The Survival Kit List

Basic Preparation will impact the probability of your family’s survival in an emergency. Delicious and easy to prepare. Each bucket contains 275 servings of Pre-mixed and Pre-seasoned 100% vegetarian and vitamin fortified food. With a 20 year long shelf life, this kit is perfect for the preparation of natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoew, earhtquakes or even for a camping or hunting trip.

Easy to prepare, must have water and a heat source. Sealed in a convenient Weather-Proof bucket for easy transport. 25 servings-Potato Soup, 30 servings-Corn Chowder,25 servings-Cacciatore, 25 servings-Western Stew, 30 servings-Country Noodle, 25 servings-Rice Lentil, 45 servings-Whey Milk, 40 servings-Blueberry Pancake, 30 servings-Barley Vegetable

From Notes from the bunker…

This came up in the comments section and its worth putting into a post:

Let’s imagine that you pass away comfortably in your bed many years from now, wife by your side and dog by your feet. Toilet paper and fresh fruit and vegetables are still readily available daily at your local grocery store. Hi-cap magazines are still legal, and ammo is available at Walmart 6 days out of 7. Gas is 10 bucks a gallon and silver is $ 70 an ounce, but hey, that was probably gonna happen anyhow.

So basically–if you die comfy in your home and the S never hits the F, do you leave this world with any regrets on how you lived your life and spent your efforts?

If you have medical insurance and you die of old age, having never been sick a day in your life, do you look back at it bitterly as a waste?
If you have homeowners insurance and never, ever, have anything happen that causes you to file a claim was that a waste?
If you stockpile food in your pantry against the day you can’t get anymore food and that day never comes to pass, was that a waste?

Of course not. Those forms of insurance allowed you to enjoy your life because those risks/threats had been reduced/mitigated/transferred. I would imagine that every person who prepares for the end of the world would be happy to die in their sleep at a ripe old age never having to have lived through Katrina, a civil war, a depression, or a pandemic. If the missus and I spend the next forty years in a boring routine of filled supermarkets, electricity at the flick of a switch, clean water from the tap, heat at the push of a button, and entertainment upon demand, and we never have to crack open a single can of freezedried spaghetti I will consider that a tremendous success and not regret a single dime spent.

From zero hedge – on a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

In a move that is sure to send the infamous Fed “economist” (Ph.D., never forget) Kartik Athreya over the edge, Obama’s nominee for the Fed Board, after unsuccessfully trying to enter the one circle that is just less exclusive than the Goldman partnership ranks for over a year, has decided to pen an Op-Ed in the NYT titled “When a Nobel Prize Isn’t Enough”, and disgusted with the fact that his utterly worthless Nobel prize in something or another can’t even buy him one seat with those who decide the price of money, has pulled his nomination in utter disgust. “Last October, I won the Nobel Prize in economics for my work on unemployment and the labor market. But I am unqualified to serve on the board of the Federal Reserve — at least according to the Republican senators who have blocked my nomination. How can this be? ” How indeed: could it be that, gasp, Nobel awards are merely a honorary award in groupthink, presented to anyone who perpetuates the status quo with little regard for actual merit-based contribution (one needs only recall Obama’s Peace prize just as the President is contemplating opening up a 4th, or is that 5th, war front?). Most importantly: nobody tell Krugman his one validation of his life’s work, has just been downgraded to junk.

When a Nobel Prize Isn’t Enough

By PETER A. DIAMOND

Lexington, Mass.

LAST October, I won the Nobel Prize in economics for my work on
unemployment and the labor market. But I am unqualified to serve on the
board of the Federal Reserve — at least according to the Republican
senators who have blocked my nomination. How can this be?

The easy answer is to point to shortcomings in our confirmation process
and to partisan polarization in Washington. The more troubling answer,
though, points to a fundamental misunderstanding: a failure to recognize
that analysis of unemployment is crucial to conducting monetary policy.

In April 2010, President Obama nominated me to be one of the seven
governors of the Fed. He renominated me in September, and again in
January, after Senate Republicans blocked a floor vote on my
confirmation. When the Senate Banking Committee took up my nomination in
July and again in November,  three Republican senators voted for me
each time. But the third time around, the Republicans on the committee
voted in lockstep against my appointment, making it extremely unlikely
that the opposition to a full Senate vote can be overcome. It is time
for me to withdraw, as I plan to inform the White House.

The leading opponent to my appointment, Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the committee, has questioned the relevance of my expertise.
“Does Dr. Diamond have any experience in conducting monetary policy?
No,” he said in March. “His academic work has been on pensions and labor
market theory.”

But understanding the labor market — and the process by which workers
and jobs come together and separate — is critical to devising an
effective monetary policy. The financial crisis has led to continuing
high unemployment. The Fed has to properly assess the nature of that
unemployment to be able to lower it as much as possible while avoiding
inflation. If much of the unemployment is related to the business cycle —
caused by a lack of adequate demand — the Fed can act to reduce it
without touching off inflation. If instead the unemployment is primarily
structural — caused by mismatches between the skills that companies
need and the skills that workers have — aggressive Fed action to reduce
it could be misguided.

In my Nobel acceptance speech in December, I discussed in detail the
patterns of hiring in the American economy, and concluded that
structural unemployment and issues of mismatch were not important in the
slow recovery we have been experiencing, and thus not a reason to stop
an accommodative monetary policy — a policy of keeping short-term
interest rates exceptionally low and buying Treasury securities to keep
long-term rates down. Analysis of the labor market is in fact central to
monetary policy.

Senator Shelby also questioned my qualifications, asking: “Does Dr.
Diamond have any experience in crisis management? No.” In addition to
setting monetary policy in light of a proper understanding of
unemployment, the Fed is responsible for avoiding banking crises, not
just trying to mop up afterward.

Among the issues being debated now is how much we should increase
capital requirements for banks. Selecting the proper size of the
increase requires a balance between reducing the risk of a future crisis
and ensuring the effective functioning of financial firms in ordinary
times. My experience analyzing the properties of capital markets and how
economic risks are and should be shared is directly relevant for
designing policies to reduce the risk of future banking crises.

Instead of going to the Fed, however, I will go about my congenial
professional existence as a professor at M.I.T., where I have taught and
researched since 1966, and I will take advantage of some of the many
opportunities that come to a Nobel laureate. So don’t worry about me.

But we should all worry about how distorted the confirmation process has
become, and how little understanding of monetary policy there is among
some of those responsible for its Congressional oversight. We need to
preserve the independence of the Fed from efforts to politicize monetary
policy and to limit the Fed’s ability to regulate financial firms.

Concern about the (seemingly low) current risk of future inflation
should not erase concern about the large costs of continuing high
unemployment. Concern about the distant risk of a genuine inability to
handle our national debt should not erase concern about the risk to the
economy from too much short-run fiscal tightening.

To the public, the Washington debate is often about more versus less —
in both spending and regulation. There is too little public awareness of
the real consequences of some of these decisions. In reality, we need
more spending on some programs and less spending on others, and we need
more good regulations and fewer bad ones.

Analytical expertise is needed to accomplish this, to make government more effective and efficient. Skilled
analytical thinking should not be drowned out by mistaken,
ideologically driven views that more is always better or less is always
better. I had hoped to bring some of my own expertise and experience to the Fed. Now I hope someone else can.

This is the second part of the What is Calvinism Series. This part deals with the attribute of God known as Self-Sufficiency, or Aseity. This part merely defines what this is and its significance for theology and why Calvinism believes what it believes. The next part will give the Scripture proofs.

From The Economic Collapse

Today, average Americans have less power relative to the monolithic corporate and governmental institutions that dominate our society than at any other point in U.S. history.  Sadly, this is not what our founding fathers ever envisioned.  Our founding fathers established a government “of the people, by the people, for the people”, but what we have today is very far from that ideal.  In America today, wealth and power are very highly concentrated, and if you have neither wealth nor power than most of our politicians really do not have any interest in you.  Over the past several decades, those with huge amounts of money and power have been busy rigging the game so that the rest of the money and power slowly but surely funnels into their hands.  If current trends continue, the banksters and the corpocracy will eventually own it all.  Below you will find 29 statistics about extreme income inequality in America.  Sadly, most of these statistics will be out of date in a year or two because wealth and power will be much more concentrated by that time.

If you are a “Kool-Aid drinking Democrat” you are going to be really upset by this article.  If you are a “Kool-Aid drinking Republican” you are going to be really upset by this article.

Most Republicans have been brainwashed into believing that “capitalism” means cheerleading while the big corporations hoover up money and power.

Most Democrats have no trouble with big corporations either because most establishment Democrats have been brainwashed into believing that large concentrations of power (whether governmental or corporate) are generally good.  Most Democrats just wish that big corporations were a little less greedy and were a little more “socially responsible”.

Today, the big banks, the big corporations and the federal government are all in bed with one another and it is average Americans that always lose out.

Our founding fathers tried to warn us about large concentrations of power.  They attempted to establish a very limited central government, they wanted to keep us free from the tyranny of the big banks and they were very suspicious of large corporations.

In a 2010 article, Rick Ungar noted that corporations were very seriously restricted in the early days of America….

After the nation’s founding, corporations were, as they are today, the result of charters granted by the state. However, unlike today, they were limited in how long they were permitted to exist (typically 20 or 30 years), only permitted to deal in one commodity, they could not own shares in other corporations, and their property holdings were expressly limited to what they needed to accomplish their corporate business goals.

My how things have changed.

“Capitalism” is supposed to be about the empowerment of individuals and families and small businesses.

Instead, today “capitalism” has come to mean something completely different.  Today, the biggest, meanest concentrations of wealth devour everyone else with a big assist from the government.

At this point, average Americans mean next to nothing in the political process.  This point was eloquently made in a recent column by Robert Reich….

The unemployed are politically invisible. They don’t make major campaign donations. They don’t lobby Congress. There’s no National Association of Unemployed People.

Their ranks are filled with women who had been public employees, single mothers, minorities, young people trying to enter the labor force, and middle-aged men who have been out of work for longer than six months. You couldn’t find a collection of people with less political clout.

I would not normally quote Robert Reich, but he made a good point.  If you don’t have an army of lobbyists or any money to give to them then most of our politicians don’t really care what you think or how much you are hurting.

Just think about the amount of power and money that Exxon Mobil or Wal-Mart has compared to the amount of power and money that an average American has.

Our society has veered very far from the egalitarian ideal that our founding fathers once hoped for.

The corporate giants are so powerful that it is next to impossible for small businesses to directly compete with them.

Just try it some time.

Many banks and corporations have become so big that the world literally cannot afford for them to fail.

For example, three U.S. corporations control approximately 90% of the world’s grain trade.

So what happens if those three corporations collapse?

That is something to think about.

But of course average Americans are never “too big to fail”.  The big banks begged and begged for bailouts, but if you are late on your debt payments they will chuck you into prison.

Also, when wealth and power are so highly concentrated, economic rewards flow only to a few.  Corporatism (as opposed to true capitalism) produces a handful of winners and a whole lot of losers.

As I have written about previously, the middle class is being destroyed.  If current trends are allowed to continue long enough we eventually won’t have much of a middle class left at all.

The following are 29 statistics about extreme income inequality in America that will blow your mind….

#1 In the United States today, the richest one percent of all Americans have a greater net worth than the bottom 90 percent combined.

#2 The wealthiest 1% of all Americans now own more than a third of all the wealth in the United States.

#3 The wealthiest 1% of all Americans own over 50% of all the stocks and bonds.

#4 The poorest 50% of all Americans collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States.

#5 According to a joint House and Senate report entitled “Income Inequality and the Great Recession“, the top one percent of income earners in the United States brought in a total of 10.0 percent of all income income in 1980, but by the time 2008 had rolled around that figure had skyrocketed to 21.0 percent.

#6 Between 1979 and and 2007, the average household income of the top 1% of all Americans soared from $ 346,600 to $ 1.3 million.  During that same time period the average household income for middle class Americans increased only slightly.

#7 According to Harvard Magazine, 66% of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.

#8 More than 3 billion people, close to half the world’s population, live on less than 2 dollar a day.

#9 According to a new report from the AFL-CIO, the average CEO made 343 times more money than the average American did last year.

#10 The number of “low income jobs” in the U.S. has risen steadily over the past 30 years and they now account for 41 percent of all jobs in the United States.

#11 Since 1979, real median weekly earnings for high school dropouts has declined by 22 percent.

#12 During this economic downturn, employee compensation in the United States has been the lowest that it has been relative to gross domestic product in over 50 years.

#13 Half of all American workers now earn $ 505 or less per week.

#14 Since the year 2000, we have lost 10% of our middle class jobs.  In the year 2000 there were about 72 million middle class jobs in the United States but today there are only about 65 million middle class jobs.  Meanwhile, our population has gotten significantly larger.

#15 Ten years ago, the United States was ranked number one in average wealth per adult.  In 2010, the United States fell to seventh.

#16 According to one recent study, approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States were living below the poverty line in 2010. In the UK and in France that figure is well under 10 percent.

#17 Today, one out of every four American children is on food stamps.

#18 It is being projected that approximately 50 percent of all U.S. children will be on food stamps at some point in their lives before they reach the age of 18.

#19 According to Moody’s Analytics, the wealthiest 5% of households in the United States now account for approximately 37% of all consumer spending.

#20 The number of Americans that are going to food pantries and soup kitchens has increased by 46% since 2006.

#21 The U.S. poverty rate is now the third worst among the developed nations tracked by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

#22 Approximately half of all American workers make $ 25,000 a year or less.

#23 The wealthiest 1% of the earth’s population controls 39% of the wealth.

#24 It is estimated that over 80 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where the income gap between the rich and the poor is widening.

#25 One year after the recent financial collapse the top 25 hedge fund managers earned a total of approximately $ 25 billion.  That breaks down to an average of $ 1 billion each.

#26 Bill Gates has a net worth of somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 billion dollars.  That means that there are approximately 140 different nations that have a yearly GDP which is smaller than the amount of money Bill Gates has.

#27 It is estimated that the entire continent of Africa owns approximately 1 percent of the total wealth of the world.

#28 The top 0.01% of Americans make an average of $ 27,342,212.  The bottom 90% make an average of $ 31,244.

#29 58 percent of the members of Congress are millionaires while only about 1 percent of the general population is made up of millionaires.

So what is the solution?

Well, our liberal friends insist that the solution to all of this inequality is to tax the rich and to distribute the wealth to the poor.

Well, there are three major problems with that.

Number one, when you raise taxes too high you eliminate the incentive to work hard.

Number two, when you make it too easy to depend on government handouts you create an underclass of economic parasites.

Number three, the big corporations and the ultra-wealthy have become masters at avoiding taxation no matter what the rates are.

Before you tax the rich too much, you might want to consider the consequences of doing so.

Why should someone bust his or her rear end to run a business and make a lot of money if the government is just going to come along and take over half of all the money that is made?

Personally, if I ever get into a tax bracket where over half the money I make goes to the government then I simply will not work nearly as hard at that point.

But if that starts happening on a large scale, then you have a significant loss of economic activity which hurts the economy overall.

Already, the top 20 percent of all income earners in the United States pay approximately 86 percent of all federal income taxes.

When the government “steals from the rich” and “gives to the poor”, that also tends to create a large group of people that decides that it is easier to take from the government than it is to work for a living.

In 1980, government transfer payments accounted for just 11.7% of all income.  Today, government transfer payments account for 18.4% of all income.

That is not a good trend.

At this point, U.S. households are now receiving more income from the U.S. government than they are paying to the government in taxes.

That is not even close to sustainable, but nobody wants to give up their “government benefits”.

Today, 59 percent of all Americans receive money from the federal government in one form or another.

Yes, there will always be those that cannot help themselves and we should always have a “safety net”.

But when you look around it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that things have gotten completely and totally out of control.

Right now, an all-time record 44 million Americans are on food stamps.

Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid.  Today, one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.

The U.S. government is even handing out billions of dollars to homeowners that are delinquent on their mortgages.

This is not a formula for long-term economic success.

When people get addicted to government checks they never want to stop.

But this is not what the poor need.

What the poor need are good jobs that pay good wages.  Unfortunately, we keep shipping millions of those jobs overseas.  So now the Chinese economy is thriving and our formerly great manufacturing cities are turning into hellholes.

Handouts do not give people hope, dignity and a future, but jobs can.

Also, as I have written about before, the big corporations and the ultra-wealthy have become masters at avoiding taxes.  There is a reason why approximately a third of all the wealth in the world is held in “offshore” tax havens.

What U.S. corporations are able to get away with is absolutely amazing.

The following figures come directly out of a report by Citizens for Tax Justice.  These are combined figures for the tax years 2008, 2009 and 2010.

During those three years, all of the corporations below made a lot of money.  Yet all of them paid net taxes that were below zero for those three years combined.

How is that possible?  Well, it turns out that instead of paying in taxes to the federal government, they were actually getting money back.

So for these corporations, their rate of taxation was actually below zero.

If you have not seen these before, you are going to have a hard time believing some of these statistics…..

*Honeywell*

Profits: $ 4.9 billion

Taxes: -$ 34 million

*Fed Ex*

Profits: $ 3 billion

Taxes: -$ 23 million

*Wells Fargo*

Profits: $ 49.37 billion

Taxes: -$ 681 million

*Boeing*

Profits: $ 9.7 billion

Taxes: -$ 178 million

*Verizon*

Profits: $ 32.5 billion

Taxes: -$ 951 million

*Dupont*

Profits: $ 2.1 billion

Taxes -$ 72 million

*American Electric Power*

Profits: $ 5.89 billion

Taxes -$ 545 million

*General Electric*

Profits: $ 7.7 billion

Taxes: -$ 4.7 billion

Are you starting to get the picture?

I wish I could make $ 7.7 billion, pay no taxes and have the government give me $ 4.7 billion on top of it.

Our system has become corrupted beyond all recognition.

We need to throw out the current system of taxation and come up with something entirely new.

In fact, the truth is that for most of U.S. history there was not a federal income tax at all.  But that is a story for another day.

If you believe in the U.S. Constitution and in the republic that our founding fathers established, then the very high concentrations of wealth and power in our society today should greatly concern you.  Income inequality is not a “Democrat” or a “Republican” issue.  A vibrant, thriving middle class should be a goal all of us can embrace.

But I have a feeling a whole lot of “Democrats” and a whole lot of “Republicans” were deeply offended by this article.  Feel free to express your opinion by leaving a comment below….

From Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis

It’s a never ending source of amusement that economists can never think in advance. Instead they revise estimates after the fact to be in line with the data.

Weekly Claims Numbers

On Thursday the weekly claims numbers come out. I am writing this Wednesday evening.

The number 4-week moving average of weekly unemployment claims is relatively easy to call. The number to beat is 438,500.

Over or Under?

Expect a drop (an improvement) in that number.

In light of recent data a drop may seem counter-intuitive but it is highly likely. The reason is simple. The last four weeks’ claims numbers are, in order: 424K, 414K, 438K, and 478K.

478,000 drops off the list. It will be replaced by the numbers for the week ending May 28. Unless that number is greater than 478,000 the moving average will drop. I will take the under on 478,000 and thus the under (expecting a drop) in the moving average.

My guess is the 4-week average will be between 420,000 to 430,000. For an actual guess, I select 427,000.

If the number is lower expect the bulls to trump it up. Instead it will simply reflect an abnormally high number dropping off the average.

Monthly Payroll Report

Gaming the 4-week moving average of unemployment claims is the easy part. The tough part is gaming Friday’s monthly payroll report.

Two days ago I would have taken the “way-under” in regards to economic estimate consensus. I meant to mention that in Market Ticker in regards to the Slowing Global Economy, but I forgot. Apologies offered.

However, in light of recent “unforeseen” by economists news, economists’ estimates are now far lower.

Economists rush to mark down payrolls estimates

Please consider Economists rush to mark down payrolls estimates

Reflecting one of the largest one-day mood swings in recent memory, the downward revisions now place last month’s job growth at 125,000, the weakest since the 68,000 positions created in January and down from the average of 233,000 over the past three months.

As the sun rose on a steamy Wednesday in Washington, economists polled by MarketWatch had been looking for growth of 175,000 in nonfarm payrolls for May, a consensus figure representing a decline from a healthy 244,000 in April but still passing for strength. The nation’s unemployment rate was expected to reverse April’s slight uptick and fall to 8.9%.

First-time claims for unemployment benefits rocketed to 474,000 in late April — the highest level in nine months — from under 390,000 earlier in the month. Claims have since fallen back, coming in at 424,000 for the latest week.

Analysts tended to dismiss the claims data as an aberration. They saw continued strength in hiring, and some were hopeful that more than 50,000 jobs created by McDonald’s Corp. might offset any weakness in other sectors.

But this confidence cracked soon after data based on payrolls handled by Automatic Data Processing Inc. showed that only 38,000 private-sector jobs were created in May — extraordinarily weak given that economists were expecting a gain in the neighborhood of 175,000 jobs.

Adding fuel to the fire, later in the morning, the Institute for Supply Management’s May survey of factory supply managers was disappointing. The ISM factory index sank by nearly seven points to a 53.5% reading, the largest drop in nine years.

Who cut forecasts and by how much

• “We have no choice but to revise down our payroll estimate” in light of the weak ISM and ADP reports, said the economic team at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, in a note announcing they had sliced their forecast to 125,000 nonfarm payrolls for May from the prior estimate of 165,000.
• “We continue to expect a loss of 25,000 public-sector jobs but have reduced our forecast for private payrolls to 100,000 from 200,000,” said Julia Coronado, chief economist at BNP Paribas.
• Economists at Goldman Sachs cut their forecast for Friday’s government employment report to show 100,000 nonfarm jobs added in May, down from 150,000 previously.
• LaVorgna trimmed his forecast for nonfarm payrolls to 160,000 in May, down from a prior estimate of 225,000
• Stone & McCarthy cut its forecast in half, to 100,000 jobs.
• Jim O’Sullivan,chief economist at MF Global, cut his forecast for May jobs growth to 90,000 from 150,000.
• IHS Global Insight now expects a gain of 135,000 nonfarm jobs in May, down from a forecast of 175,000 before the day’s data were released

Did the Lemmings Overshoot?

It is very difficult to know if the lemmings overshot or not. On one hand McDonald’s allegedly added 50-70 thousand jobs and those jobs may affect the establishment survey. However, no one knows because the BLS in its infinite “wisdom” will not confirm who is in the survey.

Moreover, burger-flipping jobs tend to increase in summer months so one has to seasonally adjust. Then again, 50-75K is likely to be in excess of seasonal adjustments.

Finally, I do not know if McDonald’s is in the ADP survey either. Regardless, picking a number is a crapshoot. It always is, but particularly true now.

The Real Deal

It really does not matter if McDonald’s added 50,000 jobs or not. Flipping burgers will not fuel a recovery. Moreover, even if McDonald’s did add that number of jobs, it is a one-time affair.

I wonder how many desperate engineers or recent college graduates took those jobs out of desperation. The sad fact of the matter is that unemployment has been dropping for a year based on burger-flipping jobs, part-time jobs, or people dropping out of the labor force.

Since April 2008 6,484,000 dropped out of the labor force. In the last year alone, 2,916,000 dropped out of the labor force.

For a discussion of exactly what questions the BLS asks to determine the unemployment rate, please see Reader Question Regarding “Dropping Out of the Workforce”; Implications of the Falling Participation Rate

Here’s the real kicker. In the last year the number of people employed FELL by 292,000! Yet. miraculously the unemployment rate dropped nearly 1%. On that count, the unemployment rate should have risen at least 1%.

What to Expect on Friday?

Garbage. That’s what.

Officially I will take the under on jobs and the over on the expected unemployment rate of 8.9%. For a guess on the latter, 9.2% seems reasonable on the data (and that was my opinion before the ISM and ADP reports). However, Lord only knows how many people the BLS might say dropped out of the labor force.

If burger flipping saves the day, it won’t last.

Mike “Mish” Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Mike “Mish” Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction.
Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

From SurvivalBlog.com

I still remember when some of the first lasers for handguns came on the commercial market. At the time I was working for the late Col. Rex Applegate, and he received several handgun lasers to test. As was usually the case, the job of testing was passed along to me, and I reported my findings back to Applegate. At the time, I thought that lasers on firearms were more of a gimmick or for that matter, just plain ol’ toys. No one made holsters for handguns with laser – simply because the lasers were so big – it wasn’t practical to carry a handgun with a laser mounted on it.

Well, times change, and product improvement and technology have produced some very small lasers for firearms. I no longer think of lasers as mere toys to play with. I sincerely believe that, lasers can aid a shooter under the right circumstances, especially low-light shooting. I’ve been testing some LaserLyte products for about a year and a half now, and I’m amazed at just how small, and effective their products are.

One of the first products I tested wasn’t a laser. Instead, it’s a very small flashlight that they dub "FlashLyte": that mount on the Picatinny-style rail on a handgun’s rail (semi-autos). Now, the FlashLyte isn’t designed for law enforcement or military use. Instead, this product is designed (and priced) for the home owner to use on their "bedroom gun." You know what I’m talking about – the gun you keep handy in your bedroom, should you hear a bump-in-the-night.

The FlashLyte is a triple-cluster of LED lens engineer to pump our 25-lumens of bright light at your target. This is more than enough light to light-up the living room in most homes. Additionally, the FlashLyte will also temporarily blind a suspect if you point it in their eyes. I’m not aware of a smaller flashlight that can be mounted on a handgun, than the FlashLyte. It takes but a minute to mount the FlashLyte on your handgun that is equipped with a Picatinny-style rail, and your good to go. If you have a bedroom gun, then you really need some sort of illumination source to go with it – and what better place to have a light, than mounted on your handgun?

When I heard from my friend Laura Burgess who does the PR/Marketing for LaserLyte, that they had a laser mounted in the rear sight for handguns, I thought perhaps she had had one too many drinks. In short order, a sample of the Rear Sight Laser from LaserLyte arrived at my front door – it was for a Glock 19 and other similar Glocks. I couldn’t believe how darn small the RSL was. It only took me a couple of minutes to remove the factory Glock rear sight, with a brass punch and plastic hammer, and install the new RSL in its place.

The RSL is now available for several popular handguns, with more to come. What I like about the RSL is that, it’s easy to mount, easy to zero and easy to use. As you draw your handgun from your holster, you simply place your thumb on the activation switch on the rear of the RSL and it turns the laser on. Additionally, there is a constant as well as pulse mode. The pulse mode is activate by pressing the activation switch twice. And, studies have shown, that a pulsing red laser seems to be more intimidating than a steady laser for some reason. I tend to agree. the RSL has a 1-hour constant on, and a 2-hour pulse battery supply. What’s not to like here?

Several months ago, I received the LaserLyte K-15 Kryptonyte Rifle Laser for testing. I mounted it on my MGI Hydra modular rifle, that has a quad-rail forearm. Again, it was quick and easy to mount, just a couple screws and I was in business. Now, if you’ve never used a green laser, you’re in for a a treat – they are much brighter than red lasers on – and you can see them under most daylight conditions. I’m a firm believer is the less-is-better, when it comes to mounting things on my AR-15 style rifles. Any more, I’ve seen people with so much gear mounted on their ARs, that the gear weighs more than the actual rifle does. I’m getting older, and I just don’t want to pack any more weight than I have to on a firearm. So, I’m particular about what gear I add to my ARs.

I like the K-15 Kryptonyte, and I have to chuckle at the name. Everyone knows that Kryptonite can kills Superman…and if you see how bright the green laser is on the K-15, you’ll know that whoever is pointing this laser at you means business – that the bullets are gonna hit where the light is aimed. I zero all my lasers for 25-yards, on rifles or handguns, as I believe that’s a reasonable distance to use lasers at. I know, I know, lots of companies advertise that their lasers can be seen at a mile away. Okay, good for them, but I can’t hit a target at a mile away. I think lasers are best used for close-in CQB distances.

The K-15 has a constant "on" switch on the rear of it. There is also a momentary on feature, that is used with the 10-inch long tape switch, that I mounted on a vertical fore grip. I would like to see LaserLyte include a vertical fore grip with the K-15, as I don’t see many people using the momentary "on" switch just stuck on the fore end of an AR or other similar rifle. I mounted my K-15 on the top rail of the quad-rail on my Hydra. You can mount it on any of the four positions if you desire. The K-15s super-bright green laser gets your attention, even in bright sunlight. And, the battery lasts for up to six hours. I just think that my Hydra looks super-cool with the K-15 mounted on it, and it’s a useful addition if you ask me. BTW, LaserLyte just came out with a coyote brown K-15 – the standard model is black.

One thing to keep in mind with any green lasers is the fact that, they don’t operate in temps below freezing. So, if you live and work in a climate that has temps below freezing, then you might not want a green laser mounted on your firearm. I’m not sure of the science involved in the making of a green laser, but I understand that advances are being made in this regard concerning the temps at which they will operate.

I also tested the V2 laser, and this little gem mounts on the Picatinny-style rail on your handgun. And, it can also be mounted to a quad-rail on a rifle, but it’s real purpose is on a handgun. The V2 is a true subcompact laser, too. I haven’t seen anything smaller. The V2 is activated by a small red button on the rear of it – and it can be turned on in a split second. I really liked the V2, and I’m gonna see if I can’t beg a couple more samples from LaserLyte for some of my other handgun. the V2 is small enough that it will allow holstering in many ballistic Nylon holsters, too. There are several other lasers for handguns from LaserLyte, however, I haven’t tested them, so I’ll refrain from commenting on ‘em here, other than to say, I’m sure they are top-notch if they are like any of the other products I tested from LaserLyte.

Whenever I mount a scope on a rifle, I use the Laser Bore Sighting System from LaserLyte. This neat little device allows me to get my scope on paper at 25-yards, and more often than not, I’ve been dead-on with my scope after using the Laser Bore Sighter. this system consist of a laser device that you stick in the end of your barrel, and you turn it on. Aim your rifle at the special target that is included with the system, and place it on the bullseye, then adjust the crosshairs of you scope, to match the laser’s red dot on the target. More often than not, when I head up to my shooting spot to live-fire the rifle, the shots are hitting exactly where the crosshairs are aimed. It’s a very quick and easy system to use. However, you must remember to remove the laser from the end of your bore before firing live ammo, if you don’t you will blow your gun up – simple as that. The Laser Bore Sighting System has saved me a lot of money in ammo, and the darn thing just works simply.

What I like best about LaserLyte products is that they are affordable. And, compared to the cheap imports that sell for less money, the LaserLyte lasers work as advertised and will last a long, long time. I’ve tried some of the cheap Chinese imported lasers that cost $ 25 and they are junk, don’t waste your money on ‘em. Get something from LaserLyte that will suit your needs and work when it’s supposed to work. Lasers aren’t just "toys" any longer. They are a worthwhile addition to your firearms. – SurvivalBlog Field Gear Editor Pat Cascio