Extreme Garage sale jaunt Extreme Garage Sale Jaunt

This articel was written for Livingston Parent JournalThrift, family, garage sales, and other stuff:By J. R. Delcamp Resident of Genoa Township and Author of ‘Zero Cost Living – exploring extreme frugality’ I had no problem living like Thoreau, with frugality, when I lived on my own. But with a family it’s not so easy. Imagine Thoreau with a family. That’s me. Children and spouse are sometimes unwilling be thrifty.Getting the wife to go along is complicated – a subject for another article – or book. Getting children to be thrifty is somewhat easier. One method: Take them to garage sales. Let them carry their own money (from allowances, Christmas or birthday money, earnings from sale of their items at our own garage sale etc) – money that is burning a hole in their pockets. Spending their own $ at garage sales they quickly learn to discern what they really want or need from what they don’t - regretting the precious $ they spent on of this or that useless toy they never play with. And, they realize how much farther their $ go at garage sales than at retail outlets.It can be fun and interesting to them - wondering what they might find, searching through stuff, finding unexpected items, bargaining with the seller, taking their new found treasure home. A big problem with garage sales and flea markets is hitting them with efficiency. Driving around just looking can waste gas and time and costs more than any possible savings. In general I have found that making jaunts just to visit garage sales is just not worth it.My method: visit garage sales while doing something else, visiting sales along the route I must follow for some non-garage sale task. I leave early, allowing extra time for these stops on the trip.And I try to do non-garage sale activities like shopping, library visit, hike, etc. on Friday and Saturday (and sometimes Thursday) when garage sales are on.The ultimate refinement of this method is the“Great cross state garage sales jaunt”: I plan vacations to northern or western Michigan so that the family can visit garage sales on the way there or back, or both - by leaving on Friday or Saturday and returning on one of these days a week later. In July we spruce up the old reliable Chevy Astro Van and beat up pop up camper, load them with heaps of stuff: snacks, pillows, blankets, suitcases, binoculars, camera, toys, ‘noodle’ floaties, bikes, a microwave oven (one of my camping cheats) and cups full of change for the sales. TWO JAUNTS:Jaunt # 1:We go camping on Lake Michigan in late July early August. We go there by secondary paved roads through small towns - making an average of 10 stops in 150 miles and taking five hours to cross the State. And we visit interesting sites along the way - a different one or two each year: the park and pedestrian bridge in the town of Plainwell, the county courthouse building in Mason, Yankees Springs State Park, Fort Custer Veterans National

Cemetery, Kalamazoo Aviation History Museum, and much more. Near Lake Michigan we pick buckets of blueberries, stop at produce stands, top off our food supplies.Jaunt # 2:We camp at Black Lake (Southeast of Mackinaw) at the end of August going 250 miles each way. Going there, we take the freeway as far as Bay City, (a boring and tedious drive), then two lane roads through small towns making our garage sale stops in this stretch. We also stop for local produce from roadside stands: vegetables, fruit, preserves, the bounty of late summer Michigan. It is scenic, rolling, back country - birches, pines, old farmhouses, colorful farm fields backed by forests, quaint little towns – some so small you will miss them if you blink.We meet people at these stops, talk, ask questions, learn interesting things. The kids get to stretch frequently- and paw through stuff looking for toys and treasures while we look for clothes, books, tools, whatever we want need at the moment, or know we’ll need in the future.At one stop I forage wild apples – picked by no one else - behind a small town grocery store. They are not perfect, but small and marked by occasional worm or insect attack. But they are still sweet and good and the marked areas are easily cut away. And the marks assure me they have not been sprayed with pesticides. (potentially less healthy - I think - than any insect or worm).On these ‘Great Jaunts’ we take a different route each year, keeping them varied and interesting, discovering new places, people, garage sales, produce stands, scenic vistas and sites, - enjoying the whole panoply of undiscovered and unsung Michigan countryside.J. R. Delcamp will talk about his book and thrifty ideas at a presentation at the Brighton Public Library on November 11 (Veterans Day) at 7 P.M.About My Book:‘Zero Cost Living, exploring extreme frugality’ is a guide to living comfortably while spending little or no money, thereby achieving economic security and financial freedom without having a fortune. It is achieved by the creation a personal economy (or ‘P.E.’) wherein you build up an array of knowledge, skills, tools, materials, technology that efficiently produce the things required to meet most of your basic needs (food, shelter, clothing, transportation, recreation etc.) so you need spend little or no money on these things. Just as the personal computer (the ‘P.C.’) evolved from mainframe computers, and put computers into the hands of almost everyone, building your P.E. can put control of your economic circumstances into your own hands. By creating your own P.E. you can insulate yourself, your family, and your community from the ongoing storm of economic instability and insecurity inflicted on too many folks by the volatile national and global economy.My book is available from Amazon or locally at Unicorn One Books and Village Cyclery.

The Theory of avoided costsTopics to Explore front end alignment Next Book Solar Farm in a small space Minimum area needed to grow food Body heated space Illustrations Heating Systems Cheap and simple solar house Cheapest food ever my new heat pump -personal experience Extreme Garage sale jaunt The Theory of avoided costs New Sources - recently discovered ZCL last cuts from Book ZCL Cuts Medicaid eligiblity and ZCL

Here is the core idea of my 'manifesto of thrift'

AVOIDED COSTS: “A penny saved is a penny earned,” wrote Ben Franklin in Poor Richards Almanac. But in modern economic thought, avoided costs are not even counted in the economy. That is, money not spent is not counted as part of GNP. Consider a mind experiment. Over a year, assume everything else in the economy is stable and stays the same except energy conservation cuts 10% from costs. Then, the Gross National Product would be lower, less stuff will have been bought or sold, and the economy will appear to have contracted because of the avoided costs, or savings resulting from energy conservation. Perhaps Ben Franklin’s saying should be modified, in the modern world to “a penny saved is a contracting economy”. Of course in reality, having saved dollars by conserving energy, folks have bigger bank accounts, or spend more on consumer goods, or take more days off from work, or take longer or more expensive vacations. Of course the bank accounts, consumer spending, etcetera of folks in the energy industry go down.ECONOMICS OF AVOIDED COSTS:The Hunza of Pakistan have a healthy bracing climate and a stable and sustainable organic agricultural system. They live on farms and own their land and houses. They have good health into their 90s, no tooth decay , perfect vision; (from the book Healthy at 100 by John Robbins)Other societies in odd corners of the world have similar circumstances. :Writes Robbins, “Certainly part of the secret to the exceptionally healthy aging found in Aabkhasia, Vilcabamba, Hunza, and Okinawa is the extraordinary amount of regular exercise built into the routines of daily life.”Consider all the costs theses societies have avoided: medical costs, rents, mortgages, real estate, store bought food, automobiles, etcetera. Until 1965 the Hunza did not use money, had no roads, electricity or modern conveniences. Since the introduction of all of these their health has deteriorated.

Real Wealth Many a seemingly primitive, backward or stagnant economy (as seen by Americans) may be wealthier than they seem. The Hunza of Pakistan have no cars and no need for them. They live well without them, and avoid the cost. They stay healthy, and have very low health care costs. By the criteria of conventional economics the Hunza would be considered among the poorest people on Earth. But in reality, they may be among the wealthiest people in the world They have an attitude of ease, well-being and happiness according to Robbins. Recently they have had to endure the introduction of a money economy, western food, roads, cars, and dependency on imports. These harbingers of progress are in the process of impoverishing them. In the poor villages of India the income per person per day may average only $1. They live low cost by necessity. But, like the Hunza, their real standard of living could be higher than conventional economics would calculate if avoided costs are added in. There are no cars but they are able to get everywhere on footThey have no heating cost, living in a warm climate, and no air conditioning cost.

Their buildings, with mud brick walls, stay cool naturally.Many residents may have no rent or mortgage costs: They own their own land free and clear. Their houses are built out sun dried mud bricks, material obtained free from their property and naturally fireproof and not insured thus avoiding insurance cost. Homes may be owner built and easily repairable by the owner.They have compost toilets, no piped plumbing system, no plumbers and no need for them. We may not be not much richer than prehistoric or aboriginal folks if the value of avoided costs are added back in. Is a man richer who works in a factory all day rather than hunts? Who will be healthier? Who will live a more interesting life? Does sitting at a computer all day make you richer than a subsistence farmer? Who will be healthier?THEORY OF AVOIDED COSTS: (TOAC) TOAC is the theory that in counting up the real wealth and income of people the costs and expenditures that are avoided must be added in. (With the caveat that though the cost is avoided, the real need - whether for food shelter, clothing etc. is being met).Dollars that you do not have to spend because of the way you live equals income. If you own your house free and clear and pay no mortgage or rent the dollars you save are not recorded or reflected in the economy or in your income, under ordinary GNP and income accounting. If you pay rent or mortgage you must earn the dollars to pay these costs and these dollars are included in your income. In fact, owning your home saves you $10,000 or more a year in interest payments. Your real income is higher by that amount according to the theory of avoided costs.Similarly, if you can walk everywhere or bike and own no car you can save the $2,000 a year a used car you fix yourself might cost you, or the $5,000 cost of a new car per year. Again the economy and your income reflect no evidence of this under ordinary economics. But under TOAC accounting your income would reflect this savings. To the typical service economy wage that is a lot of hours of labor: car and house savings together = $12,000 or about 12 months work after taxes. Therefore, if your service economy job pays you $12,000 a year, and you own your house without a mortgage and need no car then your income really is $12,000 plus $12,000 = $24,000 a year or effectively doubled. Other expenditures, most expenditures in fact can be cut, or even eliminated by various methods to be discussed later in detail in this book. Effects and Consequences of TOAC:By TOAC accounting prehistoric men may be seen as fabulously wealthy by modern standards, avoiding every cost (and living in vast pristine wilderness). Avoided costs are not even considered in modern economic theory, and that fact reveals the nonsense that is modern economics.Consider modern men living a primitive prehistoric-man-like existence: The Kalahari bushman: By ordinary economic accounting Bushmen are distressingly poor. But by TOAC accounting they are reasonably well off: Consider the costs they avoid: no houses, mortgages, cars, food costs health care. Under conventional economics the per capita income of a bushman vs. an American cannot easily be

compared. But using avoided cost analysis the income of a bushman can be estimated at around $30,000 per year.The bushmen may suffer from lack of a secure food supply and from lack of modern medical care. But they have compensations: They hunt. Hunting with primitive weapons is a recreation in American society. The way they gets his food is a healthy challenging pleasure. Compare this to workers stuck in a factory.Can a bushman really be considered poor? Not by TOAC accounting. He can be made poor by taking him out of his environment, or by destruction of the environment he lives in. (A bushman or Native American living in a environment he cannot defend is a man about to loose his fortune though very little value would be placed upon it by conventional economic accounting).A bushman moved to a city is made instantly poor. His skills are useless; he cannot hunt but must buy food. He is vulnerable to a host of new diseases and must have modern health care. He may need a car to get around. He has no property and cannot legally sleep in a public place in many cities.A teenager leaving home is like a bushman leaving his environment going from an environment where he has no expenses to one where they are likely to be larger than his income; from well off to instantly poor. Unless he can live with low or no expenses (ZCL). In our society he must somehow then work his way back to well off.Real Poverty: The poorest man is the one who must work long hours at the most miserable job in society - a job he hates that requires no skills and has no future prospects - to cover his expenses regardless of his wealth in dollar terms. Another words: Adams Smith’s pin factory workers. A poor man is one who lives in the suburbs and must have a car house and mortgage and has to buy everything - and has a low paying job and therefore must work long hours or go into debt to pay for constantly consumed kinds of expenses such as food, gasoline, electricity, medical costs, taxes, etc. This is the situation of many working Americans. And poor in the extreme is a man suddenly unemployed with high expenses and no ways to cut down his expenses. (But there are always ways to save).Avoided costs are not counted as part of the equation of the GNP of an economy under conventional economic accounting. These costs can add a considerable boost to the GNP of a nation. They may even be much larger than the dollar amounts reflected in ordinary GNP accounting. Like the dark matter in the universe that affects gravity, they might hugely skew the real circumstance of an economy, the real GNP, the real wealth. For example, consider a society where everyone owns their home free and clear and pay no mortgage vs. a society where everyone is fully mortgaged. By conventional economics the GNP of fully mortgaged society will be higher. But by the TOAC the society where everyone owns their home will be higher. Most real societies fall somewhere between these hypothetical extremes. Where some homes are mortgaged and some are not, the avoided expenditure must be added to the GNP.Application of the Theory: Avoided cost analysis: Applying the theory of avoided costs to economic and social situations I call avoided cost analysis.. Using avoided cost analysis we may calculate the full cost of an economic change to

the individual, family, society and the environment. As a result of economic growth, new factories and other businesses costs that were previously avoided now might have to be paid.Applying TOAC to a real case: Adam Smith’s pin factory again.According to conventional economic accounting the pin factory mass produces pins making cheaper pins than ever before, society can buy cheaper pins, the company undersells the competition, sells many and makes a profit. Everybody benefitsBut what costs that were previously avoided now must be paid:Small scale locally made pin makers are wiped out. These pin workers are now unemployed. Their lost income is a cost of the pin factory that must be determined.Factory pin workers are unskilled and low paid; they require little training and anyone can do it. Unskilled work means children may be employed with cost to their health and psychological well-being, and the social costs may result because they have an incomplete education. Also, mothers may be employed so childcare must be paid. All the pin workers do is make pins. They have no time or skills to do anything else. Plus workers must live near the factories in cities where they have small homes with small yards and therefore no space or facilities to make or grow anything themselves. Therefore, they must buy everything and their living costs go up.One or a few centralized pin factories increase transportation costs because distances to raw material and markets are greater. More roads, railroads, ships may be needed along with associated costs.Pollution and trash from the pin factory formerly dispersed in home workshops or small factories and perhaps once recycled and reused may now be concentrated and not used. So there are increased costs to dispose of and clean up (or as industry usually does leave toxic messes that have health costs).A cost should be assigned to the loss of freedom and independence workers suffer when they become a small cog in a large-scale army-like industrial organization. A cost should be assigned to the loss of economic security workers suffer when placed in a situation of constant intense competition against fellow workers, against other factories and against factories in other countries. Living with increased stress, the health of these workers may decline. And, because large numbers of workers are employed in close proximity for long hours, diseases may be more easily spread, exacting another cost to workers which should be determined.So the supposed savings of the pin factory are much less than imagined by conventional economics, and could in fact be negative.The problem of more accurately determining the wealth of a society (other than the Bhutan style GNH) might be solved by applying the TOAC and therefore by adding avoided costs into the total. The median family income in the United States was about $48,000 in 2007.Consider the Hunza, by conventional economics they are distressingly poor. Because they rarely use money in transactions and money flow cannot be counted, conventional economics might calculate their per capita income at a few hundred dollars a year by assigning a value to the crops they grow, farm animals raised, firewood gathered, etcetera.

Applying the TOAC and adding up avoided costs per year and assigning a cost for each category that an American family of 4 might expect to pay.

Category: Avoided cost:Staying healthy into their 90s: avoided medical costs = $10,000 Perfect teeth and vision = $2,000Growing almost all of their own organic food = $5,000No social security tax and no need for it = $2,000Almost no other taxes = $5,000Remaining productive all their lives = value of their work: $1,000Owning their own farms no mortgage costs = $10,000Building their own house = $5,000Owning no cars; going everywhere on foot = $5,000

No utility bills: compost toilets, hand pumped wells = $2,000 No electric bills: natural light, oil lamps, firelight = $1,000Homemade clothes using wool from their own sheep = $1,000Free recreations: family and community games and sports = $1,000Vacations visiting relatives (rather than Disneyland) = $3,000

TOTAL: $53,000

So I estimate their family income at over $50,000 per year. They don’t have all of the junk owned by a typical American family. But some of what they have is priceless: peace and quiet, low stress, close families, a pristine environment, pesticide free organic food. Using the accounting of the TOAC the Hunza may be considered well off, not poor.The thrifty society will thrive. The wasteful society will decline. Once America was thrifty, perhaps the thriftiest society on Earth, and they thrived. Once, in America, there were no wealthy folks wasting resources, no masses of poor living day to day and thus unable to realize the 'bigger' kinds of thrift. (no mortgage, preventive health care, etc.). Today, the Chinese are probably the world masters at thrift. They produce much, buy little, save 43% of their income. American savings is negative. But the Chinese will change as more and more workers become dependent on their single task all day jobs, have no time to practice thrift, and must buy for convenience, must buy everything and make nothing on their own.So is it all so simple? Just be thrifty and we’re home free (funny expression). Unfortunately practicing thrift is not so easy to do. Many practices that on the

surface may seem thrifty are not. They turn out to be expensive, in time or money or both or require great skill, and years of training, education or experience. “Expensive thrift”, now there’s an oxymoron, so in this book I’ll just use the terms “false thrift”, and "inefficient thrift".

New Sources - recently discoveredTopics to Explore front end alignment Next Book Solar Farm in a small space Minimum area needed to grow food Body heated space Illustrations Heating Systems Cheap and simple solar house Cheapest food ever my new heat pump -personal experience Extreme Garage sale jaunt The Theory of avoided costs New Sources - recently discovered ZCL last cuts from Book ZCL Cuts Medicaid eligiblity and ZCL New Sources - and old - recently discoveredAs a result of ongoing research and study here are new sources applicable to Zero Cost Living:

Lost in the meritocracy by Kirn: The reality of the ruling class - the new aristocracy of wealth in America is revealed by this book - as a 'poor boy' tries through brains and high SAT scores to make his way into the aristocracy and his difficulties as he alternately sucks up and defies at college (Princeton) the folks destined to be our national (and world) rulers.Actually this aristocray is not so new since his story concerns the 1970s.

An Edible History of Humanity by Tom StandageFood through history with plenty of interesting insights - such as how hunter gatherers thousands of years ago were healthier than farmers - and lived better lives with more leisure -(and more fun - hunting rather than grubbing the earth).See pages 16-17 and 34-37.

www.thesimpledollar.com Great web site dedicated to thrift with a great section - very popular on how to make cheap laundry soap.

Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorsten Velben A classic sociological study of the upper class in America at the end of the 19th century. A hard read with many big words, long sentences, and broad concepts.Velben invented the term 'conspicuous consumption'. Velben who sounds foreign grow up on a Wisconsin farm His family was Norwegian. He did not think much of the lifestyles of wealthy folks of his era. They undermined the earlier American culture Velben grew up in 'modernizing' America and reducing many folks to dependents, servants, employees who had previously been independent farmers.

The Engine 2 Diet by Rip Esselstyn - a triathelete and professional firefighter (in engine house number 2) in Texas. He advocates a vegitarian diet. The virtues are considerable including reversing or preventing heart disease, many cancers, diabetes, obesity, and host of other illnesses as described in the book. The foods he advocates are simple, cheap and you can grow most of them yourself, perhaps on the solar farm on a half acre that I

advocate in my book.

Medicaid eligiblity and ZCLTopics to Explore front end alignment Next Book Solar Farm in a small space Minimum area needed to grow food Body heated space Illustrations Heating Systems Cheap and simple solar house Cheapest food ever my new heat pump -personal experience Extreme Garage sale jaunt The Theory of avoided costs New Sources - recently discovered ZCL last cuts from Book ZCL Cuts Medicaid eligiblity and ZCL Correction to my book.After review of medicaid rules it appears that your assets are not limited to $3,000 to be eligible for medicaid. Your home is not counted in the asset calculation. You could own a mansion, I suppose and not have it counted as an asset as far as medicaid is concerned - although any income derived from your mansions such as a tenant paying rent for a room will affect your eligibility depending on the income limits for medicaid.

This is a great advantage for a ZCL practicioner in that you might have your homestead built up to produce most or all of the food, energy, etc. you need to live, and as components of your home these might not be considered assets for medicaid eligiblity. Since they produce no income, you are not selling anything, they might not be counted as income by medicaid. For example, solar cells on your roof could reduce your electricity costs to zero, real income to you according to the theory of avoided costs (savings = earnings or income), but not income as far as medicaid is concerned because you are not paid any money.

Therefore you are protected from losing your carefully built up homestead if you are facing catastrophic medical costs and- having used up most of your money for medical costs - by making yourself eligible for medicaid by getting rid of, using up, giving away all of your assets over $3,000. You might, for example, build some hydroponic solar greenhouse systems to produce your food, and solar cell arrays on your roof for electricity - using up your cash, and as long as these systems are not considered assets by medicaid because they are part of your 'home', you could still get medicaid.

From a pure ZCL perspective, relying on medicaid is not a ZCL practice as you are getting something without paying for it - namely free government health care. Someone else - the taxpayer is saving you. But faced with financial catastrophe and homeless destitution because of medical costs - take what the government will give you and try to preserve your homestead and a degree of independence. At some future date, healed and solvent again you might think about how you can re-pay all of the good citizens whos taxes saved you through medicaid.

WHAT CAN YOU DO? What can you do when despite your years of education and experience your professional job is outsourced, when the only job you can get is a dead end low wage service industry job, when illegal immigrant labor takes you job at half your wage, when your job in manufacturing is outsourced to nations where children, inmates and workers with no rights do the work you once did at a tiny fraction of the wage you once got, when a flood of cheap imports produced by these workers put your business into bankruptcy. What can you do when your art is not selling, when no one will publish your novel, when you can’t get a paying acting job, when you business has failed, when technology has made your job obsolete, when you didn’t win the lottery, when your parents have disowned you, when have no prospects, no economic future, no money, perhaps even no home? What can you do when you don’t fit into clock ruled timetables, routines, schedules, and agendas; when you can’t stand to be directed, managed, supervised and administered by of layers of bosses above you. There is one thing you can do: Live Zero Cost.

Introduction cuts1.2 WHY practice Zero Cost Living? But why attempt it? Out of necessity, maybe. Maybe you are young and new to the working world and can only get low wage service industry jobs. Perhaps your job has been outsourced. Perhaps you face a coming layoff. Possibly you are retired and have only social security to live on. Your income is low, but you don’t want your income to limit your life to mere survival. What if you don’t have a talent, or have one but can’t make it pay? You didn’t become the American Idol, win the lottery, or develop the personal computer in your garage. It is the fate of most people. Then, like most people, you might be relegated to the undesirable, the miserable, the dead end jobs of society. Perhaps not, living ZC.ZCL can take the pressure of need away. No longer will you be compelled by economic necessity. It may be possible to cut consumption far beyond what you think is possible. You may be healthier and more comfortable than you’d be with more assets and expenditures.You may attempt ZCL out of desire rather than need. It is a challenge, actually living almost money free. ZCL might be looked upon as an interesting, even fascinating challenge requiring considerable physical and intellectual skills. As a challenge it might rank up there with climbing Mount Everest or perhaps even climbing K2 (far more dangerous than Everest), so few people have done it, or even attempted it. You will have to research methods, (everything isn’t covered in this book) invent things, build things, and accomplish tasks ordinary folks rarely try. You might try ZCL as a means to escape the miserable world of business. It is a

world of unbridled greed, cutthroat competition, and stepping on coworkers to get ahead, euphemistically called the ‘rat race’. Maybe, you don’t want to compete, you just want to live a pleasant, comfortable, agreeable life. Some jobs are stressful and unhealthy. You may need to escape the economic and social pressure of your job to reduce stress, to relax and take it easy; to get out of the ‘rat race’. ZCL may be, therefore, a prescription for health and happiness. Perhaps you’re unemployed or facing a layoff. Perhaps you’re living on a fixed income, retired or on welfare. Facing these situations, and living ZC, you may still be able to live in comfort. If you are an inventor, writer, artist, or entertainer you may want to pursue your ideas and dreams but you must have food, shelter, etc. so you must work many hours at tedious and low paying jobs that eat up your time and sap your energy and creativity. By practicing ZCL you may get out of that trap. So more, even most of your time goes to what you really want to do.Living ZC for the rest of your life may seem like a bleak future. You may have visions of endless misery, impoverishment, of barely getting by, eating badly, poor housing, etc. but by homesteading and building a place suitable for comfortable living as described in chapter 5 you can get beyond all of that. Living ZC, you can be financially independent without having a fortune, not millions, not even a million (which barely qualifies you as wealthy anymore), but with a few tens to a few hundreds of thousands – within the range of most people.ZCL is more necessary than ever given the decline of wages, income, and personal wealth in America and the ongoing destruction of the middle class thanks to, outsourced jobs, cheap imports, illegal immigrant labor, corporate greed, and increasing disparities of wealth.Chapter 2 cutsPublic washrooms can be messy places. To use them with minimum exposure o the myriad germs they could contain. After washing your hands, as you leave, grip the door handle with the paper towel you dried your hands on. (If they have the blower type hand dryer paper towels may not be available). Outhouses may be encountered in public parks and campgrounds. You can get used to using these dark and dirty places. Camping, you might want to dig a hole and cover it with earth after useThere are low cost alternatives and alternatives that cost nothing. The no-cost alternatives usually take more time. So if you think time is money you may not want to consider them. For example finding piece of broken furniture along the side of the road, taking it home and fixing it can cost almost nothing but takes more time.And sometimes the situation is the opposite and a low cost item or method may require more time than a no-cost method because you must work for money to buy tools or materials, possibly at a miserable low paying job before you can put an item to use. For example, finding and fixing a piece of furniture you got free along the side of the road may cost virtually nothing, while building a piece of furniture may be accomplished at low cost, but will probably require more skill, tools, materials, and time.

Initial cost

Time $ in savings needed

Tool and material cost/loaf

Method

$2 1 1 minute $50 $.0 Buy bread

$.25 2 10 minutes

$ 9 $.05 Make bread- rising time not counted

$ 0 3 ½ hour $ 3 $.10 Grow grain and make bread

$ 0 4 3 hours $ 1.50 $.05 Forage for grain and make bread

$ 0 5 1 minute $ 0 $.0 Get bread from charity

Inflation verse Deflation, the net effect: CUT: TOO CONFUSINGAfter writing this chapter, and the estimate for inflation of about 3% per year, which has been in place for many years; paradoxically the American (and World) economy entered a period of deflation, (though I believe the long term trend of inflation will reassert itself). How does this affect all of the calculations above? With deflation, interest rates on saved $ have dropped to 3% or less. Deflation has increased the value of the dollar depending on what and when you buy. Deflation in housing and energy have been substantial, on other things, such as land and new cars, there has been little or no effect. Food prices rose, and then retreated again. Some items, notably imports, have gone up in price. I estimate over several years, the overall effect to be 0% inflation or deflation. Therefore, over the short term - inflation and deflation can be ignored. I estimate the net effect to be that your saved dollars can realize a return –of about 3%. So the estimates above, that used 3% net return after inflation should work as presented.Chapter 4 cutsLater, on another sail to town he met a girl. She was half Native American. She had learned from her Cree mother. She was.skilled at living in the northern wilderness. Se talked of endless forests, caribou and moose, wild geese by the millions and fish teeming in cold waters. And, she described vast wild rivers flowing through almost uninhabited wilderness.She named a few of them: “Kenogai, Mattagami, Missinaibe, and Attawapiskat”. The names rolled off her toung as if they tasted sweet. “And Hudson Bay. You’ve got to see Hudson Bay” she said. He imagined it to be vast cold, and remote beyond imagining. She said. ”We could canoe there, live off the land on the way. Visit my Cree relatives.”He remembered a book by Tristan Jones, The Incredible Journey about how he crossed South America with a 22 foot sailboat named Sea Dart. The boat was hauled by truck into the Andes, sailed across Lake Titicaca, hauled by rail out of the Andes, manually dragged where the railroad ended, and towed by wading through the Chaco swamps to the Paraguay/Parana Rivers. He imagined a Tristan Jones like journey of his own. If he could get her over the Canadian Shield, maybe he could take his sailboat down to Hudson Bay on one of those rivers. The Canadian railroad crossed the Mattagami. Maybe he could move her there by rail and launch at the crossing.But he feared the northern winter. He asked her to go south with him. She assured him winter could be a good time in the north, but he was determined, and at last she went on condition that next summer they would explore the great north together. He would widen her horizons, she would widen his.

Chapter 5:CONCLUSION:wealthLiving ZC, wealth is not money and possessions. They can be lost, stolen, vandalized or blown away, or burned. Real wealth is the health of your body, the size and richness of your compost pile, your skill at sprouting seeds, baking bread and sewing socks, the efficiency of your fireplace, the friends you can count on for help and folks you can trade surplus produce with. A life not commercialized, but commercialization made to serve life. Sitting Bull said of white men, “… the love of possessions is a disease with them.” Let us begin the cure.Chapter 6:Table: Solar half-acre farm estimated energy use per year:

Land use Land area square feet

Total Solar Btu

Used solarBtu

efficiency Yield per year or note

Tree canopy & orchard -1

7,000 3,220000,000 2,600,000 0.15% 1/6 cord of wood

Yard-grass& walkways-2

4,000 1,380,000,000

Clippings for compost

Grain field -3

3,000 1,380,000,000

1,380,000 0.1% 520 pounds of grain

Garden -4bean field -5

1,500500

690,000,000230,000,000

1,840,000765,000

0.2%0.33%

4,000 lbs of produce

Greenhouse6Food-7

2,000 920,000,000 184,000,00011,000,000

20%1.2%

20,000 lbs. of food

PhotovoltaicSystem -8

2,000 920,000,000 92,000,000 10% 27,000 kWhof electricity

Solar space heat -9

1,000 460,000,000 92,000,000 20% South side of house

Algae pond -10

1,000 460,000,000 18,400,000 4% 184 gallons of biofuel

House and garage -11

1,000 460,000,000 0 North side roof slopes

Solar water heater -12

100 46,000,000 18,400,000 40% South side ofhouse

Total -13 23,100 10,000,000,000

422,385,000

3.1%

Food total 14,985,000 4 people

Here is a do-it-yourself, zero cost front end alignment paraphrased from How to Repair Your Car by Paul Brand: called a racetrack alignment or ‘stringing the car’ because during car races when the expensive alignment equipment is not available and an alignment is needed, string is used to perform the alignment. The procedure is detailed on page 154 of his book obtainable at libraries.Here I’ll summarize it: Start on a flat level surface like a garage floor. Point the steering wheel of the car straight ahead and roll the vehicle back and forth a few times to make sure the front wheels point straight ahead. Wrap fishing line once around the car at the level of the center of the tires. Pull it tight and tie it off. Pull the line away from each wheel and slip a 2 inch diameter pvc pipe up against each tire in vertical position centered on the tire. The pvc pipe must be long enough to rest on both bulges of each tire.Use a 6 inch ruler to measure the distance between the fishing line and the tire sidewall bulge of each tire at the front bulge of each rear tire and the back bulge of each front tire.The front pair of measurements should be the same. Also, the rear pair should be the same. If so, you know the vehicle is square and the front-end wheel alignment setting or toe in are the same. Now you must check the toe-in. Chalk or tape mark the exact center groove or block on the front of each front tire just below the chassis. Then with a tape measure, measure across between them. Then roll the car until the marks you made are on the back side of the front tire just below the chassis. Measure again. For most cars, the difference should be 1/16 of an inch wider on the back measurement if the alignment is correct. If not correct, you must loosen clamp bolts or jam nuts on the steering tie rod and adjust their lengths until they are correct. You must re-measure with each adjustment to assure the distance is the same from string to tire bulge for each front tire. If not, you must continue to adjust the tie rods until correct toe-in and tire-to-string distances are attained.chapter 7 I don’t imagine societies converting wholesale to ZC, but changing slowly a few people at a time. I imagine people living ZC within the larger society, interacting with or ignoring it – as the situation demands - in relative tolerance.

Design for ZCL: Design philosophyFor a ZCL economy, whenever possible things: personal items, tools, facilities, and equipment need to be designed to meet these criteria:-Useable, operable for little or no expense.

-Permanent or at least very long lasting. -Able to do a job automatically – not requiring constant attention.-Cheap and easy to replace or repair if damaged, broken, lost or stolen.-Low maintenance or easy maintenance / low cost maintenance by use of components that are cheap and easy to repair if / when they wear out: gaskets, bushings, seals, fittings, attachments, and so on. Examples of things/systems that do some of these things already are: compost toilets, solar panels, garden watering systems, bicycles, sailing ships, electric fans and motors.China is moving away from co-ops but they are fundamentally different from what is suggested here. They are no more than organs, departments of government and not voluntary. They create centralized economic and political power from the national to the local level. They have no separation of power between branches of government, or between government and business.· Machines with parts that wear out should be designed so that those parts are easy to access, remove and replace.Think of the world as your own. Though others may have pieces of paper that say they own bits of it, and think only they have the right to use this parcel or that parcel and try to shut you out of their bits with signs, fences and guards. You are the real owner if you have the keys to her real wealth.Land Boat: A new idea:Here is a possible new way to live Zero Cost. Build a new kind of wheeled land vehicle with complete on board facilities to be self-sufficient. Such a vehicle might make possible a very low cost if not zero cost nomadic lifestyle. The occupants could migrate, following work opportunities or warm seasons - on land.Here I am not talking about a motor home with all its attendant high expenses for maintenance, repair, insurance and gasoline. The land boat might be designed to be easy to maintain and repair by the owner, made as safe as possible to minimize insurance costs, and be self-fueling: self-sufficient in fuel by using on board energy producing facilities: solar, wind and methanol or bio-diesel producing equipment. To travel with efficiency the land boat might be slow moving, perhaps well below freeway speed. It might stick to the back roads where travel is most interesting and the possibilities for foraging are greater. Design details: The land boat might begin with a truck frame and components such as brakes, suspension and steering. Motive power could be ‘series hybrid electric’, more like a diesel train than a truck (in which the diesel engine keeps an array of batteries charged up that run electric motors turning the wheels, and is not directly connected to the wheels). Bio-diesel and/or methanol processed on board might replace ordinary diesel fuel. Any kind of foraged biomass: weeds, waste wood, cornstalks, water hyacinths that clog southern waterways could provide the raw material for bio-fuel. (Imagine, passing land boats might cut roadside weeds for fuel saving government and taxpayers the expense).Solar cell arrays and wind generators might feed power into onboard batteries. Solar array may partially folds up for travel, and open up for more power when the land boat is stopped. An onboard wind turbine might produce electricity, like the solar array, folding up for travel. (Running such a turbine during travel would

usually create more drag than energy, but might be useful if you needed electricity and had plenty of bio-fuel. Your fuel use would increase if the turbine was deployed). Onboard food processing systems, using food foraged as the occupants travel might provide most food. Some food might be grown onboard.Sometimes the land boat might run out of power: on cloudy windless days, with no biomass available to convert to bio-fuel - and might have to stop wherever it is until more energy is produced. The occupants, traveling primarily for pleasure in a self- sufficient vehicle may consider this a small inconvenience.

VIGNETTE:In a dream, I woke up one day and all of the cars were gone.The world was quiet, safe and inexpensive. People rode bikes or walked. They could go everywhere in cities with complete ease, without continually watching out for cars. Wild animals crossed roads without being run over. Children could wander without crossing rivers of rampaging metal behemoths.Horses and wagons were in use again. The Amish flourished building and selling wagons and horses. Detroit went bankrupt – but then the city revived as thousands of solar greenhouses on vacant lots enriched the city with their produce. Cities became more compact but still had plenty of space because land area formerly used by cars could be used for other purposes.- so the cost of real estate was low. Cities felt open, spacious and even half empty. Half of the land had been used for vehicles: for driveways, roads, parking lots, gas stations, junk yards, etc. Freeways became treeways - long beautiful parks. Parking areas, and the endless strip mall shopping areas were converted to green spaces – the pavement ripped up. Air pollution declined. People became slim and healthy. Medical costs declined precipitously. No one was killed or injured in auto accidentsI can imagine a day when the last dollar is spent. The spending of the ‘Last Dollar’ may be a world event, televised news – as all of the people of the world go over entirely to Zero Cost Living.Chapter 8:It has been hundreds, even thousands of years since most people in the ‘Old World’ (as it is called) of Europe, Asia, and Africa - lived zero cost. Depletion of natural resources, overpopulation, pollution, lost forests, lost topsoil and soil fertility, and lost wildlife They lost the ability to live sustainably, to live light and easy on land. The Old World, nevertheless has plenty to teach about ZCL – especially the Ancient Greeks but I will leave that history to another book. I will begin with America because here the contrasts between ZCL and society have been so recent and so stark.

The future global economy.The global corporate capitalist economy, with its constant obsessive drive to squeeze out every last cent of profit undermines the health and security of the dependent middle classes. People just want to have pleasant lives. Jobs that could be agreeable jobs are made into irritating misery. After a certain point the global economy as presently practiced becomes merely a big pain in the butt for most peopleScarcity and land area and population growth: A people living with scarce land and

resources by living ZCL could live with efficiency and therefore ease the living of everybody and the environment for example: intensive cultivation ZCL style means more land can be free of cultivation.They would have you believe spending and buying whatever you want is freedom. Freedom means freedom to buy. But I believe thrift is freedom. Burn this into your consciousness. Freedom is the ability to NOT BUY. And freedom means you have the power to not buy.Policy that helps poor folks and workers cut costs actually increases their income. (The focus of economic policy today is on increasing income, not helping folks save). Using public dollars to help folks where necessary is good policy from a ZCL perspective Such policies will go against business and corporate greed and conventional concepts of economic growth.To live ZCL, we must be thrifty smarter. Thrift that is not grinding and debilitating. Not the thrift of the old American farms and the hippie communes that too easily degenerated into endless work and misery. Healthy recreations: fewer spectator sports, more participatory sports and gamesWildlife restored hunting restored, without gunsFishing was once an interesting and challenging job done by many small boats: The book “Captains Courageous” by Mark Twain describes that life. Now fishing is becoming the domain of a few big boats and just another tedious industrial process that strip-mines the sea. Why economic reality requires ZCL and sustainability. Social class considerations of ZCL just a surrender to poverty? Just letting the rich have it all? Giving up the “Class Struggle”? Because economic contradictions blow away the corporate economy but people must still eat and live. American vs. contemporary. Practical vs. for show, for appearance. Log cabin and colonial houses vs. trophy houses, SUVs and obesity epidemic. Many Americans have too much money. Many more waste and misuse what they have. Better to make and build and grow stuff that to buy stocks and paper assets. Better buy and make and use productive tools and resources than buy useless foreign junk One good thing, pollution moved overseas. Rebuild without it. Taking back our economy and our country not to mention our lives from corporations and imports.Invoke the past economy 1830s woodworking skills book reference Eric Sloan booksWork:Even now a small percent of our time used for physical work. Work is unfortunately forced upon less educated and poor while the wealthy and educated go to health clubs. Work designed for people should be mental and physical. Discuss: work as recreation, work becoming recreation: cave man hunters, fishing sailing, gardening, crafts, hobbiesWealthy nations or individuals undermine thrift: no incentive no need but wealth is fickle and can be lost. The Wealthy ignore thrift and have no skill at it.Just going to the store and buying equals mental and physical laziness that reduces you to dependence. An over commercialized life.Privatization may be okay, even good if the company is democratized and the ownership is the community or a large part of it.

Impossible in a modern complex economy? Where big organization is needed. Can you make cars without a hierarchy and corporations?You need big organizations but not necessarily hierarchical corporations.OBSTACLES TO ZCL: to the independent middle class and economy and how to overcome them:

How is ZCL thwarted and undermined today? There are myriad diverse: economic, social, psychological, personal obstacles to thrift. They may make practicing ZCL difficult, even impossible. Here I describe just a few as examples: Others are described elsewhere in the bookHere are some of the obstacles that stand in the way of achieving a thrifty lifestyle.Government: national state and local, are not friendly to ZCL:Taxes and policies of the government erode the assets and income of the average man while aggregating $ to a few already wealthy folk. Here I won’t go into detail though some of the policies were mentioned in earlier chapters in this book: Zoning Laws, Building codes:Higher taxes such as property taxes and service taxes.Reduced services such as libraries, and schools.Jobs:You won’t learn anything in most jobs that you might use to live ZCL and take care of yourself, especially in the service industry. You learn no useful skills; and all your time may be used up trying to earn enough to survive at the low, low wages paid in these jobs, so you have no time left to practice ZCL. And sadly, many jobs are more unhealthy than folks realize, your job may make you sick, if not now, than in the future. You may be tempted by new jobs in expanding exporting industries that pay more. But, by taking such a job you are put in an unstable and dependent situation in the volatile global economy.Your Local Economy:New economic development such as shopping centers, roads, traffic, subdivisions, and industry may cause pollution, noise, and degradation of the environment around you.

Society:Society may undermine your ZCL lifestyle through your children: through advertising and peer pressure making them want junk food, toys, drugs, and expensive entertainmentsThen there’s always ridicule and distain ostracism such as the old farmers of the past experienced: called “hayseeds” and ignored and marginalized by modern society.The feeling of independent men among dependent folks is a strange feeling. No matter how rich, dependent folk are in a difficult position compared to the independents. The Amish must feel it in spades. So you need friends and allies and to be active in government and society. You must defend your life. The old American farmers failed to do so. And more, you must work to change society. For example: advocating for more sites for solar farms.Convenience: Everything today is for convenience. No wait for anything. But, the whole society is inconvenient to a thrifty life. Practicing ZCL you don’t need to do everything for convenience. In fact even while working and raking in income, buying on the basis on convenience is not a good idea. Plan ahead for purchases. Your life is compressed into the time you are not working so you require convenience to save time. Soon everything you do is for convenience. At work very little of what most people do is useful practical get stuff done work. A lifestyle of thrift may require more thought effort, and time than an ordinary lifestyle. (And, we must make it easier to be thrifty if it is to become more widely practiced).

Spending $ to really save $:It is very easy to spend dollars and cause your living costs to rise, very difficult to spend dollars to lower living costs or eliminate them. ZCL is like loosing weight, like going on a diet, a financial diet, only much harder.PossessionsWhat you own, owns you back. Your stuff owns you. You have to think about it perhaps worry about it. You must secure it from theft, fire, vandalism, wind, rain flood, landslide, falling trees, and a hundred other possible causes of damage. You must insure it, pay taxes on it, make loan payments on it, maintain it, clean it, organize it, buy it and sell it put it in the trash or take it to the dump. The more you have the more you have to obsess about. Professionalization: A limited few “know it all” and the others are presumed ignorant. Their ideas and opinions are of no value. Professionals have been wrong before and will be again. It is as if they have some kind of magic the rest of us don’t have, like wizards out of myths. But they know, I’ll clue you in, medicine is not magic, engineering is not magic, law is not magic, science is not magic, it is all just knowledge, and many people can learn what they know. I truly wish that someday all of the professions stop pretending they are the purveyors of magic. In many cases their knowledge simply needs to be clarified and simplified and freed of jargon: special words and phrases exclusively known to them.The law, for example could be written to be a clear and concise code of laws - as in the French system – instead of our current obscure jungles of legal decisions based on legal

customs, precedents and court rulings that require years of study and practice to understand..Professionals have become a high and rising cost: lawyers, dentists, doctors, builders, engineers, teachers, electricians, plumbers, auto repair mechanics etc.Dependence on professionals is an obstacle to ZCLOur social economic system is designed so you are dependent on professionals and specialists for everything. So you are left helpless before them. doctor dentist, banker, lawyer, builder, teacher for your kids, repairmen, auto mechanics, tax consultants You are confined to one narrow skill and can do or know little of anything else and so are helpless and vulnerable to all the social instabilities: trade market swings, obsolescence of technologies, illegal or legal immigrants, outsource, and dependence on boss/managers who control your working life.Charity:Charity usually undermines Zero Cost Living:Usually everyone loses from a ZCL perspective The recipients of charity are made more dependent. The giver who lives a dependent life. The employees who receive fewer dollars. The consumer who must pay more for the product.Taking from your employees/customers and giving charity to others. Taking charity or government $ undermines need or desire to attempt ZCL methods (Food example: EBT why grow food or make bread or yogurt or etc.)Thoreau quote: run from Helpers.The Fixers: Evil of privatization. No responsibility to the public. Everybody dependent on patronage. Nobody independent. All are supplicants to godfathers for everything, every business and eventually for every personal activity: marriage, children, etc.People can live better lives close to nature and in relative poverty. They need to band together to defend themselves and each other and the natural world they need to survive against corporate greed, waste, and malice. Corporations that bestride the world like ancient Roman Legions need to be brought to heel, even destroyed for the freedom and survival of humanity. The natural world must be made ascendant again and a new re-evolution made that reverses the roll of man in nature from dominion to participant. Born must be the new world in which real freedom real responsibility is taken by co-operative folk.In a ZCL society Marx’s idea of communism is superceded by the perfection of the idea of the Co-operative - achieved by slow evolution rather than by violent political or social revolution.Who will pick up the trash, fix teeth, unplug toilets, clean public restrooms. It gets work out of people is through various kinds of coercion using managers, bosses, wage structures, working conditions, and threats to fire the non-compliant. Businesses undermine each other with products and jobs reinforcing round robins of mutual coercion. Progress has become a continual undermining of mutual freedom everyone imagines it is necessary to get the work done. Folks trade hours of enslavement for hours of freedom. Yet these jobs could perhaps be voluntary and self help.7.10 ZCL NATION:Free GovernmentOperating Government Zero Cost: Is it possible? What would it look like? A government that cost nothing to operate would require no taxes. Would it work? How would it work?

Thoreau wrote, at the end of Civil Disobedience “Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? . . . . . I please myself with imagining a State at last just to all . . . . a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen.” But Thoreau never fully imagined it, leaving it to us, the readers. Officials might serve unpaid, as was the case in the original American Republic. If you are able to live zero cost, then you may be able to serve as a government official without pay. And, dedicated to ZCL, you may be immune to the corruption that money all to frequently causes in democratic governments.. In lieu of property taxes ZCL folks might provide services to the local government: perhaps as officials, police, or teachers.Perhaps some government functions could be taken over by co-ops: functions that would be privatized but non-profit (and not a business). Imagine a police co-op made up of volunteers. Maybe a teacher’s co-op would operate schools. Competition between co-ops could exist for these jobs. Imagine different co-ops offering their services as teachers, giving the community alternatives: choosing between them perhaps based on the quality/ experience/ training of the members of each.In the Roman republic Cato was, and is example a great leader who was also a simple farmer. Having ruled the Roman Republic and saved the Republic in war, he amassed no wealth, did not let fame or power go to his head, and returned to his farm to live. Cato was revered in the early American Republic. A government attempting to operate zero cost could use many folks like Cato: free of ambition, desire for fame, or greed - skilled and capable folks who are willing and able to work for little or nothing.7.12 CIVILIZATION: Imagine an entire civilization practicing ZCL. What would it be like?It might be a ‘Solar Civilization’ relying on sustainable, natural, organic, recyclable, renewable resources for everything it needs.This new Solar Civilization might, like Early America constantly be seeking ways to improve on perfection.In a ZCL Solar Civilization global warming might be reversed, pollution eliminated, rainforests preserved rather than reduced to cattle pasture to provide beef to McDonalds, and secure homes found for hordes of desperate immigrants. The imperial pretensions of certain nations - trying to force change on an unwilling world, instead might let other nations change in their own good time, avoid commercializing every corner of the world, and every aspect of life, and able to leave unique corners of the world alone.Would it be a safer world? Probably. A duller world? I think not. Freed from the chains of the old society and economy, I believe folks would be able to take up exciting new challenges, adventures, and lives.A civilization moving towards ZCL may experience an irony - the irony of living standards, lifestyles and the quality of life improving as the economy as measured by the expenditure of conventional dollars contracts several percent every year – because folks can get everything they require to live well without spending money and money is gradually used less and less. Money, becoming useless, might no longer flow into the hands of a few already wealthy folks. Their money worthless, unable to buy the services of others to take care of them, wealthy folks may have to take care of themselves like

everyone else. The spirit of Diogenes would smile..

Candide by Voltaire:Chapter 30 - Conclusion

It was altogether natural to imagine, that after undergoing so many disasters, Candide, married to his mistress and living with the philosopher Pangloss, the philosopher Martin, the prudent Cacambo, and the old woman, having besides brought home so many diamonds from the country of the ancient Incas, would lead the most agreeable life in the world. But he had been so robbed by the Jews, that he had nothing left but his little farm; his wife, every day growing more and more ugly, became headstrong and insupportable; the old woman was infirm, and more ill-natured yet than Cunegund. Cacambo, who worked in the garden, and carried the produce of it to sell in Constantinople, was above his labor, and cursed his fate. Pangloss despaired of making a figure in any of the German universities. And as to Martin, he was firmly persuaded that a person is equally ill-situated everywhere. He took things with patience. Candide, Martin, and Pangloss disputed sometimes about metaphysics and morality. Boats were often seen passing under the windows of the farm laden with effendis, bashaws, and cadis, that were going into banishment to Lemnos, Mytilene and Erzerum. And other cadis, bashaws, and effendis were seen coming back to succeed the place of the exiles, and were driven out in their turns. They saw several heads curiously stuck upon poles, and carried as presents to the Sublime Porte. Such sights gave occasion to frequent dissertations; and when no disputes were in progress, the irksomeness was so excessive that the old woman ventured one day to tell them: "I would be glad to know which is worst, to be ravished a hundred times by Negro pirates, to have one buttock cut off, to run the gauntlet among the Bulgarians, to be whipped and hanged at an auto-da-fe, to be dissected, to be chained to an oar in a galley; and, in short, to experience all the miseries through which every one of us hath passed, or to remain here doing nothing?" "This," said Candide, "is a grand question." This discourse gave birth to new reflections, and Martin especially concluded that man was born to live in the convulsions of disquiet, or in the lethargy of idleness. Though Candide did not absolutely agree to this, yet he did not determine anything on that head. Pangloss avowed that he had undergone dreadful sufferings; but having once maintained that everything went on as well as possible, he still maintained it, and at the same time believed nothing of it. There was one thing which more than ever confirmed Martin in his detestable principles, made Candide hesitate, and embarrassed Pangloss, which was the arrival of Pacquette and Brother Giroflee one day at their farm. This couple had been in the utmost distress; they had very speedily made away with their three thousand piastres; they had parted, been reconciled; quarreled again, been thrown into prison; had made their escape, and at last Brother Giroflee had turned Turk. Pacquette still continued to follow her trade; but she got little or nothing by it. "I foresaw very well," said Martin to Candide "that your presents would soon be squandered, and only make them more miserable. You and Cacambo have spent millions of piastres, and yet you are not more happy than Brother Giroflee and Pacquette."

"Ah!" said Pangloss to Pacquette, "it is Heaven that has brought you here among us, my poor child! Do you know that you have cost me the tip of my nose, one eye, and one ear? What a handsome shape is here! And what is this world!" This new adventure engaged them more deeply than ever in philosophical disputations. In the neighborhood lived a famous dervish who passed for the best philosopher in Turkey; they went to consult him: Pangloss, who was their spokesman, addressed him thus: "Master, we come to entreat you to tell us why so strange an animal as man has been formed?" "Why do you trouble your head about it?" said the dervish; "is it any business of yours?" "But, Reverend Father," said Candide, "there is a horrible deal of evil on the earth." "What signifies it," said the dervish, "whether there is evil or good? When His Highness sends a ship to Egypt does he trouble his head whether the rats in the vessel are at their ease or not?" "What must then be done?" said Pangloss. "Be silent," answered the dervish. "I flattered myself," replied Pangloss, "to have reasoned a little with you on the causes and effects, on the best of possible worlds, the origin of evil, the nature of the soul, and a pre-established harmony." At these words the dervish shut the door in their faces. During this conversation, news was spread abroad that two viziers of the bench and the mufti had just been strangled at Constantinople, and several of their friends impaled. This catastrophe made a great noise for some hours. Pangloss, Candide, and Martin, as they were returning to the little farm, met with a good-looking old man, who was taking the air at his door, under an alcove formed of the boughs of orange trees. Pangloss, who was as inquisitive as he was disputative, asked him what was the name of the mufti who was lately strangled. "I cannot tell," answered the good old man; "I never knew the name of any mufti, or vizier breathing. I am entirely ignorant of the event you speak of; I presume that in general such as are concerned in public affairs sometimes come to a miserable end; and that they deserve it: but I never inquire what is doing at Constantinople; I am contented with sending thither the produce of my garden, which I cultivate with my own hands." After saying these words, he invited the strangers to come into his house. His two daughters and two sons presented them with divers sorts of sherbet of their own making; besides caymac, heightened with the peels of candied citrons, oranges, lemons, pineapples, pistachio nuts, and Mocha coffee unadulterated with the bad coffee of Batavia or the American islands. After which the two daughters of this good Mussulman perfumed the beards of Candide, Pangloss, and Martin. "You must certainly have a vast estate," said Candide to the Turk. "I have no more than twenty acres of ground," he replied, "the whole of which I cultivate myself with the help of my children; and our labor keeps off from us three great evils-idleness, vice, and want." Candide, as he was returning home, made profound reflections on the Turk's discourse. "This good old man," said he to Pangloss and Martin, "appears to me to have chosen for himself a lot much preferable to that of the six Kings with whom we had the honor to sup."

"Human grandeur," said Pangloss, "is very dangerous, if we believe the testimonies of almost all philosophers; for we find Eglon, King of Moab, was assassinated by Aod; Absalom was hanged by the hair of his head, and run through with three darts; King Nadab, son of Jeroboam, was slain by Baaza; King Ela by Zimri; Okosias by Jehu; Athaliah by Jehoiada; the Kings Jehooiakim, Jeconiah, and Zedekiah, were led into captivity. I need not tell you what was the fate of Croesus, Astyages, Darius, Dionysius of Syracuse, Pyrrhus, Perseus, Hannibal, Jugurtha, Ariovistus, Caesar, Pompey, Nero, Otho, Vitellius, Domitian, Richard II of England, Edward II, Henry VI, Richard Ill, Mary Stuart, Charles I, the three Henrys of France, and the Emperor Henry IV." "Neither need you tell me," said Candide, "that we must take care of our garden." "You are in the right," said Pangloss; "for when man was put into the garden of Eden, it was with an intent to dress it; and this proves that man was not born to be idle." "Work then without disputing," said Martin; "it is the only way to render life supportable." The little society, one and all, entered into this laudable design and set themselves to exert their different talents. The little piece of ground yielded them a plentiful crop. Cunegund indeed was very ugly, but she became an excellent hand at pastrywork. Pacquette embroidered; the old woman had the care of the linen. There was none, down to Brother Giroflee, but did some service; he was a very good carpenter, and became an honest man. Pangloss used now and then to say to Candide: "There is a concatenation of all events in the best of possible worlds; for, in short, had you not been kicked out of a fine castle for the love of Miss Cunegund; had you not been put into the Inquisition; had you not traveled over America on foot; had you not run the Baron through the body; and had you not lost all your sheep, which you brought from the good country of El Dorado, you would not have been here to eat preserved citrons and pistachio nuts." "Excellently observed," answered Candide; "but let us cultivate our garden." -THE END- .Copyrigh

ZCL CutsTopics to Explore front end alignment Next Book Solar Farm in a small space Minimum area needed to grow food Body heated space Illustrations Heating Systems Cheap and simple solar house Cheapest food ever my new heat pump -personal experience Extreme Garage sale jaunt The Theory of avoided costs New Sources - recently discovered ZCL last cuts from Book ZCL Cuts Medicaid eligiblity and ZCL ZCL Cuts - cut out of the book and not used.INTRODUCTION:In my life I had lots of money problems. I read books to find answers to my problems. I read voraciously. I thought if I could just read the right book my problems would be solved. But it never happened. Always the books had partial answers, or veered off onto tangents or were just plain wrong. So, I had to write my own book. May it solve your financial problems too.Why was the movie titanic so popular. Perhaps because we all are aboard her now and subconsciously we know it.

What we do on our jobs permeates our lives: At G.M., at? Make freedom permeate your life.The jobs lost overseas are not coming back any time soon, if at all. And domestically, immigrant labor undermine rates of pay and good jobs.Discuss: people seem to live in different worlds of understanding Some will not understand anything in this book some will flat out disagree with everything in it.How this book is organized in general which might range from destitution to comfortable affluence We know why the destitute live ZC, necessity. But why would folk living in comfortable affluence be interested in ZCL. To free up their money to live more healthy and responsiblyThe fact is most people in this world live at less than Zero Cost. They spend more than they earn and run up debt. They ruin their health with bad habits and behavior. They ruin the environment with their lifestyle, job and business practices. They live off others, the wealthy by paying others to take care of them: the poor through charity and government handouts. And when they die they leave the world a poorer place.Hardly anybody lives zero cost. An almost nobody gives more than they take, but that is a whole other problem. For now I’ll merely contend with the problem of ZCL.Help others but don’t make them dependent. Create a base allowing economic freedom to do what you want, to pick and choose work and wages and what to buy or not, or do nothing. Doing nothing is not so bad either, you’re not doing evil as so many are, and not consuming and wasting resources.Thoreau wrote;“Most men live lives of quiet desperation”I will write, in this book how you might ‘de-desperate’ yourself.ZCL might be a goal while working at a job. You may research and discover ways to get there quicker rewriteManifesto ch 1Saved but omit:American Philosophy: omit?An entirely new philosophy was invented in America. Pragmatism, a philosophy devoted to practical living. The American philosophy of Pragmatism generally advocated living and solving problems of all kinds in a practical and realistic manner. Also, in general, Pragmatism advocated avoidance of impractical pursuits, activities without useful results. It was not about keeping up with the Joneses, not about keeping up appearances, not about imitation and conformity; lifestyles entirely too commonly practiced in America today. Today, most homes are “trophy homes”, built for show, to impress the neighbors, to keep up property values. They are not designed to be efficient, to minimize costs, to maximize comfort, to be practical. Trophy homes, sports utility vehicles, and obesity are manifestations of our decadent, and impractical culture.ZCL is very practical, pragmatic almost by definition. ZCL is extreme pragmatism. Enough of theories, history and philosophy! The rest of this book will be devoted to the practical, to techniques for zero cost living.Paraphrase Carnegie “I can pay half the working class to shoot the other half. Now might be I can pay half the working class to impoverish the other half.ZCL Why would a millionaire live LC: because the net income is small after inflation and

taxes Walt Whitman Like Thoreau a supreme individualist in an era of freedom when to be an individual was to be in sync with the spirit of the time and place. While living ZCL reading Whitman is very agreeable, quotes from magazine. Whitman’s ZCL life in detail.. You may believe you need a fortune to pursue your dreams. You do not!The Dispersion of Seeds by Henry David Thoreau “Who could believe in the prophesies of Daniel … that the world would end this summer, while one milkweed with faith matured its seeds?”The myth of the market: Markets are places where folks can buy and sell stuff. At least, they were originally. But today everything is in a market.A market to buy and sell stuff is one thing. Making markets out of everything is something else. Now, everything has a price and nothing is priceless or invulnerable to waste and ruin in the name of the market including the air we must breathe, the water we must drink and the health of out bodies. America rejects corporate capitalism they will move offshore to rule from there.(With outsourcing, a smaller, much smaller part of the final price goes to the actual producer most goes to the middlemen).To live ZCL you must think about how and where things are made. Your wealth must have many legs to stand on in this economy and when one is lost you must build up another or rebuild the one that was lostI will diagnose the nature of the problem that Zero Cost Living is. Marx’s statement “from each according to his ability” condemns men to the same tedious tasks all the time.foreign made, professional repair only Having no cars become economically viable again. A cheap locally made cars are needed again.Case Cars made simple and cheap, good pay locally made and repaired, universal use, alternatives wiped out home repair local repair Now cars are expensive and complexTo chapter on homesteadingGo to library: look up freecycle and craigslist (better in phase 2?)Homemade shoes: of tires and leather see Elpel’s web site Homemade socks: knitted or made of sewn cloth.Poor people by William T. Vollmann 2007 Harper Collin Publishers 10 east 53rd Street New York, NY 10022 ISBN 978-0-06-087882-5MISC:An underlying economy, pervasive guerilla economy.Refer to the Long Tail: by Chris Anderson using the Internet to broaden sales. See Chapter 4 methods for more discussion on raising money.ANALYSIS of the problem, trends, potentials, opportunities and goals of Zero Cost Living: Analysis means: breakdown dissolving, separating, resolution of a whole into parts so as to find out their nature, proportion, function, relationship. Core concepts making ZCL possible:Employment is bad, takes your time, makes you a servant and servile, and enriches your employer so he may subjugate others. To ch 1

The American Idol winner, or the heir to a fortune, the extraordinarily talented needn’t do anything for the rest of their lives but sing a little. The rest of us will need to live a more varied life. The Secret History of the American Empire by John PerkinsCorporatocracy Dutton N.Y. 2007Chapter 65 Today is the Day To Do list page 323Are We Rome? By. Che Guevara’s New Man problem. Freedom lost. Better an updated “old man”Stages of UnderstandingDay to day: fatalisticReligious: still external forces beyond human controlRational: reference God but use the mind God gave usSupra rational: because reason may fall short. Take reason as far as possible, recognize its limitations and then use other means.People with a look of bewilderment as if life was utterly irrational and incomprehensible and had totally confused them. ZCL to escape corporate domination Socialism vs. freedom and solutions Government and business together running our lives Corporate socialism but competition for the workerIt is useless to rage about the stupidity of others?Add To ch 3 Scout shelter discussionTo problem ch1China: trading outdoor rural life for factory drudgery. To visions: government policyRather than welfare, set people up ZCL Goal: not on welfare, not on charity, no special treatment, no cost to Medicaid or medicareGoal: Everything to be permanent real estate –like installations.To ch 2 or 5 knowledge Free education: All the class material for MIT may be accessed for free from the web site www.ocw.mit.edu. Probably you can sneak into the lectures to, in the larger classes, and not be noticed. Possibly even ask the professor to sit it and be granted the privilege. Of course you’ll get no formal degree. But you might learn useful stuff. In general, as I’ve said most of college and university is useless to ZCL. But sometimes, there might be knowledge you can use.Book swaps: www.paperbackswap.com and www. titletrader.com.Rant about college: new type needed dedicated to living skills and making stuff you can use.Ch5 Keep it low, modest, simple inconspicuous. Seasonal covering and small size under 200 square feet in our townships) may exempt it from Avoid building permits and allow you to avoid higher property tax assessmentsTypes of greenhouses: pit greenhouse, pallet greenhouse, pvc pipe greenhouse with rebar foundationGathering recycled materials: lumber, bricks, blocks concrete asphalt pallets.Purchased materials: pvc pipe lumber, rebar.Greenhouse also useful as an emergency or temporary shelter.VIGNETTE To chapter 2 homeless

Dropped with no tools and no skills like a survivor challenge is a bad way to start and you’ll end up dependentleaving home walking with a back pack on your back. Once common Now unusual in the extreme. Walk and camp your way to a likely agreeable town perhaps visited before. Forage, ask for help if necessary Visit Gleaners for food or Department of human services food bank. find out where they are. Make a life so car is not a necessity and you’ll be way ahead. Every teenager wants his car imagining that it gives him freedom with mobility. Equipment need only cost a few dollars: tent tarp use of public restrooms. You’ll have to keep moving a few nights in one location living outdoors will eventually atrract unwanted attention. Staying in one place a campsite more than overnight. Have several miles apart and rotate (Like ancient men lived) unless you find a really great place. A traveler on foot and camping out in their neighborhood makes people uncomfortable if you are noticed a strange but true phenomena. You’re a “homeless person. A good experience even fascinating and scary.A step up is bike camping Ken Kifer. Range tripled camping in the woods stopping after dark Cheap good bikes can be obtained used. Must be locked and or concealed. Unlike carefree walking There are places folks expect to see people walking- hiking and camping tourist areas. A possibility.Rent an apartment with friendsAfter saving money for a while:Trailer in a cheap park : Used trailer low site rental fee Often isolated and rural so a car is required.Finding and purchasing land or an old house needing work: criteria problems to look for foundations etc.Look for deals. I found a few. My experience Ann Arbor house. Bridgeport house7 acre parcel. To ch 1Live closer to the world average wages will fall to that level and below without strong unions as industry abandons AmericaWalk occasionally, and biking seems like flying. To VisionsFields, Farms and Factories, Tomorrow.Refer to Kropotkin’s belief that electrification of homes and common ownership of electric tools would make every man an efficient craftsman, diffusing industry into the community and eliminating centralized factories. Did not happen. Why?philosophyThere are not many different moments, only this one moment over and over.Synergistic systems: compost co2 to Oxygen intimate contact.Freedom of assembly includes the freedom not to assemble.To chapter 5Rent: The bad thing about of rent is that you pay another to own your home. Mobile home parks are almost as bad as rent: Mobile homes are depreciating assets, (unless you buy an old used one) and site rent may be high. In Scotland, and elsewhere in the “old world” some houses have been in use for 500 years or more. Now that is efficient use of resources. In America most homes are more flimsy.

Foraging: keep a list in your pocket of stuff you need or can exchange or sell. Good stuff you can’t use save it and exchange. Never throw anything away.If you have to buy never pay full priceAvoid: bars, restaurants, fast food not really cheap and not healthy sores in general: they are just convenience and usually a bad deal. If you can wait and plan ahead almost everything can be obtained free or almost free. Steps starting out to other chaptersBeginning destitute: young and living at home lost all your money bankruptAvoid retail U.S> is full of good unwanted stuff. Begin search early and stockpile good stuff. stuff that will last old and has already lasted. Live at home if possible and work to build up dollars Crummy jobs likely service industry. Rent will eat up your money likely earned at absurdly low wages. Avoid the stock market to easy to make a mistake and loose hard earned dollars. My experience I bought $1,00 worth hard earned low wage dollars $1.60 hour bosses strong recommendation and lost most of it. Better spent on fun. Best invested in tools, equipment yourself education find a places to keep stuff: lumber, books At home basement corner or shed or garage corner Avoid buying a car. another money eater. Get a job close to home and walk or bike there. When leaving home move to places where a car is not needed. In or near university towns often a good choice. Sahre apt with friends or look in advertisements for people needing roommates. Go to community college or take adult education classes often taught at high schools. some are college credit. Meet capable educated interesting people A different class from high school. Take fun classes but be sure to take practical classesGood to join co-ops even while young learn co-operative habits And look into co-housing early. Form or join a group trying to start co-housing and looking for a site: the most difficult problem.To methodsPSYCHOLOGY: overcoming the temptation to buy. Eliminating impulse and convenience buying. Struggle to save the last penny becomes more and more difficult.Discussion: eventually every item on the list of purchases will be replaced with a no cost item. Often if you wait and look you’ll find what you need free or for very low cost pennies on the dollar.Used Car Discussion:In buying a used car, don’t buy one that has hard use. Look for an old lady to buy from, not a youth. Look for low mileage minimal or no body rust, complete maintenance and repair records, ease and cost of repairs, simple and obvious assembly and disassembly such as instrument panel screws. Look for availability of parts Shortcomings of all cars today: complexity, difficult repair, safety records of cars improving the safety of old cars. Library for books, look for bolt torques engine accessibility vans bad on this, complexity belts arrangements, wiring diagrams like spaghetti special tools needed to fix jobs requiring a pro to do Jobs that can be done with the engine in the car v.s. removal required. C.V. bolts and joints suspension cost of parts Oldmobile Omega 35, dodge (Mitsubishi) colt 100.Car rehabilitation (earlier)Valve covers

Fuel filterBlower fanRust control body and boltsSpark plugsOil changeOil pan cleaningTransmission pan cleaningBody holes; reinforce and sealShock absorbers checkWheel alignmentSeat, trim and carpet removal cleaning replacementRemove old non working air conditioning systemExpect non working electric window and door locks.Needed is a zero energy car like a zero energy house.Poor may be wealthier: If by their lifestyles they can avoid expenses wealthier folks must pay for.Wealthy may not be so well off as they imagine: Fancy yachts in filthy marinas.Many folks who imagine they are well off have high cost of living and expenses and no ability to live with frugality. Live beyond their means and borrow to cover it.

Middle class currently very poor: helpless and dependent.Middle class can by thrift get out of their trap through thrift.The Wealth of a Bum:Most bums apparently have no expenses and no money and therefore avoid all cost and may be considered well off by the criteria of the TOAC: No, because most bums are dependent on society; begging for food or eating at soup kitchens. And they depend on community shelters much of the time for places to sleep. So these cost are paid for by society. Plus they live unhealthy: difficult to keep clean, was hands take a bath, ( but native Americans never bathed and remained healthy until they came in contact with White man’s diseases). subject to gangs and thieves, cold, communicable diseases, metal illness and, showing up at hospital emergency wards quickly run up huge costs to the public and to charities.But is it possible to imagine a different kind of a bum, who by the standard of the TOAC may be well off. Consider a “bum”, who knows how to live in comfort without resort to charity handouts and government services. Imagine a bum who (like the Kalahari Bushmen) is master of his environment. If he is master of his environment he is not poor no matter how few the pennies in his pocket. No car, and no need for one. Riding the rails when the urge hits him. No house but adept at living without one, perhaps in a warm climate. Forages cast off clothes: adept at repair. Forages his food, knows how. His time is his own. No taxesMany a hobo has loved his life, and some return to it as a vacation.What price should be assigned to freedom. “Adventure has no price” wrote Jack London in his book The Road. If some folks without money in their pockets choose to wander the world in freedom are they really poor?

The standard of living of many even a majority of folks in the world has improved according to the accounting of conventional economics. But applying the standard of the TOAC, the world economy is in steady decline. Things once obtainable free from nature now cost: Clean water and air were once available for free. Now they are polluted, so society must pay to clean them up – through taxes or through the prices people are charged for products. Fishing areas, once abundant such as the Grand Banks off Newfoundland have become over fished and depleted. By some estimates, commercial fisherman must now expend 10 times as much effort and energy for each fish caught as was required in the past.

ConclusionIn conclusion, conventional economics appears to me to be equivalent to the belief that the Sun goes around the Earth, calculating like Ptolemaic astronomers the precession of the planets to justify their theory.What they could use: The villagers of India are not in the enviable position of the Hunza.Dung used for cooking fuel inside their homes causes eye disease. Cooking could be accomplished with solar cookers and/or rocket stoves.Seasonal rains, need to save excess water of the wet season for the dry and extend the growing season.Health clinic and hospitalElectricity, phones, internet. But wireless is coming.Perhaps more sanitationSunlight is abundant and available for cooking, water heating, light, electricity from solar cells.Having to walk everywhere, they automatically get lots of exercise, and in general could live a healthy, and safe lifestyle. (Automobiles do not clog their roads endangering pedestrians, for one thing).So the villages of India could easily, perhaps be put on the path to ZCL indeed already are by necessity.Obstacle: Wealth and ZCL: They have no patience for ZCL and like the poor can’t take care of themselves. They deserve your distain They can do nothing for you but undermine you>(There are ways they could help)Charity undermines youJob makes you dependent and a supplicant (even the word sounds bad)If the give you advice: since they have no ZCL incentive they don’t know much useful to you.Mostly create obstacles and thwart you: prissy laws: zoning etc.They are always trying to make $ at your expense always profit and commercialize every relationship always trying to get exclusive benefits for themselves.I can summarize this book in a few simple sentences. But as they say, “the devil’s in the details”. So, here come the details. Enough of manifestos, theories, history and philosophy. The rest of this book will be devoted to the practical, to techniques for zero cost living.ECONOMICS: What is it?

ECONOMICS: The old original meaning was management of a households or state, careful thrifty management. The word economy comes from the Greek words oikos meaning house and nomos meaning management. Management to the Greeks meant to ‘take and to distribute’.Some more modern meanings of economy are: industry and clever management of money or resources resulting in savings. Excluding luxury and lavishness. Having only the simplest fare and dress. Foresight to provide for future needs.These are the meanings of economics in this book.Add sun quote candle makers vs. the sunIn the 1990s G.M. built one giant truck design center. Everyone had to commute even though information could be moved at near the speed of light. They concentrated all design work there. Then began to outsource design work out of the country, leaving their design center half empty. They could’ve built a network of satellite centers throughout the region.

MillionaireWhy would a millionaire live low cost? Because after inflation and taxes his net income is not so large anymore, if he lives an ordinary style of life. I shudder when I see how profligate and wasteful other people live. I see the vast quantities of junk for sale at stores. Somebody buys it. I see the stuff people have. I see the extent of business selling products and services. Lawn care example. If you can’t take care of it yourself let it go natural. ZCL can be easy on the environment small foot print. What about the people doing x or y They’ll just have to do real work doing something really useful. Like growing and reducing the cost of organic food. Pride vs. dumpster diving.The wealthy don’t give their own they give the labor of other men.Current conditionOur economy gives a little with one hand takes away a lot with the other. Gives a little charity, welfare, small tax cuts, takes wage cuts, medical costs, energy costs rent mortgages.How is thrift thwarted and undermined?BAD TRENDS: Obstacles ORGANIZE THESE LoGICALLYDoing the easy thing:People just do the easy thing, seemingly easy and ignore and don’t do the hard things. Hard up front at first, maybe but I the long run easier. Moon trip example: one time each trips and no bases or immediate permanent transportation system to and from the moon. Energy use example: 25 years after the 1970’s energy crisis still inefficient lifestyles are predominant trophy houses, SUVS, etc. This happens over and over. Apparently it is a fundamental determinant of history.Taking care of yourself. You don’t have enough time to do it. You must rely on others for most stuff. In the third world, billions take care of most of their needs themselves and are considered poor for doing so.Owning lots of stuff is not the way to ZCL. But there is stuff you’ll need to own.The great thing about rents and mortgages is that you don’t have to pay it, by owning your own house free and clear. You can live in a place and pay nothing easily worth $10,000 a year. A big difference from car costs which are a continuous drain

Learn to shop using a different standard than the one portrayed in magazines and the media.Waste:“America the beautiful” should today be “America the wasteful”. Americans are profligate wasters. Their products are over packaged, over processed, underused and often unused. Other nations waste too: Brazil is wasting its rainforest for example.We need not live this way. . Commercialization: The drive of society is to commercialize every aspect of life and every relationship in life. A direct marketing company I once briefly and foolishly “joined” urged me to sell products to and recruit as distributors my parents, siblings, friends, and every person I knew or met. The goal of ZCL is to de-commercialize life as much as possible. Business relentlessly commercializes every aspect of life and every social relationship. It cannot stand the idea of any corner of the Earth and of the soul not being a market. Practicing ZCL could result in de-commercialization of life, a long needed countertrend.Husband resources. “Lock in” ZCL. Amish 100 acre farms vs. 1000 acre farmsContribution to society: Not making people dependent on you or your business (as the wealthy do) or on welfare but helping them to become independent through ZCLPsychology of ZCL challenge to keep active and interesting life while practicing ZCLIf society eliminates good manufacturing jobs and has jobs only in the service industry and sees fit to provide good jobs at decent wages then ZCL is not so necessary. ZCL is like going on strike for better wages. Don’t work for them and don’t buy their junk.Conventional economic theory and practice: insufficient value given to preventives and conserving resources: under funded preventive health care efforts ,energy conservation, and natural resource conservation – forests increase in value left alone..Wealth undermines ZCL the same way poverty and charity does: You are spoiled. Wealth is seedy and sordid. Others take care of you . the foundation of democracy is a society of relative equals, not a few rich and a lot of poor. Most will not be rich. Most will only have Social security. Life goal ZCL and freedom not wealth and domination of others.

ChinaThe Chinese labor under illusions and fallacies. Really they undermine their own economic stability and ours by their methods. They are trying to buy and use more cars when they ought to perfect the bike for example. They are moving away from ZCL. And their co-ops are really just departments of the government, not free or independent. And thus are hopelessly hampered and made inefficientIn China millions are going from being useful and productive and self-sufficient to producing manufacturing masses of useless junk for the west while ruining their own environment.Try to avoid buying anything foreign, especially Chinese. An oppressed autocratic Communist Country. No civil rights, suppressed minorities, exploited labor with no right to organize or express their grievances. Undermines our own economy Buy their products only when they agree to buy from you an equivalent amount reciprocal agreement.

ScienceScientific research gets too far beyond the practical world and don’t address the real

problems designing colonies on Mars while algae pond based biofuels remain unrealized. In the chapter 7, visions I’ll talk about This more.POSTIVE TRENDS: Potentials: Charity to save $ for ZCL purposesPoverty: an incentive to ZCLGovernment policies: could help ZCL.ZCL necessary for home and local storage and bulk purchase vs. just in time production of factories price manipulation supply disruption by speculators companies all along the line.Historic contrast: fuzzy statementThe U.S. in the 1840s an idyllic economy No one rich or poor even gun making was spread out people free. Last 20 years trophy houses built solar house not built waste and extravagance and inefficiency Not all solar but enough to control prices of energy stabilize Needed, methods to assure demand elasticity of oil and energy electric cars hybrid cars.Politics: need to reverse pollution including chemicals Government policies for ZCL are needed and against anti live aboard rules at marinas. Private anti ZCL rules.America is and was perhaps unconsciously about ZCL. Opposed the profligate waste of potentials upper classes, and empires.Anti ZCL attitudes and ideas:Live like there’s no tomorrows rapture and inevitability Let God take care of it. Leave it up to God. People with little or no control over their lives and don’t understand complex issues. Flip side of wild living the drink and the bar.Religion centered living church Neither takes a frugal view of living, or a long term careful rational planning for a secure future. Though one could imagine a religious spiritual perspective that does so, that enhances ZCL. A church as an economic institution tax free tax sheltered.The expansion of fundamentalist religion. It is psychological coercion in the guise of religion but a degree of co-operation is achieved, replacing lost social cohesion of the past.New Puritanism: discussThe rich can live ZCL very quickly, instantly danger of dissipation not possible for most of us. Rich ZCL still costs others paying profits rents, dividends l the ways they avoid doing things for themselves and getting others to do most things for them. ZCL may radically undermine them. No cheap forced labor and no one buying their products. ZCL allows the choice to buy or not buy, to not buy and not consume. We may go from a consumer society to a ZCL sustainable society No name but the outline can be sketched.By nature the wealthy are not ZCL or sustainable although they could help greatly. Examples of how they could help.Wealthy waste resources: big houses expensive cars boats airplanes trivial pursuits Resources that belong to all of us. That we all are entitled to get a fair share of even if we don’t use it. Others ought not to waste their share. Wealthy could live ZCL but not likely. The wealthy are not just more industrious. They waste more. Specialize in ways that help others live ZCL build CL houses, grow produce, avoid corporations and businesses. RepetitiousFishing example: small boats big boats become for profit not for a living. Making

the big boat profitable .China, don’t buy if you can’t get a reciprocal agreement to buy your stuff. Really in the long run you can’t buy if they don’t or won’t refer to a sustainable society. How does ZCL relate to this concept and American theocracy Kevin Phillips. What is a sustainable society most basically one not living beyond its environmental resources In such a society corporations and capitalism have place and play a part China example precisely a society not living beyond its means by birth control generating surplus.Fortunately, so far, air to breath, water to drink, space to stand and sometimes lie down, and an occasional meal are still free, most of the time, as long as you are unobtrusive. In the future, this may change.