When I started planning to build my lifeboat back in 2003, I had already come to the conclusion that the crises in finance, energy and climate would eventually show up in food availability or lack of. It therefore became the keystone of my planning with all else built around it. In fact it was rather easy, as I discovered, because historically its been the keystone of human existence and therefore it comes naturally to us once we see the necessity (once the scales fall from our eyes).

Eventually, I imagine that the multitude of crises we face will be looked upon through the lens of food production. Rather than as distinct and separate crises requiring separate responses.

Interesting to see Libya buying up land rights in the Ukraine in the article "Global grain rush under way as rich nations snap up farmland overseas". One of the things I anticipated was the removal of food produce from the global market place, meaning money alone would not be enough to secure access to the vital production. Although I assumed this would come about due to protective hoarding, political affiliations (power blocks) and neo-colonisation. In actuality, it seems to be happening in a much more subtle and complex fashion.

Glad you brought up the Baltic Dry Index. Yesterday's comments included link's to Financial Sense and M. Simmons. Where Matt and Jim give the impression that there is no glut of empty ships, that every tanker is full. So what is it, Lots of full ships, or low Baltic dry, I mishear, or something in between-that the index doesn't include oil tankers?

ilargi: We had some discussion here a couple of days ago - some observations that retailers didn't seem to be discounting all THAT extremely, in light of the economic situation. There are bargains, to be sure, but not the fire sale liquidation that you might expect. This led me to speculate that maybe the retailers are assuming that they are not going to be able to restock their shelves after the holidays, because: a) suppliers factories are closed down; or b) goods cannot be shipped overseas due to a lack of letters of credit; or c) retailers can't get financing to carry new inventory; or d) all of the above. In other words, they are assuming that what they have on the shelves now is pretty much all they are going to have for some time to come. Thus, if they are to have any hope of outlasting their competitors, of being the "last store standing", then their only prayer of a chance is to NOT liquidate their merchandise at a loss, but rather to mark down just enough to continue bringing the customers in, and hope to keep enough merchandise on the shelves so that a trickle of customers will keep coming in to buy after Christmas - with store hours and staffing cut to the absolute bone, of course. What do you think?