Mary
Elizabeth Harrison, age 96 of Elkmont, AL died Friday, June 15, 2018 at her
residence. She was born July 24, 1921 in Limestone Co. AL to George
& Connie Vinson. She was a member of the Lebanon United Methodist
Church, she loved to grow flowers, cook and work a garden and most of
all she loved her children, grandchildren & great grandchildren.
Mrs. Harrison was preceded in death by her parents, Sons, Eldridge
& Wayne Harrison, sister, Georgia Lou Harrison, a infant, brother
& two infant grandsons.
Graveside Services will be Monday, 11
AM at the New Salem Cemetery with Ben Johnson and Stanley Harrison
officiating. Visitation will be Sunday, 6-8 PM at Spry Funeral Home.
Survivors include, Daughter: Mary Townsend (Wilburn) of Elkmont, AL,
Sons, Allen Harrison of Athens, AL, Howard Harrison of Minor Hill, TN,
Edwin Harrison of Pennsylvania, Granddaughters: Crystal McMahan (Jason),
Donna Harrison Sorensen, Diane Harrison, Grandsons: Michael Harrison,
Stephen Harrison, Bobby Harrison, Bruce Harrison, Eric Harrison, Danny
Harrison, Christopher Townsend, Great Grandchildren: Camry Elizabeth
Townsend, Caison Townsend, Blake McMahan, Logan McMahan, Briana Canerday
(Justin), Kaiya Beverly Powell, Cody Powell, Daughter in Laws: Nella
Faye Harrison & Phyllis Harrison, Niece: Sandy Smith, Nephew:
Stanley Harrison. Pallbearers will be, Christopher Townsend,
Michael Harrison, Blake McMahan, Logan McMahan, Bruce Harrison, Danny
Harrison
Spent the biggest part of Father’s Day driving home from the beach. I
was thinking as I was driving, about Jensen and the job I have done. It
seems before she was born I knew exactly how to be a good Daddy. I knew
how to discipline and love and balance giving and holding back. No
sweat! Ummm...yeah. Then real life set in. The waking up in the
middle of the night thinking, “did I handle that right?”or the
emotional struggle of “giving in” too much.
There are all types of fathers.
There are all types of kids. I see a lot of them and have taught and
coached a lot of them. The measure of a father is hard to actually
“see”.
Is working and making money to pay for their needs, it?
Is
spending more time with your kids and having less the answer? I
s
sending them to Mimi’s before you kill them, good? ( been guilty of that
one plenty of times! )
That’s just it I don’t know. BUT I do know
this. Your child knows what kind of father you are. There is no way to
hide that from them. Ask anyone who has a father and they can tell you
what kind he is or has been. Sobering but true. She hugged me when I
came in. Hopefully that bodes well for me! 
😀.
We can not afford to fail our kids. We just can’t. Use them as your
measure. May take a while to be appreciated but anything worth doing
usually is!
Happy Father’s Day! Have a good one!
So exactly what does it mean to be self-reliant vs. being
self-sufficient? How are the two different and how are they related and
how does one interact with the other. More importantly how do they
effect you and you planning both for disaster preparations and
independence.
The reality is most people use these two phrases interchangeably, but
they are quite different in how you measure them and how you use them
in your planning.
Tune in Today as We Ask… Skip to 9:55 in podcast
- What is self reliance
- What is self sufficiency
- Why would you want to be self reliant
- Why would you want to be self sufficient
- What are degrees of self sufficiency
- What is healthy interdependence
- Why are concepts like self sufficiency part of our nation at its core
- How much self sufficiency do you want
- How much self reliance do you have, are you deceiving yourself and have you tested yourself
- How have we lost touch with the innate desire for self sufficiency and reliance
- How can you apply these concepts to your daily lifestyle
We have the left media, we have the right media but there are other points of views still ... what do you think?
The
concept of known unknowns and unknown unknowns came into the public
consciousness following a statement by then Secretary of State Donald
Rumsfeld in 2002 during a discussion about Iran and terrorist groups. What Rumsfeld was saying is there are things the people don't
know that they know they don't know, and there are things that people
don't know but they don't know they don't know them. I believe this
applies to most Americans in discussions about government money systems. While many people — even trained economists — may believe they
understand government money creation, they know there are things about
it they don't know. But what most people don't understand is there many
things about the system that they don't know that they don't know.
Conventional wisdom holds that the Federal Reserve is essential
to sound monetary policy and that its activities ensure that inflation
and unemployment are kept in check. For the average citizen and
Keynesian-trained economist, this is a known known. Another known known
is that the United States is in debt and you should pay your "fair
share" of tax dollars — as determined by a group of collectivists — into
the U.S. Treasury in order to keep government functioning and pay off
that debt. The problem is, neither could be further from the truth. For most
people, the system of government money is a study of unknown unknowns. Look at the dollars in your pocket. They are nowhere near the
value of the dollars that you had as a child or that you may have stored
under your mattress. That's because they've been inflated away. Most people think that a dollar is a dollar. Not so. Today's
dollars (nominal dollars) are quicksand money that destroys financially
all who trust it. For many people, the topic of monetary realism — what money
really is (and is not) and how the government creates a fiction called
money and cons people into believing it is substance — is a boring one
and understanding it is drudgery. But it is all important to our
liberty. It's hard to imagine that more 5 percent of the conscious
American adult population (those who bother to follow issues at a
minimum level) truly understand inflation and how the Federal Reserve's
policies are stealing our wealth every day. Sadly that percentage seems
to become frighteningly lower with each passing day, even though their
financial health and well-being rests upon proper understanding. When
you do understand it, it will affect every financial and political
decision you make.
This week, Bloomberg reported that U.S. inflation has reached a
six-year high. If you ask most people what that means to their wealth,
they haven't a clue. They think that rising inflation means simply
rising prices. That is incorrect, rising prices are simply symptomatic of inflation. Inflation is the increase in the money supply and credit. The
word "inflation" once applied only to the quantity of money. It meant
that the volume of money was inflated, blown up or overextended. As the money supply is increased, people have more money to offer
for goods. But if the supply of goods doesn't increase — or increases
at a slower pace than the money supply — the prices of goods goes up.
Each individual dollar becomes less valuable because there are more
dollars available. This leads to more of them being offered for a
commodity. A "price" is an exchange ratio between a dollar and a unit of
goods. When people have more dollars, they value them less. Goods then
rise in price, not because there are fewer goods than before, but rather
because there are more dollars available. (Taken from What You Should Know About Inflation — Henry Hazlitt)
According to the excellent financial writer Peter Schiff in his book, Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse, published the year before the 2008 financial collapse, there are five reasons governments desire to create inflation:
- Inflation makes the national debt more manageable because it can be repaid in cheaper dollars.
- In a democracy full of personally indebted voters, the
government will pursue monetary policies hospitable to debtors even as
it accommodates the special interests that lend to them.
- Inflation finances social programs that voters demand but
avoids the politically unpopular alternative of higher taxes, allowing
Uncle Sam to play Santa Claus.
- Inflationary spending is confused with economic growth, which
is confused with economic health. (Of course, gross domestic product
numbers are theoretically adjusted for inflation, but that doesn't mean
much if the inflation figures are misrepresented.)
- Inflation causes nominal asset prices to rise, such as those of
stocks and real estate, instilling in the minds of voters the illusion
of wealth creation even as the real purchasing power of their assets
falls.
Anything that artificially increases aggregate demand for goods
and services is inflation. It could be lowering interest rates,
increasing credit or money printing, as the Fed has been doing with its
so-called quantitative easing. This is the uncomfortable truth the money creators don't want you to know. But why would they want to hide it? Schiff writes that governments hide inflation because it keeps
the interest on national borrowing low, allows the government to keep
Social Security payments as low as possible and allows for lower
interest rates for consumers, which encourages the phony expansion of
the debt-dependent economy.
By hiding the truth, the money creators seek to control the
system, or non-system of fiat dollars which they use to control us. Americans believe they have trillions of dollars in savings and
investments. In truth, what they have is only numbers, not substance. It
is fiat, which is "money" only by the decree of the "authority" of
government. We have had fiat paper money since 1913, and most of that time it
was being debased (inflated). Put another way, it now takes more than
$25 to buy what $1 would buy in 1913. We are only as rich or as poor as
the purchasing power of our money. As to whether Federal Reserve or a central bank is necessary, one
need only look at the 100 years before the creation of the Fed in 1913
(a period that also included Civil War inflation and the war's
destruction of the U.S. economy). An item that cost $1 in 1814 cost only
47 cents in 1913. That's almost completely the reverse of the past 100
years.
So what can we do to preserve our wealth? First, stop thinking conventional thoughts. They are not your own. If you will digest completely what I write, you will be
catapulted into the real world. You will not spend your life frivolously
and off point.
Preserve your labor, your savings and retirement with gold and
silver in your possession. You will know what to do with your precious
metals when the time comes — and it will come.
Precious metals don't pay interest, you say? This is conventional
thinking backed by the paper money myth. Gold and silver are the only
real money in existence. They are real money as well as intrinsic
wealth. Moreover, gold and silver appreciate in purchasing power as
paper money depreciates. That is your real interest. All understanding
of hard money has been lost down the memory hole of the fiat paper world
money regime. I am proud to be an American, but I know that my government and my country have been stolen by the money creators.
Yours for the truth,
Bob Livingston
Editor,
The Bob Livingston Letter™
Here is the fourth of nineteen easy steps you
can take to to start helping you being prepared for life's
storms. These are steps that do not require a farm, do not
require acreage and do not require a lot of money. They are practical
steps that you can select from and learn to be able to take care of your
family by being ready....
4. Install an alternate fuel source
You might be surprised by how little power you need to get by. Start
with an inexpensive portable generator or a ventless gas heater. Also
think about those items that must have power when the grid is down, such
as a well, medical devices and refrigeration. Take care of providing
power to those things and let the rest go for now. You might want to add a way to cook without electricity as well; lots of ways to do this besides a grill if you do a bit of research...
• The Apple Box Oven — Covered with
foil, the lid of a box that apples are shipped in is simple to make,
inexpensive and portable. Notches should be cut in the bottom of the
sides or put it on a rack to lift it from the ground. Use 10-14 coals to
bake at 350 degrees for up to 45-55 minutes.
• The Paper Box Oven — Covered
with foil, a box used to transport reams of paper is inexpensive,
portable, and smaller than an apple box so it needs fewer coals, only
8-10.
Wooden dowels pushed through the top help with air circulation. A blanket cover will conserve energy and hold in heat.
• A Dutch Oven — is easy to use and store but must be used outside and they're heavy so they're not really portable.
Other fuel options include fuel gel that can be
squeezed out to start fires, solid fuel cubes that burn very hotly for a
very short time (to boil water) and MRE heaters that heat instantly.
Cross country summer workouts began today, 7:30 am runs at the trail
the rest of the summer. Week of camp at David Crockett and getting
ready for the new season. Moving up to 4A again this year. Rebuilding
and reevaluating. Always gets me excited. Feel better running myself
than I have in about 10 years. We work out with our kids. Always have
since the programs started. Great motivation for me to stay in shape
and I can shut them up when they complain lol. I’m doing
it too! Love to watch the kids succeed. So many lessons are learned on
each run if we just “listen.” It’s a tough sport. Team sport but the
whole run relies on how YOU perform. Same as life. We’re all in it
together but you are only as good as you strive to be. No place for
mediocre attempts in practice or races. May not be as fast but the
effort better be just as hard from each runner. Improvement is what we
want to see. That can only be achieved through discipline and practice.
We are what we do. We will become what we believe we can do. We will
succeed when we know we have done all we can do. Come join us if you
like. Positivity prevails!! We need a lot more of that in our lives!
Have a good one!
Angela Marie Royster, age 52 of Elkmont, died Friday, June 8, 2018 at her residence. Mrs. Royster was born July 30, 1965 in Limestone County.
There was be a Graveside Service 11AM Monday, June 11 at Legg Cemetery with Michael Long officiating, Spry Funeral is directing. No visitation was planned.
Survivors
Sons:
Nathaniel Harvey of Huntsville
Brandon Royster of
Harvest
Robert Adam Royster of Elkmont
Chris Crable of Elkmont
Grandchildren: Nevaeh Royster, Taylor Royster, Westlyn Royster,
Gabrielle Goodmon, Alexander Royster, Clyde, Brother: Neal Eastep of
Decatur.
Marion Glenn Woodfin, age 77 of Athens, passed away Saturday, June 9,
2018 at his residence. Mr. Woodfin was born June 29, 1940 in Limestone
County, AL to Mason Woodfin and Villa Maggie Griggs Woodfin.
Services
will be Tuesday, June 12, 2018 at 11:00 a.m., at Limestone Chapel
Funeral Home with Robert Fudge and Matt Lannom officiating. Visitation
was Monday, June 11, 2018 from 5:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. at the
funeral home. Burial will be in Roselawn Cemetery.
Mr. Woodfin was a member of Ephesus Church of Christ for over 50 years. He enjoyed gardening, reading and Alabama Football.
Preceded
in death by his parents; two children, Marsha Renae Woodfin and Jeffery
Glenn Woodfin; brother, Charles Woodfin; sister, Jean Sublett.
Survived
by his wife of 52 years, Wanda Sue Burns Woodfin of Athens; son, Eric
Glenn Woodfin and wife, Mitzi of Elkmont; daughter, Kimberly Woodfin
Clinard of Athens; five grandchildren, Mason Woodfin, Evan Woodfin,
Justin Hughes, Trevor Clinard and Kelsey Clinard; one great-grandchild;
four sister-in-laws, three brother-in-laws; several nieces and nephews.
Pallbearers will be Mason Woodfin, Scott Abernathy, Donnie Rogers, Tommy Woodfin, Van Barksdale and Joel Lynn.
It is amazing how much hardware our Elkmont Future Farmers of America (FFA) program has brought back to the Hilltop in the last several years. Once again, they made a huge splash at the Alabama State Competitions.
Livestock placed first in state.
-Natalie Barlow
-Emma Hargrove (third highest state score)
-Ella Keller
-Natalie Lovell
Aquaculture placed first in state.
-Claire Bowling
-Anna Schrimsher
-Jordan Fielding
-Camille Turner
Ag Education placed second in state.
-Gracey Norman
Veterinary Science placed third in state.
-Maddy Barnes
-Ashley Bailey
-Claudia Allen
-Kayla McNatt
Land Evaluation placed third in state.
-Justin Williams
-Claire Bowling
-Ashley Bailey
- Luke Campbell
Ag Mechanics placed third in state.
-Justin Williams
-Braden Long
-Cody Watkins
-Matthew Sims
We are all so proud of everyone who worked hard and stayed dedicated!
We had several state winning proficiencies!
*Claire Bowling placed second in her Outdoor Recreation proficiency.
*Natalie Bartlow placed second in her Small Animal Care proficiency.
*Leigha Smith placed first in her Agriculture Education proficiency.
*Breanna Barnett placed first in her Goat Production proficiency.
*Natalie Bartlow also placed first in her Sheep Production proficiency.
We have the left media, we have the right media but there are other points of views still ... what do you think?
There
has been a longstanding narrative in economic circles that no matter
what crisis occurs the U.S. dollar is essentially invincible. I have
never been one to buy into this assumption.
Reason 1: Because I remember distinctly just before the
derivatives and credit crisis in 2007/2008 the majority of mainstream
economists were so certain that U.S. housing and debt markets were
invincible, and they were terribly wrong. Whenever the mainstream
financial media are confident of an outcome, expect the opposite to
happen.
Reason 2: Because karma has a way of sinking grand illusions.
When you proudly declare a Titanic "unsinkable," nature or fate often
tests that resolve and finds it wanting.
Reason 3: Because I understand that a primary goal of the
internationalist, globalists, anti-sovereignty and New World Order crowd
is to diminish U.S. economic performance dramatically, and this
includes ending the reserve status and petro-status of the dollar in
order to make way for a single global currency unit dictated by a single
global economic administrator.
Mindless blind faith in the dollar (and U.S. treasury debt) seems
to switch sides politically according to whose narrative it best suits.
During the Obama administration, conservatives and Republicans
witnessed unprecedented fiat currency creation and dollar devaluation by
the Federal Reserve and rightly drew the conclusion that this would
eventually trigger a currency crisis as various systems absorb and then
regurgitate all these dollars back into the U.S. We saw the biggest
foreign trading partners of the U.S. launching bilateral trade
agreements that cut out the dollar as the reserve currency, and we
witnessed many foreign creditors questioning the viability of U.S. debt.
Only a couple of years ago, conservatives were warning of
potential disaster for the dollar caused by the bailouts and unchecked
stimulus programs while leftists were staunchly defending the dollar as
an immortal golden goose. Today, the roles appear to be switching, as
many conservatives now defend "king dollar" in the wake of a Trump
presidency, and adopt numerous arguments once reserved for ignorant
lefty commentators.
One question that needs to be addressed is how long the current
trade war will last? Some people claim that economic hostilities will be
short-lived, that foreign trading partners will quickly capitulate to
the Trump administration's demands and that any retaliation against
tariffs will be meager and inconsequential. If this is the case and the
trade war moves quickly, then I would agree — very little damage will be
done to the U.S. economy beyond what has already been done by the
Federal Reserve.
However, what if it doesn't end quickly? What if the trade war
drags on for the rest of Trump's first term? What if it bleeds over into
a second term or into the regime of a new president in 2020? This is
exactly what I expect to happen, and the reason why I predict this will
be the case rests on the opportunities such a drawn out trade war will
provide for the globalists.
In my article World War III Will Be An Economic War,
I reiterated my longstanding view that there is indeed a global war
brewing between major powers, but that this war will be fought primarily
with financial weapons, not nukes. I also summarized my position that
this war will be engineered by globalists deliberately to provide cover
for something they call the "great economic reset."
With Trump's cabinet currently loaded with banking elites and
neoconservatives with ties to institutions like Goldman Sachs and the
Council On Foreign Relations, institutions notorious for promoting
one-world economic and political programs, it seems to me that the worst
case scenario for the U.S. could easily be staged.
If the goal is to
kill the dollar's reserve status, then the trade war will be purposely
prolonged.
The next question that needs to be addressed is how is the dollar actually vulnerable to destabilization?
Pro-dollar cheerleaders will say that the dollar is in high demand, with countries like India begging the Fed to stop balance sheet cuts for fear that this will reduce the amount of dollars and dollar denominated assets in circulation in emerging markets.
I see this as a gross misinterpretation of what India and others
are warning about. Interestingly, foreign central banks are now sounding
an alarm many of us in the alternative economic field have been
sounding for years. When India's Reserve Bank Governor, Urjit Patel,
writes about the danger of speedy balance sheet cuts by the Fed causing a
liquidity crisis in global markets, this is not necessarily a
declaration that India has a insatiable desire for more dollars. What it
is a declaration of is the fact that the global economy is weakened by
its dependency on the dollar as the primary international trade
mechanism.
When I see India complaining about the dangers in dollar
liquidity caused by Fed balance sheet reductions, I don't interpret that
as them saying "go king dollar!" I interpret that as India coming to
the realization that they are going to have to adopt other alternatives
to the dollar, and they are going to have to do this quickly.
Emerging markets and much of the world have been propped up for
the better part of a decade through Federal Reserve stimulus measures
from direct bailouts to near zero interest rate loans to asset purchases
to outright stock market manipulation. The dollar has become a drug
easing the pain of economic downturn, and many nations are addicted.
So what happens when the drug dealer, for whatever reason,
suddenly stops providing the drug? The addict is going to look elsewhere
for a fix. The Fed is not going to stop its balance sheet cuts, and
it's not going to stop interest rate hikes. Not with the current
discussion on "inflation dangers." This will ultimately cause declines
in various markets including equities, and I believe these declines will
accelerate by the end of 2018. Meaning, foreign trade and markets will
have to be facilitated by other sources, such as the International
Monetary Fund's (IMF) basket currency system, or the application of a
new global cryptocurrency system, which the IMF has been avidly
studying. The IMF has even been singing the praises of cryptocurrencies, depicting them as the next stage in human evolution and perpetuation the lie that cyrpto is "anonymous."
The dollar is vulnerable to destabilization by the very
institutions and elitists that created it in the first place, and these
people are seeking something much bigger than king dollar. The problem
is, the globalists cannot implement such a vast "reset" in the economy
without a considerable distraction. Enter Trump's trade war...
I have been outlining the reality behind dollar weakness for
quite some time. Rehashing the facts over and over again becomes
tiresome but is unfortunately necessary, because there is always some
new contingent of the public that falls into the trap of dollar worship.
So, let's do this one more time.
First, the dollar is not backed by U.S. military might.
The U.S. military can barely manage its concerns in the Middle East, let
alone take on nations like Russia or China in an attempt to force them
to keep investing in U.S. treasury debt or retain the dollar as world
reserve. If these countries drop the dollar, there is nothing the U.S.
can do. Anyone who makes the dollar-by-military argument should not be
taken seriously.
Second, while the dollar is in demand now, this is only because
the current system has been propped up by endless Federal Reserve
stimulus. If the Fed continues to cut assets and raise interest rates,
then emerging markets and others will look elsewhere for support. The
dollar is only valuable to global markets so long as the Fed continues
to provide a perpetual supply of liquidity. Economies are fickle, and
welfare recipients are even more so. Stop giving people free goodies and
they will abandon you angrily. Major foreign economies like China and parts of Europe have been
adopting bilateral trade relations for some time. Rather than
intimidating these countries into capitulation, a trade was on the part
of the U.S. is far more likely to drive them more closely together.
Germany and China in particular have been establishing strong trade
ties, and OPEC nations have been much cozier with the East. The idea
that the U.S. is somehow a linchpin to the entire global economy is a
lie. The world can and will organize trade avenues without us if pushed.
In fact, this seems to be the plan.
The U.S. has only two major points of leverage in a trade war.
First, the U.S. dollar's world reserve status, which I have already
addressed as not a point of leverage at all unless the Fed continues
stimulus indefinitely. Second, the U.S. consumer. U.S. consumers and corporate buyers are sitting at historically
high debt levels. In fact, their debt levels are higher than they were
just before the crash of 2008. If the Fed continues to raise interest
rates, this debt will become unsustainable and something will have to
give. For corporations, this means job cuts and wage reductions. For
consumers this means cuts to household spending. U.S. consumers are only
a point of leverage in a trade war so long as they continue to consume
at ever expanding rates. If we suffer another crash similar to 2008,
foreign creditors will see this as a lack of incentive to continue
placating the U.S.
Without a massive resurrection of American manufacturing and
production, we enter into a trade war with little ammunition because we
remain dependent on foreign production and goods, while other nations
like China can easily expand into alternative markets and retain their
own production capabilities. Trump could have launched a new renaissance
of production in the U.S. if he had given corporations incentive to
bring manufacturing back home. Instead, he gave them a sizeable tax cut
without asking for anything in return. Those tax cuts, instead of
creating jobs or luring factories back to the U.S., have instead been
spent where we all knew they would be spent — on stock buybacks to prop
up a flailing equities market.
The longer the trade war continues, the more other countries will
consider the "nuclear option" of dumping the dollar as world reserve,
or dumping U.S. debt. In my view, this is exactly what the globalists
want. Trump bumbles into a trade war and is blamed for a crisis in the
dollar as well as a crash in stock markets, while the banking elites
introduce their new world order reset as a solution. In this case, I
think the worst case scenario is the intended scenario.
To truth and knowledge,
Brandon Smith
