Gang Xi Fat Cai!

Ujan Imlec terus properiti!/If it rains on Chinese New Year, then a prosperous year!

The countdown has begun to New Year on February 3. One of the fun parts of living in Asia is that you get about 4 or 5 new year's celebrations throughout the year. On rare occastions, you can even get two Muslim new years in one calendar year.

Beginning on Feb. 3 (Imlec or Sin Tjia), unmarried youths will run around for two weeks, clasping their hands together and saying (loudly), "Gong Xi Fat Cai!" Then they hold out their hands and expect 'angpao,' or a small cash gift from the elders.

We end the day (here) with the deliciously greusome headline from CNN: Giffords Heads To Texas. The headline writer over there should either be fired or given a raise, depending on your disposition.

Having just finished George's daily column over at UrbanSurvival.com, our thoughts turn to 'revolution,' and what's ahead for this New Year. Seems some of his readers are taking him to task for showing all the myriad ways we are being screwed by the PTB/PTW, but he stops short of promoting open revolution against the usurpers.

It's a rather simplistic and hot-headed view to promote open revolution. One need only to read up on Washington's time at Valley Forge to get an idea of how much fun it is. And there's always the chance you'll lose, to be forever know in history as the bad guys.

Any kind of warfare is deeply destructive. It destroys both sides. Men at war aren;t tending to matters of home and hearth. There's supply chains to worry about, and many other basic problems with the open revolution idea. Cast your eyes upon Greece, Tunisia, and soon other European countries. Even small clashes destroy businesses, homes and property, and it's not limited to the combatants; it hits every level of society.

Revolution is a dangerous hobby by any measure. The potential enemy controls the purse strings, has public perception on their side, aided and abetted by a lapdog press, and has a rather eyep-popping arscenal of weaponry. Honestly, to go head-to-head with that kind of enemy is more or less suicide.

At this point, it's time to read Sun Tsu's 'The Art of War.' In the face of overwhelming odds, it's time to use the 'passive-aggressive' maneuver. In stead of a direct clash that you will surely lose, both in physical and psychological terms, one needs to find the weaknesses of the enemy and start pushing on them repeatly.

We have only to survey history to see how these things turn out. Those who steal the power don't give it up without a big fight. Power is a drug. It is highly addictive because those who have it have anything they want. If you want to take away their power, you take away all of their addictions and decrease them to the level of the commoner. How would you react?

Even non-violent confrontation is not without pain. Ghandi and King are prime examples. One spends a lot of time cooling the heals in jail, if not being outright tortured.

In the extant situation, there are still many weapons at the disposal of the commoner that do not involve the shedding of blood on either side (though no guarantees THEY wouldn't take some). The biggest and most glaring weakness on the part of the enemy is the economy.

THEY have spent years trying to convince the rubes that there is only one game in town. Where black markets have sprung up, they were controlled to give THEM control over that, as well. THEY have spent considerable time and effort to convince the masses that investment is only done through the rigged markets, where, like Vegas, the house always wins.

The easiest and most effective way to fight back is so simple as to be almost laughable. Withdraw all funds from the stock markets and banks. Problem solved. It's that easy. At the very minimum, stop contributing to retirement accounts and write off what's in them, since you'll never actually see that money, trust us.

Instead, take that money, put it into real assets like land, gold, food, etc. Start amassing things that really pay off, things that exist in the real and physical world. Shun paper like it's going out of style, which it is.

Stop using ATMs, credit cards and any other electronic form of payment. If you can't pay cash, you don't need it. Keep one card for emergencies, of course, but pay it off and let it sit in the closet. Get some farm land and put a couple of cows on it. You might get a tax break that way, and you have a cheap weekend get-away, as well as a great investment for the future (which is sooner than you think). You can always butcher the cows later for a six-month supply of protein on the hoof.

Invest in skills, hobbies and tools that can be turned to income in the event of bad economic times (like the ones that are coming). Learning to build with wood and having a good selection of hand-tools that don't require electricity seems like a very valuable investment. Weekend smithing sounds like fun, would be quite valuable if horses become the norm again, and you'd be one of the few with the skill, making you one of the highest paid folks around.

Having a supply of non-hybridized seed and knowing things like French intensive gardening could give you ample food supplies out of a back yard. Learn canning while you're at it, so you can sock away the bounty.

Other things, like candle-making, shodding, sewing...all those skills we gave up for machines a few generations back, might end up saving the lives of you and yours. And no need to do all of them. Just pick one and get really good at it.

Spending money on things like solar power, composting and the like, seems to me to have a far greater return than a 401(k). And no one can take away what you know, and would have a hell of a time taking away things in your yard. But a stack of paper stored somewhere you have no idea where, or worse, a stream of 1s and 0s? Even safe deposit boxes ain't. THEY can lock the doors and shoot anyone who tries to get in. And remember, the bank keeps the second key. Why not jack out a hole in your foundation and drop in a safe? Sounds a helluva lot safer and more accessable to me.

What all of this does is makes you independent. Figure out where THEY have control over your life, and take steps to cut that link. THEY control the electricity you use, so make your own. THEY control the food supply lines, so grow your own. THEY control the water you drink, so find another source.

Just this week, the city water supply stopped for 24 hours. No notice, no reason, just stopped with no idea when it would come back. When it started flowing again, it was brown with dirt. Fortunately, we have about 300 gallons stored all over the house in barrels, but even that would eventually get used up.

However, there is a well directly under the dining room floor. It's bee unused for a while, but still works. On payday, we're paying the $100 to hook it back up to the house supply. With a flip of a valve, we can have the city supply or the house supply. We're also putting a manual pump option into the line.

The roof of the house is about 2/3 translucent corrugated panels, so our garden is on the third floor, safe and sound.

The upside to all this is that it removes THEIR power over you. You have voluntarily handed it over for years, now it's time to take it back. Set up co-ops, and trade and barter whenever you can. It wouldn't be long before T?HEY are panicked, because you no longer need THEM.

Is it easy? No, but it's more productive than destroying everything to make a point, and likely getting killed in the process. When THEY see what you're doing, THEY will act, but at that point, you have the moral and legal right to defend yourself. Just mobbing up and destroying stuff does not put Right on your side.

THEY are managing perceptions, and so must you. You must make sure that others looking in will be forced to conclude that you have the moral high-ground.

In fact, that gives us an idea to launch a global 'off the grid' day, in which everyone prepares to spend 24 hours without using any of THEIR services. I can't imagine a more effective and non-violent statement than to show THEM we don't need 'em.

We'll have to noodle that one. Might make a helluva pursuit.

So with that, we'll leave you with an Indonesian lullaby. We can't type the tune, but the words are fun enough. Kinds along the lines of babies crashing out of trees due to broken limbs. We always wondered why the baby was up a tree in the first place.

Mina bobo,
Mina bobo,
Kalo tidak bobo,
Gigit nyemuk.

There there sleep
There there sleep
If you don't sleep
The mosquito will bite.

If you have any ideas about "Global Off-The-Grid Day," we're happy to hear them! Viral campaigns can be so much fun!

On Life Support

Most of the time, people feel guilty if they hope someone will die quickly, but when we see someone suffering horribly and there's nothing to be done about it, then our only wish is for release.

The global economy is our patient on life support. Right now, the body is lying there with tubes sticking out of every oriface. There are tubes pumping nutrients in and tubes sucking out waste. There are tubes pushing air in, and tubes delivering medications. There are myriad machines and monitors all around the bed, and the family has gathered on one side of the room to discuss what to do.

We see the body convulse with pain. We see the eyes flutter trying to tell us something. We hear the groans and gasps, as if the body is experiencing terror and severe pain.

It's time to pull the plug. It's time to remove all the tubes and wires, and let the body die a quick and merciful death. Keeping it alive for the sake of our unwillingness to let go is causing our dear one to die ever so slowly and miserably, and the level of care needed to maintain this horror show is outrageously expensive.

Let it die.

Another medical analogy is a patient with sever burns. The skin has literally turned to charcoal and must be debrided or massive infection will set in and the person will surely die. They are immersed in a chemical bath and stiff brushes are used to scrub away the dead skin, all the way down to muscle and sinew. The patient can't be allowed to pass out or they will slip into a coma. Stimulants are used to maintain consciousness. It is described as the most painful experience one can have outside of CIA black ops.

In the old days, economies just died when they had run their course. Nations died, people died and it was not a pretty sight. With modern technology, we can keep the lungs inflating and the heart beating, but at what price?

The organism has become so complex and entangled that it no longer threatens individuals or single nations. It now threatens the entire socio/political world, and a good chunk of the natural world, as well. But the fact remains: the old, dead flesh must be removed or growth will simply cease and the patient dies.

We have allowed, and we are all guilty of watching and not acting, a small group of astoundingly greedy people to rig our natural economy into a cyborg that makes the Few rich and powerful, and the rest of us its servants. Despite thousands of years of history to the contrary, we have allowed fiat currencies to become the norm, banks to become our leaders and our minds to cease imagining better ways to do things.

We allowed usury and corruption to infiltrate our public lives. We all looked the other way when it happened, because it appeared that we were along for the ride. The appearances were false. We were along for the ride alright, but we were the ones being ridden.

The time has come to let the patient die. If not, then we will all die with it. This grossly unfair and immoral system has left us all with a pile of cash and no wealth. Just spend a couple of minutes reading about the Weimar Republic in the years after WWI. Housewives burned money instead of wood in the kitchen, because it was cheaper. People carried bags and carts full of money to the store to buy just a loaf of bread. Restaurants didn't post prices because they would go up inth the time it took you to eat your meal. This nightmare is coming to a planet near you.

The result of crises like Weimar, or Zimbabwe, or many others, is dictatorship and slavery for the survivors. This is analogous to the burn patient in whose body infection and death have set in.

We, the people, whose natual bodies and vested self-interests do not match those in power, must take back what we gave away. We gave away our power because we were asleep, because we were tricked and because we were greedy and thought we would get a piece of the pie along with the bankers. The truth is ovviously far from that perception.

The question remains, how do we get out?

It's amazingly simple, but it will involve some fear of the unknown. We have been so conditioned to see the world from only one perspective that even when the view sours, we can't imagine looking from a different perspective.

You must sell all of your stocks and bonds, stop month payroll deductions for 401(k) and start buying hard assets, like heirloom seeds, gold and silver, and energy products. That last one is problematic, since most of us don't have a place to store oil and coal, but there are ways to go around it, such as solar and wind generators, etc.

I can hear you saying, "WHAT?! Are you NUTS?"

Well, yeah, but that's beside the point.

First of all, in 1999, I cashed out my 401(k), took the tax hit and bought gold. My money has made over 500% return. How's yours done? I have a large indoor garden under a skylight on the top floor of my house and several large barrels of water throughout the house. I could be completely locked in for more than a month without to much effort. The energy is a little more difficult. I have a generator and some gasoline stores, which will maintain communications for a time, depending on my usage. I don't own a single stock or bond of any kind.

Now here's the part where most people stop: cut up all your credit cards and burn them immediately. Even if you do nothing else, this one act will free you and put a knife deep in the heart of the Beast. The one thing the Beast most fears is that people stop borrowing from it and paying the ourrageous fees for the priviledge.

In my studies and thinking, I have come to the conclusion that the one point in history where things got off the tracks was in the 1920s, in America, with the creation of E-Z Credit and charge-a-plates. It's all been pretty much downhill from that moment, from what I can see. Usury is what feeds the Beast and makes us all servants to it. Hell, even the word 'mortgage' means 'death pledge,' in French.

We have all been hoodwinked and we need to extract ourselves. It has come to the point where we can't imagine another way of life, yet it does exist. I can personally attest to it. Yes, there is more perceived risk, but in the end, I control the risk, not some faceless bankers. My savings are not prone to some governmental or banking whim. I owe nothing to any institution (well, at least after May, but that's a minimal risk).

Try this experement: turn off the power mains to your house for one week. Not just an hour or a day, that's easy. I mean one week. It's easy here in Indonesia. Happens all the time. But, you folks in North America and Europe rarely experience such a thing.

Turn it off and then see what happens. How much of your food depends on electricity? How much time do you waste on things like TV? How much of your life depends on things like cell phones and lights? What sort of solutions and changes can you make to reduce your dependence?

Ask people in Brisbane, Sri Lanka and Brazil what they wish they had done while the sun shined.

Isn't your family's safety and well-being worth one week of effort?

Now, get on Yahoo or other financial site and compare the price of gold since 1999, to the absolute value of the stock market, where your retirement hopes have been languishing. If you had thought about it back then, would you still have stocks or would you convert it all to gold? Don't forget to figure in the inflation rate, because having a dollar then and one now are not the same.

Con artists will continue to play their games until they get caught at it. Once the mark sees through the grift, they walk away. The grifter hopefully goes to jail.

The only reason the scam keeps working is because we keep telling ourselves it's real and that we will get rich one day, or at least have enough to support us in our old age. But we need to face reality, it ain't gonna happen. Your only hedge against the inevitable is your own smarts and the support of friends and family working together.

That's it.

The end is truly nigh. The patient has been on lifesupport for decades, and it's time to let go and let it die. It's merciful not only to the patient, but to those who care for it.

Perhaps the easiest thing to do to get started in to unplug the One-Eyed Monster. The more time you waste passively 'watching,' the less time you are using for active verbs like: loving, creating, reading, working, thinking, and motivating.

The economy will collapse. That is inevitable, regardless of what all the powder-puffs and slimy bankers say. It is comeing, and soon. A leaking boat must sink unless something is done to fix the problem.

Fixing it is going to be painful. That, too, is inevitable. It will cause harm and people will suffer. There are no two ways around the problem. However, remember what you learned years ago. When you tear the bandage off, it hurts for a moment. When you peel it off, it prolongs and exacerbates the pain. It's a lesson to be applied now.

We can be pro-active and take the bull by the horns, or we can make like a bunch of Spaniards and run. Either way, it's going to hurt, but by meeting the problem head-on, we have more control over the variables.

This year looks to be a wild ride. It's only two weeks old and already the waves are growing bigger and angrier. We must either surf or drown, but for now, we have a choice. When the waters have you is not the time to look for a boat.

My uncle had an expression that always made a lot of sense to me: If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

And now that I think about it, getting a horse wouldn't be a bad idea, either.

By the way, the real target in Arizona was the judge who had blocked an effort to nationalize 401(k)s and IRAs. All the other gore was to distract and cover up that one fact. THEY are attempting to take over all retirement accounts and pensions and replace the money (about $9 trillion) with government markers, much as they have done with Social Security.

Just another reason to cash out now and take the tax hit. Better that than lose the whole thing later.