hey thecrownsown if we are in such a good position why in last 15 to 20 years cancer is up 40 %, diabetes is up 80 % , autism is up 600% ,?
why after corn seeding in spring thousands of bees die?
why if I feed my animals with fresh veggies from stores for few day in row they all get sick ?
All I can say just keep feeding the food to your family we grow our own.
Henry

Good points. These are concerns.

I cant speak to all of those points, but with the advances in medicine....no longer are people dying of "consumption". they are diagnosed with a multitude of cancers, or disease or whatever. From my limited understanding, they've just changed names as the advances of medicine basically negated the general term of "consumption."

With the advances in mental health (again medicine) what we previously just considered odd behavior, mental retardation, or just "odd" people are now diagnosed with any range of conditions within the autism spectrum.

The flux in diabetes is a concern. Diets, sedintary behavior aare the biggest culprits. No doubt our fast food society needs to face that demon. I also understand that genetics plays a part in all of these conditions. I am in no way an expert. But lifespans have increased, death rates drop.

Not saying we arnt facing issues. We are. But are we as bad off as the hype? I see human progress and just stand in awe of what we have. Economy? Even the poorest today live better than kings a hundred years ago. Crime? A fraction of what it was a hundred years ago....and the list goes on. So ya, signs of the time? I'd say the signs of the time are more/less a well oiled media and social media machine along with the wild west of an Internet that produces more fear and concern. Again, we arnt perfect as a species...but wow. Where we are. it can be overwhelming the magnitude of what we've accomplished...but as a species..simply astounding.

I am not denying progress no question we are 100 % better. The problem is when we loose control over it. From history we know that 17 of 21 civilisations collapsed when they lost control of progress. (just read the story of Roman empire). And no question we are loosing control very very fast of our situation. Just look around . Morality, greed, energy, food, drugs (prescription), atc. Progress does not guarantee better future. just look how fast we are loosing our freedom (just to be safe) and it will get much worse. People in power will use every excuse to get complete control of the masses. What they are doing and what they are telling us are two complete different stories. once you loose freedom you loose everything and and you will not be better off.
Henry

Henry,

I understand your post. Our society can be overwhelming. Especially with so much "in your face" social media today, shock news presenting half the information or a biased opinion disguised as journalism... Its hard to even decipher whats fact from fiction sometimes.... But I think losing control may be subjective. You mentioned 17 of 21 civilizations collapsed? Can you list which ones your talking about? Did the Roman Empire collapse? Or did it decline? I tend to look at modern history and the decline of the British Empire, the Austro Hungarian, the Ottoman, which reflect more what we face today? I'm trying to try and compare our modern society to a large civilization...and can only come up with these previous Empires as examples...it may not be a fair representation though. I am no sociologist thats for sure! 🙂

You mention a very interesting comment....that People in power will use every excuse to get complete control of the masses. I don't know if this is a new concept, and I'm sure marketing agencies have been doing this since the beginning of time. Education is the greatest tool to resist this control 🙂 I find..depending on the forum you go to...and the bias we all have (and I am very guilty of this too!)) the exact could hold true!! I've heard quite often that society or "socialism" will use every excuse to control the masses..and that means you as an individual. Your personal rights at the expense of the good of the whole 🙂 Which one is it? Depends what you want to hear I guess?

Like I said before I was raised and educated by communist system. The whole teaching was almost the same I hear now especially from USA. Everything is for THE PEOPLE .Everybody is equal .We do it for the future. Do not worry we will take care of you. atc. atc.
There were no homless people government paid for them. Everybody was working because government was paying your wages so no company was loosing money. Nobody owned anything all was owned by government. Nobody was allowed to travel outside the system because (according to government) we did not want to see how bad you lived in western world. When I say everybody that did not include the hierarchy (communist leaders).
It existed until they run out of what they confiscated from private people and companies when they came to power. Than it collapsed.
Society collapses when leaders loose control and believe they know the best what is good for you.
Henry

Sign of the Times, failure of food stamp system this past weekend

Oct 12, 2013 - "People in Ohio, Michigan and 15 other states found themselves temporarily unable to use their food stamp debit-style cards on Saturday, after a routine test of backup systems by vendor Xerox Corp. resulted in a system failure."

"Earlier Saturday shoppers left carts of groceries behind at a packed Market Basket grocery store in Biddeford, Maine, because they couldn’t get their benefits", said shopper Barbara Colman, of Saco, Maine.

“That’s a problem. There are a lot of families who are not going to be able to feed children because the system is (out of service)"

"In Clarksdale, Miss. - one of the poorest parts of one of the poorest states in the nation - cashier Eliza Shook said dozens of customers at Corner Grocery had to put back groceries when the cards failed Saturday because they couldn't afford to pay for the food."

A record 23 million U.S. households were on food stamps in June. This is equal to 20 percent of all households nationwide. In the United States, all food stamp benefits are now being issued via electronic benefits transfer cards. Money is dispersed to the cards on the first, fifth and 10th days of every month, so the disruption came at what is typically a high-use time for the cards.

The U.S. food stamp program costs nearly $80 billion a year, and, even with recent cuts proposed by congress, the food stamp program will cost more than $700 billion over the next 10 years. Only by continually raising the debt ceiling can the United States avoid deep cuts to spending levels on food subsidies and other programs including defense, health, pensions, and infrastructure.

Should there be a general failure of the banking and digital commerce system, many households in Canada and the U.S. would run out of food in as little as 48 hours.

All that rain this year produced a bumper corn crop. Because corn is in everything on the store shelves, we should be seeing a decline in food prices. However, as we know from oil prices, one thing doesn't always lead to the other.

The U.S. corn crop may be a record 14.03 billion bushels this year, or 1.3 percent more than the U.S. Department of Agriculture predicted in September and 30 percent larger than in 2012

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-04/corn-near-three-year-low-on-global-supplies-argentina-rainfall.html

A large part of the reason for record corn farming is the fact it's used in ethanol fuel, in ever increasing quantities.

So, we should never expect a good corn year to drop the price of food. All surplus corn will go right to the ethanol refineries.

Sign of the Times, failure of food stamp system this past weekend

Oct 12, 2013 - "People in Ohio, Michigan and 15 other states found themselves temporarily unable to use their food stamp debit-style cards on Saturday, after a routine test of backup systems by vendor Xerox Corp. resulted in a system failure."

"Earlier Saturday shoppers left carts of groceries behind at a packed Market Basket grocery store in Biddeford, Maine, because they couldn’t get their benefits", said shopper Barbara Colman, of Saco, Maine.

“That’s a problem. There are a lot of families who are not going to be able to feed children because the system is (out of service)"

"In Clarksdale, Miss. - one of the poorest parts of one of the poorest states in the nation - cashier Eliza Shook said dozens of customers at Corner Grocery had to put back groceries when the cards failed Saturday because they couldn't afford to pay for the food."

A record 23 million U.S. households were on food stamps in June. This is equal to 20 percent of all households nationwide. In the United States, all food stamp benefits are now being issued via electronic benefits transfer cards. Money is dispersed to the cards on the first, fifth and 10th days of every month, so the disruption came at what is typically a high-use time for the cards.

The U.S. food stamp program costs nearly $80 billion a year, and, even with recent cuts proposed by congress, the food stamp program will cost more than $700 billion over the next 10 years. Only by continually raising the debt ceiling can the United States avoid deep cuts to spending levels on food subsidies and other programs including defense, health, pensions, and infrastructure.

Should there be a general failure of the banking and digital commerce system, many households in Canada and the U.S. would run out of food in as little as 48 hours.

This is what I mean about media and hype. They give you part of the information, and let you freak yourself out depending on what you want to read into it. Interesting news report I heard about Food Stamps. They doubled there distribution under George W., and then literally doubled there distribution again under Obama. Why? Is it really 8x the number of people who need them? 🙂 It was also interesting to hear that government employess were given bonuses relevant to the number of people they could sign up for the program....lol.

You can read into news reports a thousand different ways....

Lifted from a page called News Network Archeology. Under the Malthusian catastrophe category. Of all the possible reasons to prep for disaster, food supply is the one which looms largest over history. This is why we celebrate Thanksgiving, though the origins in famine are rarely thought of today.

"Cultivating soil continuously for too long destroys the bacteria which convert the organic matter into nutrients"

" Soil fertility was a mystery to the ancients. Traditional farmers speak of soils becoming tired, sick, or cold; the solution was typically to move on until they recovered. By the mid-20th century, soils and plants could be routinely tested to diagnose deficiencies, and a global agrochemical industry set out to fix them. Soil came to be viewed as little more than an inert supportive matrix, to be flooded with a soup of nutrients.

This narrow approach led to an unprecedented increase in food production, but also contributed to global warming and the pollution of aquifers, rivers, lakes, and coastal ecosystems.

Replacing the fertility-sustaining processes in the soil with a dependence on external inputs has also made the soil ecosystem, and humans, vulnerable to interruptions in the supply of those inputs, for instance due to price shocks."

http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.ca/2013/11/civilizations-rise-and-fall-on-quality.html#.Un7DxH4o7IU

Last summer's wet weather has been blamed on a Pacific Ocean temperature shift known as El Nino, which is becoming more common.

Intense meteorological events like last year's localized drought and excessive rains are predicted to become more frequent. This is relevant to the food supply. California, the top North American food producer and exporter, is experiencing an extreme water shortage. On Friday, California Governor Jerry Brown declared a state-wide drought emergency.

Today, lettuce is selling at the local IGA store for $1.99 a head, which is cheap for mid-winter. Affordable prices on produce seem to be offset by higher prices elsewhere in breads and other staples.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/extreme-el-nino-weather-to-double-in-frequency-study-says-1.2503897

The drop in the price of oil is the most significant event shaping 2015.

As preppers, we have reason to keep an eye on events which could indicate when our prepping should be ramped up, i.e. levels of consumables should be increased and timelines for self-sufficiency adjusted to fit the window of opportunity.

What's happening with oil is a showdown which determines the fate of the US dollar as the world's reserve currency. This has enormous weight on our economy. The oil price was deliberately lowered to shake up the oil market, which has been increasingly moving away from the Middle East. In effect, countries like Canada and Russia are being challenged for our share of the market.

Russia has indicated it will shun the US dollar, part of a growing rebellion against US dollar hegemony. The Saudis, who are behind the oil price drop, are aligned with Washington on this gamble to re-order the oil market and return the dollar to pre-eminence.

Even if the price of oil rebounds this year, the trend away from the USD will continue. Less investments in the dollar will mean less liquidity in Western banking, which means rising costs of borrowing.

As always, obtain the preps you can while you can. Rather than a sudden shock, in the short term we will probably be looking at an incremental tightening of credit and an increase in costs of living.

Have you ever volunteered some where for a charitable organization and had your neighbors and some of your friends show up on the other side of the counter.
It has happened to me I started volunteering at a local soup kitchen that just opened and at first it embarrassed me and set me back a step or two. But I'll tell ya what I'm going to be a quieter and more prepared prepper because of it. These were the folks with the big cottage, fancy boats, fly away ski trips but there dad worked in the Alberta oil sands and its all gone just like that. WOW

It seems to me that Ottawa613 is both right and wrong. The mess of the oil patch is disheartening for all of those directly effected, and those whose industries have been bolstered by the resource economy. I am told though, that the big auto companies are once again making substantial investments in Ontario's auto sector. Cheap oil equals a lower dollar, equals a bolstered manufacturing sector based on that low dollar, equals more opportunity somewhere that is not Alberta. Some people will suffer for the change; others will prosper from it. The real tragedy will come from people not learning that this is all a cycle and saving a little when things are well.

Mule mentions a neighbour that was flying high on the oil boom but has fallen on hard times along with the market. It sounds like this neighbour was not a prepper; not because the family didn't have a store of food, but because they didn't even have some of that "big money" they were making put away for when the resource ultimately stalled! Now the boat will have to go for pennies on the dollar.

Ottawa613 has correctly predicted that the cost of money will go up. I don't really know if the reasoning is right and I won't say that it is wrong. Is there really any other direction for the interest rates to go though? It's another cycle...

I'm an Albertan. I've witnessed this cycle in the 1970s(the Saudis), 80s(the Liberals), 90s(wasn't paying attention for who to blame), 08(the Americans), and again in 2014/15 (Shale technology). I would guess that I will see the cycle turn at least twice more before I retire. As a prepper, you know that I have an emergency fund in place for just this sort of thing. Who the F cares about the End times? I'm working to manage the turn of the wheel that I'm riding.

Thanks for that couldn't have said it better
It's trying to get folks to try and put even 1 thing away each week for a rainy day
For most it is hard to stock pile a wad of cash because there is always a need or emergency and try as you may it gets used
Here is one suggestion how to do it and I wont say where it is

While building a cement pad ,a deeper post hole is dug to the depth of your choosing
insert a pvc pipe capped and sealed at both ends
cement the pipe into place allowing room for a flat metal lid to look like a floor drain
The cap in the pvc pipe and the metal cap will each have 1 slit cut in them only long enough and wide enough to slide paper money in
My choice when I built mine was paper money only, no less than 50 dollars at a time
With the metal cap actually inserted when the cement was wet I think it would be quiet difficult to get out.
Just a thought

California drought

Because of the dual factors of a fragile ecology coupled with rapid population growth, California has been a topic of interest for me. As a prepper, I value foresight and awareness of cracks in the perpetual growth model that we live in.

The hot fall temperatures we experienced were the result of climatic events which are causing drought In the western US. California, the largest west coast state, has a population (38 million) greater than Canada in a land mass smaller than Ontario. Its been in a drought emergency for several years now.

The latest symptom of human ecological impact is land subsidence. As water is pumped out of the ground, the land is significantly settling (subsiding). Even if the drought were to suddenly end, the landscape will not bounce back up to its former levels. There are indications that mass flooding of low areas would disrupt the economic and social structure.

Because of California's critical role as a food grower and economic engine, an ecological disaster in this state would have far-reaching repercussions. While not being as environmentally fragile as Cali, Canada should not rest on its laurels. Like California, we are vulnerable to shocks. Our economic growth has shrunk to 1.77 percent, following a steadily declining post-war trend over the last 70 years. This in spite of mass immigration to pump up the numbers. We are too urban and dependent on timely delivery of food, water and electricity. Most people in Canada could not survive a winter if a crisis disrupted the necessities of life.

Our capacity to grow food and maintain fresh water supplies may seem infinite, and by extension our capacity to absorb millions more of the world's desperate migrants trying to flee overpopulation. If anything can be learned from California, it is that the carrying capacity of the planet has limits.

Further reading about California and land subsidence may be found here:
http://www.vdare.com/posts/california-land-subsidence-hits-record-levels