Some one shoveled my front side walk and I have no idea who to thank. I was a little sore after working on the shop and was late getting to the sidewalk. It was a very happy surprise and made my day! There are great people in the world and it is sometimes easy to forget that when the bad ones have such a huge affect in spite of their lower numbers. Winter is settling in the valley as we will drop into the single digits at night this week. I added a fan and moved one to see if I could get better heat circulation moving the heat towards the backside of the house. It seems to be working as the front room with the wood stove is slightly cooler and the back rooms are slightly warmer, about 4 degrees F. in each direction for the rooms. I added a thick Burlap sack about 12 inches in front of the doggie door to block the wind and create an air space for the pet entrance. I can already feel a difference as the room is less drafty.
It looks like it may be a white Christmas according to forecast models. While I may hate driving around with the local morons that have no concept how to drive in snow the moisture has been great for the valley. If January and February snow falls are as steady we may get out of the drought conditions. Last year started off with a wet December and then almost no snow in Jan. and Feb. and that would be bad for us.
The last of the seasoned dry wood from the carport is now on the porch rack and this years wood restacked into that area. I'm burning the older seasoned wood and I think I will get though this years heating season without using any of the wood I purchased this year. Of course it all depends on how cold the winter gets but over all I am pleased with the wood usage so far. I'm using the wood from the kennel area first as I want to use this area for another purpose. I have a lot of older mix of wood stored under the carport but it needs to be cut and or split to fit the stove and a small stack of wood that was sort of a overflow spot for last years wood stack. When I think about the folks getting hammered by high heating costs in the USA and the EU I bless having my wood stove and wood pile. I'm sure some poeple will say "Jamie, you paid almost a thousand dollars for your wood!" That is correct but that will provide all my heat from October 2022-April of 2023 or five months and it is better/warmer feeling heat to me than anything electric can provide. Big bonus I control my heat not the government or the power company.
What can you control and what is the Counter party risk. We in the west and I assume in most 1st/2nd tier economies require a lot of trust. Third will economies have very little trust because it does not work. In high trust economies we assume the PTBs will follow laws, contracts and so on. If they don't follow the laws the legal system is available to force them to follow the laws. But if that trust is lost and it seems there is a two tiered legal system, One for the elite and another for everyone else? Then you have a third world system that is based in no trust. I would say to you that the USA and most of the western world is falling into a 2nd/3rd world economy because of the lack of trust in institutions and the law makes recourse either slow or impossible for the average person to get some justice as they just don't have the ability to use the law. I know there are legal defense funds and pro bono lawyers and bless them, but they are not enough for most people with no money.
What I want people to consider first is what is the counter party risk. For example: I heat with wood but I can't harvest wood and I depend on a company to provide me with cut and split wood for a fair price. What happens if this company is not allowed to cut wood on National Forrest lands? With the crazy Environmentalist that could happen. Not that it will happen but it is a Counterparty risk. How do you avoid the risk? You buy for what you need in the future and you get it delivered to you. Anne Barnhardt said" If you can't stand over it with an AR-15 then you don't own it. While that may seem a bit extreme there is another saying in the USA possession is 9/10th of the law.
If you prep you have the things on site. That does not mean people won't try and take it from you, but that you will have a say one way or the other if it easy or nasty! One reason I hate Bitcoin is I have no control and must trust people that I'm not sure are trustworthy. I like the idea of bitcoin but there is no intrinsic value to Bitcoin. Without electricity and the internet Bitcoins don't work. Every Currency in the world is a FIAT currency backed by nothing tangible. Bitcoin is a Digital FIAT currency backed by nothing tangible. Perhaps it is not government controlled but it does not change the fact it is backed by nothing. I have no problem with folks that use Bit coin to buy tangible assets. You can buy precious metals, homes/land even some cars but that does not make it a real tangible asset. It only has value because people think it has value. Read about John Law and the Tulip bulbs in the 1600s. If you have Bitcoins or some of the other digital coins I would buy anything of tangible value as quickly as you can and get out of Bitcoins before the all the Governments make there own digital currency and basically shut down Bitcoin. Governments hate competition. I think this FTX fiasco will give governments permission to shut down most digital currencies.
Economically speaking the two biggest motivators of people are FEAR and GREED. It is interesting to watch what they do to pretend those emotions don't motivate them. Economists are often more wrong then the local weatherman and it is scary how many people listen to them. You don't want to get burned in the stock market, simple get out of the Stock market. When things start growing again, jump back in. What many Stock broker focus on overall gains from the crash of 1929. It took over 20 years before the stock market recovered after the crash and that was with inflation and a wartime economy. The trick about winning in the stock market is to get out before the crash and buy up after the crash. Don't go chasing after stock gains blind you to how week the economy is today.
No growth, no gains and with interest rates it has become too expensive to buy back stocks to increase the price. Cheap and easy money is at an end at least for the short term.
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