Hi Bob Shaw,
The problem with storing natural gas as fertilizer is that the ammonia plants have mostly moved overseas in search of cheap gas.
Don't worry, nobody's going to flare gas. Its illegal, as well as economicially wasteful. What the pipelines will do is pro-rate how much gas a producer can sell, forcing them to shut in wells in accordance with the shut in provisions of the leases. All oil and gas leases have shut in provisions, gas has mostly been in surplus in the US. I'm a landman, we buy oil leases, this is in my area of professional expertise.

I like the bat farm idea. However, I'll bet the neighbors would complain a lot less with a worm farm, and worm castings are high dollar. Worms are high protein and can also be used in aquaculture as fish food or sold for bait. It might make a real commercial operation for a small farmer.
Bob Ebersole

Does the bat poop actually work any better than bird poop?

I think the difference is the lack of nitrogen leaching caused by the critters pooping in the dry. So a barn roost for swifts etc. would work as well.

Most of the huge deposits in places like Chile were made economically exploitable by steam power in the C19th have been used up, and what remains will be small beer. I would have bat roosts anyway, but I would for resilience' sake try to spread increased fertility across as many sources as possible.

Interesting thought. Homemade bat roosts or bat boxes look pretty easy to build. Not much more than a couple of boards with a bat-width space in between and a little roof overhead. Maybe you rout some horizontal grooves on the interior boards to give the bats something to grab on to? Here's a link for one set of plans I have found, a Google will find you more:

http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/land/er/publications/bats/PDFs/BatHouseDi...

I suppose one could very easily set these things up over one's compost bin so that the droppings just go directly into the compost. That would keep the droppings from accumulating, assuming you turn your compost occasionally (and will thus keep down the smell) and it would also massively increase the fertilizer value of the compost. Plus that would eliminate any extra shoveling on one's part.

There are some do's and don'ts regarding bat house management - this link has all the good info:

http://www.batmanagement.com/Batcentral/batboxes/whyfail.html

I would be careful stockpiling fertilizer.

google Timothy McVay

until they get 'et or wet or greenish.

Hello Greenish,

Possibly consider stockpiling bird & bat guano: besides NPK, it also has the other essential minerals for enhancing plant growth and avoiding some unforseen mineral Liebig Minimum to curtail efficient photosynthesis. Might be the best way to avoid being labeled another Timothy McVay too. I am no chemist, but if kept dry: it might not degrade anywhere near as fast as FF-fertilizers. My feeble two cents from a woeful city-boy from the Asphalt Wonderland.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

Fertilizer does not have a good shelf life. In general, last year's purchase is not worth spreading on your plot of ground.

But in a deflationary crunch gold will get smacked. Cash and solar panels, my friend...;)

Really, I thought pms was premenstrual stress syndrome. You mean my ex-wife was actually telling me she had a lot of jewelry???

Bob Ebersole

My exact prediction (great minds think alike).

FYI: Washington is working on a massive bailout. Senators are calling on some of the largest lenders as well as the GSE's to gauge how big of a bailout the need immediately.

We should hear some news about this next week. Its likely to at least give some pause in the market. I wouldn't bet on the market heading straight down.

PMs will likely be stuck in a trading range for several years as many foriegn Central banks are dumping gold (Germany, Spain, Italy, etc) to finance debt. As long as this practice continues, the price of gold and other PMs will probably be contained. A US lead recession would also drive down demand for PMs (since manufacturing, jewelry consume significant amount of PMs).

FWIW: I really don't know what's going to happen over the next few weeks. The market could very well drop 10% to 20% in the coming weeks. My comments are to simply to inform you of other factors in play. Always invest with caution. The only future certainity, is an very uncertian future.

Thursday this week exhibited behaviors that indicate that maybe the PPT was involved.

If the PPT owns all the public companies, is that more like fascism or communism?

| _{The problem will solve itself.}
|  _{But not in a nice way.}

GZ I'd recommend Doug Noland's article this week.

You can skip down to the section (2/3 down)

Credit Market Dislocation

http://www.safehaven.com/article-8108.htm

I'm never comfortable with the idea of "yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater." But Jim Cramer already did as much late this afternoon on CNBC. His "we're in Armageddon" tirade (available at CNBC.com) was made moments after Bear Stearns' CFO Samuel Molinaro offered a disconcerting assessment of market conditions during the company's hastily called conference call: "I've been out here for 22 years, and this is as bad as I've seen it in the fixed-income markets." A highly-aroused Mr. Cramer, volunteering to speak on behalf of Wall Street, called for the Fed to aggressively cut rates and "open the discount window."

The Credit system has Dislocated, liquidity has evaporated, and our academically-inclined new Fed chairman is in store for a historically challenging real world first test. Wall Street has been conditioned over the years to expect "bailouts." Only months on the job, Alan Greenspan stepped up and assured the markets that the Fed was ready to add liquidity after the '87 stock market crash. The Greenspan Fed acted aggressively during the LTCM crisis and, later, Dr. ("Helicopter") Bernanke played an instrumental role in the Fed talking the risk markets higher in late 2002. To be sure, Fed "reliquefications" played a conspicuous role in fostering ever greater and more unwieldy Bubbles, and this will remain in the back of FOMC members' minds. The Bernanke Fed today would likely prefer to maintain a "hands off" approach for as long as possible - which has already been too long for an acutely fragile "Wall Street."

And

While the subprime implosion was a major marketplace development, in reality only a small segment of the mortgage marketplace was actually impacted by significantly tighter Credit conditions. Today, we are in the throes of a dramatic, broad-based and momentous tightening of mortgage Credit. Importantly, key players and sectors throughout the mortgage risk intermediation process are increasingly impaired and now in full retreat.

This includes entities such the mortgage insurers, MGIC's and Radian's faltering C-BASS securitization unit, REITs such as failed American Home Mortgage and others, hedge funds such those that failed at Bears Stearns and many more, the broker/dealer community and the mortgage derivatives market generally.

There is also the issue of exposed mutual funds, money market funds, pension funds and the banking system in general. Just like NASDAQ went to unimaginable extremes than then doubled during the final "blow-off" - total mortgage Credit doubled subsequent to the Greenspan Fed's reckless post-tech Bubble "reflation." Mortgage exposure now permeates the (global) system and is highly susceptible to "Ponzi Finance" dynamics.

Listen how Doug ends this one. He is NOT generally a dire, world gonna end, sell everything type of guy.
This is the first time, having been reading him for a few years, that there is genuine panic in his voice/keystrokes.

I apologize for appearing overly dramatic. But this evening I have feelings that for me recall the disturbing emotions following the terrible 9/11 tragedy. I know the world has changed and changed for the worse - yet I recognize that I don't know how and to what extent.

I fear for our markets, our economy, our currency and our system. I received an email this week on my Bloomberg that said something to the effect, "You all must be happy in Dallas." I can tell you we're instead sickened by what has transpired during the late- stages of this senseless Credit and specualtive orgy. The Great Credit Bubble has been pierced, and there will now be a very, very heavy price to pay. And, as always, I hope I am proved absolutely wrong.

My apologies, but this Bulletin had to be thrown together quickly this evening. I may update it somewhat over the weekend.

NOT GOOD kids.

Yeah, 1 oz maybe, but I compare the logistics of buying volume PM's in person today with 15 or so years ago, and it is much more complicated.

The every street corner isn't happening even now when people still have some funds.
One would pretty much have to have a established network, and the network would have to hold together.

Soup, quite often men in high places will do the wrong thing, especially if they are the Fed Chairman or Chairman of one of the Fed Branches. However they think they are doing the right thing.

Your insinuation was that they were deliberately trying to engineer a stock market crash, or a crash of the housing/credit market. You need proof, or at least post a valid reason as to why they would do that.

You have not done that and unless you can your posts amount to nothing more than hot air.

Ron Patterson

>Dar - Cramer even talks about greenspan pushing subprime & arms then increasing rates 17 times creating the mess then Ben sitting on his hands.

If they wanted to "engineer" a crash, they wouldn't have stopped hiking rates last year. Instead the capped the rates at 5.25%. The also provided loans below the "official" rate of 5.25% since last Feburary when the first round of subprime came up. This points to a policy to prevent a crash. The Fed hands are tied because if they started lowering rates, it would cause the dollar to fall (much faster).

Nobody wants to sit in a position of authority when the market crashes (that's probably one of the main reasons Greenspan bailed and left Ben in charge). Of course when Greenspan was still chairmen, he gave that famous speech about urging americans to take out adjustable rate mortgages in an attempt to get the economy moving again. This was back in 2003 or 2004 when the rates were already at 1%

It seems that you either have to believe that TPTB are keystone cops, Laurel & Hardy, Numbskulls, or you believe that its all a conspiracy.

There is most likely many goofs but one would have to be pretty naive to write it all off as a whoops.

I have two young children who look to me for guidance and I have lost my ability to be Gullible.

Please read;

HOW THE PRESENT ECONOMIC ORDER WILL END
by J. R. Nyquist

http://www.financialsense.com/stormwatch/geo/pastanalysis/2007/0803.html

"According to Professor James, America’s economic dynamism locks Asia and Europe into a system of buying and selling and investing that everyone benefits from. This system continues because of American domestic stability, and because America’s sustained growth rates are consistently better than other developed countries. “The question about sustainability then turns into one about the probability of continued growth rates that are higher than those of the rest of the industrialized world,” noted James. “For much of the 1990s, foreign capital inflows reflected a foreign view that the peace dividend, fiscal prudence, and technological dynamism represented an ideal environment. In the years after 2001, this environment clearly deteriorated.”

If your choice is reduced to between deflation and hyperinflation (>100%) what would you choose ?

Define deflation rigorously for me, Don. Is it a decline in M1? If so we have many such declines since 1929, just always small and usually correcting within a month or two. Is it a decline in general prices? What is deflation, according to you?

Before we get into a discussion of whether deflation will occur or not, I need to understand your definition. And don't tell me to read an economic textbook. I can find 5 different economic textbooks that say 5 different things. What is YOUR definition of deflation?

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Dr. Albert Bartlett
Into the Grey Zone

Hardhat, Enviro Attorney,

I've seen huge crashes in both the price of oil and the price of gold in the last 25 years, and a big crash in the value of Houston real estate. If we get enough demand destruction in oil-and we had 22% decrease in the early '80's, nothing's safe. Oil fell like a rock to the $10-$12 a barrel for years. Gold fell, as I recall from about $800 per oz. to about $250 an oz. Ya'll are kidding yourself if you think anything has a permanent monetary value.
Just a little thought experiment, guys. If in a famine, you have a 100 lb sack of potatoes. Somebody offers you 10 oz. of gold for your family's chance of survival. Do you sell the potatoes, or do you wait until they're dead and loot their corpses?

But the odds of either a famine or a total monetary collapse are pretty low, so place your bets, gentlemen and let fortune's wheel spin. Personally, I like domestic oil and gas wells, but that's my business. I think there's going to be a lot of volatility in prices, but the demand is going to be there for grease for the rest of my life.

And, I have a serious question about gold; If its so good, why is anybody willing to take fiat currency for gold? All these guys with websites are in the business of selling gold, so their actions say that its worth less than you are paying for the stuff. Watch what people do, not what they say.

I rest my case.
Bob Ebersole

EA.

If you feel (as I do), that civilization is facing the biggest crisis since the collapse of the roman empire, you cannot make determinations about the future based upon the rules and standards that have operated for the last 100 years. You have to look at the things that have always been needed since the start of civilization, and have never lost value. These are food, water, shelter, security, and GOLD.

Perfect. I said much the same in a post above.

It is the End of *MORE and all things will be affected by it.

Bob Dylan's "The Times they are a chang'in" could now be
"The Paradigms they are a chang'in"

BTW, I think that 1965-75 had a lot of the right ideas, peace movement, Earthday, and everything else, but Collectively America hit the snooze alarm for twenty more years. Reagan's "Morning in America" began and gave us the Gordon Gecko's and the last 20 and some odd years.

bmcnett,

It was an explicit policy of the US Congress to cut taxes on rich people and corporations, while shifting the burden to the middle class. They called it trickle down economics.

The only problem is that the middle class has to have money for corporations to get it from them. That's what I call trickle up economics. If you allow companies to move all their operations and good paying jobs overseas and don't charge them at least as much in taxes as a working person paying social security, medicare and an income tax , the whole country goes broke, and that's called our president and congress. We have the best government that money can buy.

Bob Ebersole

Bcm: Love that term- FREE trade. It must be good, goddarn it's FREE. This great country was built on FREEDOM (and Jesus).Nothing is free in this life. Somebody has to pay to run the country, and the schmucks decided to allow the persons who benefit the most from the society to opt out of paying for anything at all. Sounds reasonable-after all it is FREE.

I think the nostalgia matters because of the implied promise of capitalism:

"If you workers let me wreck the customs that ensured survival in shared poverty, and make enough money to totally control your government, culture and religion, I will give you eternal Paradise - after a period of extreme sacrifice."

That promise hit the bricks in 1914 and 1929, depending on where you lived. So then came the New Deal:

"If you workers and bosses create power-sharing arrangements over the big institutions once monoplized by the bosses, heavily regulated by my 2-party government, I will give you Paradise - after a period of extreme sacrifice."

That worked pretty well for a while, until around 1980 the bosses looked around and discerned that current workers no longer understood why the New Deal had been necessary. Time to welch on promises and recycle the original promise as Reagan's "Morning In America." And then ship the good jobs overseas to a new set of suckers.

The problem, I guess, was the essential part of the promise: Paradise. Why should any working man tolerate the child-molesting, pension-robbing, media-censoring scumsuckers known as the business class unless he is promised Paradise? I mean, bosses have as little understanding of how much their employees despise them as the US did in Iraq. The workers will give those bastards sacrifices for a while but they demand a future of permanent ease and comfort in exchange. I don't blame them!

Now we really understand that the promise is physically impossible. But if we tell the workers, all the accumulated bile and swallowed pride of generations of obedient stooges will explode. Why should we endure yet another era of extreme sacrifice once we don't believe there will be a sufficient reward?

MT
I do believe you are onto something with Cramer's personal finances. Also, his logic is lacking, by solving this by asking Ben to lower rates, since the liquidity crunch is being caused by interest rate spreads, so a 1 pt rate cut will not solve this problem which seems to be spiraling far beyond a rate cut at this point! (If I'm missing something in drawing that conclusion, please set me straight, someone.) Personally, I do not feel sorry for the people he is hurting for. They may bring us all down by their greed.

I'm not so sure about each mortgage averaging 3 or 4 people. What about all the "no money down" crazies who have been borrowing money on multiple properties and living on the "equity" that they pull out of the property. I've got one owns a duplex next door to me and has 6-count 'em six mortgages on various properties. one across the street that has a three person family, but they own 4 houses and three of them are not rented, all with mortgages.
Bob Ebersole

"That's a lot of social upheaval and a ton of empty houses."

Those houses won't stay empty.

They won't disappear either.

SOMEBODY will live in them.

Where the somebodies used to live will now be available to someone else.

There will be some housing reallocation powered by financial maneuverings, but no housing stock will be created or destroyed.

I can't see anything overall being any worse or better than it is now. There will be asset reallocation come to pass, but the total integral of goods remains unchanged.

My take is Katrina did far worse, as she destroyed and left nothing but one helluva mess.

Why do we seem determined to implode our system just because somebody's numbers are undesirable. For the time being, we still have all the physical inputs to sustain the system, with our energy resource by far the most critical.

Currency can be created with the stroke of a pen, oil can't.

We need to know what our REAL problems are and stop frittering away our resources on frivolous bullshit.

Steve

Many people that still have incomes will stay in their houses even if they are slightly upside down.

Most of their debt is rolled into the houses and all the interest is a big tax write off. This is the main reason they rolled consumer debt into secured debt and is what ultimately will hang them.

But to walk away they have to be so far upside down that it isn't even worth the write off anymore.

Of course if they lose income they are toast, but it is the greed and the hunt for a free ride that did them in. Now they are the proverbial slaves in a golden cage.

All the vapor ware sales people are in for a rough ride.