Hi js, Several farmers out by my dad's near the Iowa hinterlands found the fall harvest very expensive. One in particular has closed up shop for good (he couldn't break even with fertilizer costs double the previous year's) and is using much of his stored corn in a high tech corn burner for home heating purposes, while he contemplates his next move. According to him, all hope is not lost, in that fertilizer can be imported cheaper than the domestic product, which helps tamp down some of the fiscal pain. However, he predicts that the corporate farms--30,000 acres plus-- will swamp the little guy same as the feudal lords did of bygone days. In the interim, land could stand fallow in large quanity, which might lead to FARMAFTA, whereby the US becomes a net importer of food. Remember last month's WTO machinations? God forbid.

I suspect our ISP has a problem with folks speaking out for FREEDOM. Funny thing, I mentioned corporations feeding fast foods to our soldiers overseas. POOf my post was axed. Wowsers, I better be careful or I may end up in a consentration camp and tortured like my dad was for being HONEST..

Candian troups reported burger king junk trucks,, pizza hut and others are feeding our soldiers... OIYvay,,,

Interesting how my first post disapeared into cyberspace

Anyhoo, happy new you .


Hug everyone, you're wonderful

I don't think the small farmer can play that "high input" game. That deck is stacked. The consolidation of farmland back in the 60's and 70's paralleled the Russian collectivizations but they did it by jacking up property taxes to force "development" of farmland and subsidizing corporate farms at the expense of the small farmer (Former US Sec'y of Agriculture Earl Butz:"Get big or get out"). Those corporate sponsored college ag. programs pushed and recommended programs and ideas that were not suitable for small producers and forced them into a losing game and many into bankruptcy. Best off to ignore them and follow the path less traveled, "The Stockman Grassfarmer" (Allan Nation), and Joel Salatins books, low inputs and sustainable methods. It means more customer interaction, which is a big pain for a cranky old farmer, but it's the only way. This "registering" of livestock, using "safety" as an excuse will pretty much target us at least as far as selling even halves or quarters. Meanwhile, our food supply is at high risk BECAUSE of the consolidation and corporatization, not because of independent small farmers who can't afford to feed their cattle that nasty stuff that causes BSE if they WANTED to. People need to wake up, find a clean, reliable small farmer and pay him to grow them a steer or manage and milk a cow they own, or buy veggies from him, and complain against this database. But, who cares, they can always get food from the grocery store, right? Everyone needs to have at least an acre or so they can keep a few chickens or rabbits on and grow some of their food, we are dangerously dependent. Ever read "Countryside" magazine?

Folks,
For those of you that don't follow technology or aviation in particular. We have an invention coming down the pike that may well revolutionize our dwelling habits. I am talking about busting up our tendency to live in cities and suburbs in favor of living in rural areas.
I suggest that you take a look at http://www.moller.com/news/

You will need to browse the entire site as it is set for their fans whom have been following the story for some time.
Basically the site is reporting a VTOL aircraft that outperforms a helicopter in all ways and has roughly the operating difficulty & cost of an automobile.
With this vehicle you could make a hundred & seventy five mile commute in a half hour.
Ron

He's 22 now, owns waterfront property , drives 1/2 hour to work. He's not a talker/dreamer, he makes things happen.

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

Replying to:

Folks,
For those of you that don't follow technology or aviation in particular. We have an invention coming down the pike that may well revolutionize our dwelling habits. I am talking about busting up our tendency to live in cities and suburbs in favor of living in rural areas.
I suggest that you take a look at http://www.moller.com/news/

You will need to browse the entire site as it is set for their fans whom have been following the story for some time.
Basically the site is reporting a VTOL aircraft that outperforms a helicopter in all ways and has roughly the operating difficulty & cost of an automobile.
With this vehicle you could make a hundred & seventy five mile commute in a half hour.
Ron

Be sure to check out the Facile Prophecies for 2006. They got it all wrong last year so I thought I'd send you guys the correct prophecies for 2006.

"""A large percentage of Americans continue to walk around with their head shoved up their rear ends, spending money they don't earn, while the commentators at the Wall Street Journal and CNBC cheer them on."""

Best description of average america I've read in years.....it is all a matter of training, you know!

Memories of the Great Depression: The Rosy Pictures of the Timid Press


Stories which would really only be worth three or four paragraphs
buried on the financial page would get an eight column, 48 point
bold headline, and the stories were about a sale of maybe 25,000
bushels of apples to be shipped to Hawaii or a three per cent
increase of lumber exports through Vancouver, or the fact that such
and such a liner would make a special call at Halifax or that dried
cod shipments to Jamaica were up by $5,000 for the quarter, or news
about construction of a $100,000 addition to a shoe factory or a
Canada Packers plant. Such piddling things. Really piddling things.

You've got to wonder who they thought they were fooling, especially
when the actual indicators, the New York board and the Canadian
Exchange and the price of wheat on the Winnipeg Grain Exchange and
the relief figures, and talk about riots or semi-riots, and your
neighbors moving down into the poor end of town because the factory
had failed, all these indicators were showing that things were bad.
But they weren't reported with the same prominence as these piddling
little things, like a small order of Okanagan apples to
Honolulu. . . .

In the Depression, on the prairies in particular, the newspapers
were faced with the problem and the worry about survival. No matter
what happened they tended to put the best gloss they could on it.
I've used the phrase "the descent of an ice age", to describe the
relief thing, it came so slowly and then it was there, and it was
there, and it was there for ever, and there was nothing to do about
it. It just got gradually worse. And the newspapers just didn't
cover it.

The city hall reporter once a week went down to the relief committee
meeting where the finance report was read and there was a report on
the numbers who were on relief. And aside from that, there was no
reporting done. . . .

We never really covered the news. Here it was, this Depression
busting about all around us, and Canadian newspapers didn't cover
it. . . .

Newspaper editors just weren't aware, but if they were, they kept
that awareness to themselves because they could tread on a lot of
big toes in civic and provincial government, and that meant nothing
but trouble for them. Another thing is, of course, that the
reporters themselves never thought that the nitty-gritty, the real
story of the Depression, was worth covering. They all had
this, "Screw you, Jack, I'm in the lifeboat," attitude. . . .

We didn't cover the Depression because it was not in the best
interests of our publishers and stockholders to do so. . . .

Every newspaper across Canada and in the United States always played
up the silver lining. Except that it was a gold lining. There were
no such things as starvation, hunger marches, store front windows
being kicked in. Yes, they were reported, but always these were
called incidents and incited by "highly-paid professional
agitators." Communists. I knew some of these agitators and many of
them were like you and me. Far from being professional agitators,
and, for Christ Sakes, not highly-paid. Anything on unions, it got
back on page 37 under the late classified ads. . . .

And the reason? Big business. The clique of businessmen who ran
every town. If the newspapers played it down the line, their line,
then they would get those full page advertising lay-outs from the
big stores, all those quarter and half pages. But if the word on
page one was gloom and sadness, then the "Vancouver Sun" would get
that advertising and the "Province" would be in trouble. It was big
business playing two gutless wonders off against each other. . . .



– Barry Broadfoot, "Ten Lost Years 1929-1939: Memories of Canadians
Who Survived the Depression" (Toronto: Doubleday, 1973), 349-53.

Gold at $666 in after hours trading. Omen?