HS 46 – Off the Grid News

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My pleasure to welcome Bill Hyde and Brian Brody to the show. They are with off the Grid News. I've been following their excellent work for quite a while now and have been wanting have them on the show to hear what they have to say about preparedness. I think you'll find this very insightful and I'm really glad to have them on the show. Bill and Brian, welcome.

Jason, how are you sir?

Fine, how are you?

We're doing good. How's everything in LA today?

The Socialist Republic of California is doing all right today, but we are broke, that's for sure.

I think it's a battle.

This is Bill here. Jason, I think it's a battle between Illinois and California is right Brian, between who's the where the worst sort of financial conditions are.

Yeah, I know.

Yeah. Jason, not only did we beat you in that regard, but we were also 15 below zero just three days ago.

Yeah, so we'll beat you on the weather part but financial wise we're both in a big mess. We sure are. We sure are. As well as many other states, too.

Well, how about.

Hey, Jason, how about Portugal? I think I know that's one of the states, one of the pigs. Portugal has better credit default swap rates than both Illinois and California, if I'm not mistaken. So they, they talk about Portugal as being one of the pigs and all this trouble, but we're in worse shape than they are. Talk about preparedness. We're not. The state of Illinois is not prepared for the implications of that, I don't think.

Yeah, I think you're right, and that's a very good point. It's scary when you see these sort of second world countries beating out the first world. We've been so irresponsible in this country for so many decades now. Just politicians buying votes and so forth. It's really a sad state of affairs. But that does create opportunities for people. And one of the things that is incumb on all of us to do is to be responsible and to be prepared and to get the word out to as many other people as possible so that they're prepared so that they don't become a burden on the system and we don't become a burden on the system. So what can we do? We've got food prices soaring. We just had the situation in Egypt. Do you want to talk about food prices first and kind of go from there?

Oh, yeah, we love to talk about food prices. As a matter of fact, we think that 2011 is the absolute best year in American history for families to have a garden for a number of reasons. And we just noticed that World bank chief. Is it Zoellick, the head of the World bank who's talking about world price, food prices in the world reaching what he calls. And he's not a doom and gloomer, I wouldn't think dangerous level. So we hear this kind of talk, Jason, and we have to take it seriously at some point. We used to talk about this years ago, that this day of reckoning was coming, that we'd be exporting this inflation to the world through our dollars.

And it's.

And it's coming. You see it in Egypt, Tunisia, now Bolivia. We also read this morning that the Bolivian president has taken off because of food riots and boliv. So this is not just an isolated thing. It's all over the world and it's coming home here. And the folks that have eyes to see and ears to hear ought to take it seriously.

They certainly should. You mentioned garden, and I couldn't Agree more. Have you guys been following? And I have to admit I have not been following closely enough the new Food Safety Act. And from what I'm hearing and the little bit that I've had time to pick up and look at, it's just another government grab for more control over the food supply. Any thoughts on your end?

Well, you know, when we first heard that that was going to break and it talked and Gerald, a guest I know, Jason, on both of our shows talked about how if you read the law a certain way, it allows them under the guise of protecting local folks, it allows them to come in and check what kind of tomato puree a farmer is selling, you know, at the local market. And I believe the statute said that if you travel outside of 100 miles of where that particular produce was grown, then you fell under the statute that said that you had to have your plant inspected and there were all other types of rules that you had to follow. So we're kind of with you. We think that that's another intrusion, that under the guise of watching out for us, under the guise of protecting us, that they're now going to try to legislate even what local farmers do with their crops.

And I would say too, Jason, this is Bill, I would say one of the little motifs that we say or little axioms at least is that socialism always creates shortages one way or the other. Of course, if you have legislation, you have, you know, you mess with the price distribution system, you mess with elasticity and so forth. And so that situation always creates problems down the line. And it's one thing for that to be happening in computer chips or something else, but when you're talking about food, it becomes very interested in, like I said, people that really are self conscious about this, what their needs are, if they feel a sense of responsibility for their families, they really ought to look at planting a garden this year and starting to learn how to can taking a little bit of responsibility. I know you've got other guests on that kind of talk a little bit the same way, but taking responsibility for themselves. And we think there's a little bit of a side of urgency this year. So here we are in February, looking into March. It's going to start warming up in Texas maybe they say soon and then that works its way up through the country. But you ought to start thinking about planning a garden right now, how you're going to create nutrition, fertilization and stuff for the garden, what seeds you're going to plant and so forth. We think that's a Huge thing. Not just because of what we perceive as incredible price rises here, but also potential shortages.

What did we see this morning, Brian?

Was there, there was something in the news about the temperature dropping in Mexico and some of the Latin countries and that we talked about that earlier. Creating price.

Absolutely. As the temperatures drop, Jason, as you know, across the country, as the temperature drops, food prices go up. Then you throw in the catastrophic storms, you know, in Australia, everything that's doing to the beef market, you throw in just crashing temperatures in northern Florida, across the Gulf states, all the way over into Dallas, and even some of the fires last year in Russia. When you look at some of the breadbaskets, if you will, of the world, it's taken, taking it on the chin from storms and droughts and not even mentioning economic turmoil. And you know, the report that Bill referenced this morning about from the World bank saying that, you know, another 44 million people are being pushed to the brink of poverty according to the Reuters report, just in the last eight months. So that's really something, as you say, to kind of wake up and pay heed to.

No question. I think the future is really all about commodities, food, shelter, the basic needs of life. Those will be in huge demand as we've pretty much already exploited the cheapest labor markets on earth. So that limits downside prices. Some of those people are fortunate enough to be moving up in the socioeconomic levels toward the middle class because of that. But in the US we've hollowed out our manufacturing base. Times, they are a changing, to quote the famous line. But one part of this I'd like to particularly focus on with you guys. And then I'd like to talk a little bit about power and emergency power and so forth. But when it comes to gardening, talk to us if you will, about urban gardening. I mean, what can people do if they don't live in the type of location where they have a big piece of land or even a regular sized backyard? What can they do to become more self sufficient from the food grid in maybe a smaller setting where they just don't have the space? I mean there are some incredible stories about that nowadays.

There are, and that's a great question. We get that all the time. I think urban gardening is one of those things where it's trending, as maybe Google trends would indicate. But, but I think if you've only got so much space, you're just limited by your space. And so you have to start thinking about things like container gardening. And you have to think about what it is you like to grow and what's nutritious, what types of plants may do you. Well, you're not going to grow a lot of corn if you've got an apartment and you have some containers. So you have to think about. Most people like to grow tomatoes, but they're really growing tomatoes not as a survival technique, but really something just because they like tomatoes and they like. It's the sport and the wonder of just growing tomatoes. So I think as an alternative to some of that though would be community where you start meeting up with people that are like minded and you find a garden plot and you actually work it. A number of things happen when you do that, Jason, and you start running into like minded people and you work towards a common goal. Let's say a lot of churches will lease out or give little plots away for groups of people to work. Even in urban areas, you start working hand in hand with some people that are like minded and wonderful things happen in addition to just the idea of growing more food. So I would say getting to know your neighbors is one thing that I always talk about. Finding people that are like minded, finding people that want to go in on a project with you, finding a church in your area that where someone might be like minded in that area. And I think that's really probably as much of a key because urban gardening, I'm just going to tell you, you've got limitations. If you've only got so much ground, you just can't grow enough to support a huge family. You're sort of, you're playing into the division of labor game and that's pretty much a grocery store endeavor.

But you know, if I can interrupt real quick though, I'd say that that's the benefit of a line of freeze dried or dehydrated foods. Having the sprout bank so that you can get your protein and your carbohydrates from the, you know, from the freeze dried foods. And then with a sprout bank you're getting all of those live natural nutrients that you know in a sprout bank you can grow on the bottom of your closet top of your counter. I suspect you could probably put a sprout bank out of your television.

Sprouts don't need sun in the same way that some of some of the other gardening techniques you can grow sprouts.

I would say.

Really Brian makes a good point. If you're going to be interested in growing things in an urban setting, raising sprouts may be one of the most nutrient dense opportunities that you can come.

Up with and just explain for the audience, if you will. I don't want to take for granted everybody knows what a sprout bank is. So please explain that, if you would.

Well, that's. Brian, I'll let you talk about it a little bit because we've done videos and stuff on it. But we have a product, Jason, called Survival Sprout bank and what it is is kind of a turnkey. This is at Solutions from Science. It's like a turnkey package that. And Brian, you've actually, you've done a number of sprouts. Yeah, yeah.

Well, just for me, Jason, probably perhaps for a lot of your listeners that aren't familiar with it. I know, I was kind of surprised. As Bill said, they don't need a lot of sun, they don't even need a lot of dirt. You take some of these seeds and put them, you know, there's a process of making them damp, putting them up overnight in an aerated jar, not a lot of pieces of gear that need to go with it. Keep them damp the next morning, keep them damp the third day, and then they actually start to grow like sprouts that you would see at high end grocery stores or some sandwich shops and the like, but they retain all of the nutrients that originally would have come with that. And they're lima bean sprouts and broccoli sprouts and, and all different types of seeds. Remember, when you plant a seed in the earth, it doesn't have sunlight in its initial stages to begin the growth process. So with the sprout bank you can throw a shoebox sized jar in the bottom of your closet. And now you can supplement that with live, what I kind of think about it, live nutrients. So you get say your protein and your carbohydrates from a line of freeze dried or dehydrated foods. But then you need something a little more living, a little more natural than nutrients. And that's why I'm a fan now of sprout banks. It doesn't take up hardly any space at all. And in three to five days, depending upon the type of seed that you throw in there, you're getting some pretty power packed kind of food that you can use to supplement everything else that you may have in your cupboard.

Since we're on the subject of growing, let's talk about seed banks if we could, and explain maybe the non hybrid and hybrid seed issue to the listeners too.

Well, we decided a few years back that when I first came up with the idea of the survival seed Bank. I looked at what was happening in the Arctic that the United nations and Bill Gates, and I said, wouldn't it be kind of an interesting and fun thing to do to sort of democratize that so we could take seeds and store them and have families have access to seeds? And we just said, really, if governments and billionaires think that storing seeds is an important thing, maybe you ought to pay attention. Maybe there's a reason why they think that. And so we came up with the Survival Seed bank, which has 20 some varieties of seeds that are open pollinated. And open pollinated just means these aren't hybrid seeds that are like the typical. Where we grow corn here, that corn is hybrid corn. It's crossed corn. So with geneticists, we'll create variations and mix them together. And so you've got a limited outcome. These are open pollinated, which means they will produce seeds the following year. And those seeds you can take and replant. They will reproduce viable seeds, I should say, and you can take and plant them. So if you buy open pollinated tomato seeds, you can take those after you grow your tomatoes, take the seeds, make some delicious tomato juice, or slice up your tomatoes, spit the seeds out and plant them next year and you'll have more tomatoes. That's the way traditional farming had been done, and you just saved a percentage of your seeds and replanted them the next year. So I think that there's some wisdom in that in terms of having your own supply of seeds that you can perpetuate, because you're not just locked in, you know, and if you buy some seeds from like a survival seed bank or so forth, you can plant them and you really, if you're diligent and you want to take the time, you don't really have to ever buy any more seeds again.

That's fantastic. So maybe let's switch gears now if we could, and let's talk a little bit about emergency power and maybe we'll have time to touch on another area of preparedness too. But what about power? I mean, that's a big deal there. The threats are sort of never ending. It could come from a disruption, could come from basic civil unres, just high cost of utilities and inflation and so forth. It could come from a solar flare, a nuclear event, God forbid. The power grid is somewhat sensitive, isn't.

It, Ryan, you want to talk about till that you just got done reading the report?

Yeah, you know what? It's more like a. It's more like a wicker basket any more than a grid.

It's not.

I mean, grid always sounds to me like grid. It's got grit, it's beefy, it can withstand anything. And we're finding out. We just did a report for the people that Sign up on facebook.com at.

Off the Grid News.

We did a free report, Jason, that highlights the 11 threats to the grid and whether it comes from an electromagnetic pulse or it comes from a solar flare from the sun, or for that matter, a less than natural EMP or a terrorist attack, that our grid is not only terribly frail, but if it were to be attacked in just a few different points, would cause a cascading effect across the country. And Jason, as I'm sure you know, if the transformers are destroyed and we've got these massive transformers spread out around our country, if those transformers are destroyed, it can take upwards of 18 months to have new ones built. And take a guess, my friend. The only country on the globe.

I know what you're gonna say. China, of course.

I can say anything. Hey, look at the shoes you're wearing. What do you think they came from? They're made in China, my friend. Right. So what are the chances if we withstand a global onslaught, and I'm not saying this in a negative way of the Chinese government. If I had to, if I was.

In charge and had to take care.

Of themselves first, my own people or do I ship the United States? I built it for my own people, of course. Certainly first at first. Well, certainly first. You can't blame them. I mean, I would hope we would build them for us, but we weren't smart enough to set it up that way. The transformers that will be damaged, it's not a question of if, but of when. We interviewed a great guy, John Campeman, who's a big wig that's testified in front of Congress about, you know, just how frail the grid is. This is going to be a major, major problem if, Jason, you're not prepared to going back to living like it was. Forget about living like it's 1995. You got to go back to living like it's 1800.

It's going to be gone, that's for sure. And it's scary. What if in that event it's not a solar flare or another party with a nuke? What if it's China? What if China is our enemy? I mean, that is a possibility we've got to always consider. So certainly they're not going to make our transformers. I know. They're making our military boots for our soldiers, which is Weir.

This is just a Strange world in which we live. It's good to be interconnected in some ways because ultimately it does bode well for peace. You don't want to destroy your customers, you don't want to destroy your vendors per se, but then again it creates some strange dependencies and bedfellows and so forth. So there's two sides to it definitely.

So there's, there's.

Hey Jason, let me, let me enter. This is Bill again, let me interject this. You're making reference to the division of labor which has brought a lot of wealth as you know, to not just our society but, but the world. But one of the things that we talk about at off the Grid News is that really some things you can't outsource. And of course we talk about raising your family as being something that you can't outsource and we talk about food. You can outsource food at your own peril. And it looks increasingly like if you outsource strictly and you don't have a backup plan, that power may be one of those things that you outsource at your own peril. So what a blessing the division of labor has been. But what a potential curse as well down the line if things get kind of spin out of control as it were.

Sure, sure, use the idea, use the division of labor to your advantage but be prepared with some self reliance for emergency scenarios obviously. So no question about that. So what are your solutions as far as the power problem, the potential disruption there?

Well, we make, I think Brian and I both have some things we'd say here. But you know, at solutions from science we make backup equipment that runs from solar power. So I think that's one of the things that we've kind of, and this is non grid tie equipment. You can find that information out@mysolarbackup.com you can read all about it. It's mysolarbackup.com and just the little devices that we've been able to hook up, solar panels and battery controller and inverter setups where you just have a sort of self. I wouldn't call it a perpetual motion machine, but it just continues to produce power as long as there's a sun. If the sun burns out, Jason, then it won't work very well. If the sun goes under a cloud, it still works though not as well as if it's totally sunny. But if the sun burns out, it won't do much.

Well, I think if that happens we can just call it game over anyway. And I don't think we need to.

We'll have to put on an extra coat.

Yeah, we don't, we don't need to worry about that in the foreseeable future here. So anything else on preparedness in general that you want to mention before we wrap up?

I would just say to everyone listening that preparedness is about mitigating panic in the future to the degree that you're able to cultivate a plan right now that when it hits the fan, whatever that it is, when it hits the fan, then you've got a game plan. You've got not only the technology but the temperament to be able to confront any emergency threat. You want to start planning for them now and not 30 seconds into it. Do you have a way of getting your power? Do you have your way of getting food? Do you have a way of securing what weapons you may or may not choose to keep in your home? Do you have a way of doing all those other things? And as Jason, as you know and I know, you tell your listeners that if you listen to some good advice now and you make the plans, then you get an opportunity to mitigate the panic in the future. And the people that mitigate the panic in the future will be the ones that survive.

Very good point. Now, we're going to post some special offers that you're offering to our listeners in terms of, of some free stuff, some things that they can purchase with some special promos and so forth. And that'll be@holisticsurvival.com offers. That's holisticsurvival.com Offers. Did you want to mention anything about those items?

That would be great. I mean, we thank you for it at all. We've got some cool things that. Here's what I would say. When most people come onto our different, the different websites and look at the different types of product that we have, it's really designed to help them think of themselves in the future, you know, given it a food shortage, given it electronic electricity shortage, given a shortage of water or the like. And then just imagine what it would take to be able to kind of look at yourself in the mirror and go, you know what? I've got that covered. So whether it's the survival seed bank, whether it's the sprout bank, whether it's the power source 1800, which I will tell you, Jason, was one of my favorites. And why, you know, like that old hair club for men BILL COMMERCIAL I'm just not a member. I'm a client. One of the reasons that I came to work here was Reporting in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and seeing firsthand what happens to people when they go to flick that switch and nothing comes on. So I would say to look at any of those sites much the same. Your listeners listen and look at your site, Jason, and go, great. How can I look at the information that the experts are providing me now? What technologies are within my price range that I can afford right now to help me mitigate that panic in the future? And then it's up to the individual listener and subscriber to go look. This is how I see myself starting my life of living off the grid. It's not going to all happen at once. For most of us it has to be, you know, a little bit here, a little bit there. But you can absolutely start towards an off the grid lifestyle and just, you know, listen to some of the experts that are doing it currently and then you model their actions.

Great advice, Great advice. Well, Bill and Brian, thank you so much for joining us today. Everybody go to holisticsurvival.com offers and learn more about it. And keep up the good work you guys. You have some good products and some great news and information too. I've really enjoyed reading your stuff and and we'd love to have you back on the show again. Thank you.

You're more than welcome as we enjoy.

Being on your site as well.

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