Mobility within the Matrix

(Excerpted from Chapter 4: Transportation: Stickin’ it to the Matrix)

America has the worst public transportation system in the world. As such, we have become a car culture to the extreme. When you are ready to make that run for rural America, you will need a car.

In the meantime, if you are living in a city with decent public transportation or with good bike lanes, consider selling your car. You’ll save lots of money on gas, insurance and maintenance. You can use the proceeds from the car to pay off your credit card debts and bolster your savings account grubstake.

Because you’ll be walking and biking more, you can cancel that gym membership, because your whole life will become predicated on good exercise. Your mind will learn to slow down with the more natural pace of walking, liberating your brain from another of the matrix programmers’ tools, which is to constantly speed us up.

You’ll also see things that you never would have seen out of a car window. We spent the last two summers – one in Missoula, MT and one in Spearfish, SD – without a car. It was awesome.

Our friends Gene and Jo, who live in Missoula, are in their late 70’s and they still refuse to buy a car. They bike everywhere and take the bus in winter if the weather is bad.

When you go too fast, you make bad decisions. Often you spend money on some needless item when, if you had the time, you could have achieved your aim another way. This feeds matrix corporations and erodes your grubstake.

If you live in or near a town, but your abode is a long way from work, a 49 CC scooter can also be a good choice. These things can be bought for around $500 brand new. You don’t need insurance and you don’t even need to register the thing in most states. And they get up to 100 MPG.

If you need to travel cross country, check the auto driveaway option I mentioned earlier. Universities often have “ride boards” where you can catch a lift or offer a ride to a certain destination. Craigslist also has a section for this. Gas is customarily split, making the ride cheaper for everyone.

If you can’t score a lift in any of these ways, the notorious Greyhound is your next best car-less option. Make sure to buy your ticket 14 days in advance to get the best deal. It’s literally cheaper than driving.

Yes, you’ll run into some crazy-ass people, but as the economy has headed south and gas prices have soared, more “ordinary” folks are taking the bus as well.

About ten years ago, the Greyhound monopoly cut many smaller towns from its routes. As a result, access is more limited, buses are more crammed and the overall experience has become, well, rather hellish. But it’s cheap, funny and you’ll meet some good folks along the way, maybe even develop empathy for their collectively impoverished condition.

If you need to fly, you’ll need to plan ahead. Courier flights used to be a great cheap way to travel, but post-911 they are virtually non-existent. Still, if you do your planning, your next flight can be FREE.

The best plan nowadays is to visit the various frequent flier sections of the major airline websites. Due to matrix merger mania, there are now only three in the domestic market – Delta Sky Miles, United Mileage Plus and American Advantage.

Go to the “Earn Miles” section under each of these frequent flier sections and see what’s on offer. Ordinarily, you will be offered 25,000 to 40,000 miles just for signing up for a credit card connected to the various programs.

Most times you get the miles by simply using the card once. Buy a candy bar, wait for the miles to show up in your frequent flier account and then call in to cancel the card. Tell them you have too many credit cards, which you do if you have more than that one Visa card I talked about earlier.

The miles will show up in your frequent flier account within six weeks. With good planning, 25,000 miles gets you a free roundtrip ticket anywhere in the US. Book the seats at their website to avoid paying a fee reserving by phone. Also, check the advance requirements. Some airlines, like United, will charge you $80 each way if you book less than 21 days in advance.

One winter I got bored and systematically went after all the miles I could accumulate. The next winter my wife and I flew roundtrip from St. Louis to Buenos Aires, Argentina. We did a three-country loop of Argentina, Chile and Uruguay.

We drank good wine, ate top-notch tenderloin, viewed penguins in the South Pacific and visited the awesome Iguazu Falls. Our flights were had for 50,000 miles each, which I had racked up doing the matrix credit card shuffle. They were FREE!

Make a habit of constantly acquiring these miles and you’ll fly free for the rest of your life. I just got 30,000 more miles last week by applying for the exact same card I had gotten another 30,000 miles for and canceled three months ago.

The thing you must remember about the matrix is that for all its blow about invincibility, it is actually extremely dumb, very slow and easily subdued.

You can also get newspaper and magazine subscriptions, Omaha Steaks, fine chocolates and a bunch of other cool stuff using airline miles. Many times in my life I’ve had the Wall Street Journal delivered to my door for free. Since this is one of the primary Illuminati mouthpieces in the world, reading it is a great way to track and document their crimes.

The key to the credit card shuffle is to stay on top of it. Use the card once, pay off the balance and cancel it immediately so you don’t forget to do it later. The cards on offer all have annual fees starting in the second year. The first year is waived, but the banksters are counting on you to forget to cancel the card so they can stick you with the annual fee in perpetuity. If the first-year fee is not waived, don’t apply for the card.

Using public transportation is great – it’s a good thing to do and it’s economical. But America is a car culture and eventually you’re going to buy a car. Next to housing, this is the most important economic decision you’ll have to make in your life. And you’ll have to do it many times over, so you might as well make the extra effort to get good at it.

I use the same rules when buying cars as I do in procuring a house. Pay cash and look for a below-book-value deal that you can drive awhile and still make out on when you sell it later.

Most people automatically take out a loan to buy a car. This is a huge mistake. Interest payments, no matter how small, make you a debtor. You now must scramble to make this additional payment every month.

Equally usurious, is the full coverage insurance you’ll be required to have any time you finance a vehicle. If you buy your car for cash, you have the option of purchasing only the bare minimum liability car insurance required by state law. I pay about $120 every six months for car insurance. If I had full coverage, I’d pay closer to $350 every six months.

GEICO has the cheapest car insurance.

This leads to another reason why you should NEVER buy a brand new car. With prices on new cars surging, buying a new car becomes even more of a trap. Even if you pay cash for it, you would feel the need to get full coverage insurance since you feel like you paid LOTS of cash for it and want to protect your “investment”.

But if you buy a used car with a much lower book value, you will be more comfortable just getting liability insurance.

This leads me to the next reason never to buy a new car. It’s a very bad “investment”. The moment you drive it off the lot, the value will go down $5,000 or more.

When my wife moved in with me more than twenty years ago, she was driving a Mazda 626 that she bought brand new. We were broke and headed for Japan and she still had large car and full coverage insurance notes to pay on it.

When I first suggested that she sell it, she said, “Yeah but that’s a new car”.

I said, “Honey, sorry to break the news, but that is now most definitely a used car”.

She sold it and made more than enough to pay off what she owed. We were down to my 63’ Rambler station wagon, which I had traded for a .22 rifle and fixed the clutch on. I had earlier paid off her credit cards on the condition that she cut all up but one and with the extra money left over from selling her car, we became debt free.

We were bound for Japan so we drove the Rambler back to South Dakota where we visited my mom. The starter was going and Jill didn’t know how to pop the clutch on the 3-speed to get it going on the fly.

All the way across Montana, I parked at the top of inclines whenever I shut the engine down. That way I could roll down hill, pop the clutch and start the engine.

But there are no hills to park on in the flatlands that is Faulkton, SD. I’ll never forget the looks of mom’s neighbors peeping out their curtained windows to watch my beautiful bride-to-be pushing that wagon down the street so I could pop the clutch and start it.

We sold the Rambler for $500 to a collector from Minneapolis who came all the way to Faulkton to buy it. We hopped a Greyhound to Kansas City and flew off to Japan to get our grubstake.

Generally, you want to take one of two strategies when buying a car. If you’re young, consider buying that proverbial $500 – $1000 beater car. I’ve done this many times and if you inspect it well and take your time buying, you can get a dependable rig for a good price.

As I’ve gotten older and cars have gotten more difficult (by design) to work on, I’ve gone to buying late model cars only a few years old. Here, look for a gem car model hidden within an auto industry laggard.

The car I’m driving now is a 2007 Suzuki SX4. It’s the only subcompact all-wheel drive available in the US. It’s got a big hatchback, so I can haul large items. The private road we live at the end of is steep and rough, so it’s great to have the 4-wheel-drive option. And I’ve gotten 39 MPG on the highway with it.

Suzuki is not known for making great cars, but unlike the rest of the Suzuki line – which is made in Korea – the SX4 is made entirely in Japan where it is the most popular car to drive, outselling all Toyota and Honda models there.

I checked for online reviews of the car. All gave it good marks and were pleasantly surprised by this diamond in the rough. I checked the KBB book value – as you should always do when buying or selling a car – and found that the car booked at over $10,000. With a few barely noticeable hail dings, his asking price was $6,995.

Because of the hail dings and the Suzuki name, we got it for $6,500. We’ve driven it almost a year now and love it. The KBB book on it is still $9,300, so any time I want to sell it I can actually make a profit.

NEVER BUY FROM A CAR DEALER!

This bunch is one of the lowest invertebrates- along with insurance salesmen – taking up space on this planet. Pathological liar seems to be a prerequisite for these callings.

Car dealers buy cars from individuals and auctions. They simply detail the car, mark it up astronomically, and sell it to you. Worse yet, they give you a pittance for your trade-in, which you should also never do. Sell your car outright and buy another one the same way.

If you think that buying a used car from a dealer is “safer”, you’re wrong. Unless you’re given a written warranty, these shysters will no more fix your blown engine than would a private seller.

Do what a dealer does. Check your area for wholesale car auctions. We bought a Toyota minivan in Los Angeles this way after we returned from Japan.

Look into “salvage title” cars. In 2006, I bought a 2005 Ford Focus with 21,000 miles on it. It booked at over $10,000. I got it for $5,850 cash – a figure just low enough that I didn’t have to worry about purchasing full coverage insurance.

The car came out of Memphis and probably belonged to a drug dealer. An adversary had attempted to stick a rag into the gas tank and start it on fire. The fire went out, so only the rear quarter panel and some sensors needed replacing. Still, the insurance company was forced to total it. Enter the salvage title dealer, who got it for a song, easily fixed it, made a buck and passed his savings along to me.

When buying these salvage title cars you must make sure that the damage done to the car isn’t serious. The main thing is to make sure it doesn’t have engine, transmission or frame damage. If it does, you’ll know when you drive it. Also, look for uneven tire wear, though this doesn’t always work since the dealer can change out tires easily.

If in doubt, get a CARFAX. If not in doubt, don’t waste your money. I’ve never bought one.

I look at a car just like I look at everything else. When I buy one, the goal is to be able to drive it awhile and resell it for almost as much or more than I paid.

This premise is radically different from what most people do, which is to throw tens of thousands of dollars down the “shiny new financed car” hole through a lifetime.

In this world you must try to sell as much as you buy. In these modern urbanized times this will never be fully achieved, but to the extent you can close the gap, you will be increasingly liberated from the matrix.

Three other points about cars:

(1 It is far cheaper to own just one car at a time if you can help it. My wife and I share a car and we live in the middle of nowhere. Of course this may not be possible until you’ve shit-canned your “jobs”.

(2 You should buy a car that gets a minimum of 30 miles per gallon. Don’t buy into the “safety” argument about small cars. Don’t buy a pickup or SUV unless you own a 50,000 acre cattle ranch in Wyoming, in which case you may actually need one. With regards to all other prospective “urban cowboys”, I can often be heard muttering contemptuously, “Big truck, little dick”, as they pass. Grow up!

(3 Avoid fairly old cars that still cost lots of money. That means avoid anything 2000-2005 that costs any more than a couple thousand dollars. These newer, but not new, cars aren’t built as good as older ones and are a beast to work on.

Some good cars to look at in the beater class include the mid 80’s to mid 90’s Geo Metro, Subaru Justy, Ford Fiesta, Volkswagen Rabbit diesel and Plymouth Horizon. Pay no more than $1000 and closer to $500.

I once owned a 1988 Chevy Sprint – the precursor to the Metro. It was a 3-cylinder and got 55 MPG. They don’t even make 3-cylinder cars anymore. Curious isn’t it?

Otherwise buy a car that is no more than five years old and has no more then 60,000 miles on it. Craigslist can be a good place to find one of these. Local estate auctions can sometimes be even better than the wholesale auctions, since many people are there to buy other stuff and not to buy that one late model car on the block.

Good driving habits equal higher gas mileage. Starts and stops should be gradual, not sudden. A lower gear should be used when in hilly terrain. Inflate your tires near the maximum level.

Most people believe the myth that you should under-inflate your tires to be “safe”. Actually this increases you chances of a blowout and vastly decreases your gas mileage. But at least the Illuminati oil barons will be happy.

Most car tires today say “Max 44 PSI”. I run mine at around 40. Do you really think the matrix tire corporations would risk being sued if 44 PSI was one bit dangerous?

Dean Henderson is the author of four books: Big Oil & Their Bankers in the Persian Gulf: Four Horsemen, Eight Families & Their Global Intelligence, Narcotics & Terror Network, The Grateful Unrich: Revolution in 50 Countries, Das Kartell der Federal Reserve & Stickin’ it to the Matrix. You can subscribe free to his weekly Left Hook column @ www.deanhenderson.wordpress.com

Filed under: Left Hook Columns Tagged: Big Oil & Their Bankers, buying a car, Dean Henderson, Left Hook, Stickin’ it to the Matrix, The Grateful Unrich