Here is one problem facing investors: during August and September, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose or fell by more than 1% on 29 days. By third quarter’s end, the Dow was down 12%, the largest quarterly percentage decline since the first quarter of 2009. This degree of volatility, which of course is great fodder for the media, can lead to knee-jerk decisions that send investment strategies off course. Read more here!
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Here are five of my favorite survival items. I would not want to be without any of the five. After initially wading through the 181-page Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, I began ramping up our already beefy personal survival program. The report recommends that the Department of Homeland Security should play a leading role in spreading knowledge of the nature of prudent preparations for EMP attack to mitigate its consequences. The physical consequences of a high altitude EMP attack on the United States, according to the report, would likely include the failure ofthe electric power grid and degradation of telecommunications systems, computers, and electronic components over large areas of the country. The country would almost certainly be engulfed in total chaos in a matter of days.
Take a few minutes and jot down a checklist of personal vulnerabilities. I don’t think you will like the look of your list. To downplay the threat of a massive infrastructure breakdown flies in the face of all I have read. It is time to get started on your full-scale family survival program. What is the downside of being prepared? As a helpful rule of thumb, I would target 1% of your liquid net worth to survival planning. If this sounds like big money to you, my guess is that you need to focus on your vulnerability a little more.
On that happy New Year’s note, here are five of my favorite survival items. You can add all to your survival program quickly and for light money.
(1) Fresh Water. If you find any, how do you easily transport the water home? The simple answer is with the Reliance Hydroller (bought mine through Amazon)
(2) Preserving Water. Water Preserver Concentrate is registered by federal and state EPA (also ordered at Amazon)
(3) Self Defense. You don’t want to be without a shotgun (I have Mossbergs), and low-recoil ammo is a must. I buy Federal low recoil 00 buck online from Cabela’s.
(4) Morning Joe. If you need your daily coffee jolt, you will soon have the shakes if you cannot fire up your electric coffee pot. Deb and I own a number of French presses. Water from your well, for example, can be boiled on a Webber or Green Egg. We love our French press.
(5) Personal Protection. Now for the piece de resistance, the Travel Wrench. Yup, it looks like a plastic bike wrench and is clearly labeled Travel Wrench, but the TW is a first rate self-defense weapon. Mine is always in my side pocket. A single, well-aimed crack with the TW and a problematic attacker is out of the game (Check out the Travel Wrench here). Once again I bought these through my Amazon one click shopping account.
There you have it—five cheap-to-buy, easy-to-use and easy-to-order survival preparation must haves. Make a New Year’s resolution to get yourself on track with survival preparation. I am going to greatly expand on this theme in my monthly financial/personal security reports. You will be able to click here often and download my most recent updates. Coming to you soon: my next five survival favorites. You will want all! So Happy New Year to you all. Make it a good one.
Your credit score gives you a pretty good idea about your money habits. Cities and towns get scored by Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s, or Fitch. All three completely missed the real-estate crash. So tell me again, how are we supposed to believe their ratings? The agencies’ lack of credibility makes it even more important that Rhode Islanders, and all Americans, understand their own town’s finances. That’s why a customized map of Rhode Island Pensions–the RIP Map—was in order.
In the Finance section of the profiles of the 39 cities in Rhode Island on the RIP Map, you’ll find a ratio of liabilities calculated by adding debt to pension liabilities and dividing by receipts. The higher the ratio, the less capable a town is of paying its obligations. While the colors on the map reflect the troubling pension situation for the towns of Rhode Island, the (Pension+Debt)/Receipts ratio gives you a broader perspective. For example, you can see that Newport is orange on the map, but so is Scituate. But Newport’s (Pension+Debt)/Receipts ratio is a whopping 324%, while Scituate’s is a still substantial—but not nearly as terrifying—136%. The RIP Map gives you a clear view of how troubled the state’s municipalities really are.
If you live in Rhode Island, take a look at your city/town on the map. If your real estate and/or local taxes are already high and your town is facing a mountain of pension debt, isn’t it time to ask why? One key metric for assessing a town’s deterioration is its population growth over the last 10 years. Fewer people means lower real-estate assessments means higher taxes. It’s a simple business equation.
You can go to the RIP Map and look up your mayor or your town’s equivalent. The contact info is there. Ask them why your town’s finances aren’t what they ought to be. Ask for reasons why. If they don’t know, they should. But since you’re armed with the information on the RIP Map, you can’t simply be pushed off to the side. Intimidation won’t work. It’s time politicians in Rhode Island listen to how bad the numbers really are. And it’s time they do something about it.
The results of the Iowa caucus highlight the traditional split within the GOP. With establishment GOPers voting for Romney, libertarians voting for Paul and conservative Christians voting for Santorum. Each is walking away from Iowa with 7 delegates, leaving the race no closer to being decided than before.
The final 2012 Iowa GOP caucus results (according to CNN) are below.
“Contrary to Hollywood’s ideas, today’s spy satellites that orbit the Earth at fast speeds and relatively lower altitudes can only snap photos for the U.S. military and intelligence agencies. Taking live video of a single location would require satellites to hover by matching the Earth’s rotation in geosynchronous orbit about 22,000 miles (36,000 kilometers) high — but creating and launching a space telescope with the huge optics arrays capable of seeing ground details from such high orbit has proven difficult.
If all goes well, U.S. military commanders and intelligence agents may someday get live streaming video and up-to-date images of battlefields or trouble spots around the world. Such capability could complement the swarms of cheap drones providing battlefield surveillance today, and might even spare the U.S. embarrassment from losing spy drones over Iran or other countries.” -Innovation News Daily
To meet national security requirements around the world, it would be optimal to have real-time images and video of any place on earth at any time—a capability that doesn’t currently exist. Today, aircraft are used for some imagery requirements. Because of the huge quantity of aircraft needed, and because aircraft do not fly high enough to see into denied territories, spacecraft are also used for imagery requirements.
Spacecraft, however, face different challenges in providing persistent coverage. The size (aperture) of the optics needed, and the limitations of producing and launching extremely large precision glass optics means it is infeasible to place such a system in geosynchronous earth orbit (GEO), approximately 36,000 kilometers high, where it could provide persistent coverage.
MOIRE is a GEO-based system that uses a lightweight membrane optic etched with a diffractive pattern. The diffractive pattern is used to focus light on a sensor. The MOIRE program seeks to enable the technologies required for these very large optics for space platforms. The program aims to demonstrate the manufacturability of large membranes (up to 20 meters), large structures to hold the optics flat, and also demonstrate the secondary optical elements needed to turn a diffraction-based optic into a wide bandwidth imaging device.
The war drums are beating over Iran’s recent threat to close the Strait of Hormuz. There has been plenty of speculation in the media about whether or not Iran could even do it.The answer, according to Sabahat Khan, an analyst at the Institute for Near East & Gulf Military Analysis (INEGMA), is that Iran is more than capable of closing the strait, but that it might not be able to do so for a long period of time.
Khan wrote in 2010 that Iran could block the strait with a minimum of 300 mines, and that the Islamic Republic owns between 2,000 to 5,000 mines according to various estimates. Marine mines are an inexpensive way for Iran to gain control of the strait. Khan writes that a $1,500 Iranian mine caused the USS Samuel B. Roberts $96 million worth of damage at the end of the Tanker War. That’s a great return on cheap technology for Iran.
Iran would need a minimum three hour uninterrupted block of time to mine the strait. Khan believes Iran would lay the mines using submarines. Stopping these subs from deploying mines would be a critical part of any attempt to keep the strait clear. Khan writes that clearing mines can take up to 200 times as long as laying them. But he goes on to say that critical shipping lanes could be opened in weeks.
Free passage through the strait is vital for the world economy, which is dependent on the 17 million barrels of oil that exit it every day. That’s around 35% of the world’s seaborne oil trade. Khan writes that 90% of the Arab Gulf States’ oil exports cross the strait. Iraq and Saudi Arabia could ease the pain caused by a Persian Gulf blockage by utilizing idled pipeline capacity running to the Mediterranean Sea and Turkey. For the smaller Gulf States, the pain would be more severe. The UAE is the world’s third largest oil exporter, with Kuwait fifth and Qatar fifteenth. Neither these countries, nor the world, can afford a stoppage of oil exports from the Persian Gulf.
So what is the solution Iranian aggression in the Strait of Hormuz? Lieutenant Commander Colin Karl Boynton wrote about the possible scenario for the Naval War College in 2009. LCDR Boynton said that the Strait of Hormuz is ideal for the type of sea denial operations Iran is contemplating, and that the U.S. Navy would be best served by not allowing its blue water ships to be caught in the shallows and narrows of the Strait area. Recently the USS John C. Stennis steamed out of the Persian Gulf to deeper waters. Coincidence? Doubtful.
Iran would love nothing more than to draw the U.S. fleet into the Strait of Hormuz in order to whack away at American power with anti-ship missiles from land, and its fleet of thousands of fast-boats deployed at island bases throughout the Persian Gulf. As you can see on the accompanying map, Iran has amassed its military assets around the Strait of Hormuz chokepoint. LCDR Boynton writes that the American forces should remember the military maxim, “never fight how your opponent wants you to fight.”
The biggest question regarding an Iranian closure of the strait is, why do it at all. According to Khan, 87% of Iran’s imports and 99% of its exports are seaborne. LCDR Boynton points out that 40% of Iran’s daily gasoline needs are imported through the strait. If the strait were closed, Iran’s economy would likely come to a grinding halt. And with it, the country’s ability to wage the war resulting from its actions. The better bet on Iran’s motivation is that Iranian leadership is bluffing up the price of oil to counter international sanctions that have done serious damage to the regime. The resulting profits from high oil prices are more likely to be used for the continued suppression of Iran’s population than on fighting a war with the U.S. and the Gulf States.
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