Cyprus Grapples With Record Number of Migrants
The government of Cyprus convened a special emergency meeting—involving the ministers of the interior, foreign affairs, justice and public order, defense, and other high-ranking officials—at the presidential palace on Tuesday to discuss migration. Speaking to reporters, government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis described the meeting’s “exclusive topic” as “the discussion of the immigration flows of the last days.”
Like many other Mediterranean islands, Cyprus is hard hit by wave after wave of migrants. Since Sunday afternoon, 476 have arrived on Cypriot shores in ten boats, setting a new record.
Following a meeting with European Parliament President Roberta Metsola on Tuesday, Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides called the higher influx of migrants of recent weeks “deeply concerning,” adding that while he fully understands the challenges Lebanon—where most of the migrant boats originate—is facing, “exporting migrants to Cyprus should not be the answer and cannot be accepted. To that end, the EU should also stand by Cyprus in tangible ways.”
Metsola sought to assure Christodoulides, saying that the EU had prepared a “big unprecedented legislative package that will hopefully go through the European Parliament.” With it, she added, they would “be able to answer both in the short and medium term, but also hopefully in the longer term, the individual national challenges that countries such as yours are facing with regards to migration.”
On March 22nd, EU commissioner Margaritis Schinas suggested that the EU could strike a deal with Lebanon to bring a halt to the flow of migrants, but added that this would require considerable preparation. A similar deal with Egypt has yet to prove its worth.
Nicosia is not waiting for Brussels to step up its efforts, however, as it is “already in contact with Lebanon,” according to Letymbiotis.
“New contacts will be made with the authorities of the country so that they can also stop these high migration flows that have been observed in the last few days,” he added.
With a population of just over one million, Cyprus is one of the smallest EU member states, with the current highest migrants-to-indigenous-population ratio.
According to Eurostat, within the EU, the island also has the highest proportion of asylum applications relative to its population.
The government representative told the Cyprus Times that, in recent months, Cyprus had “succeeded in reversing the migration data with deportations for the first time outnumbering arrivals” and that they wanted “to maintain this.”
However, he said, the situation in Lebanon “is difficult” and something the Cypriot government should be prepared for.
Lebanon, which is in a deep economic crisis, hosts hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria, which has been mired in a civil war since 2011. Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7th has pushed the entire region into even greater instability.
While vague on specifics, the spokesman added that “various measures” had been discussed, hinting at “various actions that the Republic of Cyprus can take, but also in cooperation with the EU and European partners.”
When asked whether Cyprus’ infrastructure is adequate for receiving such migrant flows, the spokesman admitted: “at the rate at which the flows are increasing in recent days we are at the limit and this is something we have communicated repeatedly.”
“A country like the Republic of Cyprus,” he continued, “cannot continue at this rate and it is for this reason that it was considered crucial to convene [the security meeting] … and, if necessary, to reconvene.”
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Nationally Funded Database Classifies Students For Life as a ‘Terrorist Group’
(LifeSiteNews) — A government-funded “radicalization” database has labeled Students for Life of America (SFLA) a “terrorist” group, prompting criticism from terrorism experts.
The College Fix reported on Monday that SFLA “appears under a ‘Terrorist Group’ label in the raw dataset” of the University of Maryland’s “Profiles of Individual Radicalization in the United States” (PIRUS).
The project, which is an initiative of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), tracks “ideologically motivated criminal activity” as well as “violent extremist groups,” which it defines as being led or founded by an individual who has been “indicted for an ideologically motivated violent offense.”
The PIRUS database lists two individuals associated with SFLA who match the description of student members who were arrested in 2020 for attempting to chalk “black pre-born lives matter” on a sidewalk outside of a Planned Parenthood center. The pro-lifers were arrested despite being told verbally by police that they would not be prevented from painting and having been instructed to use tempura paint.
Meanwhile, the city permitted its streets to be widely vandalized in permanent paint with Black Lives Matter messages just before the pro-lifers’ arrests.
National security expert Elizabeth Neumann, who joined the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2017, denounced START’s labeling of SFLA as a “terrorist” group in a conversation with the Fix.
“They made an error and they should correct it,” Neumann told the media outlet in a phone interview, adding that “vandalism” by college students would not be of concern to the DHS.
Neumann “tracked terrorist threats” as a member of President George W. Bush’s Homeland Security Council before developing “protocols for reporting suspicious activity” for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. She went on to serve as the assistant secretary for counterterrorism and threat prevention for the DHS from 2018 to 2020.
In 2020, Neumann resigned from the Trump administration, claiming that the president’s words and actions were “racist” and fanning the flames of “white supremacy.”
Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo also slammed START’s categorization of SFLA as a terrorist group in an email to the Fix.
“Researchers of course can create and apply any definition of ‘terrorism’ that they like. But if they want to be taken seriously, they should use something like the U.S. government’s definition,” said Yoo, a University of California-Berkeley law professor.
He pointed out that the FBI’s definition of domestic terrorism is “violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences.”
“It seems obvious that writing messages in chalk on the sidewalk does not come close to fitting this definition,” Yoo wrote. “If so, we have many more terrorists roaming the streets of Berkeley than are known to the FBI.”
The University of Maryland has not responded to the Fix’s questions about the PIRUS data, which were sent to three different offices. The Fix asked why PIRUS has logged peaceful pro-life students cleared of charges but not crimes committed by Black Lives Matter supporters that same year.
The PIRUS database shows an overwhelming bias against “right wing” groups, with an under-reporting of crimes by those associated with left-wing movements. For example, 1,700 “far right” radical offenders are logged by PRIUS while only 537 “far left” offenders have been recorded.
An example of PIRUS’s remarkable bias — and data gaps — is its tracking of “anti-abortion” and “anti-LGBTQ” “radicals,” but not pro-abortion or pro-LGBTQ criminals, despite the fact that the U.S. has just seen an epidemic of criminal and violent activity motivated by leftist, and particularly pro-abortion, ideology.
For example, the report “Demonstrations & Political Violence in America: New Data for Summer 2020 indicates that 88 percent of the 633 incidents classified as riots involve Black Lives Matter activists. This number rises to 95 percent for riots in which the perpetrators’ affiliation can be identified. Yet, the PIRUS database conspicuously lacks mention of BLM-affiliated violence and illegal activity.
A wave of pro-abortion violence also swept the country in the wake of the 2022 Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, prompting the FBI to open “nearly 10 times as many investigations into cases of abortion-related domestic terrorism as it had in 2021,” according to The Intercept.
START is now working to expand the PIRUS database with new funding from the Department of Justice (DOJ). However, the Biden DOJ’s markedly disproportionate prosecution of pro-life activists, versus pro-abortion and leftwing activists, seems to quell any hope that PIRUS will remedy its bias against conservatives.
World War III: The Big Advancement Of Potential Nuclear War That The MSM Won’t Talk About
Moderna Developing mRNA Vaccines For Diseases Linked to Covid Shots
During its Vaccines Day Event for investors on March 28, Moderna announced progress on multiple mRNA-based vaccines and therapeutic candidates in its “pipeline.”
Three vaccines targeting Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), Varicella-zoster virus (VZV, chickenpox and shingles) and Norovirus are advancing to “pivotal late-stage development,” the company said.
Moderna also announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to approve its respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine mRNA-1345 for older adults. This is part of an expected $52 billion market for Moderna’s infectious disease vaccines.
“We continue to explore the application of mRNA in the potential treatment of cardiovascular and other ischemic vascular diseases,” Moderna’s website states in its product plans for therapeutic areas.
The company also is developing mRNA solutions for cancer and autoimmune diseases.
Citing the well-documented and often serious adverse reactions to the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, some scientists and doctors said they are concerned about the dangers of existing and new mRNA formulations.
They also question whether Moderna is attempting to profit from solutions for diseases its products are causing.
Blocking the ‘foot soldiers of the immune system’
Synthetic-modified RNA (modRNA) in the cells suppresses innate immunity that keeps latent viruses at bay and protects against new infections, according to Brian Hooker, Ph.D., chief scientific officer at Children’s Health Defense.
“One of the mechanisms involves microRNAs that suppress the production of cellular interferon, which is extremely important for attack against viral infections as well as tumor suppression,” Hooker told The Defender.
Hooker pointed to the June 2022 paper by Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., Dr. Peter McCullough and others that explored innate immune suppression by mRNA vaccines.
The authors proposed that vaccine-induced interferon suppression blocks the proper functioning of CD8+ T cells — often called the foot soldiers of the immune system — allowing dormant viruses to reactivate and, in the case of VZV, to cause shingles, the “adult” version of chickenpox.
A 2021 paper reported 54 cases of herpes zoster (shingles) emerging an average of 7 days after COVID-19 vaccination. A 2022 paper reported 10 cases of herpes zoster reactivation within one to three weeks after COVID-19 vaccination.
Yet the authors of both papers claimed a definitive link between the vaccines and the symptoms could not be established.
French scientist Hélène Banoun, Ph.D., in “La Science face au Pouvoir: Ce que révèle la crise Covid-19 sur la biopolitique du XXIe siècle” (“Science versus Power: What the Covid-19 crisis reveals about 21st-century biopolitics”), wrote that the disorganization of the innate immune system and its receptors contribute to the reactivation of latent viruses — including herpes, shingles, human papillomavirus (HPV) and RSV.
Many people infected by EBV or VZV become healthy, asymptomatic carriers, according to Banoun.
“These viruses, as well as other viruses or bacteria — such as the Koch bacillus responsible for tuberculosis — can remain dormant throughout life, or be reactivated during immunosuppression,” Banoun told The Defender.
Banoun also cited leprosy reactions following mRNA injections observed in numerous countries. “Despite the sophistication of mRNA vaccines, some side effects apparently reactivate diseases thought to have been relegated to the past,” she wrote.
Numerous case studies (here, here and here) correlate the development of EBV-related symptoms and antibodies with COVID-19 mRNA vaccines.
Matthew Matlock, a combat veteran and Ironman athlete, self-reported at the April 2022 meeting of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee that he suffered from the reactivation of EBV, in addition to cardiac and mast cell disease issues, after receiving the second dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 shot.
Moderna is creating two versions of a vaccine for EBV: mRNA-1189 for prevention and mRNA-1195to address the long-term effects, specifically multiple sclerosis and a subcategory of lymphoma in solid organ transplant patients.
Moderna reportedly paused its EBV vaccine trial last year when a subject developed myocarditis.
Moderna does not mention other long-term EBV effects such as chronic active EBV, EBV-associated cancers, anemia, rupture of the spleen, thrombocytopenia, hepatitis, myocarditis and diseases of the nervous system including encephalitis, meningitis and Guillain-Barré syndrome.
Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said the market for the EBV vaccines is expected to be several billion dollars.
Turbo cancers and autoimmune diseases
Banoun noted the role of anti-spike IgG4 (immunoglobin subtype 4) in spike-induced immunotolerance, writing that it “takes over from other IgG after repeated vaccinations” and increases the expression of PD-L1 (programmed cell death ligand 1), which can prevent the immune system’s T cells from attacking and killing cancer cells.
IgG4 is an antibody the immune system produces in response to infections or vaccinations. It has anti-inflammatory properties but can also bind to the same targets as other antibodies, blocking their effectiveness.
Overexpression of IgG4 can lead to IgG4-related disease, a chronic inflammatory condition with lesions that can dysregulate organ functioning and even cause death.
According to a 2023 study, IgG4 antibodies induced by repeated vaccination may generate immune tolerance to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, rendering the mRNA vaccines ineffective.
Mikolaj Raszek, Ph.D., a genomics sequencing specialist and founder and director of Merogenomics, in a recent tweet cited a January 2024 article in Viruses showing abnormal IgG4 antibodies in nearly all mRNA-vaccinated Individuals:
“They’re suggesting that having too much antigen eventually will lead to T cell exhaustion, and if you have T cell exhaustion this is how you might start correlating that with development of autoimmunity …
“More and more scientists are becoming leery of these IgG4 antibodies that basically seem to be observed in almost all of the mRNA vaccinated individuals.”
The authors of the Viruses article noted that a high level of IgG4 in the serum is considered pathogenic as it could trigger autoimmune diseases, cancer and other illnesses.
They speculated this could be due to the long-lasting spike protein produced by the vaccines and suggested this could lead to the desensitization of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells, leading to immune system exhaustion.
“The induction of immunological tolerance by repeated vaccinations could perhaps explain the large number of deaths occurring in vaccinated people who received a third dose compared with unvaccinated individuals in some European countries,” they wrote.
In their paper, Seneff and McCullough linked vaccine-induced immunosuppression to neurodegenerative diseases, myocarditis, immune thrombocytopenia, Bell’s palsy, liver disease, cancer and other impairments.
Geert Vanden Bossche, Ph.D., also warned that vaccine-induced elevated levels of IgG4 could lead toturbo cancers. Many oncologists have reported rapidly developing cancers, often in younger people, that have already progressed to Stage 3 or 4 by the time they are diagnosed.
Banoun said that until a few years ago, Moderna developed mRNA vaccines solely to fight cancer. “It is certain that we are witnessing an increase in the incidence of cancer certainly due to anti-COVID RNAs,” she said.
Banoun said the mRNA-6981 product under development by Moderna is designed to increase PD-L1levels to prevent the progression of autoimmune hepatitis by limiting the immune system’s self-reactivity.
However, as already noted, elevated PD-L1 can block the immune system’s cancer-fighting properties.
“This therapy is a double-edged sword, as it will not be specific and risks inducing immunotolerance to other pathologies such as infections and cancers,” Banoun said. “Moderna will then be able to develop other mRNAs against induced cancers.”
Other cancer-targeting mRNAs in Moderna’s pipeline include mRNA-4157 for melanoma and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC); mRNA-5671 for NSCLC, pancreatic and colorectal cancers; mRNA-4359 to “stimulate effector T cells that target and kill suppressive immune and cancer cells that express high levels of target checkpoint antigens”; and mRNA-2752 for direct injection into tumors and lymphomas.
Moderna also said it is developing several mRNA therapeutics that it believes “have the potential to help the millions of patients battling autoimmune diseases.”
SARS-CoV-2 spike protein can cause many of the same diseases
Moderna may also be responding to diseases caused by the spike protein in the original SARS-CoV-2 virus itself.
There is ample evidence at this point to suggest that the virus was engineered specifically to be more virulent to humans.
Researchers in this 2022 study of COVID-19-infected people found elevated levels of EBV-related antibodies as well as herpes virus 6A and human endogenous retrovirus K antibodies.
Symptoms attributed to “long COVID” (which may include symptoms attributable to the mRNA vaccines) include difficulty breathing, chest pain, heart palpitations, fatigue, brain fog, sleep problems, dizziness, pins-and-needles feelings, post-exercise malaise, a change in smell or taste, depression or anxiety, stomach pain or diarrhea, joint or muscle pain, rashes and changes in menstrual cycles.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website states that these symptoms are similar to those reported by people with chronic fatigue syndrome, also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis.
Dr. Michelle Perro, an integrative medicine pediatrician and executive director of GMO Science, told The Defender that because people with long COVID may have an exacerbation of underlying chronic infections, “the production of mRNA vaccines, which are problematic from the experience with COVID, is faulty at best.”
“These vaccines were in the pipeline way before COVID and got a pass with the EUA [emergency use authorization] to unleash the technology,” Perro said.
“There is nothing good to be said about using this process [mRNA] in ‘vaccine’ development,” she said. “This technology should be abandoned immediately until further data is available.”
Moderna has recently been pushing a vaccination campaign aimed at long COVID prevention.
‘Hello shingles!’ Existing vaccines may be cause of diseases
The mRNA shots may not be solely responsible for the reemergence of viruses like chickenpox. In her March 29 Substack post, Jennifer Margulis discussed the chickenpox vaccine and its relationship to the rise in shingles cases.
Until the chickenpox vaccine was added to the childhood vaccination schedule in 1995, the virus was associated with “only 100 deaths each year out of nearly 4 million cases,” she wrote.
Margulis questioned why such a relatively mild disease would need a vaccine if the purpose of the scheduled vaccines was to prevent serious disease. She noted that fewer than one-third of European countries even recommend universal vaccination for children.
Citing a 2022 study, Margulis highlighted some of the serious adverse reactions to the chickenpox vaccine, including meningitis, encephalitis and death. Other adverse effects reported includethrombocytopenia, pneumonia, severe rashes, skin infections and seizures.
Margulis argued that removing the wild virus from circulation through wide-scale vaccination campaigns had reduced the natural immunity of adults who in times past were allowed to fight the infection as children.
“This natural immunization boost is pretty much gone,” she said, adding, “Hello shingles!” and pointing out that “mRNA-1468 is the vaccine Moderna is developing to help protect adults from shingles.”
More products in Moderna’s pipeline
Other products in Moderna’s pipeline include an HIV vaccine, a combined RSV-HPV vaccine, a pediatric RSV vaccine, a pandemic flu shot, a cytomegalovirus vaccine and an endemic HCoV (human coronavirus) vaccine; vaccines for Lyme disease, Zika, Nipah and Mpox; a therapeutic to promoterelaxin, a naturally occurring cardio-protective hormone; and a combined COVID-19-flu shot.
Blackstone Life Sciences has agreed to invest $750 million in Moderna’s flu vaccine in exchange for milestone payments and royalties, Yahoo Finance reported.
The stock value of Moderna rose 3% after the announcements, approaching $111 per share, bringing the 2024 increase to 11.2% as of March 28, which is well above the industry average.
The current price is still well below the $450 price per share Moderna enjoyed in mid-2021 at the height of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
World War III: The Big Advancement Of Potential Nuclear War That The MSM Won’t Talk About
Bidenomics Failure Shows up at Polls as Gen-Z Revolts Against Democrats
It is no surprise that a new Gallup poll shows a growing number of Gen-Zers and millennials are becoming increasingly frustrated with the failure of ‘Bidenomics‘ as they struggle with the cost-of-living crisis.
We didn’t need a poll to reveal the frustrations of youngsters working two or three jobs just to afford rent, auto payments, and avocado and toast. The writing has been on the wall, especially on social media feeds of TikTok and X:
The struggle is real for the new generation, which is just now learning that working a 9-5 isn’t as easy as college. pic.twitter.com/FvAeYkTddt
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) October 25, 2023
A lot of people seem to think this mindset is unique to Gen Z. It’s not.
— Matthew Kobach ? (@mkobach) October 20, 2023
Every generation goes through this. Watch Reality Bites, where a group of 20-somethings in the early 90s deal with the exact same struggles and emotions as described in this video.
pic.twitter.com/7h1gAN3c7R
The Gen-Z girl who complained about the 9-5 work schedule has a comment for Business Insider (which tried to find out where she works) about the stress of finding a job as a post-grad. She’s got a point. pic.twitter.com/4ExfWrELLF
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) October 27, 2023
Woman defends Gen-Z not wanting to work a 9-5 for the rest of their lives
— Unlimited L’s (@unlimited_ls) January 8, 2024
“I don’t want to work my tail end off, wasting all of my life working, just to barely be able to pay my bills” pic.twitter.com/BxaTXjaxcd
Woman defends Gen-Z not wanting to work a 9-5 for the rest of their lives
— Unlimited L’s (@unlimited_ls) January 8, 2024
“I don’t want to work my tail end off, wasting all of my life working, just to barely be able to pay my bills” pic.twitter.com/BxaTXjaxcd
The new Gallup poll of 18-29-year-olds validates the Biden administration, which seemingly cares more about illegal aliens and the LGBTQQIP2SAA community (not sure what all those letters mean), is quickly losing the young vote.
People in that age cohort are more than twice as likely to cite the economy as their top concern compared with older adults in recent Gallup data. And while all voters are more worried about the economy now than they were heading into the 2020 presidential election, the pessimism has spiked the most among those under 30. –Bloomberg
It’s a wake-up call for the Biden administration. A recent Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll reveals a surprising trend: Former President Trump is leading President Biden 47% to 40% among voters 18-34 in swing states. This is a significant shift from the last presidential cycle when Biden won 61% of voters under 30.
The Biden administration understands they desperately need Gen-Z and millennial support to win in November. They are trying everything in their power to buy votes by bailing out youngsters with student debt (despite the Supreme Court ruling).
Youngsters are coming of age in one of the worst economic periods this nation has seen in a generation. Elevated inflation is crushing household finances.
With the election cycle well underway, there are mounting risks inflation could accelerate once again, and gas prices at the pump are rising.
Bidenomics has been a colossal failure, and young people are seeing that and are furious with the elderly, senile president who should be in a retirement home. Young people are beginning to understand they might never be able to afford the average American home as that dream died a long time ago. These frustrations are showing up in the polling data.
World War III: The Big Advancement Of Potential Nuclear War That The MSM Won’t Talk About
Zelensky to Mobilize Younger Men
Twenty-five-year-old Ukrainian men are now eligible for the draft; on Tuesday, President Vladimir Zelensky signed a bill into law reducing the minimum age by two years.
Kiev is in the process of overhauling its military service system, particularly the process of enlisting new men; some parts of the proposed reform are still being debated in the parliament. Men aged 27 to 60 have been subject to being called up for mobilization; the short amendment lowering the bar to 25 years made it through the nation’s legislature last May before getting stalled at Zelensky’s office.
Hawkish US Senator Lindsey Graham chastised Kiev for failing to call up younger twentysomethings when he visited Ukraine last month.
“I can’t believe it’s at 27,” he told reporters. “You’re in a fight for your life, so you should be serving – not at 25 or 27. We need more people in the line.”
Read more Top US senator tells Ukraine to draft younger soldiers
Zelensky has also enacted another part of the reform, which introduces an electronic system, through which citizens of fighting age will be obliged to report their personal data.
This lays the groundwork for future penalties for draft avoidance and a legal requirement for Ukrainians to report for duty when called up through the same system. Currently, conscription officers need to issue a summons on paper and hand it over in person, so those not willing to serve simply hide.
Other pending changes will abolish a category of limited medical eligibility for service currently enjoyed by people with milder conditions. After it becomes law, people previously rejected by medical professionals will have to show up for a new examination and risk being drafted.
Ukraine has an acute shortage of people volunteering to fight Russia and has to rely on forced conscription to replenish its ranks. According to Vladimir Paniotto, who heads the Kiev International Institute of Sociology, a leading national pollster, just 8% of Ukrainians are willing to take up arms.
READ MORE: Ukrainian general condemns sympathy for dead draft dodgers
The Russian Defense Ministry estimated this week that Kiev has lost over 80,000 troops since January. Moscow has accused the US of pushing its opponent to fight “to the last Ukrainian” and standing in the way of peace talks.
World War III: The Big Advancement Of Potential Nuclear War That The MSM Won’t Talk About
Bullets, Batteries And More: 13 Bartering Items to Stock up on While Preparing For The Financial Crash
Even though financial systems seem stable at the moment, there’s no telling when the next financial crash might happen.
Sometimes, a financial crash can cause short-term suffering. However, there have also been times throughout history when financial collapse had worse outcomes. (h/t to AskAPrepper.com)
While humanity has yet to witness a crash that was serious enough to destabilize the government and society in North America, with the fragile nature of financial systems, it is something that may happen soon.
If you ever experience a financial crash that is severe enough to cause country-wide hyperinflation, unemployment and the collapse of the banking sector, you may have to resort to the barter system to acquire the goods and services that your family needs to survive.
If you’re worried about a scenario like this, start preparing and stock up on items that you can use for bartering after a financial crash.
Alcohol
There are almost 15 million people who suffer from alcohol use disorder in the United States. And even those who do not have a compulsion to drink alcohol will be likely to trade goods for a bottle of spirits to calm their nerves in times of hardship.
If you don’t drink alcohol, having a few bottles of liquor and wine for bartering may still offer some benefits after SHTF.
Ammo
After a severe financial crisis, law enforcement could be overwhelmed and even ineffective. This would cause a true survival situation where crime becomes rampant.
In a wide-scale disaster scenario where the rule of law becomes non-existent, ammo will be as good as, or even more valuable, than money.
Stock up on a surplus of common calibers specifically for bartering. If you’re not sure what to get, stock up on ammo for handguns and small game calibers. You might also want to stockpile air gun ammo.
Antibiotics
When you’re trying to resume normal life after a severe economic downturn, access to medical care will become limited. Unfortunately, common infections could also pose serious threats.
Having a supply of antibiotics can be a lifesaver for those facing bacterial illnesses and are without access to healthcare services.
Try to stockpile commonly used antibiotics, such as amoxicillin or ciprofloxacin, to meet the needs of your neighbors after SHTF.
Batteries
Once the supply of batteries on store shelves is depleted, non-preppers will be desperate to acquire all the standard sizes of alkaline batteries and power banks to charge their smartphones and other small devices that charge via USB.
If you have a reliable source of off-grid power on your homestead, you can offer to charge devices and battery banks in exchange for other items that you need.
Bottled water
All humans need clean drinking water to survive, but you don’t want to risk your safety and stockpile by giving other people access to your stored water supply after a disaster.
Get two or three cases of bottled water so you have items specifically for bartering purposes.
Chocolate and candy
Many people have a sweet tooth. And while sweets aren’t an immediate need during an emergency, once the financial system has collapsed, there will still be many people who crave chocolate and candy.
Feminine hygiene products
Women will still need feminine hygiene products after a financial crash.
And even if there is no serious grid-down situation, the cost of feminine hygiene products may still increase, so people will be willing to barter with you.
Flashlights
If a financial crisis is severe enough that people need to resort to the barter system, there’s a chance that people will not be able to pay the electric bill or that power will be shut off.
When this happens, people will want to trade with you if you have flashlights.
Try buying packages of several flashlights for less than the price of the included batteries. Products like these are great for bartering because they are cheap and disposable.
Over-the-counter medication
If manufacturing issues can cause supply issues for several months, things might be worse after a financial crisis.
Like antibiotics, many people will need over-the-counter (OTC) medication after a financial crisis or collapse after supply chain disruptions and price increases affect the local supply.
Stock up on these OTC meds so you have a variety of items to trade with:
- Cold and flu medicines
- Diarrhea and constipation medicines and laxatives
- Headache and nausea medicines
- Pain and fever medicines
- Saline solutions
- Skin and allergy medicines
- Sleeping pills
- Wound care medications, like burn cream or antibacterial ointments
Protein bars
Rising food costs may leave non-preppers scrambling for calorie-dense food sources.
Stock up on several cases of protein bars, cereal bars and fruit bars for bartering during a financial crisis. (Related: Emergency food prep: Stock up on manuka honey, a must-have survival food and barter item.)
Radios
After a large-scale financial crash threatens to destabilize the communications grid or forces people to scale back their spending on phone and internet services, you still need to stay in touch with friends and family.
Stock up on radios that operate on the two-meter and 70-centimeter amateur bands. You can also get cheaper shortwave receivers for use as barter items. These items will be popular among those who are desperate for reliable comms.
Tobacco/vape
Like alcohol, there are a lot of people who smoke or vape. After the SHTF and the country dealing with a financial crash, these people will eagerly be trading to get cigarettes or e-cigs.
Stock up on cigarettes and some vape juice so you can trade with them.
Toilet paper and paper towels
During the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the country witnessed demand for one surprising product: Toilet paper.
At the height of the pandemic, toilet paper and other paper products flew off of store shelves. Even if you don’t experience a financial crash, you should always have a good supply of these products, with an additional supply for bartering.
The current monetary system started as the barter systems that humans used for the years that pre-dated the invention of the modern currency that humans use today.
And while humans have been trading goods and services for money, if the currency collapses, society will go back to bartering. As a prepper, it’s best to stock up on bartering supplies like food, medication and ammo so you can trade for supplies after SHTF.
Go to Health Ranger Store to find more prepping products that can be used for bartering.
Watch the video below to learn more about organic black beans, and why you should have them in your prepper stockpile.
More related stories:
HRS SOLUTIONS: Stock up on organic non-fat milk powder, a long-lasting source of essential nutrients.
SHTF bartering must-haves: 13 Things that will be in demand after an EMP attack.
Sensible prepper rules to follow when building your emergency stockpile.
Survival beverages that are a must for your pantry.
World War III: The Big Advancement Of Potential Nuclear War That The MSM Won’t Talk About