response, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan may raise the level of pandemic alert, which could lead to travel restrictions aimed at curbing the disease’s spread.
...
Mexico’s Social Security Institute shut all of the theaters and cultural centers it operates nationwide to avoid spreading the flu strain -- reminiscent of actions implemented during the 2003 SARS outbreak in Asia. Travel curbs imposed there damaged economies throughout the region, where that virus circulated most widely.

In Singapore, where 33 infected people died, gross domestic product shrank 11.4 percent in the second quarter of 2003 because of the severe acute respiratory syndrome.
...
Teams of disease investigators have been sent to California and Texas to trace how the malady has spread, and the U.S. offered to send scientists to Mexico, said the CDC’s Besser. U.S. hospitals are being asked to collect samples from patients with flu-like symptoms, said Schaffner, chief of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt, in a telephone interview yesterday.

‘Sense of Urgency’

“They are asking us who work in hospitals to go to our emergency rooms and our pediatric wards to gather specimens and start testing them,” Schaffner said. “This has a sense of urgency about it.”

Mexico’s government has closed schools, museums, movie theaters and libraries in Mexico City and surrounding areas until further notice, according to an e-mail from the National Arts and Culture Council. It’s also handing out free facemasks and extending the deadline for filing taxes until May 31, Cordova said. A million doses of antiviral medicine are available for distribution, he said. [emphasis added] ...

Article here. Needless to say, a widespread outbreak would have serious public health consequences, including loss of life (particularly among young children, the elderly, and those with compromised immune systems), as well as the potential for severe economic disruption. As the article notes, Singapore's GDP dropped 11.4% in the second quarter of 2003 due to the SARS epidemic.

As a general preparedness matter, having a personal stock of facemasks and gloves is something to consider, if you haven't already done so. Because if a serious flu outbreak ever hits your area, those items will become extremely scarce and possibly unobtainable, almost immediately. Plus, the masks and gloves (I like the nitrile ones) are sometimes useful around the house, e.g., when cleaning, etc. Besides, if a pandemic hits, who wouldn't want to be seen in public wearing those signature pandemic fashion accessories: a stylish N95 facemask and ultrahip purple nitrile gloves. :)

Perspective: Argentina's economic collapse

Here are a couple of "food for thought" articles on dealing with major economic disruptions and their aftermath. The posts deal with life in Argentina, once the richest and most prosperous nation in South America, after that nation's 2001/2002 economic collapse.

From the Washington Post, August 2002: Despair in Once-Proud Argentina

The desolation of that day, neighbor vs. neighbor over hunks of meat, suggested how profoundly the collapse has altered Argentina. Traditionally proud, Argentines have begun to despair. Talk today is of vanished dignity, of a nation diminished in ways not previously imaginable.

Argentines have a legacy of chaos and division. In search of their "workers' paradise," Juan and Eva Peron declared war on the rich. During the "dirty war" of the 1970s, military rulers arrested tens of thousands of people, 15,000 of whom never resurfaced. And when then-President Carlos Menem touted New Capitalism in the 1990s, the rich got richer -- many illegally -- while the poor got poorer.

Yet some things here never really changed. Until last year, Argentines were part of the richest, best-educated and most cultured nation in Latin America. Luciano Pavarotti still performed at the Teatro Colon. Buenos Aires cafe society thrived, with intellectuals debating passages from Jorge Luis Borges over croissants and espresso. The poor here lived with more dignity than their equals anywhere else in the region. Argentina was, as the Argentines liked to say, very civilized.

Not anymore.

Argentines have watched, horrified, as the meltdown dissolved more than their pocketbooks. Even the rich have been affected in their own way. The tragedy has struck hardest, however, among the middle class, the urban poor and the dirt farmers. Their parts of this once-proud society appear to have collapsed -- a cave-in so complete as to leave Argentines inhabiting a barely recognizable landscape.

Worth a read, if only to see what economic collapse has wrought on what was once South America's wealthiest nation.

~~~

Here are a couple of videos, parts 1 and 2 from a series of 12 on the 2001 Argentine economic collapse:





The rest of the series can be viewed on YouTube (search for "Argentina economic collapse") if you're interested.

~~~

Another article, author unknown: What an Economic Collapse Looks Like: How to be a survivalist in an economic decline

Here's a blog, Surviving in Argentina, purportedly written by someone currently living there. The author's posts do have a ring of authenticity to them, so I am inclined to give his views weight as to the situation in Argentina. Read a couple of his posts (excuse the occasional incorrect grammar -- his English is far better than my Spanish, for sure!) here, here, and here.

~~~

Back around 2003 or so I did some defensive firearms training, and one of the students was a fellow from Argentina, who painted a pretty bleak picture of the Argentinean economy and the adverse effects on the entire social structure, at all levels. He talked about the rising crime in his country, and the importance of having defensive tools and the skills to use them. You could tell he thought the stuff he was learning would have real-world application when he got back home to Argentina.

As we here in the US embark on an era of potentially multi-trillion (that's trillion with a "T") dollar deficits, with a total public debt already in the $10.6 trillion dollar range ($6.3 trillion in debt held by the public, and $4.3 trillion in intragovernmental holdings, as of Jan 15th, 2009), the possibility of once unthinkable economic collapse begins to seem less remote, and more than idle speculation to more and more Americans. And this in America, a nation whose poor are the envy of some nations' upper middle classes. The social dislocation of such a collapse, should it occur, would likely be great indeed, in part because so many Americans are woefully unprepared for even modest (by comparison) and localized events, such as floods, hurricanes, and the like.

Hedge fund managers bullish on gold, guns, and survival gear

From an article in New York Magazine:

During the final months of 2008, as the financial markets imploded, talk on trading desks turned to food and water stockpiles, generators, guns, and high-speed inflatable boats. “The system really was about six hours from failing,” says Gene Lange, a manager at a midtown hedge fund, referring to the week in September when Lehman went bust and AIG had to be bailed out. “When you think about how close we were to the precipice, I don’t think it necessarily makes a guy crazy to prepare for the potential worst-case scenario.”

Preparations, in Lange’s case, include a storeroom in his basement in New Jersey stacked high with enough food, water, diapers, and other necessities to last his family six months; a biometric safe to hold his guns; and a 1985 ex-military Chevy K5 Blazer that runs on diesel and is currently being retrofitted for off-road travel. He has also entertained the idea of putting an inflatable speedboat in a storage unit on the West Side, so he could get off the island quickly, and is currently considering purchasing a remote farm where he could hunker down. “If there’s a financial-system breakdown, it could take a year to reset the system, and in that time, what’s going to happen?” asks Lange. If New York turns into a scene out of I Am Legend, he wants to be ready.

He’s not the only one. In his book Wealth, War, published last year, former Morgan Stanley chief global strategist Barton Biggs advised people to prepare for the possibility of a total breakdown of civil society. A senior analyst whose reports are read at hedge funds all over the city wrote just before Christmas that some of his clients are “so bearish they’ve purchased firearms and safes and are stocking their pantries with soups and canned foods.” ...

Article here.

Survival skills

Interesting article in National Geographic on survival skills:

Long ago I believed that survival meant having a pack full of equipment that would allow me to make fire and build shelter and trap varmints to eat in the wilderness. But then I kept coming across cases in which someone had survived without any equipment or had perished while in possession of all the right tools. Obviously something else was at work here. After more than three decades of analyzing who lives, who dies, and why, I realized that character, emotion, personality, styles of thinking, and ways of viewing the world had more to do with how well people cope with adversity than any type of equipment or training. Although I still believe that equipment and training are good to have, most survival writing leaves out the essential human element in the equation. That’s why I’ve concentrated my efforts on learning about the hearts and minds of survivors. You can start developing these tools of survival now. It takes time and deliberate practice to change. But new research shows that if we adjust our everyday routines even slightly, we do indeed change. The chemical makeup of the brain even shifts. To make these lessons useful, you have to engage in learning long before you need it—it’s too late when you’re in the middle of a crisis. Presented here are 14 concepts that have proved helpful to survivors in extreme situations, as well as to people trying to meet the challenges of daily life.
...

Read the article here. The article highlights the importance of having the right "software" skills to solve the survival equation. Certainly, having the right hardware (tools) helps, but hardware, by itself, is insufficient.