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4Sevens MiniX 123
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FerFAL
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Friday, March 30, 2012
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Monday, March 26, 2012
Decadence in Argentina as it falls Apart
http://edition.cnn.com/interac…..index.html
http://www.taringa.net/posts/o…..Fuego.html
http://www.elpais.com.co/elpai…..uctos-pais
Most educated people knew that the second term of Cristina Kirchner ruling Argentina would be hard to say the least. With a decade of K rulership, since her husband Nestor was the president before her, it has now become very difficult to be optimist.
Lets try to explain how life is for people now in Argentina. Power supply interruptions are common as it usually happens this time of the year. Just a few days ago many places of the city ended up under water due to the intense rain and lack of pluvial infrastructure investment.
In economic terms the same old story continues, one that the Kirchners already have us used to, salaries keep rising, but never catching up with the 25% a year inflation. As a result, the standard of living has been decreasing proportionally. With the peso artificially pegged (once again) to the dollar at 4 to 1 this time, Argentina isn’t just expensive to live in in pesos, its expensive even when visiting with dollars or other foreign currency.
Secretary of Commerce Gullermo Moreno is stopping 2 out of 10 importation requests, and that’s only the ones that bother requesting. Other sources say that only 2 out of 10 requests get approved. When asking around stores they tell you that there’s no importation whatsoever in terms of electronics and plastic products such as toys or textiles, and at the end of the day that matters to consumers. Small or large chain store, the story has been the same for over a year and keeps getting worse: Moreno is stopping importations so as to promote national industry. The first problem with this this mechanism has proven to fail more often than work and we are already seeing the results. “Malo y Caro” (expensive and bad quality) are words that describe national production, especially when it comes to electronics. What can you expect when people are forced to buy whatever junk a corrupt businessman with strong political connections puts on the market? And the sad part is, this can barely be described as “national production”, its more like national assembly, with 95% of the manufacturing still being made in China. Usually its just the exterior box and manual that gets made locally. Sometimes its just a matter of sticking a local brand on the product that comes from abroad. At the end of the day its still Made in China electronics, the difference is that the “businessman” is the one paying the cheap price for it, and forcing you to pay whatever he feels like it. A nice dividend going to the politicians that allow this to go on in the first place, keeps things rolling.
This impacts society in a number of ways. “I cant even buy an iron!” complained a relative of mine. “All I can find is that locally produced Longvie junk, and its expensive at that”.
A quick visit to the Garbarino website shows that if you want a washing machine, you can only buy expensive and poorly put together local brands. Washer and drier? Two models, both made by Longvie and either one costs 1000 USD. When it comes to Tvs there’s a bit more offer, but be prepared to pay dearly for the precious imported product: A basic Samsung LCD 32” TV will cost you 800 USD.
Another relative that is about to travel told me “Its crazy, as soon as people knew I was traveling to USA they started asking me for stuff. Even people I didn’t know that well approached me with money asking if I could get them clothes and toys for their kids”. Toys being a plastic import that supposedly could be made locally, are pretty much banned from importation. Within the “supposedly” part of the explanations lacks the little problem of the local industry not being capable of producing that type of plastic product. Argentina toys are of poor quality. The plastic itself is generally of the type that breaks like glass and cuts you. I’ve stepped over such crappy cars myself more than once and had to pull pieces of plastic out of my feet. The last time this happened to me I couldn’t stop myself from smiling, remembering that Simpsons chapter where the Krusty cereal box advertises a barbed steel wheel hidden inside the cereal. How can anyone allow such a product to be sold to kids?
Because the importation restrictions also affect clothes and shoes, again in an attempt to shove national production down our throats, finding brand name shoes is increasingly hard. When you do find them the prices are exorbitant, mostly because they are scarce and only manage their way in through secondary channels. Its funny to see how among the better off kids, they will usually have the same model of Addidas or Nike, the one that someone managed to get into the country.
Most of this is old news and few things surprise you anymore in Argentina, so why would the future look any worse? One of the things that have allowed this madness to continue is that Argentina is a mayor producer of soy, which has had a record high price in recent years. The problem though is that there’s already been a 40% loss of this years production in the mayor soy producing locations due to the draught.
Even worse is the situation with medicines and medical supplies.
http://www.lanacion.com.ar/145…..-farmacias
Drugs are getting harder to come by, and it includes everything from cancer medication to epileptic seizure medicines, even vaccines and diapers for paralyzed older children.
Laura Sama needs medicine for her ulcer problem, and when the imported drug wasn’t available she used a locally produced option, but the one produced nationally had a component to which she was alergic and it nearly killed her. Now she goes around drug stores seeing if anyone can get her the imported drug that she needs.
Even books are getting banned from the importation. The excuse? The Argentine government cares so much that they wont allow in books and magazines until they are tested for the the lead content in their ink. If you buy a book online you have to go to customs… and then see when they get around to checking that sort of stuff.
Funny how that works since even blood tests are delayed due to the block on the importation of the reactives.
The ban on medicine importation should be bad enough, but there’s something particularly dreadful when a country starts banning books and magazines… its so Fahrenheit 451. With such a grim picture, its no wonder that companies keep closing and leaving Argentina for good. Giant Swift said “its just impossible to do business in Argentina anymore”.
No wonder people are already calling it Argenzuela.
Join the forum discussion on this post!
FerFAL
http://www.taringa.net/posts/o…..Fuego.html
http://www.elpais.com.co/elpai…..uctos-pais
Most educated people knew that the second term of Cristina Kirchner ruling Argentina would be hard to say the least. With a decade of K rulership, since her husband Nestor was the president before her, it has now become very difficult to be optimist.
Lets try to explain how life is for people now in Argentina. Power supply interruptions are common as it usually happens this time of the year. Just a few days ago many places of the city ended up under water due to the intense rain and lack of pluvial infrastructure investment.
In economic terms the same old story continues, one that the Kirchners already have us used to, salaries keep rising, but never catching up with the 25% a year inflation. As a result, the standard of living has been decreasing proportionally. With the peso artificially pegged (once again) to the dollar at 4 to 1 this time, Argentina isn’t just expensive to live in in pesos, its expensive even when visiting with dollars or other foreign currency.
Secretary of Commerce Gullermo Moreno is stopping 2 out of 10 importation requests, and that’s only the ones that bother requesting. Other sources say that only 2 out of 10 requests get approved. When asking around stores they tell you that there’s no importation whatsoever in terms of electronics and plastic products such as toys or textiles, and at the end of the day that matters to consumers. Small or large chain store, the story has been the same for over a year and keeps getting worse: Moreno is stopping importations so as to promote national industry. The first problem with this this mechanism has proven to fail more often than work and we are already seeing the results. “Malo y Caro” (expensive and bad quality) are words that describe national production, especially when it comes to electronics. What can you expect when people are forced to buy whatever junk a corrupt businessman with strong political connections puts on the market? And the sad part is, this can barely be described as “national production”, its more like national assembly, with 95% of the manufacturing still being made in China. Usually its just the exterior box and manual that gets made locally. Sometimes its just a matter of sticking a local brand on the product that comes from abroad. At the end of the day its still Made in China electronics, the difference is that the “businessman” is the one paying the cheap price for it, and forcing you to pay whatever he feels like it. A nice dividend going to the politicians that allow this to go on in the first place, keeps things rolling.
This impacts society in a number of ways. “I cant even buy an iron!” complained a relative of mine. “All I can find is that locally produced Longvie junk, and its expensive at that”.
A quick visit to the Garbarino website shows that if you want a washing machine, you can only buy expensive and poorly put together local brands. Washer and drier? Two models, both made by Longvie and either one costs 1000 USD. When it comes to Tvs there’s a bit more offer, but be prepared to pay dearly for the precious imported product: A basic Samsung LCD 32” TV will cost you 800 USD.
Another relative that is about to travel told me “Its crazy, as soon as people knew I was traveling to USA they started asking me for stuff. Even people I didn’t know that well approached me with money asking if I could get them clothes and toys for their kids”. Toys being a plastic import that supposedly could be made locally, are pretty much banned from importation. Within the “supposedly” part of the explanations lacks the little problem of the local industry not being capable of producing that type of plastic product. Argentina toys are of poor quality. The plastic itself is generally of the type that breaks like glass and cuts you. I’ve stepped over such crappy cars myself more than once and had to pull pieces of plastic out of my feet. The last time this happened to me I couldn’t stop myself from smiling, remembering that Simpsons chapter where the Krusty cereal box advertises a barbed steel wheel hidden inside the cereal. How can anyone allow such a product to be sold to kids?
Because the importation restrictions also affect clothes and shoes, again in an attempt to shove national production down our throats, finding brand name shoes is increasingly hard. When you do find them the prices are exorbitant, mostly because they are scarce and only manage their way in through secondary channels. Its funny to see how among the better off kids, they will usually have the same model of Addidas or Nike, the one that someone managed to get into the country.
Most of this is old news and few things surprise you anymore in Argentina, so why would the future look any worse? One of the things that have allowed this madness to continue is that Argentina is a mayor producer of soy, which has had a record high price in recent years. The problem though is that there’s already been a 40% loss of this years production in the mayor soy producing locations due to the draught.
Even worse is the situation with medicines and medical supplies.
http://www.lanacion.com.ar/145…..-farmacias
Drugs are getting harder to come by, and it includes everything from cancer medication to epileptic seizure medicines, even vaccines and diapers for paralyzed older children.
Laura Sama needs medicine for her ulcer problem, and when the imported drug wasn’t available she used a locally produced option, but the one produced nationally had a component to which she was alergic and it nearly killed her. Now she goes around drug stores seeing if anyone can get her the imported drug that she needs.
Even books are getting banned from the importation. The excuse? The Argentine government cares so much that they wont allow in books and magazines until they are tested for the the lead content in their ink. If you buy a book online you have to go to customs… and then see when they get around to checking that sort of stuff.
Funny how that works since even blood tests are delayed due to the block on the importation of the reactives.
The ban on medicine importation should be bad enough, but there’s something particularly dreadful when a country starts banning books and magazines… its so Fahrenheit 451. With such a grim picture, its no wonder that companies keep closing and leaving Argentina for good. Giant Swift said “its just impossible to do business in Argentina anymore”.
No wonder people are already calling it Argenzuela.
Join the forum discussion on this post!
FerFAL
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Top 10 EDC Items
This “Top 10″ is more of a suggestion of items to consider. What you carry or not will depend a lot on your personal situation, even though some items are basic essentials that everyone should have.
Join the forum discussion on this post!
FerFAL
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
When something goes bump in the Night!
FerFAL,
I just started reading your blog a few weeks ago, and have begun implementing a few of your suggestions. Even with the little I have done so far, an incident last night showed me just how valuable a little bit of preparedness is.
At 4AM my wife shakes me awake and whispers, "I think someone may be in our house." I jumped out of bed, fumbled around a bit for my 9mm Glock, then though, "Oh crap I need a flashlight!" Obviously what I needed was a tactical flashlight, but those were in another room. However, what I did have was a keychain LED I started carrying after reading your blog. Not much, but at least I could see. I then proceeded to check the house. Thankfully it turned out to just be our cat making some noise.
Even though it was a false alarm, I was glad I knew the basics of how to handle it. Also, I knew that if it came to a fight, I at least had some knowledge of how those go down. Nowhere near as good as actual training, but better than nothing.
Here are my lessons learned:
ALWAYS keep a tactical flashlight with my gun
Install a light where I keep the gun that comes on automatically when I open its container so I'm not fumbling around with a loaded gun. I'm thinking one of these magnetic switches wired to a AA battery and a red LED.
Buy some JHP ammo. I did not enjoy having to worry about overpenetration from my FMJ rounds.
Sleep in something I can clip a knife and a reload mag to.
Secure my doors and windows better. It was hard to feel like I had fully proven that there was no intruder when there are so many EASY ways in.
Make sure my wife knows that if she thinks there is a problem, wake me immediately. I later found out she had been awake for 10 minutes worried that someone had broken in but thinking it was probably the cat and therefore did not want to wake me up. I told her what I read on your blog, that she has to wake me any time she thinks something is wrong because even though 99% of the time it will be nothing, that 1% could be life or death. I will gladly trade a little lost sleep for the safety of my family.
Also, before I read your blog I had kept my gun with the magazine removed. Now I keep it with the magazine in but no round chambered. This is because my wife is absolutely not ok with having a round chambered before we go through Front Sight. However, I was quite thankful last night that I at least had the mag in because finding both the mag and the gun in the dark and getting the mag in correctly would have taken a LONG time.
Of course, most of these are things you have said over and over. They made sense when I read them, but now I am quite motivated to actually do them. Even the few changes I have made over the past few weeks in both preparedness and mindset helped tremendously. If this had happened a month ago, I would have been fumbling around with a magazine in the dark, blundering about the house with no light, and still convinced that a round or two of FMJ 9mm will put down an intruder no problem.
So in sum, thanks for writing this blog! My family is and will be safer because of it.
John
Hi John, I’m glad to see that my blog helped some!
The type of mental conditioning you want to achieve may take some time. Eventually you jump off the bed before even registering consciously what happened. Something just triggered in your brain on an unconscious level and you are out of your bed and with a gun in your hand before you consciously register it! Its only then that you think “that sounded like the boiler/a kid falling from bed/ the dog/ whatever”.
It does sound paranoid but indeed, 99% of the time its nothing, and that 1% is what makes all the difference in the world. If you didn’t react accordingly for the other 99, you cant expect to do so for the one time that it counts.
You have to be fast in reacting. I’ve known of cases where you have a minute or two before they break in, I’ve known of cases where all you hear is one loud sound, the one kick needed to bust your front door open and they are already in!
Get a good tactical flashlight, Surefire makes a nice powerful one, the Surefire E2D well built with a serious strike bezel.
SureFire E2D LED Defender Dual-Output LED (200 Lumens)
A way of seeing my gun in the dark that has worked well for me is installing tritium night sights. I can see the tritium sights clearly on the shelf inside the dresser if the door is opened. Night sights also improve enormously your ability to shoot in low light conditions so its important to have them.
Meprolight Glock Tru-Dot Night Sight for 9mm, .357 Sig, .45 S and W . 45 GAP - Fixed Set
Don’t count on FMJ. 9mm FMJ goes through people just punching holes like you wouldn’t believe. Do yourself and your family a favor and get good JHP ammo, Cor Bon or Gold Dot.
FerFAL
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