So the economy is failing.

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Inventor, have you tried Oregon? Land is cheap, and not just in the deserts, you can have an acre of forest for $7k in some places. Soil is iffy, but you can always build raised beds. You can have chickens and rabbits, although rabbits often require outside inputs (hay, alfalfa) that is grown elsewhere, so they may not be doable in a long term survival situation. A chicken will eat practically anything though. I plan to move to Klamath County, Oregon, and establish myself on a little bit of land.

You are talking about a course of action that will kill about 80 - 90 percent of the current population.

Little freeholds will not support an urban culture, and urban cultures is where the ideas are generated.

You are essentially recommending that we go back to a chicken sh*t and granola culture.

No thank you. I like technology and science.

ruveyn

Well it seems people kept farms and hunted animals before their was currency..One would have to live off the land, or attempt. Where I live there are the mountains lots of forests and not all habited land. Farming probably would not be the best option in that climate though aside from maybe gardens in the spring other then that hunting would have to take place and there is plenty to hunt in the mountains.

And where have I claimed any of it would be easy.

I grow a good percentage of my food,but the last two years have had us in severe drought with temps over 100,even if you have the water blossoms drop on a lot of plants when it gets over 90. So even the best laid plans(of mice and men) don't always pan out.A big garden takes more work than most people know,amd there's pests and disease problems.Just because you plant it dos'nt mean you'll get to eat it.But I think everyone should try to grow some food.Even people with limited space can container grow.One of the best small gardens I've ever seen was on a deck,no animals up there to eat the stuff amd since it was in sterile potting soil very few pests and diseases.And unless you build a really good chicken coop,well everything in the world enjoys a chicken dinner,especially the neighbors dog.If you heat with wood expect to get plenty of exercise every day keeping the fires going,the heater dos'nt load itself.And you'll need to climb on the roof amd clean the flue out.Expect lots of ash residue and prices of bark in the house.And depending on where you live power outages in bad weather that can last weeks.So if you have an electric water pump you better have some water stored up.And keep lots amd lots of toilet paper,you can go without alot of things but this is not one.I've seen plenty of dreamers move here and they seem to last about seven years then they burn out.Research any area before you move there,and while I don't mean to bad mouth real estate agents,you are better off trying to make friends with the local people in the area you like and ask them about property for sale.The old timers are great for gardening advice,they love to share their wisdom.

The trend to urban has been recent. No matter the hype, urban is not a fountain of culture, it is a blight. Cities have been tried before, it always fails. Greeks, Romans, were in ruins thousands of years ago, and the survivors on isolated small farms.

The longer the supply chain, the more places it can break.

As for farming, it is more than throwing out some seeds, and nothing grows everywhere. Look to the area for what will grow, and where it is going. The last few hot summers killed my flowers. They had food, water, and died of sunburn. Like the desert, where shade is planted, palms, olives beneath them, apricots, then grain, what works works, and experiments mostly fail.

Some of it is good, those dust bowl farmers, the drought lands where corn failed, will not starve to death. Trucking in hay and water save the cattle. The profit may be gone, but the loss reduced. If it comes back, the rains, the grass, they might survive. As is having to sell is driving down the price of beef, but future prices will go up because the herds are being reduced.

A working farm that can sell into the existing market will find that anything can be produced for less than your cost. It will cost more to raise your own chicken, than you can buy the eggs and meat for. There is a market edge where free range bug fed chicken sells for more.

Where it works, an acre, eight city lots, can produce more than a family can eat. Gardening is hard, but if the soil is worked first, tractors, manure, cover crops, it can become light, loose, rich, and with mulch, a slow compost pile that holds moisture, stays workable. Good fence, better walls, raised beds, and a misting system, can check high heat, prevent frost, counter drought.

The cost to put an acre into ultimate production is low. Our best grain producing lands sell for $1300 an acre, in larger tracts, but in the east where it still rains, $3,000 an acre, in small tracts. Manure is available locally, as is tractor hire, trucking, and a truckload of wheat straw.

That will take care of the long term Nitrogen need, Phosphorours and Potassium need to be brought up to proper levels, and trace elements brought into balance. Plant a few cover crops of Rye, plow it in, maybe Chick peas, plow deeper, subsoil with a chisel plow, more manure, mulch with wheat straw, and your acre becomes a living thing.

The goal is growing soil bacteria, which have short lives, and that actually produce the food plants can use. Most of this work is done by machines.

This will support another cycle, mulch with cardboard, which worms love. and you have an ideal worm habitat. They will work your soil, bring worm casting to the surface, bring air in to the soil, improve drainage, and feed chickens.

It still needs to be fenced, or walled, deer will jump a six foot fence, try a crossbow from the kitchen window. Every plant pest is still around, the climate is horrible, but giving your plants the best chance to grow fast and strong, you will get some crops.

What works to produce a productive soil also produces Nematodes, Cut Worms, and attracts moths looking to lay eggs. Some crops, Marigolds, Chillies, Garlic, repel some pests. This is where local information about pests, companion planting, and methods, makes all the differance.

There is no one way, we live in Micro Climates, Biospheres, that change year to year. In some places you can get 40 tons of cabbage per acre, in others the Cabbage Moth does.

Plant a mixed garden, some of it will survive, some thrive, and some we do not grow here. Some attracts so many bugs, plant it in the chicken yard.

An acre is huge in to keep it with a fork, turning the light soil, taking out the old planting, planting new, working a 100 square foot a day, it would take more than a year to go over it once. Add composting and mulch, weeding, yelling at crows, it is a job. It is also more than is needed to feed a lot of people.

We think of food, but garden wastes are food for chickens, a cow, pig, which all taste better than compost. They also destroy garden pests by eating them. Compost is less effective. It is better at reprocessing animal wastes.

The Chinese are known for supporting eleven people on a half acre.

So a developed acre is more work than one person would want, could be produced for under $10,000, or $5,000, and would feed ten people. We work less and eat more than the Chinese.

The Capital Cost per person fed is $1,000, with ongoing upkeep and labor costs. A Job.

I have mentioned The Barefoot Farmer, north of Nashville. He farms five to eight acres, presells his crop, which he delivers to the Farmers market. He is bringing in $100,000 a year, in advance.

That is $15,000-$20,000 per acre, which is ten people who pay $200 a month for fresh produce.

It is by subscription only, and all of the U-Pick places I have heard of are the same, production sold for years in advance.

It is a workable model of basic production, with a ratio of dirt farmer to Science and technology workers, or bar tenders, of 9 to 1.

This is the real economy, everything else is built on.

Too bad most of us will die before we get to enjoy it.

ruveyn

Yes, you do. I plant a garden every year, neglect it terribly, and still get loads of cucumbers. Imagine if I actually tried.

You must live in an area that dos'nt have cucumber beetles,lucky you.

That dying part is disruptive. I see a technology trend, where most people were involved in primary food production, like 99%, forever.

Starting 150 years ago with McCormic's Reaper, Whitney's Cotton Gin, the percent of the population needed for food production dropped, creating a surplus of unemployed farm workers who were resettled in cities, with factory jobs, and cheap gin.

They did produce, and thank you for the steel, the autos, and what were cheap at the time consumer goods. Also the tractors, combines, that made for vast increased production of food.

That also came with even less people producing more. At the least, only 2-3% were involved in food production. It is good in that we came up with more other jobs, education, health care, but bad in it consolidated ownership, and produced a standard product, based on cheap oil.

A great plan meets drought, and Oklahoma is blowing away because they plowed and tilled for the winter wheat planting. Bad move, directed by some office in New York no doubt. As a farmer on my land, no till drilling a clover cover crop and get a job off the farm.

It is the same that Rome did, demanding that all land was farmed every year, till they turned the whole basin into sand.

We are in luck that there are small farm districts not worth the corporate investment, that can still produce, with cities close by that will buy. We also have structual unemployment, long term, and could use another twenty million jobs.

Some things it will help, more rural employment, local, taxes, greater food security, land use, and some things will suffer, millions leaving the cities for farm life.

The suburban commuter seems endangered with higher fuel prices. The new urbanites do not even have cars. Farmers markets are popping up all over, and finding both buyers and sellers.

Stories from the Barefoot Farmer, loading his truck he stops for gas and makes a half dozen sales, people want it fresh from the truck local. Making his way to the farmers market, his regulars say, what is that? Kolrabi, Bok Choy, they get developed as foodies, and talk to their family, friends, co workers.

Back in the small town, he produces more than he can sell, so he loads a truck of the less than perfect, and makes a slow tour of the poor part of town, selling some, giving some away, talking food, and it is turning to more sales.

He also has a route of old poor people he brings produce, just because, and their neighbors come out to buy. His farm is a few miles away, prices are much lower than the 75 mile haul to Nashville. Prices get lower as the truck gets empty. The last is given away.

A local hotel has a big Sunday Buffet, he supplies the greens. Several better Nashville restaurants, and he is a food bank that delivers. There is a lot of social involvment, everyone supports him.

The City of Nashville looked to locate their sewer works and land fill on some undeveloped land. The locals objected, asked The Barefoot Farmer for help, and started organic gardens. Everyone sells what they produce, and the market grows, also, Nashville changed it's mind, and would rather be ringed by organic farms. It is the most desireable land use.

It is a trend just starting, it will grow for a generation or more.

While we do know some mechanical aspects of growing plants, preparing the ground, developing lively soil bacteria, worms to eat them, and that is the step that becomes plant food, we know hardly anything about the biological world beneath our feet. There are thousands of species of molds, bacteria, fungi, worms, and who knows what living in cycles unknown.

There is much more biomatter beneath the soil than above it. Good farming is making it active, but we really do not know what is going on. Tetnus, Anthrax, are in there, also Penicillen, most of the antibiotics, and how they live, who eats whom, or their by or decay products, would be a great study.

Composting selects for the thermophilic, kills everything else, and reduces organic matter like fire when it gets going. Methane gas has been used to grow pure cultures of bacteria, with the food value of meat. Natural yeast make beer and wine.

For something we use, depend on, it is unstudied. One bacteria eats oil, others plastics, and our land fill problems could be feed stock for an extractive process to reduce them.

This thin film of living topsoil is the driving wheel of life.

One hundred and fifty years ago the average age of death for Americans was under 60 years.

There was little or no treatment for infectious diseases.

Infant mortality was high.

Is that what you want to go back to?

ruveyn

In 2007 when I told people how bad the coming recession in America was going to be, they thought I did not have a clue. And truth be told they were right, it is worse than I thought.

Unemployment is not improved at all and corporate profits are very much up.



As far as male employment levels, the numbers are worse.
[img][800:600]http://thenextrecession.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/image001.gif[/img]

The real unemployment rate, around 20%
[img][800:700]http://guerby.org/images/bls-men-25-54-200912.png[/img]

http://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_mcafee_ ... _jobs.html

The reasons have to do with technology, automation and globalization. The bad news is job growth may be on an ongoing decline.
Forget about politicians helping, as far as I can tell they will do nothing or often make things worse. The politics are such that anything that will help is non PC. Bribing with EBT cards and other entitlements, all a politician has to do is maintain the illusion he is the source of this. Its a modern version of the Roman bread and circuses. Now its EBT cards and mass media entertainment.

There is lots of change going on, it is for the most part on the very edge of any mainstream media awareness and not politically popular.

The politicians say we have been in recovery and we hear of various versions of QE, the latest "QE3". And as you know wadges are down, jobs are are down and things are costing more like gasoline. All that "QE" money just goes into stock market speculation (where else can the rich put their extra money?), It does not make more American jobs or wealth for the average middle class American.

The election is like choosing between horse sh*t and cow sh*t, its really all the same thing with a different label.

I agree, my numbers are peak economic activity, and peak population.

Economic activity replaced farm labor as a means of getting food, a house, but workers were no longer owners, and the rise of the machine produced more for the owners. Corporate profits are up.

The Stock Market is owned by Pension Funds, which are still a Trillion under funded, and backstopped by, The United States Government.

Social Security is not funded, unless you count IOUs from, The United States Government.

The removal of Glass-Seagal Act, let banks put deposits into the stock market, sell securities based on mortgages, which lead to having to remove Mark to Market Accounting, as the banks are far beyond bankrupt.

A thousand small banks have been closed, but out of 8,000, the top ten hold 95% of deposit debt, and losing positions in the stock market and mortgages. The Federal Reserve has been giving them free money for years, they still owe much more than they are worth.

It has been mentioned that Corporations are sitting on a Trillion cash. Less often mentioned is their $5 Trillion debt. Earnings are down, and except for being propped up in the market to support Pension Funds, their true value would show in lower stock prices.

The Major Banks, and the Fortune 500, are Zombies!

The Federal Reserve has been moving a debt crater onto thier books, which is fiction, for it joins the ever growing national debt crater.

Banks and Brokers leverage investments, Lehman was at 43 times assets, which magnifies profits and losses. So it is not just bad debts that are worth 50%, a mortgage in Nevada, it is a 99% loss, from putting 2% down, plus a 50% loss from the asset. Then there is the ongoing interest on the original debt, and being stuck paying taxes, utilities, insurance, upkeep.

Giving the property away to someone who would pay the cost of upkeep, would do nothing to reduce the debt owed on funds to buy, That is Bond Debt, which has nothing to do with the real estate. Bonds are insured, so a failure to pay from one part of the system, call for immediate total payment from another.

Commercial Property is in much worse shape. Shopping Malls have been closing at a rate of five a day. Walmart + Internet Shopping, the price of gas, lower consumer demand, local retailing is dead.

Government can only cut employment. Upkeep of streets, sewers, water, garbage, comes before fire, police, teachers, and your cousin who works in a back office is next. Paying the pensions for war babies will take all tax income for the next twenty years. It also calls for going ever deeper in debt, as the cost of running the government is already beyond tax income.

Monitize The Debt, a little inflation, like one new dollar is worth half an old dollar, would send oil to $200, or higher, and while it might make the pensions payable, at 50% off, it would make the banks debt go from 40 times assets, to 39. The National Debt would continue to grow as everything would cost twice as much.

The next problem is the group this debt falls on, the birth controlled and aborted generation, who we educated, who expect life to make sense, or not get a passing grade. We told you about the Tooth Fairy, Santa, The Easter Bunny, American Exceptionalism, God, and swore it was all true. We also stuck you with a Trillion in Student Loan debt.

Now we are sticking you with a National Debt soon over $20 Trillion, picking up the Social Security and Pension shortfall, $40 Trillion, and an ongoing Bank Bailout, $100 Trillion. After that you can pay for the cost of keeping the world you live in running, and your own retirement.

Unless you are male, then your future is to be unemployed for life.

No one planned this, it is what happens when no one plans for the future, where will we be in twenty years? Politics that thinks beyound the next election does not get reelected.

The future is a slippery concept for most. It takes thinking, knowledge, and as The Elder Bush put it, That Vision Thing. It also has hundreds of Trolls ready to say that will not work, leaving out the reasons why as being obvious.

For one, the future is free. Having a vision of what you want it to contain, and some effort, investment, that stuff will be there when the future becomes now. The future that became the present is due to a lack of planning for the future.

Based on topsoil is the source of all life, I am a Dirtist. It is proven that Dirt responds to being fed and cared for with food, and food has shown a constant demand over the ages. Labor for food is the shortest supply chain, least likely to fail, and the ability to feed ten times your number makes food production through Dirt Worship the One True Religion.

With a projected half of all men unemployed for the forseeable future, being able to trade labor for food expands the manpower applied to Dirtism. Ten men can feed a hundred, we have something of an economy.

As long as people eat it is sound, and it has the functions of Banker and Broker, where without debt leverage, those with assets can invest in dirt, knowing it will be put in production, loved, cared for, kept secure in a ever hungry world, which is more than I can say for Stocks, Bonds, and Bank Deposits.

In the current world situation, preserving wealth is the only game. An acre is worth more than all the Worldcom, Enron Stock.

It does take some expert knowledge, starting takes lots of labor, investment, but once put in production, it becomes self supporting, much less labor, and continues to improve through the years.

It's your future.

It's good to learn about wild foods,free for the gathering.I have Black Walnuts,Hickory nuts and wild Hazel nuts.There are persimmons,paw-paws,blackberries,wild strawberries,wild grapes,wild plums,wild gooseberries and green stuff like Poke Sallet,bear grass,lambsquaters,wild onions and watercress.The bears and I have a dispute over the berries.There's a fishing hole below the house and if you hunt there are Deer,Turkey,Black Bear and squirrel.I don't care too much for raccoon or rabbit meat and I don't hunt but if I had to or starve I could.I've helped my son(who is a responsible hunter)clean and process wild game.
I don't want to be without modern medicine or my wi-fi but the more food you grow or harvest better health for you and more money in your pocket.Happy Foraging!

- net earning on exports minus payment for exports
- earnings on foreign investments minus payments made to foreign investors

List of sovereign states by current account balance 2011 numbers
1 China                       280.600
2 Saudi Arabia            151.400
3 Germany                  149.300
4 Japan                       122.800
5 Russia                      90.510
6 Switzerland              76.700


192 United States      -473.900

[img][800:820]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Cumulative_Current_Account_Balance.png[/img]

We are living luxury off the last 200 years & off the Dollar as the worlds reserve currency. Like the children of wealth.

Interest expense vs INCOME will rise
7% interest on debt is a joke, our WAM (weighted average maturity) is short duration, and interest rates are at record lows!
We are effectively running an ARM (adjustable rate mortgage) on our entire public economy



Housing will not bottom when interest rates bottom. Housing bottoms when interest rates top!! ! People buy payments not prices. Nobody cares about the price of there house, only the payments-to-value!
Majority of Broke US consumers are still long US housing on hope. No hope!

Why am I worried??
The Complete misallocation of resources!
FED is the direct cause of this. Like the housing crises they are causing a crises now. The crises of misallocation of valuable capitol, penalizing savings and building. Encouraging consumption, cronyism and entitlements.
0% CD rates who would save when inflation (CPI) is reported at 1.5%
Real inflation is above 1.5%

Savings is what fuels an economy! Savings is needed for building and industry.

Consumption is the result/fruit of savings and productive workings, not the driver of prosperity.



Asset values increase (direct result of QE $ printing). Chart of the Dow Jones 30
[img][800:287]http://socionika.com/images/2012-10-23-TOS_CHARTS.png[/img]
Paycheck to paycheck people suffer (energy up food up, not in CPI but as a result of $ printing)
A weaker dollar shown by the Dollar Index
[img][800:477]http://socionika.com/images/2012-10-23-dx.png[/img]

Bottom line life is harder for most Americans. For wealthy aristocrats and nimble stock derivative traders life is better.

Last edited by DoodleDoo on 26 Oct 2012, 5:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I favor some cronyism.

Historical, it never worked, but we grew our way out of it.

It is the demographic of a smaller generation having to carry the load, and the loss of housing wealth, and global economics.

Our current problem, no Americans trained for the available jobs, because Education has become a political/social cause.

A 1% investment in Science does not make for a National Tech Company.

The other side of that is Robots, which are the ultimate manufacturing model. Something like a 90% workforce reduction in autos.

We did the same in food production.

Computers since the 90s have reduced the need for office workers, office buildings, retail sales, Malls.

At the same time due to Social Education being being written into Labor Law, employing people has become hazardous. There is a quadapaligic lawyer in California who has sued thousands of businesses for not being suited to his needs. He wins under the law, they go out of business, lots of people lose their jobs.

15,000,000 people are here just because they crossed the border at night. There is a lot of turnover, they live cheap, avoid taxes, and send their earnings out of the country. They are also the network that brings in drugs, which sends a lot more money out of the country.

I formed a Corporation to hold a Patent, no other assets, and got a local tax bill for $2400, and for two years prior, with fines for non payment. It was over $10,000, but they were willing to put me on a payment plan. I told them they could sue the Corporation, as it was no longer my personal property.

Faced with taking the Corporation to court they dropped the matter.

New small employers are the profit center of fines from all levels of government. Paying all off, the National, State, taxes, Unemployment, Use Taxes, things you never heard of, will get your bank account blocked, without notice or a Court Ruling. Employers are guilty until proven innocent, and have to pay the demands first to stay in business.

All employees taxes must be fully paid, and the company must pay in advance, projected taxes. That same first quarter payment could have been spent on deductable items, like another employee.

Business planning has come down to avoiding being sued, avoiding being taxed, Fined, and nothing stops the likes of the locals who sent me a tax bill for holding a Patent. If the Corporation had a bank account, they would have taken it. It would be up to me to get a lawyer and spend years proving I owed nothing.

To avoid that at a Local and State level, I bank out of State. Many people bank in the Caymans, or Bermuda, which do uphold the Constitution, which says, "No person may be deprived of property without due process of law in a court of competent jurisdiction." According to the tax man, they can take your bank account until you prove otherwise, years later, without being able to use your own funds to do so. If you own a Corporation, they will put Liens on your Personal Property, because you might be guilty of something. An Asset Freeze is economic death.

If someone drains the oil out of my car, I am guilty under the same laws as the BP Spill, and not taking the precaution of having a locking oil drain plug, I am guilty.

Government reduces this to saying Small Business wants less regulation.

They acted and deregulated Wall Street, where the old limit on debt to assets was 8, and it was over 40 when the market crashed.

No matter who wins the election, I am still subject to two train loads of ever changing regulation. I am on a level playing field with Bank of America and Exxon. My old method, I do not make a profit, I pay to work here, but I do get more assets, is no longer safe.

The economy is like watching a slow motion train wreck. Debt will lead to higher interest rates, and the 7% now paid at 1.75%, becomes 21% at 5%. Cutting future Social Security will do nothing, the war babies paid in, they will get paid.

Government spending already exceeds income, it will only get worse.

Almost all of the war babies will die broke. This will leave a smaller generation with a huge debt.

The International Dollar did lift billions out of total poverty, but export economies cannot survive without customers. Also, the world population is still growing, faster than economic development. Africa, South America, South Asia, are the worst economies, and where the next doubling of the population is happening.

Food production has reached it's limits, when the most land ever was put in production, and in Argentina, Australia, The US, drought followed. Water has become the defining issue, and the old projection was we run out of enough in 2040. Drought, Global Warming, has brought that much closer.

In less than ten years there will be a worldwide breakdown. There will be no way to fix it. Like the drop in housing, down by half and not recovering. Half of food, water, income, with a growing population. Everything except food becomes worthless.

Worldwide famine, survivors you would not like to be around, a loss of consumers, finance, and international markets.

In the history of famines, they do not last long. The die off comes in a matter of months. After that, there is excess food, production, consumer goods, which causes economic death.

The recovery can take generations, if the climate is good. Dust bowl and drought, the famine passes, then comes generations of starvation.

Rome vanished, the people died, and the scar they left on the land is still there. Lands fertile for thousands of years are now barren. Farmed till the top soil blew away, the rains quit falling, rivers dried up.

People mostly died, there was still not enough to support life. 600 years passed before another book was written.

The famines in Russia and China in the 30s killed more people than WWII.

So did the 1918 Flu.

So a few rural acres, some truck loads of manure, a five gallon bucket of heritage seeds, an owner built hovel, and maybe you can miss history.

I plan on missing it.