It appears that sex traffickers are looking for

fresh meat in USA now. I guess it’s only a matter of time before

billboards go up offering “jobs” to young women. Fernando, you haven’t

talked much on the subject of sex slavery after SHTF, so maybe you

should bring it up.

B-

Hi B, sorry for the delay in replying. As the society degrades on all levels you start seeing more of this type of crime. In Argentina it got very bad, and sex trafficking and slavery is extremely common. Here’ are some articles that tell to some degree how bad the situation is already in USA, and I can tell you right now without a doubt, tis going to get worse.

Sex trafficking in the U.S. called ‘epidemic’

Teen Girls’ Stories of Sex Trafficking in U.S.

American Sex Trafficking Is On The Rise

Human trafficking on the rise in border region

Parents should watch over their kids like hawks. Keep track of who your kids talk to, who they are chatting with on line, investigate any unusual behavior. Even when adults, eighteen or older they can become victims.

The victims may be of a very broad background:

1) It used to be that sex trafficking meant mostly girls from Eastern Europe, Mexico, or some other disadvantaged background. Kidnapped or tricked with the promise of work, these women found themselves in a foreign country, not even knowing the language or local laws.

2) Girls from troubled homes as mentioned in some of the stories of the links above. Usually linked to domestic abuse and drugs, these girls fall for the lies of “boyfriends” who are actually pimps and slavers. Forced to use drugs, beaten, raped and themselves and their families threatened to be killed, these girls soon comply to the demands of their kidnappers. There’s often mention of a “breaking” period involving beatings, rape , torture and humiliation so as to break the will of the victim and dissuade them from escaping or asking for help.

3) Girls from “good” homes that are kidnapped from the street, malls, beach or park. What follows is usually similar to 2). In Argentina there’s a growing amount of cases like these, even involving young women, housewives and students that are just snatched out of the street. They are kept locked or chained, drugged and forced into prostitution. These are probably the most concerning cases to people that think “it will never happen to me”, because it goes to prove that it can actually happen to anyone, even if you’re careful and don’t come from a troubled background.

4) Girls tricked by the promise of work. Given the hard economic times, expect this tactic to become more and more common. In many cases young girls are promised modeling or promotional jobs, in some cases its promise of work as bartenders in good paying restaurants or working in boutique stores and it does sound legit. Anything that sounds like a good honest job. It usually involves moving to some other city, state or country and that’s where the nightmare starts, out of the girls family and friend circle where they are more vulnerable.

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FerFAL

Hi Fernando, greetings from Barcelona,

Hi! I have family in Barcelona and go there often. Unfortunately its been degrading considerably in the last few years, one of the reasons why I didn’t end up there myself.

As you suspect already, there are chances of a corralito or something similar taking place in Spain, and its not just me saying it, its Economy Nobel Paul Krugman saying it.

http://economia.elpais.com/economia/2012/05/14/actualidad/1336999189_892398.html

http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2012/05/14/economia/1336982422.html

What are the chances of this happening first in Greece and then in Spain? Significant enough that you should take action. Spain is already devaluating via reduction of salaries but its just not enough, eventually they will have to do something, and the big players already moved their money out. Once again, it’s the low and medium class which will get hurt the most.  So going to your first question:

first, the chances of a corralito happening in Spain and what “signals” we could watch for in order to see it coming. Most probably there is a correlation between this and Spain leaving the eurozone.

The signals are everything you’ve been seeing for the last few years, the crisis all around you is textbook, almost a copy of what happened in Argentina in 2001. High unemployment, increase of poverty, reduction of the standards of living, increased  taxations, impossible debt and a construction bubble that burst leaving the country in awful financial shape.  Finally, you have a currency such as the Euro, which can easily flee the country. This is a key point because it indicates that when the time comes a corralito must be enforced to keep everyone from running from the sinking ship.  You no longer have to worry about seeing these signs or not, but you should be worried about getting hurt as little as possible when it happens. About the second part of your question, yes I believe its very likely to end up detaching from the Eurozone and only the stronger player remaining within the EU, or maybe turned into an Eurozone Grade A and B, so as to protect the countries that are still afloat from going down with the ones that are sinking. A worst case scenario would be a total disintegration of the EU, but I believe they will try to avoid it as much as possible.

- second, what measures would you take to secure your money, ie to protect it against a corralito,

It will depend mostly on how much money you have. Banks in Spain simply aren’t safe for you, so any money in it is at risk. I would have at least a month worth of expenses in cash at hand, in Euros. This you will need during the first weeks. If Spain goes Argentina December 19^th 2001, it will not be pretty, so also stock up on the basics so often mentioned here in my blog, not forgetting about food, water, any medications you may need, some tool for self defense, hopefully a firearm which you can legally own in Spain. I know that what you are looking at today is of concern, and I’m not trying to be a jerk but the worst is yet to come. You will have to learn to fend for yourself in terms of security because the Spain of the future will be more dangerous than the one you know now.

If you have more money then you have to think what to do with it. A percentage of it will be safe in precious metals, if you have more or if you want to diversify your assets and a trip to Switzerland is a good idea. No doubt that’s what many rich did already. Stocks would be safe in theory, but given their volatile nature I don’t feel comfortable with them, especially for economic disaster planning.

The “Bancolchon” (matress bank) is viable but up to a certain amount of cash. Say you have a pile of Euros under the mattress today, and tomorrow they bring back the peseta which you have a limited time to exchange  your Euros for at a disadvantage rate, then your cash isn’t protecting you much. In this case money in precious metals or in a foreign account is safe until the dust settles and you can later exchange for whatever currency or rate becomes standard. You have a point about Swiss banks throwing Spain and Greece citizens under the train if the governments ask for their citizen´s information. You would have to go looking to Panama or Singapore for off shore banking. In spite of this possibility having at least the money outside Spain would protect you from the imminent effects of the corralito.

I´d stop looking for signs, they are all already there, and do what you can to protect your assets right now. The situation in Spain is bad and will keep getting worse. The only question is how bad will it get for the rest of Europe and how long can they keep the EU together.

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FerFAL

Anonymous recon said…

 I´ve heard conflicting theories about the tampon for wounds, and have no real world experience so take what I´m saying with a grain of salt; but I´ve heard that the traditional idea of stuffing a tampon directly into the wound can cause more harm than good because it soaks up blood, blood that may not necessarily be otherwise leaving your body. but I´m not an emt and have zero training in first aid, so I dont know for sure. but it sounds like it makes sense.

Condom

Oh yes, the condom. Part of every old school survival kit. What can you use it for besides its obvious application?

Storing water. Storing small items, anything you don’t want to lose or you want to keep dry. It has been used on rifle barrels to keep dirt, salted water and other foreign objects away. Filling it up with water it can be used as a lens to start a fire in a sunny day if you have dry tinder. Since its elastic it could be used as a large rubber band. You can even do a mean slingshot with condoms, look it up on youtube. The possible applications are too many. And don’t forget the purpose for which it was intended, not a minor detail. During the war in Bosnia in at least one radio communication people asked for condoms!

Tampon

These are commonly found in kits as well. Since its basically compacted cotton the applications are in many cases the same. Opening a cotton tampon up and you can use it as tinder, as dressing for a wound, it can be used to filter water before making it potable with a tablet or potassium permanganate crystals. After filtering it leave the water exposed to sunlight UV in the condom so as to kill most of the bugs in it. Tear one or two up and throw it in the gas tank to sabotage an enemy’s vehicle. The fuel pump and filter wont like it one bit. Tampons have been used many times in gun shot wounds with a fair amount of success, expanding and stopping the hemorrhage. They are after all designed to contain bleeding. Even the little piece of string can be used for cordage. A word of caution about gun shot wounds and tampons: God forbid you even have to use one in such a manner, be careful of sucking chest wounds that the tampon doesn’t get sucked into the lung.  Also in the feminine hygiene department, pads are supposed to be good  for dressing wound as well.

Nail Buffer/Emery foam Board

I`ve mentioned these several times in the past. For touching up a knife, even some serious sharpening, I’ve found few sharpening tools to be as practical and light weight as these things. Chopping some wood with a Condor knife I would carelessly chop through the logs and hit the concrete ground, mostly to see how the knife held up when abused rather than just used (did very well). A few minutes with the emery foam board and it was back to razor sharp. If you keep one of these in your kit and touch up your knife after some use you’ll always have your blade ready for duty… and your nails will look fantastic…  :-p

Pantyhose

Yes. Pantyhose. They make your manly legs look pretty and you can get them all in a bunch when someone offends you on the internet. Besides that they can be used for a number of purposes such as pre-filtering water, as a more robust water container when used in combination with the condom, as cordage, a tourniquet, improvised vehicle fan belt, pretty good fishing net, cover your scopes lens to avoid reflection, cover your face when you want to avoid detection or freak someone out. Googling about some of the possible uses I found out that many hikers, hunters and athletes actually wear them too because they keep their legs warmer, because they stop ticks, because they like wearing them… Just do me a favor if you ever meet me in person: Don’t ever tell me about it man, I just don’t want to know.

Breast milk bag

When you though this article couldn’t get any weirder I drop this on you. You should have seen my wife’s face when I threw a box of breast milk bags into our shopping cart. She said something like “any other woman would be freaked out if her husband did that, but given that last time you bought tampons for yourself …”. After all the guns, ammo, knives, stuff that burns, stuff that explodes, stuff that runs and then explodes, she’s pretty much used to anything.

These breast milk bags are just awesome! They are like ziplock bags but especially made for containing liquids of course. The bags are of thick material, sterilized and have a double ziplock type of seam that holds liquid without any leaking. Maximum capacity is 8 to 18oz or 250 ml.  to half a liter in general, with markings up to 9oz or 250 ml so as to know how much liquid you have in there. Uses for this? How about the best, most compact water bottle I’ve ever found, and they come like 40 units per box. Given that they are sterilized you could even open one up and cover a burn wound, use it to make a valve along with some duct tape on a sucking chest wound. The bag full of water can be left on the sun for disinfecting water with the SODIS method, just leave it exposed to good sunlight for 6 hours. Of course this is a much better water container than a condom, you can easily open it, drink and close it again.

Hope all this gives you some food for thought. Suggestions? Other uses? FerFAL this article is freaking me out? Its all welcomed.

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FerFAL