Gear Review S.O. Tech Mission Go Bag and Mission Bag Extended

S.O. Tech has 2 products I like, Go Bag Extended and Mission Go Bag. I was looking for something in the bailout bag arena. Something to basically get me home should a sudden disaster occur. Something I could easily stash in my truck that was much smaller than a standard bug out bag. I think these fit the bill. these certainly aren't cheap items...but you get what you pay for.



The Go Bag Extended is perfect for compact carbines (broken down) with side pouches for spare mags, loops for attachments and larger pockets for other necessities.
In mine: AR-15, 6 spare mags, 2- G21 mags, IFAK, water container, water filtration, energy bars, weapons cleaning kit, Wiley goggles, RMJ Loggerhead, shemagh, survival tin fishing kit.


The Mission Go Bag is similar to a messenger bag, but with plenty of pockets inside....the problem is I tend to over stuff it.
Glock 21, 2 spare mags, 2-AR-15 mags, water, silver coinage, binos, notepad,multitool, knife sharpener, knife, flashlight, blowout kit, radiac meter, stripped MRE, gloves.

Just a little walk...

I was out on a little walk today, and thought OK let's do a little prepper thinking. What if....I needed to find food, start a fire etc. It's winter time and things are looking a bit bleak where I am hiking, what food is available quickly? I immediately went to my favorite place, the fallen tree.
With my trusty, always on me leatherman, I popped open the bark to find.


Food! Termites...though a bit intensive to collect, they are nutritious with high levels of protein and fat (badly needed in cold weather).

I decided to think a bit bigger. Looking on the ground I was surrounded with pine cones...ooo pine nuts!



Unfortunately these pine nuts had been on the ground a bit too long and had turned to mush. So I moved on and spotted a good sign.



The game trail was well used with some fresh sign from the night before by a raccoon.




The great thing about racoons, especially in Florida, is they are excellent scavangers. Find where a racoon has gone to eat and you can find some good eats (crabs, mussels, etc.). Raccoons themselves are also very good eating though they run a risk of carrying diseases (true of most wild animals).

Then I found the big sign..




Wild boar tracks which lead to a large wallow area. This gave me the indication of a good size group of wild pigs in the area. Setting up a dead fall or careful hunting position could produce a large amount of food in short order. So next time you are out on a walk...look around and see what food is available. Don't worry salad fans, I'll get to plants next.....

Life to imitate Art?....Will 'I am Legend' (the movie), come true?

I get worried when humans try to play 'God' and begin messing with DNA, much less anything else that has the potential to mutate into something quite deadly.

Regardless of which side of the embrionic stem cell research discussion, the fact remains that chaos rules and genetic anomalies can and do occur.

The MSM isn't covering this at all so the only site I could find the article on was an anti-stem cell research site (so read with a critical eye).

FDA OKs First Embryonic Stem Cell Research Trial on Humans, Despite Concerns
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The Obama administration has approved the bid by cloning company Geron to undertake the first trial involving the use of embryonic stem cells in humans. They have never been used before in people because the cells cause tumors and have been plagued by immune system rejection issues when tried in animals.

My worry is someone's body will create a mutation of some previously harmless virus or bacterium and result in something the human body's immune system cannot repel. Though realistically speaking...the human race is due for a population control event (PCE).

Why the President's Jobs Plan Won't Work

The President has proposed a new plan to get people back to work.

The problem is one tax on businesses is skyrocking, not due to the federal govt. perse (though they are the ones extending benefits), but due to states.

State unemployment taxes have skyrocketed. Here in Florida a 12 fold increase.

"The minimum tax will jump from $8.40 per employee to $100.30 — an almost 12-fold increase — next year while the maximum will go up from $378 per employee to $459, state officials said Wednesday."

33 other states plan to hike these taxes a minimum of 3x the present rate. HI has a 500% increase coming.

This means we have gone past the tipping point. The action by the govt. will be too little too late.

Why the unemployment numbers went down...

The number of people in the workforce shrank by 291,000.


How this impacts the numbers is explained by the genius at Political Math:

Let’s say we have 20 people in the workforce and 2 of them fit the technical definition for unemployed, which means that they’re actively looking for work. That gives us an unemployment rate of 10%.

Now, let’s say one of the unemployed people got tired of being unemployed and decided to go back to school. She has now removed herself from the labor force, so we don’t count her when we count unemployed people. Let’s also say that one of the employed people lost his job and instead of looking for a new one, he decided to simply retire.

As you can see we haven’t added any jobs… in fact we have fewer jobs than we did before. But we took a higher percentage of people out of the “unemployed” group than we did out of the “employed” group. It’s now 1 person unemployed and 17 people employed. We’ve “slashed” the unemployment rate to 5.5%.

Monthly Rotation and checklist.

Don't forget it is rotation and check list week.


Tips this month:
Every six months it's a good idea to inspect and taste your water supply or even change it out. Even reaching into the barrel (or what ever you use and feel the sides for signs of algae/slime. Inspect any lids rubber gaskets etc..

Don't forget to inspect the gear and items in your personal carry bag. I discovered damage to my water purifier filter screen and the container carrying my silver had been crushed...both were in the bottom. I will have to rearrange their placement.

Economic Tsunami Alert

Economist Max Keiser who predicted the default in Dubai back in January has a really ugly take on the world economy.

Jobs saved?...

The White House has claimed it saved or created 1 million new jobs since enacting the stimulus since Feb. 2009. I'm very dubious about that number, but let's give them a benefit of the doubt for a minute. Let's say 1/3 of the stimulus money ($787 Billion) has been spent so far (though I think it's closer to half). Thats ~$262,000,000,000... divided by 1,000,000 equals ~$262,000 per job. The average yearly wage in the US is ~$41,000.....yikes! A difference of $221,000. I guess the jobs that were saved were the bankers and government officials that got us into this mess since those are the only wages in that upper bracket.

Year to date total jobs lost 24,496,541!!!!!!!!!!


Stats put together by this smart guy on WSJ MW

Year to date total unemployment numbers (non-seasonally adjusted):

2009 2008 2007 2006 2005

YTD Totals .. 24,496,541.. 16,132,767.. 13,333,451.. 12,940,565.. 13,978,938


July Totals.. 2,349,590.. 1,673,184.. 1,359,167.. 1,388,991.. 1,424,282

Aug Totals.. 2,321,221.. 1,803,676.. 1,318,189.. 1,295,295.. 1,292,461
Sep Totals.. 1,761,830.. 1,509,567.. 1,010,571.. 1,028,202.. 1,212,639
Oct Totals.. 1,914,499.. 1,746,354.. 1,215,868.. 1,120,169.. 1,301,831



Weekly totals:
The REAL numbers - don't mess around with phony seasonal adjustments as the economy is not following historical patterns - this week WELL up:

W/Ending … 2009 … 2008 … 2007 … 2006 … 2005
1/3/2009 … 731,958 … 521,311 … 499,979 … 475,889 … 540,927
1/10/2009 … 959,791 … 547,506 … 506,059 … 555,114 … 693,776
1/17/2009 … 763,987 … 415,149 … 506,709 … 439,873 … 467,862
1/24/2009 … 620,143 … 369,944 … 367,583 … 317,926 … 360,583
1/31/2009 … 682,176 … 380,138 … 359,959 … 318,805 … 364,704
2/7/2009 … 710,152 … 377,457 … 339,018 … 321,527 … 347,391
2/14/2009 … 619,951 … 325,754 … 363,018 … 310,078 … 309,290
2/21/2009 … 605,668 … 329,925 … 305,945 … 269,571 … 303,814
2/28/2009 … 645,827 … 345,165 … 299,000 … 272,478 … 290,776
3/7/2009 … 652,636 … 341,685 … 320,194 … 301,867 … 332,067
3/14/2009 … 601,193 … 335,917 … 298,927 … 294,764 … 307,061
3/21/2009 … 590,067 … 316,598 … 277,187 … 269,237 … 290,719
3/28/2009 … 599,299 … 341,846 … 273,432 … 265,370 … 291,378
4/4/2009 … 623,630 … 357,206 … 268,218 … 253,985 … 294,994
4/11/2009 … 610,522 … 370,949 … 328,266 … 314,696 … 339,709
4/18/2009 … 596,564 … 328,346 … 317,917 … 268,472 … 285,657
4/25/2009 … 580,377 … 337,858 … 303,984 … 291,349 … 299,891
5/2/2009 … 537,539 … 335,547 … 267,672 … 279,715 … 290,824
5/9/2009 … 570,412 … 325,480 … 274,801 … 317,239 … 297,347
5/16/2009 … 540,925 … 319,694 … 258,516 … 288,972 … 275,524
5/23/2009 … 538,268 … 326,518 … 270,446 … 277,168 … 276,761
5/30/2009 … 500,383 … 300,989 … 273,397 … 292,714 … 304,306
6/6/2009 … 581,080 … 373,046 … 263,527 … 260,263 … 289,914
6/13/2009 … 558,407 … 349,255 … 302,368 … 285,892 … 315,938
6/20/2009 … 568,552 … 358,159 … 290,951 … 277,441 … 289,831
6/27/2009 … 559,894 … 368,544 … 292,583 … 287,503 … 286,681
7/4/2009 … 581,145 … 401,672 … 300,348 … 304,638 … 327,268
7/11/2009 … 671,242 … 483,981 … 417,554 … 418,363 … 427,323
7/18/2009 … 585,575 … 411,408 … 383,839 … 377,115 … 374,665
7/25/2009 … 511,628 … 376,123 … 257,426 … 288,875 … 295,026
8/1/2009 … 466,695 … 382,792 … 270,563 … 259,974 … 261,906
8/8/2009 … 482,590 … 373,858 … 266,420 … 275,430 … 269,746
8/15/2009 … 457,985 … 343,169 … 257,573 … 256,259 … 257,151
8/22/2009 … 457,269 … 345,127 … 266,179 … 252,357 … 252,016
8/29/2009 … 456,682 … 358,730 … 257,454 … 251,275 … 251,642
9/5/2009 … 466,277 … 336,733 … 245,526 … 259,539 … 271,613
9/12/2009 … 411,126 … 382,249 … 261,971 … 240,231 … 322,387
9/19/2009 … 437,543 … 398,070 … 247,643 … 267,036 … 326,204
9/26/2009 … 445,618 … 392,515 … 255,431 … 261,396 … 292,435
10/3/2009 … 451,883 … 426,789 … 298,317 … 249,288 … 313,847
10/10/2009 … 509,730 … 454,065 … 306,519 … 307,646 … 380,093
10/17/2009 … 460,430 … 416,111 … 307,675 … 271,863 … 303,158
10/24/2009 … 492,456 … 449,389 … 303,357 … 291,372 … 304,733




Just some food for thought on GDP:

2007 GDP = $13.644 trillion, fed spends = $2.729 trillion, or 20.0%
2008 GDP = $14.546 trillion, fed spends = $2.983 trillion, or 20.5%
2009 GDP = $14.301 trillion, fed spends = $3.548 trillion, or 25.1%
2010 GDP = $14.546 trillion, fed spends = $3.766 trillion, or 25.9% if the economy gets back to 2008 - it won't.

Get out!

I apologize in advance I'm cross posting this on my 3 blogs...it's just too important. Please note this is just my opinion, and I'm not an investment professional.

For months the government, investment guru's etc. have been claiming the economy is recovering.....I call Bullsh!t! The economy is going into convulsions.... unemployment is at 17-20%, insiders (CEO, directors etc.) are selling off their assets, and banks are continuing to fail. Even the ISM (Institute for Supply Management) tried to paint a rosey picture with a positive statement:

(Tempe, Arizona) — Economic activity in the manufacturing sector expanded in September for the second consecutive month, and the overall economy grew for the fifth consecutive month, say the nation's supply executives in the latest Manufacturing ISM Report On Business®.

But the important numbers PMI, Production, New Orders and Employment all showed multi-monthly CONTRACTION. If these areas are contracting...where is the recovery?
Foreclosures and Credit Card defaults continue to record levels.

A great explanation of the Employment numbers and how the government lies about the numbers without actually lying is explained HERE.

Ok so I have painted a bleak picture, but I'm not the only one.
What to do?
If you aren't moving from the market to cash, silver, maybe a bit of gold (those little 10th ounce peices are easy to lose), and barter items you are going to be hating life come 2010 (or sooner). Since we are into fall and heading for winter, many are already making like a squirrel and stocking up. I recommend if possible, to double down on this mentality.

The economy is getting better?..BDI continues to fall. Update

Update: Bureau of Labor statistics are caught fudging their own data!

Here is that last piece of data, over the previous three months:
-June 39 states down, 10 states up (1 unchanged)
-July 29 states down, 21 states up
-August 42 states down, 8 states up
Already, we can see a huge discrepancy in the numbers. While both sets of data, show huge, fictional improvements between June and July, the state-by-state data shows a reversal for August – with the labour market obviously deteriorating dramatically based upon their own measurements. However, this didn't stop the BLS from refuting its own data to report an improvement between July and August, when it released its aggregate number.

Economists continue with their upbeat predictions yet I don't see it. Everyone is happy that 'only' 530,000 people filed NEW unemployment claims.....thats over half a million people...how is that positive?
Another indicator I watch is the Baltic Dry Index. It is still plummeting which means manufactured goods aren't shipping, because companies and thus people aren't buying.

Chart from investment tools