Comment on SirvivalBlog post - Comment Fire review

[Skvez]

Comment on
Pat's Product Review: "Commence Fire" Emergency Stove
From SurvivalBlog

I've long wanted somewhere to comment (vent) on SurvivalBlog posts. JWR doesn't seem to post my comments so I'll post them here instead.

This might be a great *emergency* stove for cases such as saving a severely hypothermic person after they've fallen into freezing water but it's totally unsuitable for the purpose that the poster describes it (heat every night).
It's a stove that is supposed to be used only once although it can be re-used up to 10 or 12 times!
In a survival situation I need a stove that can be re-used for at least 10 or 12 years not 10 or 12 times!
The poster doesn't say what the failure mode is after 10 or 12 times, does the metal warp? Does it fail save or come apart? This would have been a more useful addition to the review than a description of how cold their dog got years before they reviewed the product.

All in all I think this is an expensive product for a very niece market. Most of us don't want this stove.

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Letter Re: Obsolescence in American Coinage

The post itself isn't bad but JWRs comments show he doesn't really understand the problems that the dollar suffers from.
The majority of US paper currency is *outside* the US. Held by other countries who use it (ironically) as a stable currency or for black-market transactions.
There are a lot of forged notes used outside the US.
If the US were to change their currency and require these notes to be exchanged there would be a huge amount of currency handed back to be turned into value. Even if we assume everyone wanted them turned into new notes the US would either have to absorb the forgeries or reject them. To absorb the forgeries would be a huge strain on the economy, to reject them would collapse what little confidence remains in the dollar currency.
The dollar is "stuck" and the situation just gets worse.