HS 72 – “Survivors” with Author and Survivalist James Wesley Rawles

James Wesley Rawles’s book, Survivor: A Novel of the Coming Collapse may be a fictional post-apocalyptic thriller, but he paints an incredibly realistic picture of what life could be like for the unprepared should life as we know it come to an abrupt end. Join Jason Hartman in this interview with James, as they discuss the possibilities and consequences of such horrific incidents as all three power grids going down across the country, the raiding of grocery stores, who no longer keep stock in the back of the store, the lack of clean water, and the high possibility of rioting in larger cities. For more details, listen at:  www.HolisticSurvival.com. James stresses that people need to pick carefully where they’re going to live, emphasizing the need for access to clean water and water filters.  James says, “Without clean water, you’re a refugee in one day.”

Additionally, Jason and James discuss American currency and what is most likely to have value. James says stock up on nickels because they are currently circulated at face value and still produced at 75% copper and 25% nickel.  He feels it’s in the best interest of the country to revalue the paper currency by dropping off “zeros” to jumpstart the economy. James also gives his outlook on derivatives and examples of the consequences of them going sour, as well as the effect of ramped-up interest rates. He foresees a global financial meltdown within the next couple of years and warns people to be prepared, to know how to survive. James Wesley, Rawles is a survivalist author and lecturer, and the founder and editor of SurvivalBlog.com. He is a former U.S. Army intelligence officer and now works as a full-time blogger and freelance writer. James graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from San Jose State University, also minoring in military science, history, and military history. He held Top Secret security clearance with Special Background Investigation and was granted access to Sensitive Compartmented Information. He was awarded Officer specialty and achieved the rank of Captain. He attended the Army NBC defense officer’s course, as well as Northern Warfare School at Fort Greeley, Alaska.

In 1984, James was commissioned as an Army Intelligence Officer where he specialized in signals intelligence and electronic warfare. He also served as a Special Security Officer, where he was privileged to spend time in West Germany working on a “live” Guardrail signals intelligence gathering and analysis mission. He resigned his commission when Bill Clinton was first sworn into office as President because he didn’t want to serve under him as Commander-in-Chief. At that time, James was a Captain. For the past 20 years, having grown up in the “bomb shelter” era and served in the military in many different security capacities, James has been primarily a journalist and technical writer. He has most recently become self-employed and has authored the non-fiction book, How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It: Tactics, Techniques, and Technologies for Uncertain Times. He also authored a full-length survivalist novel entitled Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse and now Survivors: A Novel of the Coming Collapse. James maintains a blog at SurvivalBlog.com that is filled with valuable information on all types of survival techniques.