Charlotte, North Carolina, houses the Bank of America’s corporate headquarters. Five of the nation’s top 25 banks operate in Charlotte.  It has a high concentration of Bank of America’s 200,000 US direct employees, as well as workers under contract. Charlotte is something of a company town.  A statue at one of the main intersections shows a miner  pouring gold on top of the head of a banker,  modeled after former Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan.

The Occupy Charlotte protesters have been under fierce attack ever since the movement started, and have now had their democratic right to protest severely curtailed.  New rules drafted by a relatively junior city official define “free speech space” and ordain that any gathering which takes up more than 5 square feet of space must last no longer than three minutes. That’s right THREE minutes.Bank of America employees are taught to keep this giant’s secrets hidden.  In fact, one might go as far as to say that the employees are primed with answers riddled with confidentiality and security measures. How do we know, you ask? Well, several employees (who wish to remain anonymous) have come forward with details the methodologies given to the staff members, as part of their  training regimen.

Bank of America employees are all familiar with the term “MyLearning”; a module that contains lessons on various internal issues and how to behave in public when asked certain questions. Bank of America has an image to uphold and they make it a point to put employees through training courses to prepare them for the possibility of media questioning.

These rules come disguised within Risk Assessment, Money Laundering, and even “Code of Ethics” courses that help the employees understand what is right and wrong in finance and how to approach unethical business with politicians and government officials. What they tend to underplay is that within these courses are hidden agendas and statements about what information must not be divulged to the media, or outside of the company, backed with the threat of termination. In fact, if the employee does not pass these tests with 80%, he or she must start over from the beginning.

But Charlotte employees cannot stand up to this giant because there is no longer a way for them to congregate and no “safe haven” for those who want to speak out. The only way to protest legally in Charlotte is to do so within the confines of the “free speech space.”

What has happened to freedom of speech within this over-looked financial capitol?   More information to be released as employee stories unfold.

World Economic Fixers grab for power

The Corporate Muppets running Davos, the annual gathering of financial and industrial leaders, launched their 2012 meeting saying that now is the moment for business to take over from government as the key force for social change. But the evidence they present for this claim proves quite the opposite:  in reality, while trust in politicians and companies has collapsed, public movements like Occupy and Tea Party, plus peer-to-peer web sites are likely to become far more influential.

The impetus for the debate is the just-released poll by Edelman, a corporate PR company, showing that the public’s faith in government has dropped sharply around the world in the past year due to a mixture of corruption and incompetence.  It is this change which is causing people to go off-grid in growing numbers, particularly in the US.

In the poll of 5,600 wealthy, well-educated and well-informed respondents in 25 countries, those saying they trusted their government fell from 52 per cent to 43 per cent, with the figure falling below 30 per cent in countries including Japan, Russia and Spain.

The steep falls in politicians’ standing in countries from France to Brazil, previously unseen in the 12-year history of the survey, more than erased the gains governments had made since the onset of the global financial crisis.

Politicians are now even less trusted than business, non-government organisations or the media, and the number of countries where a majority of the “informed public” polled said they distrusted all four institutions almost doubled in the year, from six to 11 per cent.

The causes for waning public faith in governments varied from the eurozone debt crisis to corruption scandals in Brazil and the handling of the aftermath of Japan’s earthquake, said Richard Edelman, the consultancy’s president.

“We see a yawning gap between what people expect of government and the performance they say government is actually delivering,” said Mr Edelman.

At Davos he will say that the new public view – that government officials were the least credible spokespeople – had given companies “a licence to lead”.

However, Dominic Barton, managing director of McKinsey consultancy, noted that business and non-government organisations had also lost ground in the survey. “We’ve got business, government and society in that triangle,” he said. “It’s a pretty torn fabric.”

Trust in business globally fell back from 56 per cent to 53 per cent. Chief executives saw a sharp drop in their standing, with the number saying they saw this group as credible spokespeople falling from 50 to 38 per cent. In every country, however, government leaders were even more distrusted than business leaders.

The US saw a slight rise in companies’ standing – trust levels rose four percentage points to 50 per cent. The figure jumped 10 points to 71 per cent in China, but the opposite was true in western Europe. In Germany, France and Spain, the share of the “informed public” saying they trusted business fell from about half to a third or less.

Executives hoping for less political scrutiny more than three years after Lehman Brothers collapsed will be concerned by the poll’s finding that half of those asked said they wanted business to be more tightly regulated, while only 22 per cent thought companies were over-regulated.

Financial services companies remain the least-trusted businesses, and trust in banks fell further, with distrust in the banking sector spreading from the eurozone to South Korea and Japan. In the US, however, bankers regained some public trust, despite the harsh light shone on them by the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Policing corporate behaviour ranked highest on respondents’ lists of expectations of government, but “those are things business could do itself.”

That presents business with an opportunity to influence debate, Mr Edelman said.

Mr Barton said the survey offered contrasting lessons on the case for collaboration between business and government. “The negative side is that if two groups with negative trust start fighting with each other, that’s like two drowning people fighting,” he said.

The survey shows the stark impact of Japan’s earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis. Trust in government halved to only 26 per cent, trust in the energy industry dropped from 75 to 29 per cent and the share of people seeing government officials as credible spokespeople dived from 63 to only 8 per cent.

It is intended to lead to a permanent position at a proper rate of pay.

You will be helping me research and write the stories on off-grid.net and also promoting the site around the Internet. You will also help develop the content so it is of maximum usefulness to the readers – the nuts and bolts of how to go off the grid and stay off the grid, sourcing first-hand experiences, video material and photos as well as moderating the forum.

Subject range from Smart Grid data protection to anonymous phones to solar chargers. The details of managing your own power and water are only part of the focus. I am also looking at staying under the radar of the The System.

You will also be helping promote this web site and the documentary project at indiegogo.com/offthegrid (needs to be updated).

Superb research skills and a total fluency wth all social media is a must, plus a true love of the subject matter and a guarantee that you will give this your total focus.

Start February 1st, or sooner.

Please email Nick Rosen – nick@off-grid.net.

Time to lose the suit

While news emerges that the top bosses in Western economies are earning FIFTY times more than they did in the eighties, in many US cities, the youth unemployment rate is reaching 50%.  The same is true in European cities, especially in Spain, Greece and Portugal. Italy will be next.

Its only the beginning.  We may now understand the way the global elite has gamed the financial system in recent years (partly thanks to the Occupy movement). But there are no signs that we are doing anything about it.  The Davos crowd, which has ruled the global economy for the past two decades, takes money from the masses and hide their activities by creating bubbles.

The result is the current peak in youth unemployment —  a tragedy because it condemns those people who happened to graduate from school or college during a downturn to a life of disadvantage.  But youth unemployment is cyclical.  The next upturn alleviates the problem.

White collar jobless

But the growing issue for Western economies is middle-aged unemployment.; the 40-and 50-somethings, with families to support and years of pension contributions and tax payments behind them, who are thrown on the scrap-heap as big structural changes in the economy transport white-collar jobs to the emerging economies in Asia and Latin America.

Huge swathes of the employed populations had better start planning for a time of no job, and very little in the way of State benefits.

America spends 17 per cent of its GDP on healthcare, twice the average for developed countries. But Americans are less healthy than others, although healthcare costs have risen 9 per cent this year alone. Healthcare will lose half its labor force in the next decade. Finance accounts for 8 per cent of GDP, twice as high as the historical average.  The extra 4 per cent went into the pockets, trust funds and country homes of the financial industry’s senior executives. And shareholders in big financial institutions (mainly pension funds whose managers siphon off huge fees) have lost shedloads of money. Financial workers will be displaced by advances in IT. Soon they will be fighting for McJobs.

Meanwhile 25 million people who want to work are unemployed. Since 2008, nearly 10 per cent of US households have been foreclosed and the real median household income has fallen 10 per cent. 28 percent of homeowners with mortgages are in negative equity.

For lots of folks, joining an off-grid community at least means finding some basic shelter and eating warm food.

Better than bank finance

Great article by Merlyn Seeley on Examiner.com about the wide range of ways you can make money if you are lucky enough to have a patch of good quality land. Especially off-grid land.

He points out that just buying the land is he hardest part – everything else is the reward.  Also that the more land you own the easier it is to make money from it.

One thing he does not mention is renting it out.  In normal circumstances, its probably the last thing to consider, but if you are desperate for money now, then perhaps its the first thing to consider.  You could even rent it to a solar power company which could place its panels there and harvest electricity.  If you have some cash yourself you could generate your own power and sell it to neighbors – undercutting the Utilities.

Anyway, here are some of Merlyn’s suggestions:

Trees

There are companies that will come to your place and pay you to have them clear your land of certain trees. I am not talking about clear cutting as that just ruins the place, but logging certain timber is always an option and usually pays well. All this involves is you contacting timber companies and telling them that you have standing timber for sell all they have to do is come cut it. You can sell your timber to a company or an individual.

WARNING: Make sure you have a plan to deal with the waste they will probably leave behind – the leaves, twigs and branches they do not want.

Firewood

One way is to sell it for firewood. There are always people looking for firewood during the cold months and they will come cut the wood and haul it and you get paid. Some will want the wood already cut for them and the price is usually higher if you do work for them.

Rock

If your place has lot of rock, there are places that are looking for rock to buy. If you have a truck you could haul rock to the places that want it and sell that. For that matter the same goes for top soil. A lot of land has a lot of places where you can harvest dirt and sell your top soil.

Certain rocks will sell at the farmers market if you walk around and pick out certain rocks that are unique. Maybe they havegeode crystals in them? Maybe they are fossils? In fact if you take the time to carve small designs in cedar pieces they will sell like hotcakes at the market because of the smell and unique idea cedar carvings hold. People will buy all sorts of things, but when you start telling them that the item was harvest from your own homestead they become more interested.

Animals

Raising your own animals for not only food but also for profit, is easier than it sounds. In most rural areas there are small animal auctions and large animal auctions where you can sell animals you raise yourself. These places you can buy or trade for your first animals and then breed them to make more, these you can sell for profit.

Check the local area your property is in, different animals are in higher demand than others. Some places its rabbits, other places it may be chickens or goats. Whatever the demand is that is what you want to concentrate on breeding for sells. Chicken and duck eggs area always in demand where ever you go so always plan on selling eggs for profit as well as for yourself.

Veggies

You have a nice bit of land and a lot of time now so in the spring put in a large garden. One big enough to feed your family and one that you can sell everything you grow as well. Organic garden veggies and fruit and herbs bring in a pretty penny at the local farmers market.

During the Christmas seasons you can advertise around the local towns that you have a Christmas tree farm and the trees are “you cut you haul”.

Our pre-off-grid life was pretty much like most anyone else, we lived in a regular house, a mobile home actually, in a regular neighborhood in north central Texas. PB owned his own business, taking care of restaurant equipment for several big name companies and a smattering of smaller ones, he was a one-man-band, no employees. I worked 2 jobs, the first as a merchandiser and pricing coordinator for a big box electronics company and the other job was as a trainer in a semi-well known gym for women. We weren’t what you would call well off financially, but we were happy.

We were both empty nesters from previous marriages, in the beginning neither one of us knew the other had a secret desire to live off grid, when we began to explore the idea of actually doing this, it didn’t take us long to find our perfect plot of land in far west Texas, it was just under 6 acres of unimproved, rough, almost inaccessible land on the side of a mountain in the high desert.

I cashed in my stock from my job and had enough to buy the land and had a little left over to buy some building material for the start of the cabin (soon to be renamed the sky castle). In less than 2 weeks, PB had a minimal structure built, it was enough for us to move in. We were able to get some solar panels, a charge controller, a few deep cycle batteries and a few other things we needed to get started. We began to disassemble our current city lives, PB shut down his business, I quit both of my jobs, and on December 22, 2007 we moved all of our remaining belongings to our new life in west Texas.

The first few months were pretty rough, we lived in a most primitive manner, some might even say our first few years were pretty primitive, I suspect some might even say we still live very primitively, that’s OK, it’s quite wonderful to me. We met a great neighbor who gave us some help, it made life a bit easier, things like access to his water well instead of having to go to the community well, access to his washer and dryer instead of washing by hand and hanging to dry, access to his shower instead of taking spit baths… all things we were prepared to do on our own, but having such a great neighbor we were able to do many things a little easier, in return we do most of the maintenance on his house, we do other things for him too, so it’s a fair trade.

We quickly learned about the barter system and before long we had enough connections with the community that when anyone had some used, scrap or excess building materials, they would contact us first to see if we could use it. Most of the rest of the sky castle was built using this scrap material that would have otherwise gone to the landfill. PB would go and tear down a building at a friend’s property and we would get to take the material home. Please understand, we aren’t tree huggers, we aren’t doing any of this because it’s “green”, for us it was cheap and expedient, the fact that we were in fact being green was merely a bonus.

Little by little we built up our little place into a home, with running water, eventually installing on demand propane powered water heaters, water tanks for more water storage, we built another room, the first one was 16×16, the addition was 12×12, we built on decks and eventually, my favorite addition, the shower. We also began to work on other things, like the garden, putting up out buildings, sheds and such.

All of this has taken time and lots of sweat, we have spent very little money, mainly because we do everything ourselves, and a lot of experimentation, some of which worked great, some which failed miserably. We have been blessed by good health and only minor accidents, mostly scrapes and splinters. We have grown to really love our little community, I’d say that has been as important as anything we have done. No matter how perfect your place might be, if you aren’t happy with or welcome into your community, that will not end up in a good way.

Now we are living like kings, at least that is my opinion, of course by most people’s standards including the government, we live well under the poverty level, but I wouldn’t have it any other way, I love my life, I love living with the freedom I have, I love working hard for what we have, it really does make me appreciate each and every little thing we have. When we first started out, I was hauling 3 one gallon containers of water up the hill from my neighbor’s house every day, sometimes twice a day, I guarantee you that makes me appreciate my 1550 gallon poly plastic water container with all the plumbing involved, doing dishes and laundry by hand inside my sky castle, getting to shower with hot running water…

I look forward to many more years with PB, improving our lives and the sky castle. The last couple of days has been quite fun for PB, one of our friends and neighbors came by, he had been eyeballing the gravel in our creek bed, he offered a trade for a few trailer loads of gravel, he let us use his Bobcat tractor to do some dirt work, PB achieved in a few hours of work what would have taken him weeks if not months of hard manual work, it cost zero dollars, but was priceless for us. I have to say that life is good.

A big part of my happiness is because of my faith, I found a little church in the neighborhood (we are blessed with 2 of them close by), I joined and quickly became active in the church, now I’m on the board of trustees, working to make things better and better. I have been a Christian for many years, most of my life, but living out here and being part of this church and community has helped me grow in my faith and get closer to God. I’m not saying that is necessary for you, (though for me it is), it’s a choice you have to make, I am saying that going to church is a good way to get closer to your community, and hopefully to God too, I am blessed everyday and in every way, even in the bad times, there is always a lesson to learn, a period of growth, a strengthening. Getting to live in and near nature allows me to personally witness Divinity on a daily basis.

I have many people contact me to ask for my advice on how they should go about moving off grid, how to do it cheaply, how they should do it… it’s difficult to answer because everyone is different, everyone has different standards of how they want to live, everyone has different ideas and circumstances. My biggest advice is to have a dream and set goals, let nothing come between you and your goals, I have found that people will do what they really want to do, and unfortunately there are many who wish but don’t take the action necessary to make their wish a reality. I’m not judging, just stating the facts about what I see.

If you truly want to live off grid, then do it, you don’t have to do it all at once, but start taking the steps necessary to get you to the place where you want to be. Each step you take is a step closer to your dream, don’t let life get in the way, don’t let family, friends, a job, or anything else get in the way, do what is necessary to make yourself happy and the rest of everything will fall into place. I’m not advocating doing anything illegal, I’m assuming that most of my readers are reasonable, law abiding people. I am advocating living your life to the fullest extent, and if that includes living off grid, then do it.

If you want to learn more about our lives living off grid, you can read more of my stories here

http://www.off-grid.net/section/wretha/

you can also read about us in the book Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America by Nick Rosen, we are chapter 9 in the book.

We are looking for a committed all-rounder who shares our values, and can take us to the next level and stay with us, developing the site for years to come (paid of course).

Skill Set:

Graphic Design

Usability optimisation

WordPress

PHP

Analytics

DFP

RSS

Social Media

eCommerce

Virtual Server Admin

Please write to nick(at) off-grid.net

Homesteading, it’s a buzzword that means different things to different people, back in the day, it meant getting land for free as long as you lived on it and improved it for x number of years. It was a way to get people to move west (in the USA), back when travel was slow and painful, even dangerous.

Today it usually refers to someone who is living more like our ancestors did, in a more self sufficient manner, on a plot of land, often raising livestock, growing their own food, living more independently. Most of us are more than one generation removed from those who lived on a farm or homestead, so we don’t benefit from the knowledge of our family members who lived in a more self sufficient manner. I know in my family, it was my great grand parents who had lived on a farm, my grandparents and parents lived in suburban neighborhoods with small yards and animals no bigger than a dog.

Because of this, those of us who want to live closer to the land have to resort to alternative methods of obtaining  knowledge. I continually scour the internet for books about living off grid, gardening and such, I found this book The Ultimate Guide to Homesteading: An Encyclopedia of Independent Living (The Ultimate Guides), actually I didn’t find it, I was offered an opportunity to review it and I jumped at the chance, it was a book I had been looking at previously and was more than happy to review it.

I keep getting distracted from writing because I keep finding more and more interesting things in this book to read, I just read about growing cotton, then picking it, cleaning it, and spinning it. Since I crochet, this is especially appealing to me, and something I think I can do with little trouble. For now, I’m not set up to raise wool bearing animals, but I can grow cotton and process it.

This book has a lot to offer, it doesn’t go into extreme detail on any one subject, but gives you enough information so that you can decide if that particular thing is something you really want to try.  Nicole Faires (don’t you just love her name?) the author, has certainly lived the life, she is not just spouting theory, she grew up on a hobby farm raising chickens and growing her own food among other things.

While not an exhaustive list of homesteading subjects, I believe it covers the majority of them quite nicely, such as:

• land-buying, communities…
• water-getting it, purifying it and such
• food-finding it, growing it, preserving it…
• animals-livestock, domestic…
• shelter-various home styles, barns, fences…
• financial-making money from your skills…
• health-medicines, herbal medicines,
• and lots more

There is a great  dictionary in the back so you will at least sound like you know what you are talking about when chatting with the old timers at the feed store, LOL, seriously, I have had a good time reading the terminology and their meanings. Such as “butt-up”, before reading this book, I would have said that is how one lands when tripping over a rock and doing a face plant, now I know that is a type of roof ridge made in thatching which forces the straw together from both sides of the roof to form a peak. “Flying change”, I would think it’s what happens when you lose control of your change purse, but it really has to do with horses.

Near the back of the book, just before the index, the author’s bio and several blank pages (perfect for adding your own notes), there is a great bibliography with tons of resources, mostly in the form of internet links. These will send you to more detailed resources for the subjects found in this book. This alone is worth the price of the book.

The book is easy to read, well made, with lots of color photographs and diagrams, nice thick glossy pages ensure this book will last for a long time, that’s a good thing because once you have this book, you will be referring to it over and over again throughout the years.

PB (my hubby) has been trying to steal this book from me ever since I received it, his comment on it was that it is a good all over resource, not detailed on each thing, but a good book and he’s glad we have it, he has also been going on and on about how well this book is physically put together, the binding, the paper quality and the pictures. Now that I’m finished with this review, I can safely give the book to him, I’ll not see it again for a while. :)

See my other book reviews here:
http://www.off-grid.net/tag/book-review/

Honesty disclaimer:
I did receive this book free from the publisher for the expressed intent of giving a review, that in no way influenced my review, all of my reviews are honest and from the heart.

The prestigious TED lectures invited Mark Boyle, The Moneyless Man, to their Oporto summit last week. His lifestyle practices the teachings of the Gift Economy – the idea that if each of us gave unconditionally – without expecting anything back in return, then the world could function just as it does at the moment, but without banks, mortgages or exploitation.

How Mark would have flown to Oporto in the moneyless society is not explained. I guess he would not have needed to go.

“We could have a moneyless society TODAY. All it takes is for everyone to abandon money and give their services and products for free to each other.

“And without money we wouldn’t need: Banks, Insurance companies, Sales clerks, Tax people….60% of all ‘jobs’ would be gone, and we could finally concentrate on making this planet The Best Planet For Everyone.”

Google The Venus Project. :)

Stein: Govt money wasted

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, there were over 500 measurable earthquakes in the New Madrid Fault System since September. A massive quake in this area would kill or injure millions and leave 14 million homeless.

But we may be foolish to take the warning signs too seriously. Federal and state agencies are ramping up a campaign of publicity and events, including drills, conferences and field trips, to convince communities that they face impending earthquake disaster. “The proposed solution is to spend billions of dollars bringing buildings in places like Memphis, where major earthquakes are rare, to the same standards of earthquake resistance as California, where major damaging earthquakes are much more common,” says Seth Stein, Deering Professor of Geological Sciences at Northwestern University.

“Before becoming unduly concerned about this or other disasters, it’s worth remembering that although apocalyptic forecasts are common, they rarely pan out.

In the 1976 “aporkalpse,” the government warned of a 50 percent probability that swine flu would kill a million Americans. Despite critics’ reservations, 40 million people were vaccinated at a cost of millions of dollars before the program was suspended. About 500 people had serious reactions and 25 died, compared to one person who died from swine flu.

As the year 2000, “Y2K,” approached, a government-led program resulted in billions of dollars being spent to avoid the collapse of society resulting from the fact that some computers would think the New Year was 1900. Calmer voices, including Bill Gates, proved correct as few major problems occurred, even among businesses and countries that made little or no preparations. In 2003, the government’s warning of bioterrorism cleared stores of duct tape and plastic sheeting, now discarded or put to better use.

Disaster predictions keep coming, in part because we like being a little scared. We enjoy horror movies, Halloween and roller coasters.

Because we know that the predicted disasters are unlikely, we aren’t surprised when they don’t happen and get enthusiastic when another is predicted. Still, before spending huge sums, it’s worth thinking about the likelihood of a disaster.

In this case, the claims of impending disaster have three weaknesses.

- First, they assume the earthquakes 200 years ago were much bigger than recent research shows. Although they often are claimed to have been the largest to strike the “lower 48″ states, that’s not true, as shown by the damage they did and didn’t. Log cabins fell in New Madrid itself, but only minor damage occurred in distant communities like St. Louis, Nashville and Louisville. Church bells in Boston didn’t ring, despite a legend repeated in government publications that arose from confusing the Charlestown area of Boston with Charleston, S.C.

- Second, the scenario assumes that a similar earthquake is coming within the next few hundred years. This seemed plausible 20 years ago, because geological studies found evidence of ones in about 1450 and 900 AD, so it looked like these happen about every 500 years. Since 1990, the new Global Positioning System, GPS, allows geologists to test that idea by measuring small motions of the ground that occur near faults as energy accumulates that will be released in a future earthquake. To our surprise, the ground at New Madrid isn’t moving or is moving very slowly, so there’s no sign of a big earthquake on the way any time soon. We also have realized that most of the small earthquakes that happen in the area today, which have been used to claim that a big one is coming, probably are aftershocks from the large earthquakes 200 years ago.

- Third, the proposed codes specifying how strongly to build buildings use extreme assumptions. Most crucially, they require buildings to be designed for the strongest shaking predicted on average in 2,500 years. Because buildings have a useful life of 50 to 100 years, they are unlikely to experience such rare shaking. That’s why buildings in California or foreign counties are designed to the much less expensive standard of withstanding the shaking expected every 500 years. That’s still much tougher than the criterion used for floods.

The government wants buildings in the Midwest, which are very unlikely to be shaken strongly enough to be seriously damaged, to be built to the standards of those in California, which are more likely to be seriously shaken. This plan has the usual problems with unfunded mandates. Bringing one hospital in Memphis up to California standards would cost about $60 million. Bringing all the buildings in the area up to this standard would take billions of dollars over hundreds of years. Some businesses facing these costs, with little or no benefit, would locate elsewhere or not build new buildings. Communities would lose tax revenue and use resources preparing for earthquakes that could do more good otherwise. Money used putting steel in schools wouldn’t be available to hire teachers, money spent strengthening hospitals couldn’t be used for patient care, and so on.

Surprisingly, this proposal has not been studied to compare its costs and benefits. It amounts to an insurance agent promoting an expensive new policy with no idea of its costs or benefits. Simple calculations suggest that the costs are likely to be much greater than the benefits. As a result, residents should think carefully before committing enormous resources to preparing for unlikely disaster. The best strategy is to enjoy the bicentennial – but not take it too seriously.

Here is the request which FEMA put out last week to suppliers of emergency food (separate requests went out for water and blankets):

OTICE TYPE: Sources Sought Notice

DATE POSTED: 20-JAN-11

OFFICE ADDRESS: Department of Homeland Security; Federal Emergency Management Agency; Logistics Section; 500 C Street SWPatriots Plaza — 5th Floor Washington DC 20472

SUBJECT: RFI for Pre-Packaged Commercial Meals

CLASSIFICATION CODE: 89 – Subsistence

SOLICITATION NUMBER: HSFEHQ-11-R-Meals

CONTACT: Julieann L. Phillips, CONTRACTING OFFICER, Phone 202-646-3234, Fax 202.646.1765, Email Julieann.phillips@dhs.gov

SETASIDE: N/A

NOTICE TEXT: Department of Homeland Security

Federal Emergency Management Agency

Logistics Section

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) procures and stores pre-packaged commercial meals to support readiness capability for immediate distribution to disaster survivors routinely. The purpose of this Request for Information is to identify sources of supply for meals in support of disaster relief efforts based on a catastrophic disaster event within the New Madrid Fault System for a survivor population of 7M to be utilized for the sustainment of life during a 10-day period of operations. FEMA is considering the following specifications (14M meals per day):- Serving Size – 12 ounce (entree not to exceed 480 calorie count); – Maximum calories – 1200 and/or 1165 per meal; – Protein parameters – 29g-37g kit; – Trans Fat – 0; – Saturated Fat – 13 grams (9 calories per gram); – Total Fat – 47 grams (less than 10% calories); – Maximum sodium – 800-930 mg;

Requested Menus to include snacks (i.e. fruit mix, candy, chocolate/peanut butter squeezers, drink mix, condiments, and utensils). All meals/kits must have 36 months of remaining shelf life upon delivery. Packaging should be environmentally friendly.

- Homestyle Chicken Noodles – Potatoes – Vegetarian Pasta – Green Pepper Steak w/Rice – BBQ sauce w/Beef and diced – Chicken w/Rice and Beans – Chicken Pasta The following questions are put forward to interested parties: 1. Please specify the type of organization responding to the questions (i.e. small business, large business, industry association, etc.) If a small business, please specify all Small Business Administration socioeconomic programs under which your organization qualifies. 2. Does your organization have a product available that meets all the specifications above If the answer is “Yes:” What is the country of origin If the answer is “No:” (a) Can your organization produce such a product (b) What would be the product lead time (c) What country are the manufacturing plants located in 3. Can your organization delivery the product to a specified location within a 24 hour period 4. Please provide an implementation plan for critical delivery orders and delivery surge orders.

5. What states do you already have contracts in place with to provide these types of products

6. Please detail the type of meals and quantities you can provide for each day following a disaster.

7. Please provide alternatives to the meal specifications that your organization can provide.

8. What type of delivery schedule would your organization recommend for the meals

9. Does your organization have the capabilities to deliver products directly to FEMA’s CONUS Distributions Centers

10. Can your organization track deliveries from point of origin to point of delivery

11. What is your lead time for delivery once FEMA has placed an order

Interested parties may also provide brochures, web links, or other literature about their cots available for the specified users. Responses to this RFI are not considered offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract.

Vendors are encouraged to ask the Government questions regarding this potential requirement. Questions must be submitted in writing to Julieann L. Phillips at julieann.phillips@dhs.gov not later than 2:00PM, 26 January 2011 to be answered. Responses to questions will be provided not later than 2:00PM, 03 February 2011. Request for Information closing date is 03 February 2011.

INTERNET ADDRESS: https://www.fbo.gov/spg/DHS/FEMA/OAM/HSFEHQ-11-R-Meals/listing.html

Ingrid Holmes

GIB is shaping up to be a “Super-quango” spearheading one trillion British pounds of investment in the green infrastructure. The US could learn from the plan — it will have a clear remit to focus on investments that grow the green economy, and is less likely to fall for greenwash proposals.

Billions of pounds that are being spent by disparate quangoes and officials funds will instead be ploughed into the new eco-bank, after a report by a group of leading financial and environmental experts delivers its recommendations to the government. The Green Investment Bank Commission argued that cutting the number of state-funded green bodies would “radically improve” the task of cutting the nation’s carbon output – an area where Britain continues to lag behind official targets.

The Commission was led by former Merrill Lynch chairman Bob Wigley. It warned that the scale of the looming crisis means that the government needs to rapidly set up a bank to fund Britain’s low-carbon future, ideally within the next six months.

“The scale of the investment required to meet UK climate change and renewable energy targets is unprecedented, and of a size not seen since the post World War Two reconstruction,” warned the commission, which was set up by UK Treasury chief George Osborne last year when still in opposition.

The government has estimated that building the new low-carbon infrastructure that the UK needs will cost £550bn between now and 2020. The total bill over the next twenty years could hit £1tn.

One of the key figures in the planning for GIB is Ingrid Holmes, currently at E3G. Before that, Ingrid worked for Climate Change Capital, a boutique investment bank specialising in low carbon investment, where she focused on the interface between investment and policy and the management of policy risk. She has also worked on air quality issues for the Science Policy Unit in DEFRA, as a Scientific Advisor focused on energy and environment in the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, and was Head of Policy at the UK Business Council for Sustainable Energy.

Going off grid sounds exciting.
Many people approach it with a sense of  adventure as if they were going camping, living in a camper van,  trailer or small cabin.  The high tech aspect consist of  adding a small  solar photo voltaic  panel to power  a set of LED lights and maybe a laptop computer.
I have seen people express  the sentiment that going off grid was a way to get away from  people, society and the evils of modern technology. Many people seem to equate  going off grid with freedom.  But freedom from what?

My wife grew up on a homestead that is  off grid.  Still is for that matter.  She had five uncles  one of which still resides on the homestead but the rest could not wait to escape  from the drudgery and hard work  involved  with living off grid,  and go live  and work closer to  a community of other people and coincidentally connected to the grid.

Community starts with  two or more people joiNing together to achieve some common goal that is too difficult for one person to accomplish.  However  if that community  grows so large  that members  do not know each  other ( or care) we begin to see  problems  develop.  The problems of big cities  and urban blight  has its origins  in this trend.   “off grid” suggest there is something inherently wrong about  a grid. In fact  even the definition of “off-grid” seems to vary according  to who you speak to.  Some  people would argue that  doing without a connection to the municipal electrical grid is not enough. They argue you must be totally self sufficient and disconnected from water,  sewer, natural gas,  as well as  electricity  in order to qualify  as being “off grid”. But  does that make sense?

Doing so  negates all the benefits  of communal efforts and benefits.  At one time I lived in a place where  a group of houses were provided with clean, safe, water from  a private  source.   One person had an artesian well on his property and  started supplying his neighbors because their shallow wells  had bad water  which was further contaminated  by run off from the multiple septic tile beds  because each person had his own  septic system.  Oh yeah, everyone was totally independent and off grid.

Eventually  a municipal  sewage system was built and a municipal water system  replaced the old private system.  Everyone agreed this was a good thing.  But it was now a grid.  Same thing  with electricity.  Instead of every house having their own  noisy generator spewing out  noxious fumes;  a  river had been  dammed for a sawmill and a grain mill so it made sense to also install a turbine to make electricity . It provided enough electricity  to power many homes.

Electricity  was favoured because it was  less dangerous  that kerosene lanterns and easier to install than piped natural gas.

So what went wrong?  Today people want to disconnect from these communal benefits and go it alone.
They want to go off-grid.  Go live like a hermit in a pokey little van or trailer?

So what are the benefits of going off grid?
To begit with it does allow  placing a  a real house residence  in geographical area  well beyond  the present reach of the utility grid.
So much of today’s business consist of  data management  it could be done anywhere. It does not require cramming people into  cubicles  inside a  high rise bee hive made of steel and concrete. Modern cellular phone systems and satellite  communications  means people around the globe can stay in touch.
Telecommuting has become possible as a way of life . With skilled  and  well trained people even high tech cottage  industries are possible.  For five years my wife assembled  electronic controllers used in production equipment  that  in turn  was used to produce high quality  aerospace  equipment for  satellites and aircraft.   I worked in a design office  that literally spanned a continent. We stayed in touch with FTP file exchanges, MSN  instant messengers, and  skype.

The real benefit of the off-grid movement lie in the fact it teaches self reliance and  a greater awareness for the need to conserve  natural resources. It cuts down on waste because the people who waste resources suffer the consequences of their own folly.
A side benefit is the fact peoPle can live in less crowded  conditions. All the evidence  points to over crowding as being among the principle  causes of most of our society’s ills.

Among electrical utility  companies a technical term is often used. Its called “islanding” and refers to what happens when a generator source is  cut off from the larger grid.  Its like an island and only an limited number  of  end users can be services  from this generating source. If this isolated  power source happesn to be  a very large capacity generator  much of its potential is wasted.  For example  if  Niagara Falls  was cut off  and only those homes within 10 miles radius could be serviced; that would be a waste.  With a larger grid,  homes several hundred miles away can  be powered from the generators located at the falls.
With off-grid  every home becomes an island.  That is not exactly  efficient. A few hundred miles away  from my location there is a tiny village with  a respectably tall water fall.  An enterprising  individual resurrected  the old  saw mill dam  and installed an electric generator. He is  now able to supply all the homes in the area  plus sell back some surplus energy to the big utility.
This is one of those situations that is neither fish nor fowl. The person started out  just wanting to provide his own electricity but discoverred he could generate  enough surplus to supply other people. So he  made his own grid and eventually  interconnected  to the larger  grid.
Engineers  call this taking advantage  of the economies of scale.  To  double the useable output does not cost twice as much.

Natural gas is now used in most homes  because it burns cleaner and has fewer green house gas emissions and the combustion  exhaust contains  fewer noxious  substances compared to coal and  oil. Unfortunately  the pipe distribution system is controlled by giant corporations intent only on increasing the profit margin for their stock holders.
The unfortunate consequence is that some of those households that are able;  now switch to using wood as a heating fuel.  Even in small towns of 5,000 or 10,000 a concentration of wood burning  heating  appliances can  degrade the air quality  under the right wheather conditons.   Here is an example where getting off the gas distribution grid  is not so beneficial. Hower the driving force is the pursuit of ever increasing profits that is the root cause not the fact  a  pipeline network is able  to supply end users  far removed from the source of that  natural gas.

Going off grid has its benefits  but  sometimes staying on grid also has benefits. Before  deciding to go off-grid  all relevant factors should be considered.

Ewan McGregor, Radiohead and Bill Nighy are the latest to join the campaign for a Robin Hood Tax on the financial sector.
McGregor and Radiohead created a Youtube video.
The movement has been growing since the credit crunch first hit, demanding that bankers and hedgies should repay the vast amounts plundered from the global economy. Off-Grid.net has been calling for a “Pay it Back tax.” A powerful new coalition of charities, trade unions and church groups argue that a Robin Hood tax could generate $700bn (£450bn) worldwide. The tax would see 0.05% levied on each bank and hedge fund trade ,ranging from shares to foreign exchange and derivatives, creating a cash pile to be spent on measures to combat domestic and international poverty as well as fight climate change.
The Guardian and comedian Bill Nighy have just released this video
The tax has long been demanded by campaigners but brushed aside by politicians and bankers as an impossible dream. Buoyed by the support of the UN, Gordon Brown last year became the first global leader to publicly call for its introduction as a way for banks to compensate society for causing the global financial crisis.
The main argument in favour of a financial transaction tax is that it would raise a large sum of money painlessly, and would help to limit the sort of speculative attacks being seen on vulnerable countries such as Greece and Spain. Because turnover in the global financial markets is so enormous, even a tax levied at 0.05% on every trade could raise $400bn (£255bn) a year – enough to double foreign aid, provide $100bn a year for poor countries to adapt to climate change, and leave $100bn over for rich countries to reduce their deficits. Politically, a Tobin tax has become more attractive as governments have woken up to public anger at the banks deemed responsible for the crisis, and to the budgetary cost of clearing up the mess. Those in favour say it is only fair the banks should pay.

Forbes cruise: follow the money

Be prepared for the next phase of the recession and keep watching land prices – if you are nimble, there will be an affordable moment to pick up prime land for your bug-out location.

“I recently spent a week sailing in the warm and sunny waters of the Caribbean on a FORBES investor cruise,” reports one of the magazine’s overpaid columnists in the latest issue.

“Instead of being refreshed by the calming sea air and restful floating digs I came back even more stressed about the market than I was before I left.”

Poor dear. He is right to be stressed.  Asset prices are heading back towards bubble levels last seen before the credit crunch. The sober Economist newspaper reports today that the American stockmarket is “nearly 50% overvalued on the best long-term measure” and “homes are overvalued by almost 30% in Britain and by 50% in Australia, Hong Kong and Spain.”

Do not take comfort from the fact that prices are still well below their peaks. The Japanese stock market still trades at a quarter of the high it reached 20 years ago. The NASDAQ trades at half the level it reached during dotcom mania. “The current combination of high asset prices, low interest rates and massive fiscal deficits is unsustainable. Something has to give,” says the Economist.

“Interest rates will stay low only if growth remains slow. But if economies grow slowly, then profits will not rise fast enough to justify current share prices and incomes will not rise far enough to justify the prevailing level of house prices. If, on the other hand, the markets are right about the prospects for economic growth, and the current recovery is sustained, then governments will react by cutting off the supply of cheap money later this year.”

It doesn’t add up

The FORBES guy recounts his horror on learning that “on this trip were 100 or so prosperous investors, many of them entrepreneurs with success building both businesses and investment portfolios. Nearly all of them were convinced that the positive effects of the government’s efforts to revive our economy will be short-lived. Some were preparing their portfolios for a double-dip recession.”

At Off-grid we see this as the chance to pick up woodland or agricultural land relatively cheap in about a year’s time. Until then, we’ll be keeping a third of our savings in cash, a third in gold and a third in oil shares. And sell your super-yacht…if you can find a buyer.