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February 22, 2008 at 06:50:05
Depression + Inflation + Famine = Chaos! by Michael Fox Page 1 of 1 page(s) |
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Oftentimes it seems so inconceivable that we could have come to this place, yet here is exactly what we are facing, right now: Depression in the housing market; retail inflation (due entirely to the price of oil and the plummeting dollar), credit availability all but shut down, and today we discover that grain stores are at their lowest point since they began measuring in 1960: 53 days. According to the CEO of Potash Corp., the Canadian fertilizer giant, if there is any disruption to this year’s grain harvest, the world will be facing famine in 2009. And this is not a question of the rock-concert-for-third-world-countries famine, folks. He is describing global shortages of wheat. Food prices are already on the rise; with grain shortages, will surely come hoarding and hyperinflation in food. If you think times are getting tough, add a real food shortage. Now it’s time to grow backyard farms (Victory Gardens) – in fact it’s not at all a bad idea. You can’t eat grass (even in a brownie), so you may re-think the practicality of planting vegetables where your hydrangeas are. Who do we have to thank for this latest stunning fright-fest? Well, I would start with the laser beam on the agribusiness monster that has lobbied for years to convert thousands of hectares of American farmland to corn and keep the government subsidies coming. Surely you’ve seen commercials for ADM, “Supermarket to the World” - not that you are or even could be a direct consumer responding to their ads. So why do they run TV commercials during the Newshour? The answer is simple: it buys them a pass on reasoned discussion that might interfere with their agendas, for example, the decade-long touting of E-85 ethanol as the panacea to fuel shortages and import dependency (while providing 30% worse mileage!). Buying, in essence, the national discourse (as well as through tireless and costly lobbying) allowed them to muscle through acceptance of this ridiculous product that benefits nobody other than ADM (while giving GM a claim to lower emissions). But the result of their success is now a lot of low-power ethanol cars (a “Flex-fuel” Chevy Impala, for example will get you 18 mpg on gasoline, but only 14 on ethanol – great, no?), rather than focusing on real high-mileage vehicles. But with all that non-food-grade corn being used to make ethanol, there are now reductions in food stocks of both corn and wheat. 
On the other end of the food chain, 60 Minutes recently reported that high-tech fishing in the Mediterranean has succeeded in nearly depleting the Tuna population, which is estimated to have about two years left at the present rate of depletion. Similar under-regulated over-fishing is depleting the remaining available wild salmon in the American Northwest and Canada - though the Bush Administration’s Dept. of the Interior has - as with any other statistic unfavorable to their agenda - changed the method of counting salmon stock to include farmed salmon (you know, the stuff that has to have its gray meat dyed pink)! Voila! No shortages anymore – keep on fishing, Babe!
So, not a single week has gone by this year (or, frankly for the second half of last year) without another jaw-dropping economic scandal. In addition to the grim aforementioned facts, of course, the housing slump and crumbling stock markets are continuing to run down the cumulative net worth of the entire American population, the bundled securities pyramid scheme has forced our financial institutions so near insolvency that the Fed quietly slipped them $50 billion to shore up their solvency, and now even state and municipal bonds are going unsold at auction. What more can happen, you ask? Well, I don’t need crystal balls to go foresee some “bank holidays,” as it has already begun in Great Britain, where the government just nationalized Northern Rock Bank. But how many banks could we absorb? How many retirement funds could sustain bond defaults? And how will people eat when food costs soar and the bank is closed?
Buying seeds yet? A boy named Jack his seeds to grow a beanstalk with Gold Coins - think about it.
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Things Aren't Looking to Good
Things aren't looking too good are they? Time to buy a good used 10 speed bike and some seeds. Now I wish I didn't sell that rototiller! by Bob Gormley (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 1094 comments [65 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Feb 22, 2008 at 7:32:12 AM  (0+)
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... not looking good, and our TVpeeps look away, channel off
The mass meltdown and death, by thirst and starvation, exposure to the elements, is starkly unimagined, foolishly unanticipated, and fatally unprepared-for: forecasts see tens of millions of Americans dying that way across this land this summer, unless Alarm!-alert communities come together tightknit ... seeing the Nov. election is NOT coming. The hell of it is that the governing elites cause it on purpose -- the wanton purpose of demented, hungover drunks, from the MasterRacist heydays of Adolf and his apostles, such as the prez's grandpa and papa and the diseased believers who they bubble-wrapped around their pied piper prezboy psychopath. by meremark (1 articles, 3 quicklinks, 30 diaries, 572 comments [22 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Feb 22, 2008 at 11:54:49 AM (0+)
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Can we be more coherent, Please?
I post on this site for intelligent, reasonable discourse. Let's focus, and please,try to stay on topic (or at least near it). This article has nothing to do with paranoia about the election being cancelled or Prescott Bush's money lending practices. However, if you can draw a line through that 70 year trajectory, through to speculation, and explain how it relates to real-life solutions I propose (gold and gardens), by all means, that would be interesting. by Michael Fox (62 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 47 comments) on Friday, Feb 22, 2008 at 2:09:54 PM (0+)
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Reply: Communityism
I appreciate your article. I have been alarmed for awhile. My skills will get me through. Many, as you imply, will not get through. Personally I believe the only answer will be the immediate community around us. How it does or doesn't rise to the occasions will lead to a great deal of disparity amongst us all. I hope that in the long run it will leave us communal and hoping for the collective rather than competing to ensure someone else's demise to ensure one's own survival. It would be nice to have the neighborhood back. It still exists in much of the world, and it works well. Micro finance and welfare at its best! From an equally important perspective, perhaps it will bring everyone to 'the table of responsibility' in performing 'their part' for the good of everyone, instead of expecting that everyone else take care of them with no effort on their part. While it will be horrid and ugly, I see very little room for navigating anything less perilous than what you have described. Like it or not we are going to be in this together. How we handle that and each other is going to be very important. by Kahnaya Wasahtoha (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 28 comments) on Friday, Feb 22, 2008 at 3:45:50 PM (0+)
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Michael
I have been saying this for a while now. I have a regular column titled Surviving the Middle Class Crash, which I post to a few publications. Mike Folkerth also writes about the same thing. It seems we are on the same page. People will perish for lack of survival skills unless they start preparing now, before it is too late. by Barbara Peterson (73 articles, 109 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 541 comments [98 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Feb 22, 2008 at 5:52:14 PM (0+)
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If it makes you feel any better ...
plant your gardens, I still don't know what good gold does, but if it makes you feel better, do that too. You may enjoy a few more days, if "enjoy" would be the word, if you live in the country, but if you live in the burbs or a city when the inevitable collapse of economic and environmental conditions occurs you might as well hang it up. But don't think that just because you escape to the country you'll survive. Even with the best survival protections the hordes of starving, coupled with the continued deteriorating conditions, war, disease, pollution even if you should survive, would it be the kind of world worth living in? by Mr M (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 66 diaries, 2845 comments [654 recommended, 27 rejected]) on Friday, Feb 22, 2008 at 6:14:43 PM (0+)
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One has to wonder...out loud even
how the utter void caused by the division in this country will impact this scenaro where as at least back in the depression people had a little more civility towards one another...? Ok so it's a question/statement...kinda scarey to think about, but valid to point out. by Cheri Roberts (16 articles, 15 quicklinks, 10 diaries, 435 comments) on Friday, Feb 22, 2008 at 11:36:38 PM (0+)
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It's no longer a matter of if , rather only: when?
What you are talking about here is exactly why I started this blog: by usxp (0 articles, 18 quicklinks, 8 diaries, 11 comments) on Saturday, Feb 23, 2008 at 8:16:05 AM (0+)
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And so how did we arrive at this point?
by Munich (1 articles, 86 quicklinks, 14 diaries, 1125 comments [86 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Saturday, Feb 23, 2008 at 3:45:06 PM (0+)
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