Article – Why your toilet paper is shrinking

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

Everything shrinks in a recession: GDP, investment portfolios, even the products on store shelves. Consumer  goods companies know that customers won’t go for price increases during a downturn. Instead they often use a different tactic to offset things such as new competition or the rising cost of raw materials: cutting quantity while maintaining price. Yet it may not be obvious that your ice cream or OJ containers have shrunk. Manufacturers must note new specs on packaging, but the changes don’t have to be advertised (ever seen a now smaller! label?). Here’s a look at one of the most recent examples:

This still comes as news to some people. Apparently, there are still folks out there that don’t actually read the labels on the containers of food they purchase. I’ve been noticing this for a while now. Most notably my 1/2 gal. of Breyers has been melting faster and faster as the packaging continues to shrink and the price remains the same. Same for the spaghetti sauce I buy. The price stays the same, the quantity shrinks and the net result is you pay more for what youre buy but you don’t really notice.

This is kind of a ‘soft inflation’…it’s happening, but it’s being quietly slipped in under cover of careful labelling and packaging. One of the reasons I notice is because a) I almost always evaluate prices by comparing price/oz. and b) I have items purchased last year that I can compare against. This has been going on for a while and if more folks were aware of it more folks might realize how their purchasing power is slipping away.

This is another reason we stock up on things when we can. That can of vegetables that cost $1 per 15 oz. this year may wind up buying an identical sized can next year that only holds 13 oz. at the same price. When you see those sales, stock up.

We’re planning on hitting the local grocery stores Friday and seeing what kinda discounts we can get on turkeys. ‘Cause, let’s face it, prices ain’t going down.

Article – Why there are no Red Cross shelters in New York City

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

In the immediate aftermath of the storm, the Red Cross held several emergency training sessions for shelter volunteers (I attended a November 2 session), telling classes that they needed to plan for a three-day stint away from home and be able to lift heavy loads.

But that shelter operation never came to pass, and volunteers were told that the Red Cross would not be needing shelter workers. In the meantime, images of New York City’s many devastated neighborhoods filled nightly newscasts; and the housing situation for many New Yorkers grew increasingly dire. The city has estimated that between 20,000 and 40,000 residents could be homeless or forced to live in unheated homes with no running water or power. The conditions are particularly deplorable in the high rises that dot the landscape near the waterfront in Brooklyn and Queens. About 5,200 Staten Islanders have applied for FEMA housing, but according to the New York Post only 24 or so have been placed.

Criticism has rained down on the Red Cross for not providing places for this mass of displaced people to live, but it seems that the aid organization is not permitted to set up shelters in the city due to a snarl of red tape.

 

This doesn’t surprise me. In a political/union heavy environ like NYC it’s a “Brazil”-like experience getting anything done.

Most NYC public schools are old WPA projects from the first third of the twentieth century. They are built like fortresses and usually have very large fenced yards. Excellent staging areas if you don’t mind cancelling classes. Virtually all of them were designated (and stocked) as fallout shelters back in the day. The hurricane hasnt been invented that could knock one down. Fabulous resource, too bad it’s caught up in the usual morass of inefficient local government.

Moral of the story is, even if there are groups predicated on disaster services, and they get to the scene, and local governemnt has plans as well, there’s no guarantee anything is going to get done. You’re far better off preparing on your own.

Which, really, brings me to something I’ve been curious about. Everyone is related to everyone in NYC. Big Catholic, Jewish, Italian, Irish families with relatives spread all over the place….why are these people not staying with relatives? I can understand wanting to stay with your stuff to rpevent looting, but thats a choice. These people in four-story walk-ups complaining about no elevators, no heat, no water, etc…why don’t they head over to their cousins or uncles place and crash in their basement for a week or two?

Link – ‘Doomsday Preppers’: The craziest bunkers we’ve seen so far

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

Sure, you watch “The Walking Dead” and “Revolution” every week… but are you prepared for a real-life end-of-the-world scenario? The folks featured on National Geographic’s “Doomsday Preppers” sure are: They’ve built themselves well-stocked bunkers that can withstand anything from a global pandemic to a zombie apocalypse. And while the “preppers” stockpile supplies like crazed hoarders and put their small children through elaborate survival drills, the show brings on emergency-preparedness experts to judge how long each bunker would actually survive a catastrophe.

I still haven’t watched this show and despite people assuming that I wouldhave a tremendous interest in it, I really don’t.

Guns – The AAI CAWS project

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

Military auto shotguns have been dabbled with for a while, and one of the more interesting projects was the CAWS project. Special shotgun rounds, special shotgun. It never really got off the ground but you can see some DNA was passed down to the Daewoo, USAS, Atchisson and a few others.

I loves me some auto shotgun action as much as the next guy, but I think the basic pumpgun is probably a better choice. On the other hand, I wouldnt turn down a USAS-12 if one came my way. (And, yeah, the fedgoons messed up my fun by making it a Destructive Device.)

Article – New York City extends gas rationing; Bloomberg cites holiday travel crunch

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

Gasoline rationing for drivers in New York City has been extended through Friday.

The odd-even license plate system for gasoline and diesel purchase, instituted on Nov. 9 following the aftereffects of superstorm Sandy, was scheduled to end on Monday.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced Sunday he was extending the emergency order, even as the long lines at the pump have diminished. Bloomberg noted the major travel week ahead due to Thanksgiving.

“The odd-even license plate system has worked well and helped to reduce wait times and lines at the pump,” Bloomberg said in a statement. “With 30 percent of gas stations still closed and a major travel week coming, I am extending the successful odd-even system on gas and diesel fuel purchases to ensure we do not risk going back to the extreme lines we saw prior to the system being implemented.”

Nice. In the name of ‘emergency’, Bloomberg declares gas rationing to be the law of the land. And then, because of a holiday, he continues his edict. Perhaps it would have been to much for him to simply expand his odd-even license plate scheme to use of the public streets.

An excellent example of local government getting high-handed. I wonder if the folks in NYC would be as complacent if they were rationing water, or milk, or food in this manner.

An excellent reason to have your own stockpile of fuel…because even without a disaster you can wind up finding yourself facing these sorts of third-world issues.

2008 Redux

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

I have a would-be customer who wants me to hook him up with a Stag #2 (with the Plus Package) or a Rock River Entry AR. He asked me about this a day or two after the election and it was about all I could do to keep from laughing into the phone. You want to buy an AR a couple days after Carter The Second wins the presidential election? Why not try buying lifejackets once the iceberg hits the hull? Availability will be similar.

Stag Arms is not only not answering their phones but the voicemail option tersely says “we are not taking any messages at this time.” Rock River at least had a human answer the phone who told me the wait on an AR outta there is currently at four months.

I have been to this dance before and know all the steps. Put your left foot in, put your right foot out, reach for your wallet and wave it all about…..

Oh, and before I forget:

I told you so. I told you so. I told you so. I told you so. I told you so. I told you so. I told you so. I told you so. I told you so. I told you so. I told you so.

Now I feel better……