13 Comments

1. Hi! I confess I had to look up Charlie Munger… (who is Charlie Munger, I thought? Why is Catherine quoting him? ) So I looked him up, realized he’s Warren Buffett’s business partner at Berkshire Hathaway… (yes, at least I know who Warren Buffett is)… Here’s some more good stuff:

   1. Munger: There’s an old saying, “What good is envy? It’s the one sin you can’t have any fun at.”

   2. Buffett: Temperament is more important than IQ.

   3. Munger: The other big secret is that we’re good at lifelong learning. Warren is better in his seventies and eighties, in many ways, than he was when he was younger. If you keep learning all the time, you have a wonderful advantage.

2. Jane:

   How wonderful!

   I am in the process of going through Mat’s books with our team that does our disaster recovery kits. Lots of good ideas.

3. Your blog mentions that you recently found Etsy and purchased a wonderful “local” product. When I read that entry, I realized how I had reacted to your suggestions about investing in our own local economies. My grandmother, and then my mother, and then I, were all involved in sewing, not only repairing purchased clothing but making clothes from “scratch” (actually, my grandmother started with more of the bare essentials than my mother or me) but I learned how to create “things”, clothing, bags, tents, you name it, from fabric, so I decided when my good fortune allowed, to buy a really nice sewing machine and share it with someone who was talented who could really use it. I knew, in time, when I wasn’t busy trying to “run things” that I would have the chance to use it, too. Well, my cohort sells lots of her creations on Etsy.

   Maybe some of us out here are actually listening.

   BTW, we are currently just finishing lambing season. I have my eye on some very nice wool that will be processed in a year from now… more nice fabric opportunities. I, too, look forward to hearing from Mat’s wisdom to hear if we are on the right track, in his opinion. I just hope, for all of us, that we are not hearing this when there isn’t enough time to do more.

4. Mat’s book When Technology Fails had already been read by these very intelligent people who were already building redudancy into their systems for food, shelter and water when I started meeting with them at a Transition group in Austin from 2009-2012.

   NASA contractor, retired software engineer, the disabled Army veteran writer, permaculture- blacksmith- architect, an M.D., another engineer .

   My wife and I need to downsize within two years, we need a setting we won’t have to move from for ten to fifteen years. I can’t wait to hear Mat’s wisdom!

   Brad

5. http://www.worldcrunch.com/poisoning-well-nestl-accused-exploiting-water-supplies-bottled-brands/business-finance/poisoning-the-well-nestl-accused-of-exploiting-water-supplies-for-bottled-brands/c2s4503/#.UyxZXV7vY7B

   I recently was encouraged to make a purchase of Texas real estate in lieu of a 1031 like-kind exchange and considered a property that had a well that could produce some 500 gallons per minute due to an underground “river”. Since the property was only in the 100-acre category, this relatively small size of the property did not warrant use for irrigation so there had been considerable research into selling the water to the “bottled water industry”. Several companies were interested; however, I could not justify the purchase of the property once I found out what the industry required done to the water. This well produced fairly high ph water, very basic, that is very healthy for people. The bottlers were then required to acidify the water and process it to the point of taking out all the natural minerals there, adding what was considered acceptable, and then selling this water to the public. I was pretty astounded. All this “spring water”, natural whatever water, is all hogwash.

   A story about what really is in bottled water would most undoubtedly open the eyes of quite a few Solari subscribers. I know it did mine.

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