Dave Kett

[quote=Christopher Weeks]One approach, that I expect to be unpopular, is to go to college, incur the debt, and make payments on that debt as long as the economy rewards you for it, and not a second later. Just default if the shit hits the fan. What, are they going to reposes your education? If the powers that be want repayment, they’ll arrange for a functional economy. [/quote]

You know, this isn't such a bad idea, but you still have to take classes that convey value.  Again, it's an opportunity cost situation.  Do you spend 4 years getting a degree in woke ideology?  Or a combination of basic economics, history, and 5 welding certifications?  Frankly, if you go the trades/skills/knowledge route - which I think you should; even if the skills get replaced by robots it will be a while before it happens, and it won't happen everywhere all at once - minimally, you will find your clients respect you (and will pay you) more once they realize you are far more than just a set of hands, albeit skilled.  I have experienced this personally.  

In addition, buy silver pre 1965 dimes, quarters, and half dollars.  IF your plan is to accrue debt and then default when the dollar finally crashes, or the entire economic edifice does, transforming into a different arrangement [Remember that Economics is merely the study of resource flows, Finance is about money per se., So just think about it all as the structure of resource flows and how to direct them (with money) (not bringing up military, force, and politics here, though this is a big part of it all)] then you will need something fungible and liquid to convey wealth value from old system into new system.  

Christopher's proposition (rhetorical I think) that the powers that be COULD arrange for a functional economy.  There is a lot loaded into that statement and he is 120% correct.  They don't, or perhaps more accurately, they want an economics system manipulated for their interests, at the expense of 95% of the rest of the global population.  One can play along, cooperate, have a few relative luxuries (relative, remember the lower consumption brackets in the West still live like royalty compared to most of the rest of the world)  but ultimately exist as a fat neofeudal serf.  Or one can recognize the situation for what it is and find ways to manipulate or 'game' it, and increase one's independence and decrease one's 'exposure.'

I know I am being verbose here, but nobody is forcing anyone to keep reading, but one more comment.  He (Christopher Weeks) writes that his suggestion may be unpopular.  Why?  He is right, I think, but why would it be unpopular?  I think, because acknowledging its validity constitutes an acknowledgement that the system is, minimally, corrupt  and skewed, and likely, as I believe, doomed anyway (due to that corruption.  Why exist by rules that our skewed and guarantee failure (relative failure)  if the rule structure contains aspects that allow it to be circumvented?  I could answer that question directly but instead suggest that the answer is more or less the same as that about sheep:  Why do sheep accept their situation?  (Nothing against sheep, per se...)

Ditto...

[quote=Tereza Okava]I would venture that when we are talking about "investing", right now investing in a place to live to not have to pay rent is a big deal.
whether you're rural or urban, renting is rough, even more so when the job market is shaky.

when I was young and questioned college (maybe age 11), my father said he would give me choice: he'd buy me the Porsche I coveted, or I could go to college, saying it would be so much cheaper to buy the car. [in my family such offers were traps, and in any case by the time i understood the economics of this trap i was 'in the chute' to get myself into college].

The smart investment now would probably be an opportunity to buy into a place to live, and I'm always impressed with young people who own. I hope some alternatives open up in terms of access to ownership, because I remember the horror that was renting, being at the mercy of a landlord, and not being able to afford to buy anything. And having the rent/mortgage payment disappear is what changed our financial position significantly.

Maybe that opens up more possibilities for gardener type situations. As it is, I can't believe people aren't beating a path to Wheaton Labs for the chance to have a place to live AND learn stuff.[/quote]

My two cents:

If you go to college:

1. Do so for some specific skill that pays well enough to at least pay off any education related debt you accrue in a reasonable time.  Then save every penny and hope the employment lasts at a wage worth doing it at.

OR

2.  Do so only for specific psyche enriching classes such as history - it is important to have a sense of where we come from - at a junior college where tuition is low.   NOTE: you can do the same thing now via the internet, so while I think classes can provide some added benefit to this, the internet has changed things.  Note also that there used to be book collections for self made men to do just this thing, e.g., the Harvard Classics.  I think this was back in the 20s or 30s...  You can still find whole sets for next to nothing in thriftshops and bookstores.  I would contend that these older collections convey additional value in that they provide insight into the thinking and values of the generations that compiled and published them.  This is sort of a bridge to prior thinking and helpful in creating a comprehensive world view.  But I digress.

Next, do not get into massive debt, especially now, while most asset classes are in a massive bubble. The flip side of this is: Live as FRUGALLY as you can, particularly if you are single.  Every purchase has an opportunity cost, i.e., the cost in forgoing other purchases.  When you are young the opportunity cost of things like a new car (instead of a reliable older one) can be massive.  It can mean NOT owning a paid off income property by 40, for example.  All those parties, alcohol, and expensive phones add up over a decade or two.   When you consider what you could have bought or invested in, the conclusion can be dramatic.    

Find the cheapest way to house yourself.  Don't get yourself killed by living in the projects, but consider an RV or minimally, house sharing.  Again save every penny.  What do you think the Afghani taxi drivers in big cities used to do?  Three or 4 would go in together to rent a taxi and take shifts driving it. The engine would never get cold.  Find a cheap rental in the rough part of town and load the bedrooms with 3 or 4 guys.  They would work most of their free time and in 5 years go back home, get married and buy or start a business.  I knew guys from Mexico doing exactly this back in Philadelphia, working in restaurants - 20 to an apartment unit.  Save every penny and send it back and eventually move back, comparatively wealthy.

Now regarding the discussion here of AI and Robots, it seems to me that the fact that there is a distinction has been missed.  One can have dumb non AI robots. They;ve been in existence for fabrication for decades.  What they did and do is allow for the replacement of human workers.  They will be employed wherever the calculation of savings (re: investment, amortization, depreciation, cost of financing, productivity, maintenance, avoided labor payments, and avoided labor issues (e.g., workman's comp, accidents, lawsuits, etc.)) favor them.  So you see them in auto manufacturing and hazardous or semi hazardous situations.  I realize that the discussion here is more regarding humanoid robots, but they are merely the next step, and coupling them with basic AI will follow.  Given that AI can be remotely transmitted to them, this will likely follow quickly after the the robots themselves (structure of) has matured.  

Where I am going with this is to make the point that humanoid or versatile robots (the kind that can theoretically do anything from picking lettuce to construction work, to surgery) will replace occupations based on the same considerations that automation has over the 20th century.  So I would expect to see robots in hospital settings in all positions.  Compare the cost of a leased robot to the salary, benefits, etc of a human doing any job in a hospital, and it will likely soon be a better deal.  

But here's my main point, what this is going to do is to DRIVE down the compensation for human workers in occupations where they can be replaced at rates below their current compensation.  Minimum wage regs will be irrelevant because the employers will simply not offer employment to humans if they can sub robots into those position for less cost.  Will we see robots picking lettuce?  Probably not immediately in the US, but possibly eventually.  But will we see them picking coffee beans in Central America, where they can hire desperate workers for a fraction of the pay they'd receive in the States?  Probably never.  Will we see them mining lithium in Africa?  I doubt it, ever.  Why, when you can get kids to do it at $3 per day...  

The point is that it will be industry by industry and the main effect will be to depress wages, and then eliminate the positions altogether.  

I will venture a value based comment in closing.  It is tragicomedic that the wisdom one can glean from the old classics (like those in the book series') would be very helpful in coping with the new economic exigencies, but never acquired due to their neglect in favor of video games and such...  

I moved to Oregon 10 years ago from PA, where I had lived for 20+years.  I grew up in So Calif.  My take on the culture and politics is that the situation is similar to that in other states.  Specifically, the rural areas are more conservative, sometimes markedly so, and the large cities are liberal.  In Oregon that means the Portland area, Salem area, Eugene to a degree, and some other towns, notably Ashland.  Brookings is trending that way while Gold Beach, 30 miles to the north is relatively conservative.  Basically, Southern Oregon, south of Eugene is on the whole fairly conservative.  Eastern Oregon, more or less defined as east of Interstate 5 is conservative except further north, where you need to go further east for this dynamic.

Unfortunately it is true that the political system has been hijacked by the left, as described by the previous poster.  Right now they are really working on diminishing of firearm rights.   There is significant pushback however, and a strong movement by many counties to secede from the state and join Idaho.  My expectation is that imminent social and economic crises (e.g., demise of the dollar as  world reserve currency, introduction of CBDCs, and other issues) will force many leftists to wake up or starve.  So I don't worry about it and just keep working on my preps and networking.

As far as people minding their own business, I have found that nosiness and related behavior transcends political affiliations, though I do agree that liberals as a class seem to feel more entitled than others to interfere with others' lives.

As for rainwater catchment, rooftop catchment is TOTALLY legal.  I don't know where the misconception that it is not came from.  Here is one of many websites that confirm this. https://worldwaterreserve.com/is-it-illegal-to-collect-rainwater/  Where I live we get so much winter rain that capturing even a portion of the rain falling on the roof easily amounts to over 10,000 gallons.  

p.s. I took a closer look at the pic you provided.  It appears to me that you could reclaim water from the linear grated drain running along the right side of the pic.   IF you decide to do that and need specific directions let me know.  The trick is going to be to have the sump pump pull water from the channel before it gets to the drain/sewer connection, but do so in a way that allows that connection to receive overflow water if the pump is overwhelmed during heavy rain.

Hello Lina,

I acquired a paved lot in the middle of Philadelphia in 2008 at a Sheriff Tax Lien sale.  It was an abandoned property.  The paving was old concrete, with cracks and imperfections, but still paved.  It was about 120 by 60 feet and had the remnants of foundations for the garages/stables that had once been there, as well as one dilapidated 36' by 20' garage/stable.  The ambiguity stemmed from the relatively narrow widths of the spaces where the doors would have been.  Anyway, I rebuilt this structure to be a workshop and built a new one opposite it.  https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5012-Pentridge-St-Philadelphia-PA-19143/440402212_zpid/?mmlb=g,60

See pics 59 and 61.

Now to your post.  Prior to selling the property (which has since been redeveloped with a fancy house - but they left my two outbuildings, to my delight, see pics) (note the use of lovely salvaged red brick) I built raised beds on top of much of the paved area.  I was able to enclose it all with 10' industrial cyclone fence which I acquired at a salvage yard for literally $20.   Took an hour to winch the roll into my truck it was so heavy. So I had this 'compound' right there in the middle of West Philadelphia with a large (by city standards) garden.  I built rainwater catchment for cisterns for watering.  It tends to rain frequently there during the growing season, so I only had about 1000 gallons of storage.  Amazing how quickly you can go through that however.  

The raised beds were made of untreated 5' lengths of 10 inch by 14 inch, roughly, rough lumber.  I salvaged about 100 or so of these from a surface rail (subway cars) upgrade the transportation authority conducted in 2009.  They bolted these things together with 1 inch threaded rod, into pads that the cranes and heavy equipment could be situated upon (the legs or outriggers).  I watched the progress and noticed that as they completed each quarter mile or so of new elevated track, they were just leaving the pads!  So I hunted down the fellow in charge and got permission to take them.  It meant less work for them so, no problem.  I burnt through a couple Lowes chainsaws, Poulan I think, ripping them into ~6 inch wide units and double stacked them to get a relatively deep bed.  Used rebar to affix them.  My beds were about 5' by 20' I believe.  Now, the soil was the next issue...  Philadelphia has a composting program whereby they compost the herbivore manure from the zoo, combined with leaves and other sweepings from the large parks there.  This compost was amazing...  I loaded multiple pick up loads of this and used it for the beds, straight.  I suppose my vegetables were probably mineral deficient because this wasn't exactly soil, but the plants loved it.  I found I could ignore normal spacing guidelines for greens and such because of the nutrient density.  I worried a bit about contamination so I did test for lead, but never found any.  

How does my experience help you?  Well, reasonably tall raised beds are going to entail some cost.  If you can find salvaged materials, that will help.  Soil is expensive, too, unless you can find a cheap source.  Here in southern Oregon I can get a load of organic compost loaded into my pick up for $40 or so.  It's just composted manure but still far cheaper than buying bagged stuff of dubious content.  I don't know what your options are there.  Still, unless you have free or very cheap labor, breaking up the concrete is going to be expensive.  Granted, you can use the broken concrete for dry stacked bed walls.  I did a lot of urban greening work while in Philly, cutting tree pits into sidewalks for the local volunteers to plant trees into.  I could do 10 a day with an electric jackhammer and one helper.  It was brutal but I was younger and stronger then.  Point is that concrete isn't THAT hard to remove once you figure out how to do it. There is a learning curve and I really do recommend a jackhammer.  But it does take muscle and stamina.  In those days I could move fridges by myself, so it is all relative.

If water is a concern, one advantage of keeping the concrete and putting beds on it is that with a basic berm system, you can recover a lot of your water.  I didn't do this but considered it.  You could even put a couple of sumps in and use solar powered pumps to retrieve it and store in IBCs.  Basic sump pumps are cheap but you would need an inverter and such.  Or oyu could just go with 12 volt  DC utility pumps.  Feasibility of reclaiming your water will depend on slopes of the concrete.

FYI, I never had to amend my raised beds but I was only there for 5 seasons or so.  I think I would have eventually had to add some rock quarry dust for minerals eventually, but every organic farm I knew of in Pennsylvania was doing that anyway.

Bottom line is that you are going to have to do a cost comparison of both basic options and as part of that ascertain the availability of cheap materials, unless you really do have deep pockets.

Good luck and feel free to ask for clarification if I have failed to adequately convey useful information.

Good luck!

Ok,  I looked at your pic closely and have a couple more comments.  First, get a "flat' not curved jointer for your tool.  You will want to have the joints be flatish or planar rather than curved - to match the existing joints.  Second, (this may be a bit tricky but the good news is that mortar is water soluble so you if you don't like the finished product, you can remove and redo it before it sets up hard.  So, no stress) if you want the repair to match the old work well, you will want to very gently brush it with a wire brush a day later when it is hard but the surface can still be abraded).  The idea is to get the surface to be more sandy looking than super smooth. This is to match the weathered look of the old mortar.   You can also get the same effect by spraying water on it with a hand operated sprayer (like a windex sprayer (with water)) spraying hard.  This will dissolve some of the cement/lime in the mortar, leaving more sand apparent on the surface.  If you look at the pic you can see see that this is what has happened over time.  One other thing.  Once your repair is done and hard, you can come back with a little brush and buttermilk and brush it on the new joint if you want to encourage new moss growth quickly.  This also works on ferrocement walls, for those of you who know about ferrocement.

A previous poster, B. wrote:

Hey R,

"mortar is a mix of aggregate (sand) and a binder (cement or lime) and water.
Plaster is a specific type of mortar.
So they're all very similar.

Modern adhesive cement has additives (glue?) to make it stick much more than regular mortar. Adhesive cement might come in a bucket ready to use, in a bag to just add water or as an additive (powder or liquid) that you add when making your cement mortar.

Your plan is to basically glue the stones back in place where they were? In that case you need an adhesive cement mortar, with some flexibility and very small aggregate (fine sand or no sand). "Adhesive cement for repairs" might help you as a word combination when talking to the store clerks.

But let me tell you that I don't know how well that's going to work. You would probably have a better chance of success by chiseling away some of the mortar in the places the stones fell out to make some room for a good coating of mortar (1/3" at least)."

This is all correct.  I want to emphasize that you really will want to chisel away or grind away (grinders are cheap but dangerous if you are not careful; you would need a masonry disk, not the disk it comes with) mortar still attached to the stone.  Wear safety goggles.  As for adhesive, you can use portland cement, premix mortar, or tile "mastic."  Assuming the original mortar was just regular mortar, that might make the most sense.  You will use it to 'glue' the rocks back into place, and then come back once it's hard and fixed to fill in the joint gaps.  You may need to use some nails or pieces of wood, or pens or pencils as spacers to hold the rocks so as to maintain bottom joint space.  You can gently pull these out about 12 hours later.  

Now, this is in an ideal situation where the rocks refit well and you mix the mortar to an optimal enough consistency to hold it in place while setting.  If this does not work and the rocks fall out, you can add lime to the mortar mix (new batch ; also you should only be mixing about a quart at a time for this).  This makes it "stickier."  

OR, you can just cheat and use some "fast grabbing" construction adhesive instead.  Liquid nails should work but there are weaker brands that actually grab better.  I recommend that approach.  All you are trying to do at this point is get the rocks replaced and affixed.  (You will grout later and that grout will also hold them into place.)  You would need to clean off the rock faces and make sure they are dry.  Put the fixative only in the wall opening/spaces and use a decent amount, but not so much that it is going to squeeze out of the joints.  IF you make a mess, just let it harden and chip/cut it out a day or so later.  If you try cleaning it while wet, you make smear it all over the other rocks, and then will need acetone or whatever the clean up solvent is...  Big pain in the rear.  Anyway once it hardens up and is holding the rocks into place, come back and grout the joints with mortar.  BTW you will need a jointing tool (Look up "OX Pro Brick Jointer" for EXAMPLE.   Select one that is about the same width as your existing joints.  YOu don't need this brand.   Just an example.  Might want to go to you tube to look at a video on brick and stone jointing)

Basically, rock and brick work are one of those things that are fundamentally simple but can be elevated to an art form.  Your project is actually pretty basic, so address it with confidence.  Write back if you need clarification.   FWIW, I have been doing this and concrete off and on for 40 years, and consider myself a competent amateur.  In my case this means I can and have done footers, walls, steps, slabs, etc. for myself and for pay, and successfully.  BUT make no mistake, the people who do this day in and day out for *years* are the true masters and artists.  Anytime you can watch one at work for a little while (ask for permission) do so.  You will always learn something.  It's like drywall... anyone can do it, but doing it fast and well is another art form.