Where Are You And Your Family Safe? And Where Should You Fear?

Published: Fri, 02/01/13

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In This Issue:

Where Are You And Your Family Safe? And Where Should You Fear? By Richard C. Young
What’s in Your 401(k)? By E.J. Smith
Rahm’s Next Bailout: This One’s Going to Hurt The Editors
SelectaDNA High Velocity DNA Tagging System The Editors
Honey, I Shrunk The Economy By Steve Schneider
Add a 128GB iPad Survival Kit to Your Bug-Out-Bag The Editors

Young Investments Client Letter: Sign up to get the letter mailed directly to you by clicking here .
New January Client Letter: Beware Investing Beer Muscles
We are seeing early signs of investors taking on more risk in equities than they can most likely afford. This tends to happen during periods of extended stock market appreciation. During bull markets, investors’ beer muscles come out; but as soon as the next bear market hits, the buzz wears off and nausea sets in. Getting more aggressive in the midst of an extended bull market can lead to undesired and unpleasant results. Read about the strategies we’re employing for our clients by clicking here

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Where Are You And Your Family Safe? And Where Should You Fear?

Small business owners around the country ask me one question as often as any I hear. They want to know where to relocate away from crime, away from high taxes, and away from union pressures.

If violent crime is your biggest concern, you cannot flee the District of Columbia fast enough. The violent crime rate in D.C. is 10 times that of some of my safe haven states like Maine and Vermont. And the D.C. violent crime rate is five times that of safe havens like New Hampshire, Utah and, yes, Virginia (but the safety is in southern Virginia). Illinois is high on my flight list. It is the only state that denies concealed permits to residents. California is also weak on the concealed weapons front. And the onerous new gun laws in New York, along with brutal taxes, a toxic political environment, and lack of castle doctrine protection and right to work status, put New York, as well as similarly positioned California, at the pinnacle of my Can’t Leave Fast Enough list.

Is there a single best move any American can make to provide protection for family and associates? Take the NRA handgun safety course leading to a concealed weapons permit. A few years ago, Debbie and I took the excellent NRA handgun safety course (the NRA’s prime educational tool for Americans), and now we both have a Florida concealed weapon’s license.

John R. Lott, Jr. writes in More Guns Less Crime that the total number of deaths and injuries from mass public shootings falls to a rate reaching zero five years after a nondiscretionary concealed-handgun law is implemented by a state (Lott’s study looks at specific data from the 10 states that changed their laws during the 1977-1992 period.).

As I write, I am studying the summary of the proposed Assault Weapons Ban of 2013. This proposed weapons ban is driven strictly by political motivation. The proposed ban, like prohibition, will no more keep guns out of the hands of lunatics and bad guys than prohibition kept booze away from the thirsty or the mafia. How preposterous to even imply such a possibility. The legislation notes the millions of assault weapons and large-capacity weapons currently in existence. To deal with this mountain of munitions, the politicians with straight faces propose background checks on all sales or transfers of grandfathered weapons. I know dozens of highly armed citizens, and not a one indicates to me the intent of selling or transferring so much as a single high capacity magazine.

Big city crime zones, such as in New York, Los Angeles, D.C. and Chicago, suffer from some of the weakest gun protection laws for their citizens. And yet, as John Lott points out, despite opposition to concealed hand gun laws, urban, densely populated areas benefit most from being allowed to protect themselves.

You can quickly click to my Liberty & Freedom map for a state-to-state run down on a number of the safety and good business practices. I have noted above a menu of states you want to depart in terms of family security and a toxic business climate. It is perhaps not surprising that the worst of the worst are those states most directly aligned to the statist-oriented, big government track of the Obama administration. These are the areas one would expect to most aggressively promote the freedom-restricting notion of a Weapons Ban. No U.S. senator or representative who looks at an assault weapons ban in terms of safety could possibly think that such a ban makes a shred of sense or in large measure is enforceable. John R. Lott’s data is not contestable, and the politicians know it.

Americans are being duped by politicians who are using a national tragedy to forward their own self-interest. I can think of no bigger disgrace!

>> read more

What’s in Your 401(k)?

When I worked at Fidelity Investments, I was on the 401(k) side of their business, serving institutional clients such as Fortune 500 companies and their plan participants. When the stock market moved, whether it dipped or jumped, the phones would light up, and I’d talk with participants about their portfolio. Without fail, when the market was up, they were buyers; when it fell, they were sellers. It’s much like the money flow in the stock market. When stocks are up, money comes in; when it’s down, money goes out.

For some investors, it’s simply impossible to stick with a plan. They don’t have the emotional makeup to hang in there when the market is down, and they get greedy when it’s up. And yet, even if a balanced plan would help by smoothing out the ups and downs, they’re too fearful during the dips and greedy during the ups.

Investing in a 401(k) doesn’t need to be as daunting as it’s made out to be. One of the major problems I’ve come across in reviewing plans by other investment companies is their lack of good investing options. It doesn’t have to be this way.

If you’re in a 401(k), make sure you have the option to invest in a solid balanced fund or short-term bonds, dividend-paying stocks, and maybe a little gold. If you don’t have these, then it’s time for some change. If you can, I suggest you do an IRA rollover to Fidelity or Vanguard. Unless you are able to craft a plan you’re comfortable with, you’ll always be uneasy. Get a plan in place and get the peace of mind you so richly deserve.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the architect of Obamacare, has found a novel way to Chicago’s spending problem. A mayoral commission on how to deal with the city’s imploding financial situation suggested the idea that Rahm dump Chicago city workers on the Obamacare exchange.

The Wall Street Journal describes the panel’s suggestion.

The four-member panel issued a report this month suggesting that dumping pre-Medicare retirees onto the state’s ObamaCare exchange in 2014 could be fab for retirees and city taxpayers. Nearly 60% of retirees and 94% of those who receive subsidies would pay less for their health care on the exchange. Married retirees with dependents would save an average of $4,300.

The plan will save money for Chicago and for city employees by taxing all Americans to subsidize their future care. “Federal subsidies for Chicago retirees would amount to $44 million in 2014 and increase as more workers retire in their early to mid-50s and health costs grow.”

That can be sustained if only one city pulls this trick. But what happens when all the over indebted cities and states in America realize they can participate too? The Journal writes, “All told, state and local governments are on the hook for between $700 billion and $1.5 trillion for retiree health benefits.”

That staggering sum will soon be foisted on Americans living in cities and states that have been responsible with their funding. So while you may have thought the debt problems in Chicago and California were problems for people living there, you’re wrong. Now it’s your problem.

A High Velocity DNA Tagging system that keeps criminals at arm’s length has been launched at The SHOT Show, Las Vegas.

Identifying an individual in a crowd or at a distance can be challenging for law enforcement officers and police especially when they are in riot situations or experiencing crowd control problems.

Available in pistol and rifle form, this new and practical concept allows police and military to remain at a safe distance (up to 30-40 metres) from a potential target while deploying the SelectaDNA High Velocity pellet.

By using the new SelectaDNA High Velocity System, a uniquely-coded DNA pellet can be used to mark an individual so that they can be apprehended at a less confrontational time for officers.

Selectamark Managing Director Andrew Knights said: “On contact with the target the uniquely-coded SelectaDNA solution leaves a synthetic DNA trace mark that will enable the relevant authorities to confirm or eliminate that person from their involvement in a particular situation and could ultimately lead to arrest and prosecution.”

The SelectaDNA High Velocity System comes in two forms – Rifle or Pistol. Both systems offer similar range and accuracy with the real difference being the size, power source and ammunition capacity.

The Pistol is powered by a 12g powerlet offering up to 20 shots per powerlet.

The SelectaDNA pellets are supplied in packs of 14 pellets to a container. All pellets in a pack contain the same unique DNA code. The pellets can be used in either the pistol or the rifle.

Watch how the gun works here.

Taser Shockwave: Area Denial For Real World Situations

>> read more

Honey, I Shrunk The Economy

Apple has confirmed they are working on a new 128GB iPad. That much memory on a tablet is great for setting up massive portable libraries of information. For survivalists, such a device could be a lifesaver.

We can’t all know everything, so a library of knowledge on survival topics is essential. A bug-out bag can’t be loaded with heavy books and magazines, but condensed into an iPad, a survivalist could carry a library-sized collection of documentation on first aid, wilderness survival, farming techniques, and more.

But iPads are not the most rugged devices. Bouncing around in your pack on a long march could scratch and even break the iPad. Exposure to water could put it out of commission completely. So what does a survival prepper need to keep his iPad safe from the elements and running even after the power goes out?

We’ve developed a list of items you’ll need to protect your iPad survival library. The list starts with the Griffin Survivor case for iPads. The Survivor is a military grade case that protects your iPad from drops, rain, dust, vibrations, wind, shocks, and dirt. It even comes with a multi-position work stand.

One of the most devastating survival situations imaginable is the threat of an EMP attack or solar flare event that takes out the power grid. How do you protect your iPad from being disabled by one of these events? Buy some EMP bags from Tech Protect. Once you have the iPad in the Griffin Survivor, you’ll want to place it in the 17” by 16” EMP bag, which will protect it from both EMP and water damage when properly sealed.

Next up, you’ll need power. An EMP or solar flare could take out the power grid at any moment, so you better bring your own power along. To power up your iPad after the lights go out, you’ll need the PowerTraveller Solar Gorilla along with the PowerGorilla portable charger. If you live closer to the equator, you can get away with just the Solar Gorilla for an iPad, but if you live in a temperate zone or want to run a bigger machine like a laptop, you’ll definitely want the PowerGorilla.

Alright, so now you’re set up to survive and thrive on your iPad after the lights go out. But what goes in your survival library? For starters you can check out the Modern Survial Online library of free PDFs on survival topics. Then think about downloading a season of Doomsday Preppers for ideas and inspiration. If you plan on keeping a laptop rather than an iPad, get the Mother Earth News DVD archive. Every issue from 1970-2012 is available on the DVD. Fill out your survival library with any of the troves of books available for download on Amazon or iTunes.

Being prepared doesn’t mean you have to leave technology behind. It just means you have to be prepared to take it with you.