Cashless bartering for survival

February 20, 2017September 8, 2018tonytran2015 27 Comments

by tonytran2015 (Melbourne, Australia).

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(Blog No.54).

#cashless, #bartering, #survival

After the collapse of an issuing government of some fiat money, or even after a government’s sudden demonetization or confiscation of its own fiat money the population is left with only bartering for their own survival.

1. Choice of universal exchange medium

As the existing fiat cash has no authority to accept it as a tax payment (such as right after that government is toppled by an occupation force or by a revolution), it may become just a worthless piece of money (see references [2],[3],[4],[5]).

People can do direct bartering of their locally produced goods and needed items or they can do better with indirect (double) bartering using an intermediary bartering medium. For examples on bartering medium, they can use five lemons or five oranges or two chicken eggs rather than one dollar, a spark plug to rather than 2 dollars etc…Bartering items are to be valued close to their former cash prices. For the long run, people have to adopt some “universal” trading medium (to replace the former currency) for their daily or weekly exchange (trading).

People should choose some medium with intrinsic values and with the following characteristics for their bartering:

1a. Usefulness to everyone,

1b. Being durable, not perishable, easy to maintain,

1c. Being neither dangerous nor illegal,

1d. Can be naturally consumed by the owner over time if trading is slow,

1e. Sub-divisibility into any suitable amount is an additional optional advantage.

Examples:

a. Rice (food grains that can be kept for up to 10 years) had been used as an exchange medium in Vietnam during World War 2, as French issued, Japanese issued or Vietnamese issued currencies all have uncertain backing by their respective, competing issuing authorities. Various grains and flours are used in their respective regions.

Figure: Close up photo of rice grains, each grain is about 7mm long.

b. Salt (only in ancient time), peppers, fuel, bicycle spare parts, clothing fabrics had been used in some countries in time of embargo, time of uncertainty and in ancient time. These goods (except bicycle parts) have also been the trading goods on the trans-national Silk road.

c. Clothing fabric, silver and gold had been used in some countries in ancient time.

Figure: Vietnamese gold slabs for trading.
d1. Lighters, matches, cooking items, hygiene items, essential workshop tools (hammers, nails, piers), books and pencils had become desirable bartering goods in poor countries during WW2.

d2. Solar cells, of solar rechargeable batteries, radios, walkie talkies and phones may be desirable in modern time.

e. Decorated painted vases, live stocks (chicken, rabbits, boars, sheep, buffalo) have also been used as short distance trading stocks. (You need to check local laws regarding transportation and owning of live stock or wild life stock.).

f. Liquid fuels are valuable but they are highly flammable and are not suitable for bartering over long distances. Fire wood and coal may be kept in your house as handy bartering stocks.

2. Traders to keep no money!

Trading stocks of traders are to be bartered or sold and immediately changed into new type of stocks. The longer a trader hangs on with some uncertain money the more he may lose through sudden demonetization or inflation.

Remember that money owners (or rather renters?) always pay a RENT ON the MONEY in their custody, the rent is at least equal to the inflation/depreciation of that money. Why should someone rent something he doesn’t need?

3. Trading by bank transfers will carry prohibitive costs!

The move to outlaw cash is actually a herding of people into the control of the banks. The (crooked ?) banks will charge people for:

3a. Annual fees for having an account with them (about $20AUD unless …!)

3b. Inquiries on their current balances ($0.60AUD for each printed stub).

3c. Unknowing withdrawal of more than available from the balance (penalty of about $10 for going into “overdraft”).

3d. For accepting bounced checks ISSUED BY THOSE SAME CROOKED BANKS through their untrustworthy check writers (or are they the actors of the banks?). Banks charge about $30AUD to $60AUD for each bounced (baiting?) check issued by their own actors!

3e. A bank check (with no chance of being bounced) issued by a bank will cost a fee of $7AUD each.

3f. Bank transfer fees of about $2AUD for each completed smooth transaction.

3g. Fees for damage to your cards caused by their faulty machines.

3h. Fees for objections to phantom fees and balance loss through scams.

3i. Threat of account closure through none of your faults.

By now, we all should be aware of the creeping demands by bankers!

4. Conclusion:

Think ahead and be prepared !

References:

[1]. Preparing for cashless trading.

[2]. Demonetizing in India robs the poor, posted on December 1, 2016

[3]. India’s cash crisis explained, BBC, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-37983834

[4]. Venezuela follows Indias footsteps in demonetization scheme, econotimes.com, http://www.econotimes.com/Venezuela-follows-Indias-footsteps-in-demonetization-scheme-445257

[5]. India rupee ban: Ex-PM Manmohan Singh rubbishes Modi crackdown, BBC News Services, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-38088177, 24 November 2016.

[6]. Neha Sharma and Shalu Yadav, The Indian village that has returned to bartering, BBC News Services, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-38180075, 5 December 2016.

[7]. Patrick Bodenham, Will Spain’s coal belt survive through online barter?, BBC News Services, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38731808, 2 February 2017.

[8]. James Melik, Haggling and bartering gain appeal, BBC News Services, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7883050.stm, 12 February 2009.

[9]. Mark Lowen, Greece bartering system popular in Volos, BBC News Services, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17680904, 12 April 2012.

[10]. https://us-issues.com/2018/07/16/venezuelas-socialist-hyperinflation-turned-people-back-to-barter-system/

Added after 2018 July 31st:

A SPECTACULAR BARTERING

[11]. https://michael1942.com/2018/07/27/how-pepsi-briefly-became-the-6th-largest-military-in-the-world/

[12]. https://ogaziestheory.wordpress.com/2018/07/27/how-pepsi-briefly-became-the-6th-largest-military-in-the-world/

BARTERING IN HYPERINFLATION

[13]. https://akahinews.com/2018/07/29/venezuelas-bolivar-currency-worthless-as-inflation-hits-1-million-percent/

[14]. https://www.alloutdoor.com/2018/07/09/barter-is-the-new-currency-in-socialist-venezuela/

RELATED SURVIVAL blogs

Preparing for cashless trading, posted on December 5, 2016

Gold for storing wealth, posted on 28 April 2017

Navigating with an AM MW radio receiver, posted January 17, 2017, The Scorpius constellation, posted January 8, 2017, The Orion constellation., posted December 26, 2016, Rice as emergency food., Using GPS in off-grid situations, Slide Sky-Disks with grid masks showing azimuths and altitudes, Slide Sky-Map for displaying tropical stars.

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Good approximation to solar declination by a watch face

February 13, 2017August 22, 2018tonytran2015 15 Comments

Good approximation to solar declination by a watch face

by tonytran2015 (Melbourne, Australia).

Click here for a full, up to date ORIGINAL ARTICLE and to help fighting the stealing of readers’ traffic.

(Blog No.53).

#solar declination, #watch face, #multi-dial watch face, #Solar navigation, #find North, #time, #survival.

The value of solar declination is needed for accurate determination of North direction and time using a divider or a watch (references [1], [2]). Good approximation to solar declination is required by the methods to produce accurate results in cold temperate zone and arctic zone. The required value of solar declination can be simply obtained using only a watch face or even the drawing of a watch face on the ground.

1. Method

Figure: Determining solar declination using a watch face. (The lines SOLAR DECLINATION Its rough estimate is required for Fine Alignment of the watch are to be ignored.)

Draw the dial of an upside-down watch face as a small sub-dial of a watch face (on its 3 o’clock side) as in the figure. The radius of the sub-dial should be close to the length of 4 minutes markings on the rim of the main dial.

The four numbers 6, 9, 12, 3 on the rim of the upside-down sub-dial correspond to 21/6, 23/9, 21/12, 21/3 respectively. They are the dates on the calendar. Your current date gives a point on the rim of this sub-dial.

Project the point of your current date horizontally onto the rim of the main dial. The angle from the direction of 3 o’clock to that of a main long hand pointing to the projected point is equal to the angle of solar declination.

The angles from the Northern and Southern Celestial poles to the Sun are just the angles from the 12 o’clock and 6 o’clock directions respectively to that of the above main long hand.

2. Applications to survival situations

Most multi-dial watches and chronograph watches already have sub-dials made with the sub-dial radius being close to 4 minute length on the rim of the main dial. This method can be conveniently applied to any such watches having their sub-dials on either the 3 o’clock or 9 o’clock side.

When having no actual watch face, you can draw a watch dial and a sub-dial on the ground to determine solar declination.

Accurate value of solar declination improves the accuracy of the determination of North direction using a divider or a watch (references [1], [2]) when the Sun has low altitude in the cold temperate and arctic zones.

References:

[1]. tonytran2015, Finding directions and time using the Sun and a divider., Additional survival tricks, survivaltricks.wordpress.com, https://survivaltricks.wordpress.com/2015/05/06/finding-directions-and-time-using-the-sun-and-a-dividing-compass/, posted on May 6, 2015.

[2]. tonytran2015, Finding accurate directions using a watch, Additional survival tricks, survivaltricks.wordpress.com, https://survivaltricks.wordpress.com/2015/05/19/finding-accurate-directions-using-a-watch/, posted on May 19, 2015.

RELEVANT SURVIVAL blogs

Finding-directions-and-time-using-the-sun-and-a-dividing-compass, posted on May 06, 2015 .

Finding North in the Polar zones using Equatorial stars and the Sun

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Mung Beans as grains for self-reliance.

February 9, 2017August 27, 2018tonytran2015 5 Comments

Mung Beans as grains for self-reliance

by tonytran2015 (Melbourne, Australia).

Click here for a full, up to date ORIGINAL ARTICLE and to help fighting the stealing of readers’ traffic.

(Blog No.52).

#Mung bean, #sprout, #dietary fiber, #nutrition, #sweet dish, #constipation, #self-reliance #crop #rotation.

Mung Beans as grains for self-reliance.

Nutrition requires a variety of food. For emergency you can eat rice to supply your body with carbohydrate for energy but you also need other food to satisfy the complex nutrition requirements of your body. After rice, mung beans are a versatile type of grains to be kept for prolonged emergency and self-reliance.

1. Advantage of mung beans.

Mung beans are the seeds of the plant species (Vigna radiata) of the family legume of plants. The mung bean plants originated from Thailand more than 2000 years ago (reference [1]). As a legume, each mung bean plant has nodules in its roots containing the symbiotic bacteria rhizobia which fix nitrogen from the atmosphere to enrich, fertilize the soil with natural nitrates. The mung bean plants are therefore a essential crop in crop rotation for growing and restoring self-reliant, self-sustaining gardens (using no chemical fertilizers) after disasters.

The beans are of 5mm size and each bean weighs about 0.070g. They can be used as food in many different ways: They can be boiled to make watery sweet dessert or pasty dessert. They can also be made to germinate to produce new plants to restore the garden or to produce sprouts (before they become small plants) to be eaten as food.

2. Selecting good mung beans.

Figure 1: Mung beans of 5mm size.

The beans are of 5mm size and each bean weighs about 0.070g. Select beans with rounded shape and no wrinkle, no mold, no discoloration on the skin, like in the picture.

3. Storage.

3a. Mung beans are dense and 5kg of mung beans can be stored in a small volume.

3b. Mung beans are easy to store. Storage temperature can be from very cold to up to 35 degree C.

They can be stored in jars placed dry ventilated places. As with any other foods, humidity should be avoided to prevent the growth of mold on them.

It is common for Asian families to keep about 2 kg of them in store for gradual normal consumption in food preparation.

3. Cooking beans for food.

Mung beans can be boiled to make a (watery to thick pasty) dessert food. However this requires long simmering and requires MORE FUEL than cooking rice.

Watery sweet:

The beans are first soaked in clean, warm water for about 6 hours for their green covers to loosen, peel off and be shed. Soaking is carried out in a flat, shallow ceramic or glass container with no more than 3 layers of beans on the bottom and no more than 12mm (half an inch) of water above the top layer of beans. Water should be refreshed every 6hr to remove all secretions from the beans which may inhibit the functioning of neighbour beans. Only a thin layer of water is permitted so that oxygen in the air can diffuse down to the beans to reactivate their inactive cells to make the beans germinate and transform the stored nutrients into a softer form. With this transformation, the beans are softer and it would take shorter time to boil them. Soaking should be discontinued when many beans have tiny (2mm) shoots growing out of them. Further soaking after this time would make the dish less tasty.

The beans are then boiled in much larger amount of simmering water (for about 10 minutes) until the green covering layer of each bean is shed and the two yellow halves inside are softened. Sweetener (cane sugar or palm sugar) is then added and mixture is thoroughly stirred for even mixing. The watery mixture is served and eaten as a sweet dessert drink in South Vietnam.

Thick pasty sweet:

Split mung beans are used in this dish. The split beans are first soaked in clean warm water for about 24 hours for their green covers to loosen, peel off and be shed. Soaking is carried out in a flat, shallow ceramic or glass container with no more than 3 layers of beans on the bottom and no more than 12mm (half an inch) of water above the top layer of beans. Water should be refreshed every 6hr to remove all secretions from the beans which may inhibit the functioning of neighbour beans. Only a thin layer of water is permitted so that oxygen in the air can diffuse down to the beans to reactivate their inactive cells to make the beans germinate and transform the stored nutrients into a softer form. With this transformation, the beans are softer and it would take shorter time to boil them.

The green covering layer is then complete removed and only the yellow half seeds are retained. The yellow halves are then boiled in a minimal amount of simmering water until they are softened. Sweetener (cane sugar or palm sugar) is then added and mixture is thoroughly stirred for even mixing. The thick yellow pasty mixture is served and eaten as a sweet dessert dish in South Vietnam. Boiled coconut milk may also be added as a thin top layer of the mixture.

3. Making mung beans germinate naturally.

Figure 1: Germination of mung beans after 7 days 2 hours in my tiny green house.

My tiny green house:

I used two thickness of washed, clean disposable hand cloth stretched on the top of a disposable plastic drink cup to make a moist base sheet for the beans to germinate. The base sheet was given 5 tea spoons of water twice daily. Another identical cup with a small cut was placed upside down on top of this cup to control the atmosphere around the beans.

The germination into small plants:

Each bean is made up of two halves covered in a thin green skin. The two halves of each bean supply stored materials and energy for the growing of a sprout that will develop into a small mung bean seedling. The sprout grows in length to about 5mm and the two halves of the bean separate (4 days). The sprouts grow longer, until they are about 20mm, then they develop many tiny side roots and this make them look fuzzy. At that time there are two tiny leaves growing from between the two halves of the bean. After the leaves have grown to about double the size of the original bean, the green skin is shed to fall down to the ground (7 days). The two halves of the bean is gradually consumed for the growth of the seedling.

The sprouts are considered tasty when they are about to shed the green cover.

If making plants for the gardens, healthy seedlings should be selected and planted on the ground after they have green leaves and before the nutrient in their half seeds are exhausted.

An average seedling weighs 0.50g and an average bean weighs 0.070g. The mung bean sprouts are considered most tasty when they are 50mm long. In such condition each sprout weighs about 0.35g.

4. Using mung bean sprouts as food.

Figure 1: Mung Bean Sprouts served as a (crunchy) vegetable dish.

The advantage of using this food is that mung bean sprouts can be made from mung beans in any needed quantity in about 2 days (see below). Mung bean sprouts are crunchy, they have high fiber contents. This fiber content makes up the bulk for food under digestion and help prevent constipation caused by the compaction of undigested food residues. However DO NOT EAT sprouts which have become BLUE.

Mung bean sprouts also have good nutritional value. The total weight of sprouts has

16% of it in dietary fiber ,

23% in protein ,

and the rest in carbohydrate. Sprouts also have magnesium, iron, calcium (reference [1]).

Eating sprouts provide the body with easily digested fibrous food with much nutrition and enzymes. The food also prevents constipation . Eating sprouts also SAVE a lot of cooking FUEL compared to eating boiled mung beans.

With the recurring shortage of vegetable in EU (reference [4]), bean sprouts may gradually gain popularity as as a source of dietary fiber to supplement lettuce.

5. Accelerated growing of sprouts without chemicals.

Mung bean sprouts can be grown for food within 2 days, rather than 7 days, following the method of acceleration given in reference [3]:

5a. The beans are soaked in water for about 8hr or more until small white sprouts can be seen growing out from the green beans.

5b. The germinating beans are then wrapped in a thick wet cloth for another period of 24 hours, they then becomes bean sprouts which are ready for use in food.

References:

[1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mung_bean

[2]. Dr. Josh Axe, Mung Beans Nutrition & Its Big Benefits!, draxe.com, https://draxe.com/mung-beans-nutrition/, accessed 03 Feb 2017.

[3]. Swasthi, How to make sprouts at home, Swasthi’s recipes, http://indianhealthyrecipes.com/mung-bean-sprouts-sprout-mung-beans/, Oct 7, 2016

[4]. Iceberg lettuces and broccoli rationed as vegetable crisis hits supermarkets, BBC News Services, http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-38851097, 3 February 2017.

Related HOW TO blogs:

Rice as emergency food., posted December 24, 2016