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286 comments on DrumBeat: October 8, 2008
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286 comments on DrumBeat: October 8, 2008
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It is hard to focus on work on a day like this.
Our government headlines nearly 50Billion Sterling 'investment' in our banks, plus a blank cheque to cover short term liquidity, and a half percent cut in interest rates.
Net result is that the markets are still down, 3% on the day was I type. Gold and Yen up a lot, and oil little changed.
My pension is toast. As Sterling collapses my savings are toast. As the banks refuse to extend our overdraft, my job is probably toast before long.
At least the hens are laying.
I know the feeling. We're on the verge of one of those "step changes" Greer talks about, and I think it's trickling through even to people who usually don't follow current events.
I overheard a group of people this morning, who usually talk about things like who's getting married, who's having a baby, and what they bought at the mall last night. Today, someone mentioned the mall, and the rest said, "Shopping? Shopping? Who's going shopping at a time like this?"
It does make it hard to concentrate on the ordinary details of life...
As a weather nut, I am familiar with this feeling, as I find myself in the same frame of mind as when a major hurricane is hurtling toward the coast -- I see the impending damage days in advance, and know many are unprepared and even unsuspecting, and that life for many will never be the same. Even though I need to work, and I do to a degree, I check back for updates more often than they can appear, armchair-quarterback every prediction, and try to out-do the "experts" as to what the steering currents really are. The difference, though, is that this time "the storm" affects the entire country, including me.
Even my wife doesn't make disparaging remarks about my "economic doom" statements anymore.
" I see the impending damage days in advance, and know many are unprepared..."
This is the essence of most of my anxiety and frustration.
IMO the inability or unwillingness to extrapolate out to the obvious results of our systems and actions is what will bring us down.
Either that or it's all just one big conspiracy (winkanol)
since when shopping at the mall is considered "ordinary"? is it the same ordinary as driving an suv 40 miles to work?
buying food is ordinary, "shopping" is not
I was referring to Ralph's comment about finding it hard to concentrate on work.
Huh? For as long as malls have been reasonably common, was shopping at them ever seen as anything but ordinary, that is, commonplace and banal? Now, driving 40 miles to work does happen, but more often it's just a meme cherry-picked by reporters seeking out maudlin stories. After all, average commute times seem to be less than half an hour, which in typical real-world traffic might get you 5-15 miles.
Step changes? As in stepping off the windowsill of a skyscraper?
When the economy collapses, many millions of Americans are screwed. What happens when their only source of income vanishes? Or when the grocery stores close up shop overnight, due to the total breakdown of our credit system? How will people eat? Is FEMA going to feed a nation of 300 million people? State governments are bankrupt. Municipalities either are, or will soon be in, the same boat.
Greer takes historical examples of collapse and generalizes them to our situation: Because Easter Island and Rome experienced catabolic collapse, so will we. I'm still scratching my head about out why he thinks this is valid.
The vast majority of Romans were not dependent on just-in-time delivery of food, fuel, and other necessities. Their civilization wasn't propped up on stilts by a rapidly vanishing energy source. The Romans hadn't destroyed or paved over all their good farmland. The Roman populace hadn't lost the knowledge, skills, and abilities with which to procure the necessities of life.
In the US, it almost seems as though we deliberately built up a society rigged for a rapid, catastrophic implosion. Sure, maybe in a decade or two the survivors (200 million people? Or fewer?) will have figured out how to grow food locally, manufacture basic necessities like clothing and medicine, and so on. And I suppose one might call this a "step change", in a dieoff-sort-of-way. But by that time, won't extreme energy scarcity (and possibly climate change) deliver the coup de grâce?
It's all so depressing. What a waste.
They don't have to. Not everyone will lose their jobs at once.
I think it is.
The government can feed the population. It may do so as inefficiently as it handled Katrina, but they can do it. They can make sure the farmers get first dibsies on petroleum products, and they can distribute the food, or move people to where the food is.
I suspect that people will move on their own, closer to the supply lines, and where there may be jobs. It will be painful and tremendously disruptive.
And face it...most Americans won't starve for a very long time, even if the grocery stores close overnight. ;-)
Exactly - when morbid obesity and its inevitable Pandora's box of chronic disease (caused by meat/dairy/oils & overnutrition), when these things are gone from the general population, then one can talk seriously talk about starvation in America. A single pound of FAT contains enough energy to fuel several days of mild activity - nearly ALL Americans have more energy stores in the form of chicken FAT than the average 3rd world farmer has in their entire body!!!
"Caused by meat/dairy/oils & overnutrition"
This does not reflect current scientific studies at all
in fact, quite the opposite - but I am getting as used to you misrepresenting the facts on food as I do the McCain/Palin campaign the facts on just about anything
which studies would those be? I look around, and I see a sea of fat, diabetes, hypertension, coronary artery disease and low back pain.
What else might be wrong? Not that people eat too much!
The question is why they eat too much. And the answer, it appears, is refined carbohydrates. Refined carbs screw up your body chemistry and your appetite control system.
Amazingly, despite the conventional wisdom, there's little scientific evidence that fat is bad for you.
The obesity explosion in the US started after the government starting recommending a low-fat diet.
The conventional wisdom on this really is changing. A friend of mine in Ohio had a heart attack recently, and the doctors told him that his number 1 priority should be to cut down on refined carbs. Not fat, refined carbs.
I blame high fructose corn syrup. Cheaper than sugar, and in damn near everything, starting early 70's. Your body tastes the sweet but doesn't process it the same way as plain old sugar.
I know they have their own commercial now, which to me just proves it's horrid.
I 100% agree on the refined carbohydrates point (personally lost ~90 lbs by switching to a low-carb diet). However, it's important to distinguish between "good" fats (non-hydrogenated, unsaturated, Omega-3/6-rich) vs. "bad" fats (hydrogenated = worst, saturated = better, but not great).
Unfortunately the FDA and Big Agribusiness have colluded over the past 30 years in a massive propaganda campaign to convince Americans that ALL fats are "bad" for you, while all carbohydrates are "good". Most Amreicans are simply too lazy and ignorant to do the research and decide for themselves.
No, it's not. The "good fats vs. bad fats" thing is as bogus as the low-fat diet.
'fraid not.
Consumption of fats and oils is not as simple as delivering energy to the body. Omega 3 and 6 in particular are "essential" in that they cannot be manufactured by the body. These things are building blocks for cytokines which have important regulatory effects on the immune system. Get them out of whack in your diet, and your own biochemistry will suffer.
The incidence and progression of MS for instance is pretty strongly related (although not "proven") to saturated fat consumption. Also very good epidemiological evidence that omega-3 is protective of that, and of heart disease.
I suspect that consuming a variety of fats is probably the healthiest thing to do. And perhaps certain fats are better for people suffering from MS. That does not mean we should all eat that way, though. Indeed, that is a key point from Gary Taubes' Good Calories, Bad Calories. Some of the conventional wisdom (such about cholesterol) is based on what happens with people who have a genetic defect that results in abnormally high levels of cholesterol. What's good for them may not be good for normal people - may in fact be bad for normal people.
Taubes also argues that the omega-3/heart disease has little scientific support. It was proposed as an explanation for why Inuit, who live on meat and blubber, don't suffer heart disease.
But if it's actually refined carbs, and not fat, that cause heart disease, no explanation is necessary.
If you have not read Good Calories, Bad Calories, read it. It's really eye-opening. An awful lot of what we thought we knew about nutrition is actually based flimsy, even contradictory, evidence.
There is evidence that reducing saturated fat intake and taking in sufficient quantities of omega 3 reduces the prevalence of MS in the population, as well as reducing progression rates for those who have it.
So yes, it probably does mean that we all should eat that way (at least if we want to reduce our chance of developing MS).
Ref: George Jelinek, "Taking Control of Multiple Sclerosis", (2005, I think)
Another point from Taubes' work: correlation is not causation. That is probably the biggest problem with research on human nutrition. You cannot do the kind of experiments on people that you can do on, say, rats. You cannot keep all other conditions the same, and change only one variable.
MS is an autoimmune disease, and like many autoimmune diseases, is more common in wealthy, developed nations. Which might be assumed to have a different diet than in poorer nations. That makes epidemiological studies on diet suspect, or at least very complicated.
That is the problem Taubes found with the fat-heart disease link. Fat and meat consumption go up as a population gets wealthier...but so does refined carbohydrate consumption. It's difficult to tease them apart. And the obvious test cases, such as Alaskan natives that eat a lot of fat and few carbohydrates, were ignored as a fluke.
You're right that correlation is not causation, and as you say there is really no way to carry out the experiments that are required to prove causation. The same problems would apply to "proving" anything relating to simple carbohydrates.
What we have with MS is some pretty strong epidemiological evidence, plus a plausible biochemical basis. It really amounts to what standard of proof you want, but it's good enough for me:
- MS is much more prevalent in inland Norway than on the coast, the primary difference between the two being that the inland diet is heavy in saturated fats from a dairy based diet (lots of milk, cheese and butter) whereas the coastal diet is heavy in fish (lots of omega-3). Lots of other less direct evidence but this is the one that sticks in my mind as far as saturated fat / omega-3 issue goes.
- Swank's longitudinal diet study indicated that long term progression for MS patients was greatly reduced (order of magnitude improvement) in those who could stick to a diet of less than 20g of saturated fat per day. This is a much larger effect than any of the medications that have ever been tested.
- omega-3 is the building block for a group of cytokines that suppress inflammation, which presumably includes inappropriate immune interaction with the nervous system in the case of MS (omega-6 is the building block for the pro-inflammatory cytokines. Both synthetic routes use a common catalyst in the body and what can happen is that if you eat too much omega-6 (from, say, canola) that can block the conversion of omega-3 by saturating the synthetic pathway).
Yes simple carbs are a problem with diabetes / syndrome X. But the simple carb story is not the only important nutritional story that needs to be told.
The point I'm trying to make is that "fats ain't fats". They are biochemically active and have different nutritional functions in your body. They are not just inert energy carriers (although they serve that purpose also).
If anyone is looking for a good baseline book on nutrition, I recommend Walter Willett's Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy.
It's really important to distinguish between refined carbohydrates like table sugar or white flour, versus whole foods like especially whole grains. "Glycemic index" is one measure, but it gets tricky. E.g with whole grain flour, it depends on the coarseness of the grind.
I knew there was a reason I was storing all those calories just above my belt!
The most credible advice I ever heard about food was to never eat anything unless people had been eating it for at least 1,000 years. Thank god that includes beer.
In theory, the government can do a lot things. In reality, they often just make matters worse. They launch & support wars instead of building the nation's infrastructure. They subsidize ethanol instead of developing viable alternative energy sources. They pass bailouts instead of genuinely dealing with our financial problems.
But I am fairly confident that the government will do a great job of relocating the jobless masses into major cities...
In terms of longer-term viability, isn't this exactly opposite of what we want? Instead of people concentrating in cities and along supply lines, they need to spread out across any & all arable land, forming localized communities. Right?
Jobs, medical services, food and electricity are going to disappear from the periphery first - the remote countryside, far-flung suburbs, etc. But setting up a relatively self-sufficient community requires significant amounts of time, tools, knowledge and capital. Most Americans will have none of these things.
Therefore, I think many families will be forced to turn to the government for shelter, heat, food, and medicine. We'll have hundreds of thousands internal refugees living in government camps (FEMA, Red Cross, etc.) This number will only grow with each passing year. Will these people ever be relocated out to viable communities? If not, what will happen to them when the camps run out of supplies?
They have to feed people in order to launch wars. Don't forget...the purpose of the school lunch program was to improve the quality of Army draftees.
What do you mean "we," Kemosabe? Nobody here agrees on what "we" want. Alan, for example, thinks cities and supply lines (rail) are the future.
In any case, what "we" want doesn't matter. I'm talking about what likely will happen, not necessarily what I want to happen.
If I had to guess...they'd be moved out of camps in a sort of "welfare to work" program. The work is likely to involve joining the Army...or becoming farm laborers, perhaps on government farms. Which would at least give them a path to the localized communities you want.
Me, I don't think it will come to that for quite some time.
It does make it hard to concentrate on the ordinary details of life...
It's painful, but necessary. I am by nature the anxious type, Chicken Little if you will, pestering friends, relatives, acquaintances to not buy houses, etc. (Of course, it weakens my case that I've been a little premature, 30-40 years maybe, but every dog has his day.) Still, it's seems to me that the one good thing is that maybe people will spend more time talking about the world and what's going on in it, and arguing and thinking and even reading about it.
If one can control one's personal anxiety, it is in fact one of the most interesting periods of history one could possibly live in, a turning point for mankind. We all need to think about survival, and we have to realize that ultimately survival is a collective issue, and by collective I mean humanity as well as family, immediate neighbors and countrymen.
Not that this is any substitute for hunkering down and figuring out one's own personal and familial options.
At least your government is doing something that might actually ameliorate the problem, not what my government did which is to spend $700 billion to keep on life support the same group of thieves and incompetents who got us into this mess:
I've noticed something interesting in myself lately. While I can normally be a cynical person, I'm becomning increasingly so. I've started thinking, that if things should recover, my investing outlook is going to be much different. My modest IRA has been invested in commodity type vehicles, with some good interest bearing shares like MGB, DNP. I thought I was somewhat conservative, yet I am still getting hammered. This whole process of markets tanking has made me realize nothing is safe, so I'm wondering how that is going to effect me later on.I've realized you have to be careful of governments changing the rules of the game on you, that typical investment advice seems wrong, etc etc. Will I want to hold physical gold? Cash under the matter? Buy land? I guess my reaction is nothing new. It would be interesting to read up on the psychology of this and how peoples thinking has changed in other economic events like this.
There was an article posted yesterday, that basically said that the difference between recession and depression is that in a depression, there is no safe haven.
In a depression, the "winners" are those who lose the least.
I have thought for some time that the best preparation you can do is to embrace the changes that are coming, regardless of what we might want, and to keep one's eyes open and remain agile in one's thinking. Adjusting to dealing with a deflationary environment requires different assumptions from those learned in a lifetime of inflation, and there is no time to waste in denial and shock. I have no expectation of getting out of this unhurt, nor any expectation of being able to retire. I am focused on various things that could hit me really hard in this financial turmoil, but not worried about the smaller hits.
Something along those lines was partially behind my decision to start commuting to work on foot. Did I absolutely HAVE to stop driving and start walking to work? No, not YET. By going ahead and doing it now, though, I've gotten a head start on adapting to the future in one small way, and removed from my life something that is causing considerable stress and anxiety in the lives of many others.
This same approach applies to things like growing your own food, and a bunch of other stuff we've been talking about.
Hmm. So I should embrace destitution? That seems harsh. I can embrace my laptop until I have to sell it for a can of beans. I can also embrace death, I suppose, by not being so attached to my life?
I still have a job. The stores are still open. But I'm not on a farm that I own outright. What other idea is there, really? An intentional community with land and water--same sort of thing--buy into it and then find a job?
This is a social crisis and individuals who think they 'got out alive' are going to have to face the angry hordes of the dispossessed who were not so fortunate. Never forget: we're all in this together.
No retirement: Just keep working till death. That's what many of us now face. You got your money out and stuck it in a mattress? Wow--brilliant. Good luck with that plan. Now do you have razor wire around your property? A turret? Barrels of rice, pasta, and beans... Get busy!
The razor wire is on the list of things to buy this month. It buys time to reload while slowing the hordes.
Ha Ha. Okay, you're place is LAST on the list. For the sake of argument, I'll be representing the 'angry hordes' of dispossessed, most of them are too busy to read the Oil Drum.
There is a reason that weapons manufacturers are seeing record backlogs in ordering.
Don't know where you got all of that - not in my post - and I'm not real sure what your point was. Are you just angry and raging against the injustice of a fading dream?
So apparently the situation that exists for the majority of the world's population now and for the history of man is not good enough? I guess if you are not satisfied with that, then you should do something else - good luck with that plan.
I'm certainly vulnerable, and no believer in the rugged individual survivor mentality - I'm not the Marlboro Man. However, my wife and I have made considerably better choices than many of those around us, and we are therefore less vulnerable than we might have been. And we do have skills that make us marginally more self-reliant than average, and we are trying to cultivate a greater ability to survive with less. The biggest benefit of that is to increase our usefulness to the community around us, and to decrease our burden upon it.
The point I was making is that change is coming, and you have very little control or influence of that. You can waste your time and efforts and resources in denying it, or you can see the changing world as it is, and make appropriate adjustments as best you can. Does that provide you with guarantees of success? Hardly, but planning for a future that won't happen just about guarantees failure.
So should you embrace destitution? That depends. Will you be able to prevent it? If not, wouldn't it be better to try to figure out how to survive with less than to deny it? Why plan for an unlikely future? The dream of infinite growth and life of wealth and leisure is dying - it was always a fantasy, so let it go.
Sorry--venting a bit, joking as well. As I say below--
Here's my positive suggestion:
http://www.spinfarming.com/
You know, even with only a little bit of land people can get animals to help them. Chickens, rabbits, maybe a goat. The animals eat waste grass and other things, bugs, leftovers, acorns, etc. Then their manure is fertilizer. We have only a small plot of land in a largish town (I want to move to a country area but our jobs are here for now at least). But it's enough to feed two rabbits. They help fertilize the broccoli, tomatoes, etc. Even if we eventually have to move, the knowledge that I've picked up has been valuable. It's incremental, it's slow, it's piecemeal, but it is better than nothing.
Specialization is for insects. Humans are, by nature, adaptable. Come what may, many of us will survive. Lifestyle quality, though, is another matter....
I've done most of those things above except the last ... but even at that, it is hard for an old man to read this without a tear.
"'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the paths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven: that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
Tennyson's Ulysses
A recession is when you lose your job, a depression is when I lose mine... :o)
Nick.
When you say safe haven are you refering to investments? If so would you consider cash to be a fairly safe haven in such times?
Yes, I'm referring to investments. No, cash is not safe. The possibility of inflation aside...where do you put it, when you can't trust the banks?
I suppose you could put it in the Bank of Serta, but that carries its own risks.
Bury it in the back yard?
Ha Ha. Make sure the neighbors don't see you. And watch out for curious dogs.
Yes,
That way, in three thousand years time, archeologists can dig it up and a grad student can accurately date it to the Early 2nd Dark Age. :-(
Here is my question: who is actually IN the markets, and buying daily, to keep the markets UP on a day like today? If the market manages to close up a little today, I fully expect more bad reports after the close to drive it back down tomorrow.
But then, I didn't expect a housing up-tick either. Bloomberg is the only place is see much behind-the-scenes analysis, and they say it was mostly "vulture investors" buying up heavily distressed properties. It may be more a sign of seller capitulation rather than buyer strength. And since these are only offers, not closings, many may go away now if credit isn't available.
I'm buying - just in tiny amounts. But what the heck. If the market comes back over the next ten or twenty weeks or years, I can make some money. If it doesn't, I'll just be in the soup line with everybody else whether I buy a bit or not!
Well Shawn, I noted yesterday how the Depression impacted my view of life. I saw what it did to people and my aim throughout life has been to withdraw from the system so far as possible. When we bought our current 57 acres in 1979, I looked at the trees and actually said to myself, "At least we'll always have firewood." And, in the intervening years, I have made every effort to be as self-reliant as possible.
The problem most people will face is that it is too late to take my kind of actions. FWIW, a good rule of thumb is that it will take 5-7 years to establish a functioning "homestead."
My best suggestion is for like-minded people to get together and then find a mentor who can moderate discussions and keep everyone focused upon the most important topics and possible actions.
I might add that a few others and myself (we were all serious doomers) used to meet for a monthly "long lunch" at the town park to discuss the future. It died when one guy moved but will likely restart in the near future.
Todd
Thanks for the reply. Sorry, I didn't get to read your comment the other day. I just did though. Interestingly, you mentioned about have a frame of reference and things not being 'that bad'. The other day I just watched a 1980's Swedish movie, "My life as a dog". The recurring theme in there was putting things in perspective, the boy of the movie kept thinking about other peoples misfortunes which in comparison made his life not so bad.
My reply to Todds post that started this thread.
Yes most here are not ready,most will not be ready and even starting right now they won't make it.
I awoke in the middle of the night last night with an amazing thought in my head. I knew my JD riding mower was sitting outside the barn and I really had to finish trimming up around the place BUT>>>>>>>>>>
it really struck me right hard!!
WHY? Why indeed. This is fall. I will start planting food plants in my yard. Start making piles of wood chip. Starting throwing leaves and clippings and dead downfall branches right where all that damned grass is and never mow grass again. I have several large rolls of hay that won't be used so I will roll them out all around the place and plant many more blueberry bushes,elderberry, and blackberry ..all with cuttings and seeds from the ones that now grow near the garden.
Turn my whole area into what would look like a plant nursery that you walk down the rows of...stuff growing everywhere. Plant fruit trees,garlic everywhere,some flowers, mostly things that yield food.
So why mow grass. Make it a total garden everywhere.
It was an epiphany one could say. I had falled asleep reading an old FoxFire book from back in the 60-70 time frame and it must have stirred my subconsious enough to wake me up and tell me to quit the stupid mowing of grass and instead make it a huge 'jungle'. With little paths here and there and deadends,etc.....
More like when I was young on the farm...huge amounts of useful vegetation grew wild all over the country side. No johnson grass, no noxious weeds then. Honeysuckle on all the roadsides and wild flowers. Wild dewberries and blackberries,nut trees everywhere.
I am going to go primitive...
Today took the grinder/sander to my recently acquired Peter Wright anvil. Next week I drive to a place in the Ozarks that deals in blacksmith coal and haul back a ton or so. Built or find a nice forge and restart my blacksmithing skillset of the past.
I need to learn how to sharpen plow shares and forge garden tools.
Leanan says she like 'fresh food'. Bah to supermarket tomatoes. My canned ones beat them easily. My home cured country bacon and ham make the supermarket scat rather tasteless. I have plenty of fresh corn to shell and grind for cornbread and tortillas. Even wheat that I gathered last harvest stored in gallon jugs to grind for flour.
Airdale-When you bring forth what is within you?
What your bring forth will save you.
When you have nothing to bring forth ,
that will kill you.
I hate supermarket tomatoes, too. I don't think I've ever bought one.
Todd
"will likely restart in the near future."
Cool. I'm retired in 3 weeks. I'll either drop you an e-mail or see you in town. Might even get one of my sons to come. He called me last week and said he was thinking about buying food.
Did you meet during the rainy season, too?
BTW, our roads may hold up a year or 2 longer than the rest of the country; they have just re-paved a good bit of 101 all the way down to Willits, and a few spots around Ukiah.
Mike
Hi Mike,
Well, I was actually thinking of you when I posted. I'm thinking about having Jim put a little "article" in the paper to draw a larger group. My concern is that Frank, Kent and I were all doomers so we didn't waste time trying to convince each other about the facts. New people might divert discussion. What do you think?
FWIW, we usually met for 1 1/2 - 2 hours.
Todd
Hey , Todd...
I think I had better start buying the paper.
Sure, an article wouldn't hurt. If too many people show up, the old group can re-activate, and lunch can go on with a small group.
Also, I think I may not be a Pollyanna any more (<:
M
My personal opinion is that the best place to put your money is in freeze dried food and other necessities that will keep for a long time. Next time you go to the grocery store, or the clothing store, etc, take that receipt of what you bought, note what was NECESSARY, and then go buy a boatload of it. TP, shoes, underwear, jeans, shirts, rice, beans, pasta, coffee, cocoa, salt, sugar, propane, etc, etc. Your purchase will not lose value, you can always consume it or trade it. Get out of the mentality that you need "money" with exception to paying your rent/mortgage, everything else can fall by the wayside.
The problem with that is it doesn't last forever. Paper goods moulder, shoes crack, food gets hard and stale. I've even had canned goods go bad on me. (And what horrible mess when that happens.)
Come on Leanan, a lot of us have been at this storage game a long time. Do you think we would keep doing it if it wasn't worthwhile? If things are stored right and rotated if necessary, there is almost a 0% chance of them degrading.
I might mention that my "dress shoes", two pair, are 38 years old and still going strong. I mostly wear work boots and I always have a couple of new pairs on hand - about a two year supply.
Todd
I'm just sharing my own experience. Been a waste of money for me so far.
I do similar to what Todd does, which is eat what you store, and store what you eat. You cycle the stuff. Higher initial investment, but after you have the initial stock built up, it doesn't cost any more. What I've seen others do is buy a month's worth of food every 2 weeks until they have the amount they need, then they just go shopping monthly, using the oldest of the food... No money lost.
Yes, I've heard that recommendation. The problem is that I tend not to like the kind of food you can store. I prefer fresh food. So the canned goods sit on the shelf until they corrode through, producing a substance that looks like pitch and is as hard to clean up. (I've invented abiotic oil!)
That woman who wrote that book on preparedness goes so far as to use powdered milk instead of fresh, partly so the family would be used to it, partly in order to rotate her stock. But yech. I hate powdered milk. According to my mom, I wouldn't drink it even when we lived overseas and it was the only thing available.
P.S. Someone posted at PO.com today, complaining that a mouse chewed through every bag of food in his stash.
Yup, they do that. And not just to annoy you. It's a survival thing. They only eat a little bit from any one food source, then move on. This minimizes the chances that they'll be poisoned. If they get sick, they won't go back. Which of course makes it harder to poison the little buggers.
Presumably that was a good lesson and one learned in time while the victim could still get more bags of food. Imagine if that happened in the winter to the last of the bags of food and if there were now nests of many mice eating everything.
People who think they can get mostly self-sufficient overnight are nuts; there will be all sorts of mistakes made and many setbacks.
cfm in Gray, ME
I suspect if things were that bad, you'd eat the food anyway. And maybe a few of the mice, too. ;-)
Me, I don't have to worry about mice.
Solution: 5 gallon plastic bucket.
Cats work too.
A nice chicken snake around works also.
How can they get inside a cabinet?
There are ways to handle this. You just have to think it thru.
Like hanging seed corn in a cotton sack and tying it so it hangs from a rafter. I have stored shelled corn ready to grind in my barn in a 5 gal bucket with just a piece of plank covering it. Hardware screen wire is
handy. They can't go thru that!....
I think you have a new age problem that needs an old age solution.
A nice tight root cellar is the best solution. Go out in the yard to a sloping area that faces south. Start digging and place large 55 gal plastic drums therein. Won't freeze and no mice or insect problem.
Store you dug potatoes there and whatever else you have grown. In fact make it big enough for a cot and water supplies and you have a hideout hole for when things go really bad....(soon enough).
Ok..I am sure you have answers to all these ideas. Fine. Works for me.
Maybe for others. You have to get creative BUT..like Todd says....too late..far too late for most..even if you had the land.
So far I see no visible rush to the outback here. Don't expect any either until the meltdown is well under way.
Airdale
I don't, either. Probably not for generations.
As Farley Mowat discovered, mice are also good to eat. A little bit lean, but full of nourishing protein :)
Mom and Dad used to share "horror stories" with us kids about sifting flour bugs out before baking, trimming mold from cheese, cutting the bad parts out of fruit and potatoes, and scavenging the undamaged goods after mice started nibbling. They HATED mice. It was a "survival thing" for them too.
Only modern Americans expect unblemished fruit. According to my folks, farmers sold the best, canned the worst, and kept as much "fresh" as possible in the cellar. Bugs, bad spots, downfall damage -- all it took was a little more trimming. A fruit or potato that was still "good" would keep another day or two, so you always ate the ones that were just "turning". "Eat what you can, and what you can't, you can" was my Mom's mantra during the early 70's when times got tight at home and they gardened and grew fruit trees.
Heck, even I learned early on to pick a fruit off the tree and happily nibble around the bug spots and watch out for worms. I learned to like slightly green fruit, too, as the birds and coons would take anything close to being ripe, so you were always competing with them for choice fruits. My wife and kids can't even conceive of such notions.
As Alan would say,
"Best hopes for low expectations"
My kids know all about "nibbling around the bug spots" and such like. From a young age, they've been taught to not be "fussy" about their food/clothing/toys/etc. I think they're much better off for it, even if we weren't in these tumultuous times.
On Saturday we put on a community cider-making party. Must've processed at least 5 bushels of apples. Mostly it was about building community and having fun and sharing. It was successful at all those things. You can be sure there was a certain amount of "essence of coddling moth larvae" in the finished product, too. Mighty tasty!
We've had 11-kilo bags of rice with weevils in them. I've found that I could drop the rice into hot water, where the bugs died like lobsters. Then they can be skimmed off the top with a sieve. If I missed some, I figure the creatures are MADE of rice, anyway. (I try not to let my husband know about the bugs: he's squeamish.)
But when I went to use some pasta we'd had in the cupboard for ages, I found that the same (sort of) bugs had hollowed out a lot of the spaghetti and linguine, leaving a lot of dust. Evidently we should put the boxes in sealed plastic bags.
I got a package of a half-dozen tomatoes for 79 cents at the green grocers last week -- when I opened the package and turned them over, each had a black spot. I cut out the spots and found that the tomato was otherwise okay. Stored in the fridge in those magic green vegetable bags (they seem really to work), the tomatoes have been useful for several days since. (Agree that super market tomatoes suck, but vegetable stands sometimes have ones with flavor.)
I thought that dented cans were liable to corrode where the dent compromises the coating inside. I'll still buy them if we plan to use them soon.
We've got a diner nearby that still gets pickles in the 1 gallon Glass jugs, so I'm gathering them when I can. I've seen mice chew through a lot, but the glass works, doesn't crack or get odorous, either.
LOL
grew up poor - in northern Quebec - not a lot of food choices - very little fresh food in winter and not a lot of affordable in summer. This has affected my shopping/cooking even to this day.
Always have cut out the bad spots, and probably know 7-8 ways to use up mushy - not quit bad yet - fruits and veggies so that they taste good and don't go to waste. I vermicompost the rest. My kids often laugh at how "cheap" I am with food.
I must have a bazillion containers - some purchased - some recycled. I find the best way to keep flour, grains, pasta is in a container that neither mice nor bugs can enter. It won't help against what is already in the product (ugh) but it will decrease losses from opportunistic eaters.
I only buy canned/dried stuff that I am willing to eat, and use it in rotation. And I usually always buy extra - especially if a sale is on.
My two cents :-)
Al
Any tips?
I read somewhere that those fancy sauces in French cooking were to cover up the taste of spoiled meat and other ingredients, but I'm not that fond of French cuisine.
Jams, Jellies and Juices are one way to go..
"Any tips?"
Well....
Almost any vegetable can be chopped or pureed and used as nutritional filler in soups, stews, chili, sauces. Also chopped, spiced and thrown in with stir-fry hides a lot. I am very fond of savory and breakfast muffins - made with leftovers of course - and veggies are nice in there -as well as pot pies or savory tarts.
And fruit can be mixed with yogurt in a smoothie, cottage cheese, muffins again (sense a theme here? lol) or as mentioned above - jams, jellies and sauces. If you loosen up your definition of jams or preserves you can just mash the fruit - add a few spices/sugar to the mix and voila! My mom and I are fond of fruit salsa - I haven't quite been able to convince the kids on that one yet. I also throw it in while I cook warm cereal - makes a nice breakfast.
Al
Note that "cheeseparer" has long meant "cheapskate" in the UK. (Had something like the I35W bridge collapse occurred over there, the tabloids might well have screamed blue murder about the "cheeseparing" government officials who allowed it to happen.) It's not only [most] Americans who haven't had to take chances with rotten food in recent decades, despite the apparent attractions of the "blame America first" meme.
I tried storing two 5kg bags of rice in a closet. The moths bored holes through the plastic and bred like crazy. Moths everywhere. Flying around day and especially night. We use a net to catch them but they are tough, now going after wool items in drawers. I had to throw away the ruined rice!
Try freezing stuff like this when you buy it.This will kill the bugs and if you store it in impermeable containers it will stay uncontaminated.May have to fish out a few dead bugs when using the stuff,but,what the hell.
Plastic bags may be convenient, but they are a very vulnerable way to store food. Worse, many creatures have long since learned to LOOK for human food in plastic bags. They go for them FIRST!
Insects will eat through them too.
Jars and cans are much better.
Plastic buckets...mylar inner liners for extra protection...
http://www.aaoobfoods.com/bucketsoffood.htm
I know what you mean. Cost-effective storable food tends to be a bit on the bland side (dried beans, rice, etc.) Given (a) my own less-than-stellar abilities as a cook, (b) limited time for cooking, and (c) fondness for Chinese takeout, eating the stash looked like it would be a tough proposition.
The compromise that I've come up with is "buy cheap, store, rotate, and donate". I keep a close eye on expiration dates, and all those bags of rice and beans (and a lot more besides) goes to the local food pantry after spending a couple of years in my basement, to be replaced by fresh stock from the grocery store.
With that said, my hat goes off to the folks who walk the walk, and are already in the practice of feeding themselves from the deep reserves. They'll have a leg up on me if the day comes when we need to start relying on the basement food stash. But given that I view it as a truly emergency reserve, and I can spare a few hundred bucks a year to keep the rotation going, it's been a good compromise for me. And no food is going to waste - the food pantry gets regular donations of food which is still in good condition.
I've been doing that, too. In fact, on my to-do list this month is to gather up non-perishable food for the annual holiday food drives.
Hello TODers,
Regarding the shelf life of various products: recall the age of the various O-NPK products I have mentioned earlier: bat & bird guanos, mummified Egytian cats sold by the pitchfork ton in the UK, human bones from earlier graveyards & catacombs, Atacama nitrates, etc. Hundreds to thousands of years old--yet high in potency for fueling the topsoil.
I-NPK, stored in a manner to preclude water and/or moisture infiltration, should retain it's potency for as long a timeframe as the owner and his subsequent grandchildren could care about before it is finally applied to the final square foot. Have you hugged your bag of NPK today?
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Well, we HAVE been talking about CATabolic collapse. . .
Hello WNC Observer,
Thxs for responding. The best thing about trading or using I/O-NPK is that you get FRESH veggies, milk, eggs, bacon, bread, etc. Canned goods will be Unobtainium WTSHTF, and glass jars, suitable for food storage purposes, will be treated like fine heirloom jewelry.
A single postPeak quart jar of [pure luxury] honey or jam might trade for a large amount of precious metal coinage [doubtful, see TODer Todd's rationale], or a box of .22 ammo [so the farmer can shoot varmints raiding his fields and coops]. The farmer may require a heaping wheelbarrow of 5 fifty lb. sacks of high potency I-NPK to part with a quart of his beehive's honey.
I love eating fresh food, but I've grown accustomed to the bland food mostly through the use of spices. Vaccum sealed pouches of spices helps them keep their flavor, plus the addition of fresh ingredients here and there. Sure, beans and rice are bland, but when you make dirty rice or red beans & rice Louisiana style, it's good stuff!
Well, storing up on canned food is just a temporary solution--very short term. Unless you've got a basement full of the stuff and you own your house outright. Even then, you have to be able to grow food yourself, otherwise, you really are just kidding yourself and not really solving anything or setting an example.
I've been making a lot of jokes today, but seriously, the idea of small farming on less than an acre is my suggestion for all of us. This web site explains how it can be done even by those who don't own land: http://www.spinfarming.com/
>>Cost-effective storable food tends to be a bit on the bland side (dried beans, rice, etc.) <<
Part of your store should be a good supply of dried herbs and spices.
As for canned and dried food, I have just restocked for winter. We will rotate this out, and any left over will go to my kids when the return to Uni in a years time and then We restock.
Not so much for the 'end of the world' , more for the ever increasing likelyhood of blackouts, strikes, food distribution snags etc.
ps: Never buy dented cans.
why? I haven't died of dents yet. Am I missing something?
The internal coating on the can gets microfractures.
The (generally) acidic contents work on the can and air gets in.
A dented can has been dropped or impacted. So the seams may not be so good.
More on dented cans.
http://www.usmef.org/FoodSafety/Clostridium_Botulinum.pdf
On a basis of risk assessment:
Occurance - Rare.
Effect - Severe to Fatal.
You don't have to worry about botulism if you heat the food before you eat it. Boil it for 20 minutes.
Botulism usually happens with home-canned foods that aren't heated before eating, like three-bean salad or canned fruit.
Of course, now we would just throw out anything that was suspect. In the future, we may not be so picky.
The problem is canned fish. Which of course is often eaten cold.
My wife and I raised our kids on Sanalac, a powdered whole milk that had its own cartons -- fill the yellow container to the line with water, add the powder, shake, and let sit for a bit. Tasted okay. You could even make yogurt with it. Unfortunately, Sanalac is no longer available. Too many people agreed with Leanan.
My current husband (married in Montreal) and I don't drink milk at all, but I like to use it in cooking. So I keep ordinary powdered no-fat milk in the fridge (one quart envelope's worth in a jar) and add it to recipes with the appropriate amount of water.
The Sanalac company still makes available a powdered buttermilk, also useful in baking.
I hang a bug-trapping sticky tape from the ceiling of the pantry, and it is covered with the little weevils and moths that infest the place. Doesn't prevent the flour from infestation but delays it, I hope.
One of the interesting things I've discovered is that even when kept in a deep chest freezer, chicken and fish and anything else with unsaturated fat will still go rancid. Without getting moldy or discolored, it loses its natural flavor and develops the nasty flavor of oxidized fat. How hard would it be to build a gas separator and purge the freezer with nitrogen?
shoes crack
That is why I have a gallon of leather balm.
Alan
Hey Alan I use mink oil on my leather what kind of balm do you recco? Just got back to my basement office after picking tomatoes, spinach and gathering pecans. Dang squirrels, crows and jays are out scoring me on the pecans. Sorry to hear you have had bad experiences with storage Leean. Being a semi old fart I have practiced the buy at least 2 when I buy most necessities mainly because I figure the prices will increase and I don't like to shop. I am in the midst of a new storage closet for dry goods i.e. clothing, shoes etc.
I bought the book "Crisis Preparedness" from Matt Chimp Man Savinar and it lays out storage specs for a lot of food items. Lots of pasta's, beans, and grains are good for over 10 years (at least) if stored properly. I have paper goods from as much as 20 years ago that are still fine. I didn't deliberately buy them they were leftover party goods (plates, cups,napkins) given to me by a paper company for a departmental party, stored in totes they are fine.
I'm still leaning towards the inflation scenario with the Central Banks throwing dollars at the problems in increasing volumes. We will still see deflation in some assets but food, energy, other necessities will IMO see upwards pressure. Under that scenario I can't think of a better way to invest your precious cash than in useable inventory. GLTA
I use "Leather Balm" by Leather Coatings Inc. of Dallas.
About a quart and a half down after 5 to 6 years.
On the sides of the front of the shoes are the most likely to crack. I also use it when I get my shoes wet.
Best Hopes for Good, long lasting shoes,
Alan
Over $150 to my cobbler this year :-) About = to my diesel bill.
I use Neatsfoot oil several times before applying Mink oil, can be purchased at Tandy Leather outlets.
I have leather rifle slings in new condition that are over 60 years old. Bandoliers that are over 40 and 50 yrs old. Work boots stored and not used will last indefinately with this method. Oddly enough, handling the leather items doesnt wear them out, its storage that break them down. Using neatsfoot oil makes storage long term, possible. Work boots by the nature of their use,wear out. Neatsfoot makes long term storage possible.
I think that a whole systems approach is better. Instead of just going out and buy a bunch of canned corn, beans, tomatoes, etc., either grow your own or buy in bulk in season from a local producer, then equip yourself with the canning equipment and supplies to can your own. Get into a pattern of doing this on an annual basis, putting up enough each summer to see you through the next year (or maybe even a couple of years), use it up, and then replenish next season. We need to be thinking in terms of a lifestyle, not an episode.
I'd also suggest people get a copy of Making the Best of Basics. I've loaned my copy out and I forget the author (Ken Stevens??). Lots of lists and useful information. I'd also recommend finding a copy of Farm Journals (new and revised edition) Freezing and Canning Cookbook, ISBN 0-385-13444-4. Ours is from 1973 - shows how long we've been doing this stuff.
We hot water bath and pressure can, dehydrate, vacuum pack* and freeze. We have about 40 cubic feet of freezer space (and the PV system to run them if the grid is out). I also store a LOT of food in used plastic olive barrels. They come in a variety of sizes, I have 50 and 62 gallon ones. Their advantage is that they are food grade plastic and have screw-on lids with a gasket. Nothing can get in. Their disadvantage is the the lids are only a little over a foot in diameter (14" and 16" respectively). They are about $25 in my boondocks town in northern CA.
Todd
*Remember, canning jars can also be vacuum pack
My wife and I used to have sheep on our farm.
Never underestimate the power of the sheep to change direction instantaneously. One second there running for their lives, the next, eating.
And right on queue, pending home sales up 7%. Baaaaaaa
It's very hard to laugh lately, but that was damn funny, Ha.
I imagine it is better to feel like one understands what is happening, but now I'm not sure.
Come on, cheer up. Don't you get slightly sick of hearing that "this time it's different"? The New Economy. The New Securitization. The End of the World as We Know it. It's the same old crap. The business cycle ebbs and flows and almost always for the same reason.
Of all of world's history, do you really believe you're watching the end of it? If it comes, it comes. But everyone at my company keeps showing up for work. Gas is getting cheaper. The store shelves are filled to the brim. My bills show up in the mailbox on time and the payments go out on time. 6% unemployment? Big deal. A couple of greedy quasi-banks failed? So what. There are 8500 more banks where those came from.
Really. I'd go on, but I have to take my daughter to school like I do every Wednesday.
Hang in there and enjoy the moment.
Nope. But I believe I'm watching the most interesting part of it in the last 60-90 years. Maybe more.
I'm fortunate to live in interesting times.
Jtee: Yeah you're right-screw them all-you're doing fine.
My post started with "Cheer Up" and ended with "Enjoy the moment".
Even McPalinbush would have a hard time twisting that into "screw them all".
But I am doing fine, thanks for caring.
I've had a running conversation with a friend of mine for about a year now about the imminent problems that were facing the world: the debt crisis, peak oil, climate change, food crisis, etc. I was never able to get through to her at all. The last time we talked about it, she said, "People always predict doom and gloom. That's what people do."
That may be true, but what vastly more people do is to pooh-pooh the doomsayers. And they're right, most of the time -- until they aren't. And then they are completely unprepared for what happens when TSHTF.
My guess is that this inability to imagine the future as anything but a continuation of the past is probably involved in every failed civilization. If you can't imagine that the future will be different, then you can't prepare for discontinuities, and even relatively benign changes can become catastrophic.
People have known this financial crisis was coming at least two years ago. Even I, who normally pay no attention to economic issues, have known it was coming for more than a year. The world has sleepwalked to the precipice, and now you're advising them to keep sleepwalking. Not the best advice, IMO.
shargash, those people who smirked at me these past couple years while I cashed out and moved to Cascadia have been emailing me this week, looking for - direction. And I had the opportunity to say the four sweetest words in my language: ITYS. So there's always fun to be had among the ruins, even if all that remains is schadenfreude.
But heck, I've made a ton this past week, because I was dumping commodities all Spring and buying Proshares Shorts. One problem with this scheme, though, is that their valuation depends on orderly functioning markets. From the "Time Is Up" link at the top of the page:
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/602-Time-Is-Up-Congress-And-...
Better to make your move a year too soon than a day too late.
Unemployment when the whole labor force is included is at 11%, according to the BLS U6 metric, while shadowstats has it pegged at 15%. http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data The number you cite is the obfuscatory U3. Also note the CPI being 13%.
And according to offical stats, the USA isn't even in a recession at all (I think their latest number is a strong 2% real growth rate).
I'm assuming that the downward revisions into negative territory for the past year will be announced sometime soon after November 4th.
Huh, Here I thought it was the worlds largest banks and many several of them at that. I must have misunderstood that it was a world wide economic crisis. Maybe I took it all out of context and added things that werent really occuring, like oil wars, resource wars, territorial wars.
I suppose it seems jockular to tell a person with a flat tire..."Hey! its only flat on one side" and chuckle to yourself at that individuals misfortune....
instead of offering to help fix the flat or share a lift.
Nephilim<----making that tisk tisk sound and wagging his finger at you.
What this country needs right now is a good Border Collie!
I prefere Old English Sheepdog (OES). A Border Collie wants to run-run-run and I can't keep up while my OES will try to herd me along my morning walk.
I just wish we had an OES running for president.
I'd like to turn loose a large flock of elephant size chickens in Washington DC (Big Grin).
We have an OES as London Mayor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Boris_Johnson.jpg
At 38 I have no illusion of retirement. I have a modest pension plan paid by my employer, of which 40% are in saving, not investing.
A few times a year I get this calls from insurers that there is this gap between my present income and expected pension benefits. Hilarious!
2035 is a long time away.
At 38 you have a lot of life ahead -- and no one can forsee the future. (Forsee has several meanings, I have recently discovered, #1, no one can forsee the future and #2, "no one could have 'forseen' the collapse of the economy").
Anyway, I'm off to see my grandkids, and they are completely untroubled by all this turmoil, totally optimistic about the future. It is a welcome break. They may be "toast" along with my bank account and what little is in my IRA. But I am beginning to slither out of my gloom -- the world has seen a lot, and yet it is very young.
I like the geological perspective on time.
The new model for aging will not be cessation of work, but changing of work. When we are no longer able to earn a living doing what we used to do, we'll have to change to doing something else. Hopefully by that time one will have no debts, will have housing and other important assets in hand, and will have some financial reserves saved up to cushion the decline to a lower income. That's about the best that I think that most of us can really hope for.
WNC
You called it. I last retired from programming right after Y2K because I told my employer I would stay till then. I have a one man business making high end furniture in what I call a "Simple Oriental" style. Though I have all the power equipment needed, I am training myself into hand tools. No debt and lots of food, etc. Of course we are not completely ready for any Black Swan but we are fairly well prepared to get along for quite a while.
BTW: I have been a doomer for about 35 years now so none of this is any surprise.
Off topic
For woodworking, have you considered the Fien Multimaster ? A different way of cutting and grinding (high frequency oscillation) ?
Best Hopes for fine tools,
Alan
Further off topic: the Dremel Multimax looks similar and is just coming out. I'm pretty sure I don't want to buy the Fein due to cost, but the clone looks cool.
Alan: I have a multimaster and I used it almost daily for tough sanding positions in corners. I have used the cutter piece a couple times in weird angled curved trim that must be hand fit.
Hand tool wise a chisel plane works well in the corners and carving chisels can get into most of the weird places.
I won't use it much after the grid goes down. :-)
RalphW,
"It is hard to focus on work on a day like this."
Yeah, it's almost like being in love.
BUT SERIOUSLY, at least your government (I'm assuming that you're writing from the UK) can step in and basically nationalize the process. At least it provides SOME stability.
All I can say to you (or anyone else) is I wish you Good Luck.
I'd much prefer the welcome distraction of not getting any work done because I'm in love, as opposed to fretting about how much work I have to get done on my homestead before TSHTF.
A friend of mine said that I was 4 years early with my 'end of the world' predictions of Peak Oil (in ~2012?) and that it was all happening too soon...
I said what this? haha, a mere 'amuse bouche' mon amis...
Nick.
Oh for goodness sake it's only money.
Imagine you have in your left hand the whole world and everything in it. All the houses, cars, businesses, land etc etc.
What is it worth?
You have in your right hand all of the money in the world... 1 penny...
What is the world worth?
What price could it possibly have? Now double the money. 2 pennies, what is it worth? A quadrillion pennies, what is the world worth?
The world hasn't changed... The real stuff hasn't changed.
If the banks start taking out pennies and shooting them, the share of the world which those which are left represent grows. Each penny becomes worth more of the world.
What this really means is that your salaries and cash are able to buy more stuff... The crashing of the stock markets is great news. If you don't absolutely have to sell you haven't lost anything. It's a huge bargain basement sale... It's buying time.
You know... buy low, sell high... Am I the only one who sees this?
My guess is yes. Or close to it, at least around here.
Many of us suspect that the stock market will never recover. Will in fact only get worse.
And that lack of money is actually the least of the problem. The fear is that economic collapse will lead to societal collapse, and peak oil will mean recovery will be a long time coming, if it ever arrives.
Humans one by one are flimsy monkeys. What makes us so powerful is teamwork, our ability to learn from each other and coordinate our activities.
What money does and all the other financial instruments, is allow us to coordinate our actions, e.g. to balance supply and demand of whatever commodity.
The big problem I see with the present turmoil is that our systems of coordination have broken down. Not utterly, of course, but seriously enough for my taste. E.g. many commodity prices are way down, but the commodities themselves are scarce.
The point is, reality crucially includes our carefully choreographed patterns of behavior. If the orchestra conductor collapses, all the fine violins aren't going to save the music from dissolving into noise.
Buy and Hold
Figure 2 depicts the performance of a portfolio beginning at the end of 1928 with $100 divided between the three asset classes. It is called a buy and hold strategy because the growth of the three alternate portfolios is calculated based on the assumption that once the money is invested, the investments were simply held until the end of 1938. All dividends and interest have been reinvested net of the standard commission rates of the time. The three alternatives shown are expressed in terms of the percentage of capital allocated to T-bills/Long-term bonds/Stocks respectively. So 10/40/50 indicates and allocation of 10% Short-term bonds, 40% Long-term bonds, and 50% invested in the stock market. It is not surprising to find that the more we allocated to Long-term bonds in this strategy the better the portfolio would have sailed through the Depression. The best performing portfolio shown, 10/80/10, grew to $171 by the end of the ten year period. That constitutes an annual growth rate of 5.51% per year
http://www.shambhala.org/business/goldocean/gdis.html
Bargain basement prices are great for those of us who are debt free with an income and savings. Deflation isn't so great for those with fixed debts that do not adjust while wages and employment decline.
Likewise, inflation should benefit those with fixed debt as wages rise. The catch is that the price of goods rise before wages, making it hard to pay those debt obligations in the mean time.
Better get ready for an avian flu epidemic, then!
Sterling fell against the euro late last year and early this year from 147.5 €/£ to 126 €/£ and has been stable since (www.euroinvestor.co.uk/currency). Do you think it will resume falling? Surely you don't think sterling will collapse against the dollar (we're not that screwed - we have a railway network!).
"...we have a railway network!"
Which halts instantly whenever the wrong kind (i.e. any kind whatsoever) of leaves or snow fall on the line?
I've noticed a shift in attitude at TOD in the last week or two. Many of us have been logically pessimistic for a long time. But now it's hitting us emotionally and the posts reflect that. Personally, I find the turn of events both exciting and depressing at the same time. One side of the brain knows what is going on; the other is angry and very scared - very very scared because it is informed by the side that knows what is going on.
Lots of people have been getting back to me, "Chris what you said would happen is and it's happening faster than anyone [myself included] thought. What's going on?" And I don't know any more. I can work myself out of depression by staying physically active. People need to stay attentive to their attitude because poor attitude is that last thing any of us need now. These are not times to lose focus - today, tomorrow and all next week and into the dark days of winter. What works for me: use logical brain to put myself on a program; tonight I'll take satisfaction in the trees I've taken down, the extra space for the chickens, the firewood, potential terra-preta and the extra amount of afternoon sun that my gardens will receive.
Last night at Town Council, I spoke out - as I have for the past year - against taking on more bonding and debt. About not expanding town facilities; many assets are going to look like liabilities all too soon as we cannot keep them going. We got our town's annual audit report. The audit firm does maybe 1/3 of the towns in Maine; Buffet is cancelling all the insurance policies, towns aren't getting bonds floated for new projects, those that do are paying way more than anticipated. The auditor thought long term prospects for municipalities were looking very dark.
I think it's WestTexas down thread writing about walking to work. If one starts making the shift into the new paradigm, it's easier for feeling brain to stay congruent. That's important to mental health.
YMMV - your mileage may vary.
cfm in Gray, ME
Speaking of getting emotional...
Lehman CEO Punched in the Face
I'm still surprised that none of these guys have had actual attempts on their life yet. Just wait until people get really angry, and the rich have to start defending their homes from the angry hordes.
A simple beating will not be what will befall a great many, when they are published with a name and address linked to a work record. Many, many people, will not sit idle, and let a few take from them, that which they have worked their whole life for. If a man took from you by fraud and dishonesty, say all your savings, or your house, and you saw him on the street, would you say "Thank You Mr. President" and walk on by?
A man, who has already lost everything, and has nothing left to lose, is a very dangerous man. This is, the beginning, the revolution, to change the face of this country. For good or for bad will be unknown.
What is hilarious about this is that with a few bounces the other way and better guv connections possibly Fuld could have been running the country and Paulson would be getting smacked around in the gym. OTOH I guess most people would accept a shot in the head if they could be allowed to steal 400 million.
Fuld should consider himself lucky he wasn't strung up. If I had any money to invest I would put it all into tar, feathers and rails.
Dred
There was a fine colonial item called the "wooden horse".
Gray,
You're bang on with the need to do something and get from under the despair.
The moment I had my fill of reading the news on Monday morning.... and knowing that the financial world was really, really crashing big time... I said to the missus, it's a nice day let's go for a drive. Went to a nearby bog and picked cranberries for the afternoon. Pick over a gallon of the red berries.
Gave us something to do. Good exercise, fresh air, and we harvested food that will not have to come from a supermarket.
Lean times perhaps this winter, but at least now we'll have lots of cranberry sauce.
Also, this autumn, harvested a plentiful garden of cucumbers and made bread and butter pickles, lots of beets, and having been storing up lots of preserves on our shelves. Our potatoes didn't do too well... too wet here... but looking like a bumper crop of turnips.
The last thing anyone needs to do is mope. When times get bigger than life, live large!