An Ancient Chinese Proverb for Future Family Survival Preparedness: Part One

WHEN THERE IS FOOD ON THE TABLE YOU MAY HAVE MANY PROBLEMS. Chinese proverb (part 1)

There is food on the table, it's dinner time and your family is happy. You chat and joke with each other and relate the events of the day as you eat until your teenage son asks for money for something.

Suddenly the mood has changed and money has become the topic. Your wife needs to go shopping for clothes for the baby, the car needs repairs, the house needs paint, the lawn mower won't start, taxes are going up, your son's grades are going down and to top it all off your company is cutting back and you might get laid off.

You are happy and well fed, and you have many normal problems; but what if there was no food on your table?

An era of prosperity and plenty

You were born into and have lived during an era of unprecedented prosperity and plenty and history has taught you that eras eventually end. Knowing that history always repeats itself, commonsense tells you that the end of this one is approaching rapidly.

You see ours and other national economies, great and small teetering on the brink of default, crushed by insurmountable mountains of unsustainable debt. All of them inextricably entrapped within a house-of-cards like "global economy". You realize that any catastrophe, foreign or domestic, unintentional or the result of political perfidy could bring the whole thing down.

Not if but when the global economy crashes and diesel fuel becomes unavailable or unaffordable, the National Electric Power Grid fails in part or totally and the food supply chain breaks down, where would the food for your table come from then?

How would dinner time go if there is no dinner? Would you be more worried about the baby needing clothes, or food to eat? Would fixing the car or the lawn mower or the boy's grades or even losing your job be as important as the

One dauntingly complex, yet simple question

You would have only one problem. All the concerns and worries of your life would be swept away, leaving only one dauntingly complex, yet simple question: How would you feed your family?

Preparedness is the answer. You must decide now, what my best survival products are and purchase them. You must be water self sufficient and be able to cook and stay warm off the Grid. You need long term food storage, first aid kits, tools, light and communication gear and the ability to protect your home, family and possessions.

Failing to prepare your family to survive in the aftermath of a natural or man made disaster exposes your loved ones to unnecessary hardship and hunger. Unprepared they will be susceptible to disease from drinking un-purified water and subject to depredation at the hands of marauding looters.

If you won't prepare your family, who will? If you don't start now, when will you start?

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Chinese Government Unleashes a Blistering Attack on the Pentagon

Beijing's unusually fierce, and effectively official, response came in an editorial by the state Xinhua news agency: the same medium used this month to criticise America's "addiction" to debt. The article took particular exception to the suggestion that China would use its increasing naval power in the South China Sea a region where competing territorial and resource claims already threaten conflagration.

It accused a senior US military officer of "prematurely and maybe ridiculously" asserting that an expanded Chinese naval presence would have implications for regional rivalries and power dynamics.

Although Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines and Taiwan feel those concerns acutely, the Xinhua editorial concluded that any suggestion that China was focused on anything other than self-defence was "based on a wild guess and illogical reasoning".

The increasingly strident terms used by Xinhua, analysts say, point to a China whose confidence has been buoyed by economic frailty in the West. Echoing its previous attack on America's colossal military spending, the editorial yesterday said that for many in China, it was strange to hear such comments from the Pentagon "whose expenditures... accounted for more than an appalling 40 per cent of the world's total in 2010".

In the annual report to Congress, the Pentagon warned that China was planning to build "multiple" aircraft carriers and predicted that it would have its first indigenous carrier by 2015.

The Chinese Navy recently completed a four-day sea trial of the Varyag: a refurbished Soviet-era aircraft carrier, which it plans to use for training fighter pilots. Listing a range of growing military capabilities, including anti-ship ballistic missiles, new submarines and warships, enhanced cyber warfare technologies and a planned road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile, the Pentagon report highlighted the potential threat this posed to the region, an issue of growing concern in Washington despite signs of improving US-China military relations.

Although the Pentagon report is produced with contributions from across the US Administration, the alarm bells over China's burgeoning military may come at a time when the Pentagon is having to cut its budget by $400 billion (£250 billion) over the next ten years, and possibly double that figure if the Congressional deficit-cutting committee set up by President Obama recommends a more dramatic reduction.

The report will serve as a reminder to Mr Obama and Congress that the US will need to spend money developing systems to counter any growing threat by China to the East Asian region and, in particular to Taiwan, which the US is committed to defend.

The Pentagon report emphasised the positive role China has played in counter-piracy, disaster relief and peacekeeping. But when asked at a press briefing whether the developing carrier programme would be seen in that light, Michael Schiffer, the deputy assistant secretary of defence for East Asia, replied: "Whether this proves to be a net plus for the region, or for the globe, or proves to be something that has destabilising effects and raises blood pressure in various regional capitals, I think remains to be seen."

China's military, the report said, still had large amounts of outdated equipment and lacked operational experience, but was "steadily closing the technological gap with modern armed forces". Mr Schiffer raised China's cyber warfare capabilities as one of the issues of increasing concern. In the past year, numerous computer systems had been targeted around the world, by attacks which "appear to have originated within China", he said.

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Chinese vase: the suburban auction house that made £12m - Telegraph.co.uk

The firm employs eight people, including the porter, just three of whom work full-time.

Its previous highest sale was £100,000, which it generated for a Ming enamel piece a few years ago.

The £53m vase was sold as one of 818 lots - including some which sold for just £10.

Peter Bainbridge, a partner and the firm's valuer, disclosed that he was so forceful when he finally brought down the hammer that he smashed it into pieces.

The effect on the firm, which is based in suburban Ruislip, Middlesex, is likely to be considerable.

Reflecting on the once-in-a-lifetime sale, Mr Bainbridge said: “In terms of turnover, this is a lifetime’s takings. There is no getting away from it: this is an awful lot of money and I have not got my head round it yet."

He added: “I will try to keep my feet on the ground - but they may be just a little better shod.”

The firm will take a gross income of around £12m, which is comprised of the premium of 20% paid by the buyer (£10,105,000) plus the seller's premium, which is not known but experts said was likely to be around 5% (or £2.15m).

To put the figure into context, Sotheby's and Christie's, the auctioneers, separately had a day's sale of Chinese items this week, which fetched around £14m and £13m respectively - in total.

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