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« Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Saturday May 17 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"In political life today, you are considered compassionate if you demand that government impose your preferences on others." - John Stossel « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Friday May 16 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"To be thrown upon one's own resources, is to be cast into the very lap of fortune; for our faculties then undergo a development and display an energy of which they were previously unsusceptible." Benjamin Franklin « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Thursday May 15 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"You can call a survivalist irrational. « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Wednesday May 14 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Oppression can only survive through silence." - Carmen de Monteflores « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Tuesday May 13 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"There comes a time in every man's life when he is called upon to do something very special; something for which he and only he has the capabilities, has the skills and has the necessary training. What a pity if the moment finds the man unprepared." - Winston Churchill « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Monday May 12 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:“It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.” - Thomas Sowell « Wars, and Rumors of War |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Sunday May 11 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Once the coffers of the federal government are opened to the public, there will be no shutting them again." - Grover Cleveland « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Saturday May 10 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Remember the ancient saying: '[Si] vis pacem - para bellum' - if you want peace - be ready for the war. Within the whole history of our civilization, no one disproved it. So let the weapons be not the means of terror, but the way to defend peace, democracy and law. I wish you all health, success and fruitful work. With best wishes," - Mikhail Kalashnikov « Is Survivalism Just "Unbounded Imagination of Anxiety"? |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Friday May 9 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Civilised man has marched across the face of the earth and left a desert in his footprints." - from Topsoil and Civilization by Vernon Gill Carter and Tom Dales (available for free download) « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Thursday May 8 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Political Correctness is just Tyranny with manners." - The late Charlton Heston, in speech at Yale University « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Wednesday May 7 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"While driving north through Fort Wayne, Indiana, on Interstate 69, we passed a new 'McMansion' subdivision. It was right off the frontage road, screened from the freeway by a few scraggly saplings, and named on a large landscaped sign, "Hidden Glen." My wife and I looked at each other and simultaneously asked, "Hidden from what?'" - Michael Z. Williamson « Reader Poll: The SurvivalBlog Party Mix |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Tuesday May 6 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Monday May 5 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us." - Gandalf, in The Fellowship of the Ring - J.R.R. Tolkien « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Sunday May 4 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"History is a vast early warning system." - Norman Cousins « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Saturday May 3 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"If we run into such debts, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers." - Thomas Jefferson « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Friday May 2 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:“The bitterness of poor quality remains long after The sweetness of low pricing is forgotten!” - Leon M. Cautillo « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Thursday May 1 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"The [crude oil] prices are high due to the recession in the United States and the economic crisis, which has touched several countries, a situation that has an effect on the value of the dollar. Each time the dollar falls one percent, the price of the barrel rises by $4 and of course vice versa." - OPEC President Chakib Khelil (April, 2008) « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Wednesday April 30 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so." - Douglas Graham « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Tuesday April 29 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"...you keep your gun handy. Our country is still full of thieving, murdering 'patriots'." - Dr. Powell Strong, Panic in Year Zero « Two Letters Re: Food Shortages at COSTCO and Sam's Club Stores |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Monday April 28 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"One day you will need people like him, and you will forget that you once thought he was worse than a criminal." - Rabbi Irving Chinn, explaining to some of his congregation why he gave his blessing to as student who chose to pursue a career in gunsmithing rather than rabbinic ordination. (As quoted at Musings of a Geek with a .45, originally posted at The High Road) « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Sunday April 27 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Being prepared is sometimes inconvenient, but not being prepared is always inconvenient." - Fred Choate « Note From JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Saturday April 26 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic." - Dresden James « Food Shortages in the US Underscore the Weakness of JIT Inventory Systems |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Friday April 25 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"So no more runnin'. I aim to misbehave." - Captain Malcolm Reynolds, Serenity « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Thursday April 24 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions." - Daniel Webster « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Wednesday April 23 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Can the liberties of a nation be sure when we remove their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people, that these liberties are a gift from God?" - Thomas Jefferson « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Tuesday April 22 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Live free or die; death is not the worst of evils." - General John Stark, 1809 « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Monday April 21 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks on the contrary to keep them in perpetual childhood : it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of float happiness: it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances - what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living? Thus it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range, and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself. The principle of equality has prepared men for these things: it has predisposed men to endure them, and oftentimes to look on them as benefits. After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp, and fashioned them at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided: men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting : such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till [this] nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd." - Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Sunday April 20 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” - Commonplace Book by Thomas Jefferson borrowing from Cesare Beccaria’s 1764 Dei delitti e delle pene ("On Crimes and Punishments") « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Saturday April 19 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"I, John Robbins, being of lawful Age, do Testifye and say, that on the Nineteenth Instant, the Company under the Command of Captain John Parker, being drawn up (sometime before sun Rise) on the Green or Common, and I being in the front Rank, there suddenly appear’d a Number of the Kings Troops, about a Thousand, as I thought, at the distance of about 60 or 70 yards from us Huzzaing, and on a quick pace towards us, with three Officers in their front on Horse Back, and on full Gallop towards us, the foremost of which cryed, throw down your Arms ye Villains, ye Rebels! upon which said Company Dispersing, the foremost of the three Officers order’d their Men, saying, fire, by God, fire! at which Moment we received a very heavy and close fire from them, at which Instant, being wounded, I fell, and several of our men were shot Dead by one volley. Captain Parker’s men, I believe, had not then fired a Gun." - Militiaman John Robbins’ sworn statement, 24 April 1775, regarding the events of April 19, 1775, in Lexington, Massachusetts « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Friday April 18 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:“Freedom is not a gift from heaven. It has to be fought for every day.” - Simon Wiesenthal « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Thursday April 17 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Honor never grows old, and honor rejoices the heart of age. It does so because honor is, finally, about defending those noble and worthy things that deserve defending, even if it comes at a high cost. In our time, that may mean social disapproval, public scorn, hardship, persecution, or as always, even death itself. The question remains: What is worth defending? What is worth dying for? What is worth living for?" - William J. Bennett, lecture to the United States Naval Academy, November 24, 1997 « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Wednesday April 16 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:“As our own species is in the process of proving, one cannot have superior science and inferior morals. The combination is unstable and self-destroying.” - Arthur C. Clarke « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Tuesday April 15 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." - Thomas Jefferson « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Monday April 14 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"I'm proud to pay taxes in the United States; the only thing is, I could be just as proud for half the money." - Arthur Godfrey « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Sunday April 13 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"To force a man to pay for the violation of his own liberty is indeed an addition of insult to injury. " - Benjamin Tucker, Instead of a Book « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Saturday April 12 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome." - Isaac Asimov « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Friday April 11 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't stupidity get us out? - Will Rogers « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Thursday April 10 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"We maintain [privately-owned] arms largely because we seek to prevent violence. Those that wish to disarm us do so that they may perpetrate it with impunity." - R. Murray « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Wednesday April 9 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen." - Winston Churchill « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Tuesday April 8 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders." - President Ronald Reagan « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Monday April 7 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"So that this nation may long endure, I urge you to follow in the hallowed footsteps of the great disobedience of history that freed exiles, founded religions, defeated tyrants, and yes, in the hands of an aroused rabble in arms and a few great men, by God's grace, built this country." - The Late Charlton Heston, from a speech to the Harvard Law School Forum, February 16, 1999 « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Sunday April 6 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:“There has been a decline in ethics and we've got to turn it around.” - Eliot Spitzer, quoted in 2007. (Spitzer was recently forced to resign his post as as New York Governor, after revelations about hiring prostitutes) « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Saturday April 5 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:I sincerely believe... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale." - Thomas Jefferson « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Friday April 4 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst." - Thomas Hardy « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Thursday April 3 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Procrastination is our favorite form of self-sabotage." - Alyce P. Cornyn-Selby, American author « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Wednesday April 2 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"The primary fear we entertain today is that our "slaves" (machines)
may be about to run out of "food" (oil) and our intricate civilization
will come sputtering to a stop. There are lots of arguments « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Tuesday April 1 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:Sow seed-but let no tyrant reap; « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Monday March 31 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:Tappan's universal rule of law: "The nobler the language, the more nefarious the purpose [of] any legal instrument." - Mel Tappan « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Sunday March 30 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Although we give lip service to the notion of freedom, we know that government is no longer the servant of the people but, at last, become the people's master. We have stood by like timid sheep while the wolf killed - first the weak, then the strays, then those on the outer edges of the flock, until at last the entire flock belonged to the wolf." - Gerry Spence, From Freedom to Slavery « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Saturday March 29 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Don't believe them, don't fear them, don't ask anything of them." - Alexander Solzhenitsyn « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Friday March 28 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"I'd rather be over trained than under trained." - Bruce Lee « Letter Re: Lack of Large Animal Vets Even in Rural Areas--Be Prepared to Do It Yourself |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Thursday March 27 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"If you draw your sword against 'your' prince you must be prepared to throw away the scabbard." - Machiavelli « Jim's Quote of the Day: |Main| Letter Re: Choosing a State for Relocation » Wednesday March 26 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:Reader "LG" sent us this: Fed's rescue halted a derivatives Chernobyl. JWR's comment: I think "delayed" would have been a more accurate word than "prevented", for the headline o o o KAF flagged this Reuters article: Cities grapple with surge in abandoned homes o o o RBS found a piece that is probably already "old news" to most SurvivalBlog readers: Cell Phones--FBI Can Listen In, Even When Phone is Turned Off o o o Bee plague worsening, anxious keepers say « Note from JWR: |Main| Jim's Quote of the Day: » Jim's Quote of the Day:"[Recognition of] Peak Oil will never catch on in any major way, at least no more than the folks in the Tower of Babel economy ever caught on to the big flaw in their economic model. We've got 50 years invested in suburban buildout economy, 150 years invested in industrial living, and 500 years invested in the age of expansion to come to understand just what this means for us, at least in the aggregate." - Matt Savinar, Editor of Life After The Oil Crash (LATOC) « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Tuesday March 25 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Words may show a man's wit, but actions his meanings." - Benjamin Franklin « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Monday March 24 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer." - Thomas Paine, "Common Sense", 1776 « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Sunday March 23 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Fear them not therefore; for there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed: and hid, that shall not be known. What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye on the housetops" - Jesus, in Matthew 10:26, 27 « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Saturday March 22 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Men are expendable; women and children are not. A tribe or a nation can lose a high percentage of its men and still pick up the pieces and go on... as long as the women and children are saved. But if you fail to save the women and children, you've had it, you're done, you're through! You join Tyrannosaurus Rex, one more breed that bilged its final test." - Robert A. Heinlein, "The Pragmatics of Patriotism" address at the U.S. Naval Academy, April 5, 1973, later published in the book "Expanded Universe" (1980) « Flawed Oral Arguments in DC v. Heller |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Friday March 21 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"The militia is the natural defense of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpation of power by rulers. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of the republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally ... enable the people to resist and triumph over them." - Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, "Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States", Vol. 3, pp. 746-7, 1833 « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Thursday March 20 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If 'Thou shalt not covet' and 'Thou shalt not steal' were not commandments from Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free." - John Adams, A Defence of the Constitution of the United States Against the Attacks of M. Turgot, 1787 « Hedge Fund Redemption Suspensions--Tax Bills are Adding Insult to Injury |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Wednesday March 19 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"The first information survival skill we all need is the ability to decode propaganda and demythologize the highly commercialized and entertainment-based U.S. culture. Psychologists politely call it 'resistance to enculturation.' Writer Ernest Hemingway had a less elegant term: 'cr*p detecting.'" - Karl Albrecht, article in Training and Development magazine, February 2001. « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Tuesday March 18 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"The argument for liberty is not an argument against organization, which is one of the most powerful tools human reason can employ, but an argument against all exclusive, privileged, monopolistic organization, against the use of coercion to prevent others from doing better." - Friedrich August von Hayek (1899-1992), Nobel Laureate of Economic Sciences 1974 « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Monday March 17 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"We are now experiencing the first truly major crisis of financial globalization. Never before have banks seen such destruction of their balance sheets in such a short time. Moreover, there are signs that the problems are spreading. The risk premiums on commercial property, consumer credit and corporate loans have risen sharply." - Swiss central bank governor Philipp Hildebrand, quoted March 12, 2008 « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Sunday March 16 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"We've got a blind date with Destiny -- and it looks like she's ordered the lobster." - William H. Macy, as "The Shoveler" in Mystery Men, 1999 (Screenplay by Neal Cuthbert.) « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Saturday March 15 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"I do not have a new message here; we have known for a long time that advance preparation and a strong balance sheet are the keys to riding out a financial storm. As I have emphasized before, the Federal Reserve can deal with liquidity pressures but cannot deal with solvency issues." - William Poole, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, February 29, 2008 (as recently quoted by Dr. Gary North in his Reality Check e-newsletter.) « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Friday March 14 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:“I spoke to you in your prosperity, but you said, 'I will not hear.'" - Jeremiah 22:21 « A Reminder About The Mental Militia (TMM) Forums |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Thursday March 13 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Any great nation that goes off the gold standard ends being a great nation." - Ronald Reagan (recently quoted in a debate, by Dr. Ron Paul) « Letter Re: Property Tax Rates as Criterion in Choosing Retreat Locales |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Wednesday March 12 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:
"The dignity of man is not shattered in a single blow, but slowly softened, bent, and eventually neutered. Men are seldom forced to act, but are constantly restrained from acting. Such power does not destroy outright, but prevents genuine existence. It does not tyrannize immediately, but it dampens, weakens, and ultimately suffocates, until the entire population is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid, uninspired animals, of which the government is shepherd." - Alexis de Tocqueville « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Tuesday March 11 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Personal weapons are what raised mankind out of the mud, and the rifle is the queen of personal weapons." - The Late Col. Jeff Cooper « Letter Re: Comments on Farm Land Versus Coastal Land |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Monday March 10 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"You can't make an appointment to have an emergency so always have your firearm." - The Late Col. Jeff Cooper « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Sunday March 9 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"We have the illusion of freedom only because so few ever try to exercise it. Try it sometime. Try to save your home from the highway crowd, or to work a trade without the approval of the goons, or to open a little business without a permit, or to grow a crop without a quota, or educate your child the way you want to, or to not have a child. We all have the freedom of a balloon floating in a pin factory." - Karl Hess « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Saturday March 8 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"We have staked the whole of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." - James Madison « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Friday March 7 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"As long as one doesn't get into a gunfight, a 9 millimeter is just fine." - Mark Moritz « Letter Re: With Bank Runs Looming, Check Your Bank's Safety Rating! |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Thursday March 6 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have." - Thomas Jefferson « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Wednesday March 5 2008Jim's Quote of the Day: In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from
confiscation through inflation . There is no safe store of value. If there
were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in
the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank
deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to
accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing
power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods.
The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for
the owners of wealth to protect themselves. « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Tuesday March 4 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:“There is not any one news item that I can point to. We know that there is paper out there that we can’t trust. We don’t know exactly who owns it and how much. And we don’t know how they are valuing it.” - Douglas Peta, Chief Investment Strategist at J. W. Seligman & Company in New York, as quoted in the New York Times, March 1, 2008 « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Monday March 3 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity,
religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim
the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of
human happiness, these firmest prop of the duties of men and citizens. The
mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish
them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public
felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation,
for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the
instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution
indulge in the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.
Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of
peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national
morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle... Observe good faith
and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion
and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be that good policy does not equally
enjoin it?" « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Sunday March 2 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Do no accustom yourself to consider debt as only an inconvenience. You will find it a calamity." - Samuel Johnson, 1758 « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Saturday March 1 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:“I practice charity regularly. I believe in sharing. But when government takes our money by force and gives it to others, that's not sharing.” - John Stossel « Are Simultaneous Inflation and Deflation Possible? |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Friday February 29 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim
may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than
under omnipotent moral busybodies. « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Thursday February 28 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"In our recent survey of the African battlefields, we discovered more positively every time that it was not Boer marksmanship that made the difference in those wars so much as Boer gun handling. Contrary to widespread belief, the Boers did not do significant damage at great range, but when they got into a firing position at a reasonable range, they shot carefully in order to hit rather than by volley [fire] in order to scare. It seems apparent that these men, while good shots, were not extraordinary shots. What matters is that when they came on to shoot they used their individual weapons purposefully rather than ostentatiously. Carefully aimed rifle fire at short range is overwhelmingly demoralizing. What happens, however, is as the range shortens improperly organized warriors tend to shoot carelessly. The difference is decisive." - The Late Col. Jeff Cooper « Letter Re: Advice on a Whole Life Insurance Policy and Firearms |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Wednesday February 27 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations ... This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution." - John Adams « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Tuesday February 26 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"When it comes time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home." - Chief Aupumut, Mohican. 1725 « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Monday February 25 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Anyone who clings to the historically untrue - and thoroughly immoral
- doctrine 'that violence never settles anything' I would advise to conjure
up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them
debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the
Dodo, the Great Auk and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled
more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion
is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have
always paid for it with their lives and freedom." « The Credit Collapse--The World's Bankers Revert to Saying "No" |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Sunday February 24 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy." - Sir Isaac Newton « The "Come as You Are" Collapse--Have the Right Tools and Skills |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Saturday February 23 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves." - President Andrew Jackson, when he forced the closing of the Second Bank of the U.S., by revoking its charter « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Friday February 22 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly comin' to a middle." - Captain Malcolm Reynolds, Firefly « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Thursday February 21 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Historically, legal tender laws have been used by governments to force
their citizens to accept debased and devalued currency. Gresham's Law describes
this phenomenon, which can be summed up in one phrase: bad money drives out
good money. An emperor, a king, or a dictator might mint coins with half an
ounce of gold and force merchants, under pain of death, to accept them as though
they contained one ounce of gold. Each ounce of the king's gold could now be
minted into two coins instead of one, so the king now had twice as much “money” to
spend on building castles and raising armies. As these legally overvalued coins
circulated, the coins containing the full ounce of gold would be pulled out
of circulation and hoarded. We saw this same phenomenon happen in the mid-1960s
when the US government began to mint subsidiary coinage out of copper and nickel
rather than silver. The copper and nickel coins were legally overvalued, the
silver coins undervalued in relation, and silver coins vanished from circulation. « Letter Re: More About the Chimney Fire Hazard |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Wednesday February 20 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Sooner or later everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences." - Robert Louis Stevenson « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Tuesday February 19 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"If we continue to teach about tolerance and intolerance instead of good and evil, we will end up with tolerance of evil." - Dennis Prager « Self-Sufficiency in Northern Nevada |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Monday February 18 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of Biblical proportions. « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Sunday February 17 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Genius? Nothing! Sticking to it is the genius! ... I've failed my way to success." - Thomas Edison « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Saturday February 16 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." - Thomas Jefferson « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Friday February 15 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"An armed society is a polite society." - Robert A. Heinlein, Logic of Empire (1941) « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Thursday February 14 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain « Letter Re: The More Naive Peakniks Need to Learn to Exercise OPSEC |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Wednesday February 13 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:Burnett: I was told that it might be possible to rent your boat--we
need to get up river. « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Tuesday February 12 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"There's something cool about the thought of being totally off the power grid. It's a psychological thing. I could rationalize being off the grid by saying it would come in handy if the rest of the world runs out of energy. But realistically, the big worry in that case wouldn't be powering my iPod so much as not getting eaten by cannibals." - Cartoonist Scott Adams. « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Monday February 11 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government." - Thomas Jefferson « Two Letters Re: Is Grain Sold as Seed or Animal Feed Safe to Eat? |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Sunday February 10 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, refrains from giving wordy evidence of the fact." - George Eliot « Letter Re: Keeping a Low Profile is Crucial for Preparedness |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Saturday February 9 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing that is more important than his personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertion of better men than himself." - John Stuart Mill « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Friday February 8 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:“Competition is the life of trade…In a controlled situation, people take what they can get. In a competitive situation, people get what they want.” - William C. Durant, founder of General Motors « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Thursday February 7 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"The wheels have come off. Structured finance, which has been the key to this credit bubble, has broken down. We believe that confidence in structures, ratings, collateral, issuers, counterparties, et cetera, has all been lost. Therefore we are in a very precarious position. Credit has driven the economy and has driven markets. Credit has to grow year-over-year in this credit bubble environment in order for the economy to grow. With structured finance having broken down, in our opinion, there is no way that credit will grow year-over-year any longer." - David Tice of the Prudent Bear Fund, as quoted by Welling @Weeden « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Wednesday February 6 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Dying is easy; you have to work at living. Life is an athletic event. You have to really be in shape for it." - Jack La Lanne (quoted when he was 93 years old). « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Tuesday February 5 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Monday February 4 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Gold is for optimists. I'm diversifying into canned goods." - Richard Daughty (aka "The Mogambo Guru") « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Sunday February 3 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"There are going to be situations where people are going to go without assistance. That's just the facts of life." - Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Saturday February 2 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Bushido is all very well in its way, but it is no match for a .30-06." - The Late Col. Jeff Cooper « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Friday February 1 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"The hardest part about gaining any new idea is sweeping out the false idea occupying that niche. As long as that niche is occupied, evidence and proof and logical demonstration get nowhere. But once the niche is emptied of the wrong idea that has been filling it -- once you can honestly say, "I don't know", then it becomes possible to get at the truth." - Robert A. Heinlein, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985) « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Thursday January 31 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"The [Colt Model] 1911 pistol remains the service pistol of choice in the eyes of those who understand the problem. Back when we audited the FBI academy in 1947, I was told that I ought not to use my pistol in their training program because it was not fair. Maybe the first thing one should demand of his sidearm is that it be unfair." - The Late Col. Jeff Cooper, Guns & Ammo magazine, January 2002 « Notes from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Wednesday January 30 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"The conclusions seem inescapable that in certain circles a tendency has arisen to fear people who fear government. Government, as the Father of Our Country put it so well, is 'a dangerous servant and a fearful master'. People who understand history, especially the history of government, do well to fear it. For a people to express openly their fear of those of us who are afraid of tyranny is alarming. Fear of the state is in no sense subversive. It is, to the contrary, the healthiest political philosophy for a free people." - The Late Col. Jeff Cooper, Cooper's Commentaries, vol. 4, no. 16, December, 1996 « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Tuesday January 29 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Individuality is the aim of political liberty. By leaving to the citizen as much freedom of action and of being as comports with order and the rights of others, the institutions render him truly a free man. He is left to pursue his means of happiness in his own manner." - James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) The American Democrat, 1838 « Four Letters Re: A Honeybee CCD Disaster Soon?--Bee Prepared! |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Monday January 28 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:"Mortal danger is an effective antidote for fixed ideas." - Field Marshall Erwin Rommel « Note from JWR: |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Sunday January 27 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:“Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou pass through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.” - Isaiah 43:1-2 « Letter Re: Does Future Inflation Justify a Higher Level of Indebtedness? |Main| Odds 'n Sods: » Saturday January 26 2008Jim's Quote of the Day:“It has never been clear to me why increased magazine capacity in a defensive pistol is particularly choice. The bigger the magazine the bigger the gun, and the bigger the gun the harder it is to get hold of for people with small hands. And what, pray, does one need all those rounds for? How many lethal antagonists do you think you are going to be able to handle? Once when Bruce Nelson was asked by a suspect if the thirteen-round magazine in the P35 [Browning Hi-Power] was not a big advantage, Bruce's answer was, "Well, yes, if you plan to miss a lot." The highest score I know of at this time achieved by one man against a group of armed adversaries was recorded in (of all places) the Ivory Coast! There, some years ago, a graduate student of mine laid out five goblins, with four dead and one totaled for the hospital. Of course there is the episode of Alvin York and his eight, but there is some dispute about that tale. (If you read it over very carefully you will see what I mean.) Be that as it may, I see no real need for a double column magazine. It is all the rage, of course, and like dual air bags, it is a popular current sales gimmick.” - The Late Col. Jeff Cooper | |