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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

The Police, Preps and More Preps

Apparently, I'm not alone in the deep concerns I shared in "More Nannyism Comin' Your Way".   One of the big dogs - Karl Denninger over at Market Ticker had some similar feelings in his post from yesterday -
Finally, you [police departments] need to start respecting the unalienable rights of the citizens in this state and nation. This means cutting the crap with the so-called "permits" to exercise unalienable rights.


All of them.


We'll stand with you - we want to - but respect is a two-way street and it has to be earned. We, the peaceful citizens of this state and nation, are willing to work with you. But you have to both work with us and respect our rights.


That's the deal, and if you don't like it that's fine - we don't have to help you.
He noted the "us vs. them" mentality that seems to be infecting many police departments.  I hope that changes, as when TSHTF, the LEOs will want us law abiding citizens on their side.  You'd think.
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I love Mondays.  I work out of my home office getting caught up on paperwork, and calling people that have signed up for gun my classes (I require a personal interview with all students prior to the class).

Anyways, I also will typically put away some long-term food storage, usually via canning.   Mostly meat, but occasionally something else.

This week I just did some simple beans.  Two pounds of dry pintos (soaked over night), a cup of diced onions, cup of diced celery, maybe a teaspoon of salt and half that of black pepper.  A couple of bay leaves for good measure.

Cover with water and bring to a boil for 20-30 minutes.

I then added about a cup of chopped, uncooked ham into the bottom of each quart jar, and covered it with beans and boiling liquid to a half inch of the top.  90 minutes at 10 pounds pressure, and viola! 5 quarts of the best damned beans you've ever eaten.  Seriously.

One of the jars didn't seal, so they were part of dinner last night.  Along with two loaves of homemade bread that were made with NO recipe.  I noted here or somewhere else that making different kinds of bread by memory is one of the items on my Skills Development checklist.


I'm getting there!
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I recently downloaded, The Art of War, onto my Nook reader (I really love this thing).  Absolutely great book on developing strategic plans.

My intent is to absorb as much of this as possible, and apply it to my precious metals business.

We've got two competitors in our town, and a half-dozen or so in the general area.  Our business is growing, so far, beyond every benchmark we had established, but we all want to crush the guys in town (for a number of very good reasons I'm not going to go into).

One of the "pearls of wisdom" from early on in the book -
Hence the saying:  If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.  If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.  If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
I'm in the information gathering phase right now.

I'd guess that the strategic lessons could be applied elsewhere as well...
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Speaking of precious metals:  Is anyone who owns gold or silver freaking out over the latest drops in spot prices?

Not me.

The only way I'd be worried would be if I thought the dollar wasn't going to be demolished by the Federal Reserve and the US government policies.

They're not going to change, so I'm not worried.  Long-term trends, baby.  Long-term trends...
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Tunisia, Egypt and Lebanon are coming apart at the seams.

Russia takes a serious terrorist attack, killing 30+ at their largest airport in Moscow.

A bus was blown up in the Philippines (ya didn't hear about that one, did ya?).

Not surprisingly, the Government Scribes (the Main Stream Press) have wasted no time starting the propaganda campaign to give the TSA, et al, reason to further infringe on our rights.

I absolutely guarantee more invasive screening and other draconian laws are coming your way.
It will be very difficult to prevent all such attacks, Kean says. "We have a lot of places in this country where crowds gather," he says.
Well, we'll just have to put a stop to that, now, won't we?!  No more large gatherings, all in the name of security.

Sounds reasonable, no?
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Tip:  Do what you can to stay away from large crowds if you can possibly avoid them.  For a while, at least.  Lots of tension in the air.

People are so sensitized to the fear of a bombing that if a large firecracker were to go off at, say, a sporting event or the mall, I'd be more worried about being trampled to death than anything else.
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And when was the last time you went to the gun range?  Yeah, that's what I thought.

Get thee to the range, and practice your non-traditional stances and grips.  Weak-side and one-handed shooting.

Don't expect the bad guys to stand still while you carefully line up your sights.  Practice draw-and-shoot drills so that as soon as the gun is fully extended, you can pull the trigger, and you'll at least hit center-of-mass to slow the bastard down.

Shotgunners, when was the last time you shot your preferred home defense load?  From your weak side?  Get on it.

With all firearms, be sure you're leaning into the shot so your body is absorbing as much of the recoil as possible.  This will let you get subsequent shots on target much more quickly.  Important, especially if there are more than one bad guys "visiting".

For you non-lethal weapon folks, when was the last time you swapped out your pepper spray and changed the batteries in your stun gun?

OF COURSE you know to not throw away the old pepper spray, but to use it as a training tool to reinforce in your mind just how far the spray goes, and what kind of finger-hold you need to fire the thing, right?

Right?

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Copyright 2011 Bison Risk Management Associates. All rights reserved. Please note that in addition to owning Bison Risk Management, Chief Instructor is also a partner in a precious metals business. You are encouraged to repost this information so long as it is credited to Bison Risk Management Associates. www.BisonRMA.com

4 comments:

suek said...

"Speaking of precious metals: Is anyone who owns gold or silver freaking out over the latest drops in spot prices?"

A very long time ago, I bought the book "Heads you win, tails you win". It was on the dollar table, and it was a what the heck kind of thing.

Very good book on investing, although the numbers are totally out of whack today. His basic principle was that you should be buying a part of a company and looking for long term growth - not buying and selling on the market. He recommended that if that was your plan, take a trip to Vegas. You're just as likely to make money.

He recommended you invest in companies that were involved in something that you personally knew something about, so that you could evaluate what they did. He recommended that you learn about their management, and their managers, as well as their boards to see what drove their decisions. If you disagreed with their management, see the stock. (assumption is that disagreement means you think they're doing a poor management job) Watch the prices on the stock market, and if the stock drops and you - having done your research - don't see that the drop is a consequence of conditions that have changed, or of a change in management - then buy more of the stock.

I'd assume that buying PM would allow you to apply some of those same principles - even if slightly differently.

suek said...

Oops...

"see the stock" should be "sell the stock"

I think I bought "How to win at the race track" off the same table. It was a fun read as well. No longer applicable due to off track betting. You also had to spend _ginormous_ time at the track. But if you go for that kind of thing...! His basis was betting on the odds, not the horses. The whole book - once you got past the basic "the odds" thing was to learn how to eliminate the horses that were _not_ worth betting on, no matter _what_ the odds. He said people asked him "what if everybody uses your ideas" ... he said it didn't matter - the odds were the odds. No acceptable odds, don't bet. Oh yeah...and if you just want to feel good for picking the winning horse, bet on the favorite. Just don't expect to make any money.

Anonymous said...

Saw your blog after lunch and headed for the range. I go every week but might go twice this week. :-)
Wish I lived closer as I'd purchase PMs from you. Here we have a man walking around wearing a sandwich board with the price of gold on it. Does keep me up on the price of gold though. :-)
TJ

Chief Instructor said...

Sue, that books sounds like how Warren Buffet did/does his investing. Bascially, he buys companies who make things he uses and understands. Pretty sound reasoning.

I've been to the horse track exactly twice in my life. I know NOTHING about horses. One time, I took my wife-to-be and she cleaned up. She watched the horses in the paddock and if she saw one, uhm, leave something on the ground, she bet on that horse.

It worked incredibly well!

TJ, I absolutely love going to the range, and because of my business, I get to spend a ton of time there. Getting in a full hour at a time is rare for me, but I get a lot of 15 minute spurts!

Too funny about the sandwich board guy!