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Willem Buiter warns of massive dollar collapse
Americans must prepare themselves for a massive collapse in the dollar as investors around the world dump their US assets, a former Bank of England policymaker has warned.
By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor
Published: 5:34PM GMT 05 Jan 2009
MPC founder member Willem Buiter. Photo: CHRISTOPHER COX The long-held assumption that US assets - particularly government bonds - are a safe haven will soon be overturned as investors lose their patience with the world's biggest economy, according to Willem Buiter.
Professor Buiter, a former Monetary Policy Committee member who is now at the London School of Economics, said this increasing disenchantment would result in an exodus of foreign cash from the US.
The warning comes despite the dollar having strengthened significantly against other major currencies, including sterling and the euro, after hitting historic lows last year. It will reignite fears about the currency's prospects, as well as sparking fears about the sustainability of President-Elect Barack Obama's mooted plans for a Keynesian-style increase in public spending to pull the US out of recession.
Writing on his blog , Prof Buiter said: "There will, before long (my best guess is between two and five years from now) be a global dumping of US dollar assets, including US government assets. Old habits die hard. The US dollar and US Treasury bills and bonds are still viewed as a safe haven by many. But learning takes place."
He said that the dollar had been kept elevated in recent years by what some called "dark matter" or "American alpha" - an assumption that the US could earn more on its overseas investments than foreign investors could make on their American assets. However, this notion had been gradually dismantled in recent years, before being dealt a fatal blow by the current financial crisis, he said.
"The past eight years of imperial overstretch, hubris and domestic and international abuse of power on the part of the Bush administration has left the US materially weakened financially, economically, politically and morally," he said. "Even the most hard-nosed, Guantanamo Bay-indifferent potential foreign investor in the US must recognise that its financial system has collapsed."
He said investors would, rightly, suspect that the US would have to generate major inflation to whittle away its debt and this dollar collapse means that the US has less leeway for major spending plans than politicians realise.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/4125947/Willem-Buiter-warns-of-massive-dollar-collapse.html
Willem Buiter warns of massive dollar collapse
Americans must prepare themselves for a massive collapse in the dollar as investors around the world dump their US assets, a former Bank of England policymaker has warned.
By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor
Published: 5:34PM GMT 05 Jan 2009
MPC founder member Willem Buiter. Photo: CHRISTOPHER COX The long-held assumption that US assets - particularly government bonds - are a safe haven will soon be overturned as investors lose their patience with the world's biggest economy, according to Willem Buiter.
Professor Buiter, a former Monetary Policy Committee member who is now at the London School of Economics, said this increasing disenchantment would result in an exodus of foreign cash from the US.
The warning comes despite the dollar having strengthened significantly against other major currencies, including sterling and the euro, after hitting historic lows last year. It will reignite fears about the currency's prospects, as well as sparking fears about the sustainability of President-Elect Barack Obama's mooted plans for a Keynesian-style increase in public spending to pull the US out of recession.
Writing on his blog , Prof Buiter said: "There will, before long (my best guess is between two and five years from now) be a global dumping of US dollar assets, including US government assets. Old habits die hard. The US dollar and US Treasury bills and bonds are still viewed as a safe haven by many. But learning takes place."
He said that the dollar had been kept elevated in recent years by what some called "dark matter" or "American alpha" - an assumption that the US could earn more on its overseas investments than foreign investors could make on their American assets. However, this notion had been gradually dismantled in recent years, before being dealt a fatal blow by the current financial crisis, he said.
"The past eight years of imperial overstretch, hubris and domestic and international abuse of power on the part of the Bush administration has left the US materially weakened financially, economically, politically and morally," he said. "Even the most hard-nosed, Guantanamo Bay-indifferent potential foreign investor in the US must recognise that its financial system has collapsed."
He said investors would, rightly, suspect that the US would have to generate major inflation to whittle away its debt and this dollar collapse means that the US has less leeway for major spending plans than politicians realise.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/4125947/Willem-Buiter-warns-of-massive-dollar-collapse.html
Overestimationalism
02:32 by Administrator. Filed under: Whatever
by John Galt
January 5, 2010
“If passed, this will be the most important piece of social policy since the Social Security Act in the 1930s, and the most important reform of our health care system since Medicare passed in the 1960s.”
-President Obama, Remarks on December 24, 2009 after the passage of the Senate Health Care Reform Bill
The executive order that President Obama signed above, directly from the White House pages by the way, shows the extent of just how far and how much the people in charge in Washington, D.C. are beginning to overplay their hands. The only reason for signing this particular Executive Order is to allow the International Criminal Court in the Hague to issue arrest warrants for American citizens, including soldiers, and bring them to trial using the powers of INTERPOL, as their representatives on our homeland. The President brags about the passage in the first quote above being as important and large as the Social Security Act passed under FDR and completely understands how that has managed to enslave decades of American workers to the idea that they would always have a sufficient retirement thanks to the government, while at the same time overestimating the value of this retirement when the day comes. They failed to understand the concept of monetary degradation where inflation destroys their “retirement program” faster than they can add to it or multiply its effectiveness thanks to the very same government which created Social Security.
This President is overestimating and overplaying his hand and the blow back is about to begin.
Meanwhile, across the aisle, the smug Republicans are content to think they have successfully elicited the support to the Tea Party Movement, the 9-12ers, along with disaffected American Conservatives and they are planning to nominate a lot of the same type of slugs that were rejected in the 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008 elections, failing once again to learn the lessons of history. Their lazy leadership is one again trying to use the “we’re not them” as their only serious issue in their national platform. Thus once again, they are engaged in the historic mistake of assuming that conservative and Constitutionalist voters are not of principle, the same mistake they made with the nomination of McCain, and will find that after the 2010 elections, the only gains will be in those areas where true Reagan/Goldwater style conservatives ran for office.
The Republican Party and their allies are overestimating their relevance to this current, critical and possibly final turning point in American history.
The Bubbleconomists and Bubblemedia have been promoting the miraculous recovery which started in the third quarter of 2009 with a rebound in the GDP of 3.5%, oops, er 2.8% , oops er 2.2%. And since the majority of the output generated was via economic stimulus as a result of a massive monetary expansion by the Federal Reserve along with a fiscal stimulus program of which the impact was somewhat overestimated. Now the whispers of how the bull market has returned and just how wonderful investing in stocks and playing the market has returned to the pump and dump crowd trying to hook the ignorant to dump their money out of the money market funds where you have a net negative earnings due to inflation and put it “back to work” in the stock market. Here too, they are overestimating their ability to manage economic affairs as no nation in history has ever engaged in the types of activities nor diversification of its industrial base overseas then ran the massive debts and deficits then to solve it they elect to spend even more as a solution. History does not look kindly on the arrogant, and the arrogance of those who believe in their version of the “science” of economics are about to get a rude awakening that their field of practice is nothing more than a systemic attempt to gauge human behavior and manipulate it, usually resulting in the individual still reigning supreme when all is said and done.
Thus to help these “scientists” I’ll make it easier for them: The United States is bankrupt. The bills are due. We the people are pissed about the institutionalizing of neo-Socialism within our economic system.
The “science” of economics question of the modern day can now be considered SOLVED.
Lastly, I fear that the blow back against the current political class is itself overestimating their importance and needs to understand how these movements end up in history as abject failures. Right now, without a rudder, the perceived goal of the Tea Party, 9-12 and other movements is that of an anti-Obama, anti-Washington, anti-Incumbent movement. This is sort of like trying to kill a grizzly bear with a set of nail clippers. Throughout history there are movements like these in various nations, such as those in Italy that involved organized labor, veterans, industrialists and the Catholic Church. They worked hard to blunt the efforts of the socialist and fascist movements but instead were recruited into lucrative arrangements or positions within the new administration under the leadership of Mussolini to bribe them away from their principles. The only method to prevent the leaders of the various movements from diving into irrelevancy is to seek a common goal and not to allow themselves to be deluded by over estimating their impact on the political scene. Should I be so brash, I recommend that the groups unite under a target that would insure a permanent change in our society that our Founding Fathers could smile upon.
Such as the repeal of the 17th Amendment to the United States Constitution, for starters, to re-impose an original check and balance our wise Founders included in the founding document.
These are some of the examples on my mind this early morning as I contemplate our nation’s future. I coined the term “overestimationalism” as the word to best describe what too many people are thinking and acting as they promote or engage in their agendas, be it political, economic or populist. This is not the time to marginalize nor underestimate the impacts of the historic events of the last decade. In fact we are at the very edge of a cliff where our nation will be irreversibly changed for decades to come barring the unthinkable action of revolution or civil war to reverse the course, and for that I pray those engagements can be avoided. Let us hope that the arrogance of the leaders is checked by the reality of our nation’s history and that the followers emerge soon as the new leaders, before people like those of my name sake are called upon to act.
Otherwise, many of us are ready to shrug and turn our backs on this nation, as our freedoms are stripped away, leaving its citizens to their own fate of enjoying their own vice of self-indulgent Marxist dependency instead of the path of individualism and liberty for all.
http://johngaltfla.com/blog3/2010/01/
Overestimationalism
02:32 by Administrator. Filed under: Whatever
by John Galt
January 5, 2010
“If passed, this will be the most important piece of social policy since the Social Security Act in the 1930s, and the most important reform of our health care system since Medicare passed in the 1960s.”
-President Obama, Remarks on December 24, 2009 after the passage of the Senate Health Care Reform Bill
The executive order that President Obama signed above, directly from the White House pages by the way, shows the extent of just how far and how much the people in charge in Washington, D.C. are beginning to overplay their hands. The only reason for signing this particular Executive Order is to allow the International Criminal Court in the Hague to issue arrest warrants for American citizens, including soldiers, and bring them to trial using the powers of INTERPOL, as their representatives on our homeland. The President brags about the passage in the first quote above being as important and large as the Social Security Act passed under FDR and completely understands how that has managed to enslave decades of American workers to the idea that they would always have a sufficient retirement thanks to the government, while at the same time overestimating the value of this retirement when the day comes. They failed to understand the concept of monetary degradation where inflation destroys their “retirement program” faster than they can add to it or multiply its effectiveness thanks to the very same government which created Social Security.
This President is overestimating and overplaying his hand and the blow back is about to begin.
Meanwhile, across the aisle, the smug Republicans are content to think they have successfully elicited the support to the Tea Party Movement, the 9-12ers, along with disaffected American Conservatives and they are planning to nominate a lot of the same type of slugs that were rejected in the 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008 elections, failing once again to learn the lessons of history. Their lazy leadership is one again trying to use the “we’re not them” as their only serious issue in their national platform. Thus once again, they are engaged in the historic mistake of assuming that conservative and Constitutionalist voters are not of principle, the same mistake they made with the nomination of McCain, and will find that after the 2010 elections, the only gains will be in those areas where true Reagan/Goldwater style conservatives ran for office.
The Republican Party and their allies are overestimating their relevance to this current, critical and possibly final turning point in American history.
The Bubbleconomists and Bubblemedia have been promoting the miraculous recovery which started in the third quarter of 2009 with a rebound in the GDP of 3.5%, oops, er 2.8% , oops er 2.2%. And since the majority of the output generated was via economic stimulus as a result of a massive monetary expansion by the Federal Reserve along with a fiscal stimulus program of which the impact was somewhat overestimated. Now the whispers of how the bull market has returned and just how wonderful investing in stocks and playing the market has returned to the pump and dump crowd trying to hook the ignorant to dump their money out of the money market funds where you have a net negative earnings due to inflation and put it “back to work” in the stock market. Here too, they are overestimating their ability to manage economic affairs as no nation in history has ever engaged in the types of activities nor diversification of its industrial base overseas then ran the massive debts and deficits then to solve it they elect to spend even more as a solution. History does not look kindly on the arrogant, and the arrogance of those who believe in their version of the “science” of economics are about to get a rude awakening that their field of practice is nothing more than a systemic attempt to gauge human behavior and manipulate it, usually resulting in the individual still reigning supreme when all is said and done.
Thus to help these “scientists” I’ll make it easier for them: The United States is bankrupt. The bills are due. We the people are pissed about the institutionalizing of neo-Socialism within our economic system.
The “science” of economics question of the modern day can now be considered SOLVED.
Lastly, I fear that the blow back against the current political class is itself overestimating their importance and needs to understand how these movements end up in history as abject failures. Right now, without a rudder, the perceived goal of the Tea Party, 9-12 and other movements is that of an anti-Obama, anti-Washington, anti-Incumbent movement. This is sort of like trying to kill a grizzly bear with a set of nail clippers. Throughout history there are movements like these in various nations, such as those in Italy that involved organized labor, veterans, industrialists and the Catholic Church. They worked hard to blunt the efforts of the socialist and fascist movements but instead were recruited into lucrative arrangements or positions within the new administration under the leadership of Mussolini to bribe them away from their principles. The only method to prevent the leaders of the various movements from diving into irrelevancy is to seek a common goal and not to allow themselves to be deluded by over estimating their impact on the political scene. Should I be so brash, I recommend that the groups unite under a target that would insure a permanent change in our society that our Founding Fathers could smile upon.
Such as the repeal of the 17th Amendment to the United States Constitution, for starters, to re-impose an original check and balance our wise Founders included in the founding document.
These are some of the examples on my mind this early morning as I contemplate our nation’s future. I coined the term “overestimationalism” as the word to best describe what too many people are thinking and acting as they promote or engage in their agendas, be it political, economic or populist. This is not the time to marginalize nor underestimate the impacts of the historic events of the last decade. In fact we are at the very edge of a cliff where our nation will be irreversibly changed for decades to come barring the unthinkable action of revolution or civil war to reverse the course, and for that I pray those engagements can be avoided. Let us hope that the arrogance of the leaders is checked by the reality of our nation’s history and that the followers emerge soon as the new leaders, before people like those of my name sake are called upon to act.
Otherwise, many of us are ready to shrug and turn our backs on this nation, as our freedoms are stripped away, leaving its citizens to their own fate of enjoying their own vice of self-indulgent Marxist dependency instead of the path of individualism and liberty for all.
http://johngaltfla.com/blog3/2010/01/
Animal Tracing, Food Contamination and the Unsanitary Conditions of US Meat Processing Plants
The National Animal Identification System
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16763
by Rady Ananda
Global Research, January 4, 2010
- 2010-01-03
Animal traceability is gaining governmental support in two key US beef markets, which may bolster reinvigoration of the National Animal Identification System in the United States. Though NAIS remains a despised voluntary program today, we may see its full implementation under S 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act.
Animal traceability is gaining governmental support in two key US beef markets, which may bolster reinvigoration of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) in the United States, despite a recent funding cut to $5.3 million. Japan and South Korea, are now moving toward mandatory traceability on imports. South Korea plans to mandate animal monitoring by 2010, and Japan’s new prime minister vowed to mandate it for beef imports, according to a pro-NAIS report at Food Safety News.*
Though NAIS remains a voluntary program despised by independent ranchers, we may see its full implementation under S 510, (fka HR 2749), the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). A summary by the Congressional Research Service advises that S 510:
“Requires the Secretary of Agriculture to … improve the capacity of the Secretary to track and trace raw agricultural commodities,” and it “[r]equires the Secretary, acting through the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to enhance foodborne illness surveillance systems.”
Linn Cohen-Cole wrote a scathing critique of the FSMA in HR 2749: Totalitarian Control of the Food Supply. She believes that S 510 will mark “an end to US sovereignty over food.” She (and many others) perceive it as part of a World Trade Organization plan to grant corporations control over all food. S 510 will be raised in the Senate in January.
Behind Global Animal Tracing
The top markets for US beef are Mexico, Canada, Japan and South Korea, accounting for 90% of total beef exports. Mexico and Canada already implement animal tracing.
In 2004, Japan and Korea drastically reduced US beef imports after a series of contamination events, including the discovery of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or mad cow disease). In 2003, the US sold nearly $2 billion in beef to both markets; in 2004 that figure dropped to $33 million.
Top markets for U.S. beef
(accounting for over 90% of total beef exports)
Year
Japan
Mexico
South Korea
Canada
Volume
Value
Volume
Value
Volume
Value
Volume
Value
(Million lbs. carcass weight)
(Million lbs. carcass weight)
(Million lbs. carcass weight)
(Million lbs. carcass weight)
($million)
($million)
($million)
($million)
2002
771
854
629
615
597
619
241
286
2003
918
1,182
586
623
587
754
227
309
2004
12
31
333
393
1
2
56
105
2005
17
50
464
584
1
3
106
194
2006
52
105
660
786
1
4
239
415
2007
159
294
586
732
78
124
339
575
2008
231
439
649
854
152
241
389
683
Source: USDA Economic Research Service, http://bit.ly/7z5oEx
That all changed after the 2003 creation of a new voluntary Japan Agricultural Standard (JAS) program to certify the traceability of imported beef. Iowa State University reports:
“Results from consumer focus groups indicate that Japanese consumers will pay 20 percent more for domestic foods with specific safety assurances and production information. This response is generally supported by price differences at retail outlets.”
Japanese reluctance to buy cattle that was fed genetically modified feed and a steady stream of drugs has also created a booming organic market. By 2008, US beef exports to Japan rose to $439 million. Consumer confidence in more strictly regulated labeling has improved the Japanese market for US beef. That confidence may be misplaced, as Jim Hightower points out in Think your food’s organic? Think again.
By 2006, sixty-five nations, including South Korea, implemented full or partial bans on importing U.S. beef products, citing fears that testing for BSE lack rigor, per a USA Today opinion piece that condemns the USDA ban on private testing for BSE.
When South Korea president, Lee Myung-bak, tried to reopen the US beef market in 2008, over 100,000 protesters took to the streets over several days, causing the resignation of his entire cabinet. [See this Al Jazeera YouTube.] An interim agreement was reached allowing the import of cattle less than 30 months old. Younger cattle are believed to be less susceptible to BSE.
But Does Animal Tracing Protect the Food Supply?
Governments seem focused on animal tracing as the magic bullet to protect the food supply. In Japan – where reputation is more important than wealth – consumers trust government-regulated tracing and labeling schemes that identify the farm-to-fork path an animal takes. This may force the US to adopt tracing, in order to re-open its market.
Cows with rBGH-induced mastis stand in shit on factory farms
But animal tracing does not address food contamination caused by concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), where thousands of animals are crammed into tiny stalls, barely able to move. Because of their close quarters, lack of exercise and sunlight, and an unnatural diet of genetically modified grains, diseases spread like wildfire. To counter this, factory farms give the animals heavy doses of antibiotics, creating super-virulent strains of “super bugs” that are antibiotic resistant.
Animal tracing also does not address the unsanitary conditions of meat processing plants, which have been deregulated under HACCP – the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points program that removes independent inspections. Under HACCP, food processing plants monitor themselves.
In September, the Agricultural Appropriations conference committee cut funding by more than 60% for NAIS, a reduction of nearly two-thirds from the $14.6 million requested by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This may be in response to the massive outcry by ranchers during the NAIS Listening Sessions earlier this year. Ranchers cited cost, privacy, and an unfair advantage to factory farms, which are required to tag only one out of 100,000 head.
The Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund claims that NAIS won’t achieve food safety. Instead, it suggests that we:
Decentralize the livestock industry and encourage local, diversified farms, which would increase animal health, food security, and food safety;
Increase inspections of imported animals and agricultural products and bar the entry of animals from countries with known disease problems; and
Improve enforcement of existing laws and inspections of large slaughterhouses and food processing facilities, including unannounced spot inspections at those large facilities.
Instead of animal tracing, the US food supply would be better protected by banning concentrated animal feeding operations that allow disease to spread like wildfire. A ban on CAFOs would vastly improve the health of animals, and protect the environment from all the drug-laden manure produced in large operations.
Food safety can also be achieved by encouraging the spread and diversification of small farms. Promotion of local, organic food would invigorate local economies, improve the environment and increase public health. S 510 threatens small farms, with its over-reaching attempt at control of the food supply.
Global Research Articles by Rady Ananda
Living Walls – the Ultimate Raised-Bed Garden
Vertical gardens make colorful canvases for flowers, grasses, ornamental vegetables
January 5, 2010
Dean Fosdick
ABC News
Things are looking up for gardeners who are short on space but long on imagination.
It's increasingly easy to build vertical gardens, structures that enable plants to grow upward if there is no room for growing them laterally.
Photo: This photo released by Derek Fell shows a Skyscraper Garden, featuring climbing vegetables, from left to right: climbing Trombone zucchini, Early Cascade tomatoes, and Orient Express climbing cucumbers. (AP / Skyscrapergarden, Derek Fell)
These living walls can make great backdrops for mixing color with cuisine; use them to frame patios and decks with tapestries of miniature tomatoes and spaghetti squash. Or make privacy screens by draping morning glories, clematis and sweet peas over netting or latticework.
"Vertical gardening makes it easier to have your ornaments and eat them too," said Leonard Perry, an extension professor of horticulture at the University of Vermont. "Grab a tomato or two as you walk by, which is an easy thing to do when they're hanging at different levels."
Living walls entail gardening on the edge, however. While great for saving space, they are more challenging when fertilizing and watering.
"Holding water on a flat roof isn't difficult, but turning it 90 degrees on a wall is tremendously tricky," said Edmund Snodgrass of Street, Md., an author and operator of a nursery dedicated to producing green roof plants.
"You have to decide early on what it is you want to accomplish with this. Understand what level of effort you want to put into it as a homeowner."
Living walls vary greatly in size and sophistication, from commercial designs with complicated plumbing and roots attached to walls, to plant pockets connected to webbing, to flowering vines planted in the ground and trained to climb homemade supports. Each needs a sturdy framework, waterproofing material to protect the walls, and plant containers.
"Walls with pockets are nice for urban areas or properties with elevation changes," Snodgrass said. "They're also easy for backyard gardeners to use because they don't need complex irrigation systems. All have their merits."
More benefits of vertical gardens:
Erected against warm walls, they can become microclimates resistant to killing frosts. "That can mean starting your garden earlier in the spring and continuing with it later into the fall," said Derek Fell, a horticulturist from Pipersville, Pa., who has developed a backyard device he calls the "Skyscraper Garden." "Climbing plants like spinach or pole snap beans will bear all summer, giving you up to 10 times the yields of similar bush varieties."
Plants grown in vertical gardens are less disease-prone. "Having them grow upright gets more air circulating around them," Perry said. "Less accumulated moisture means less disease."
Little or no stooping is required. "Forget all that bending over as you plant or prune," Perry said. "Everything is conveniently in front of you."
The weight of a maturing vertical garden can fracture or rot buildings if it's not installed properly, however. Using lightweight potting soil rather than saturated topsoil will help reduce the load.
"I cannot think of any downside to vertical gardening except not all vegetables are suitable for growing tall up supports — lettuce, cabbage peppers, eggplant for example," Fell said. "But they can be used as an edging below the vining plants.
"By extending your (planting) bed away from a wall like an apron, you can have the best of both worlds — climbing vegetables at the back and compact, low-growing vegetables at the front."
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=9474502
Living Walls – the Ultimate Raised-Bed Garden
Vertical gardens make colorful canvases for flowers, grasses, ornamental vegetables
January 5, 2010
Dean Fosdick
ABC News
Things are looking up for gardeners who are short on space but long on imagination.
It's increasingly easy to build vertical gardens, structures that enable plants to grow upward if there is no room for growing them laterally.
Photo: This photo released by Derek Fell shows a Skyscraper Garden, featuring climbing vegetables, from left to right: climbing Trombone zucchini, Early Cascade tomatoes, and Orient Express climbing cucumbers. (AP / Skyscrapergarden, Derek Fell)
These living walls can make great backdrops for mixing color with cuisine; use them to frame patios and decks with tapestries of miniature tomatoes and spaghetti squash. Or make privacy screens by draping morning glories, clematis and sweet peas over netting or latticework.
"Vertical gardening makes it easier to have your ornaments and eat them too," said Leonard Perry, an extension professor of horticulture at the University of Vermont. "Grab a tomato or two as you walk by, which is an easy thing to do when they're hanging at different levels."
Living walls entail gardening on the edge, however. While great for saving space, they are more challenging when fertilizing and watering.
"Holding water on a flat roof isn't difficult, but turning it 90 degrees on a wall is tremendously tricky," said Edmund Snodgrass of Street, Md., an author and operator of a nursery dedicated to producing green roof plants.
"You have to decide early on what it is you want to accomplish with this. Understand what level of effort you want to put into it as a homeowner."
Living walls vary greatly in size and sophistication, from commercial designs with complicated plumbing and roots attached to walls, to plant pockets connected to webbing, to flowering vines planted in the ground and trained to climb homemade supports. Each needs a sturdy framework, waterproofing material to protect the walls, and plant containers.
"Walls with pockets are nice for urban areas or properties with elevation changes," Snodgrass said. "They're also easy for backyard gardeners to use because they don't need complex irrigation systems. All have their merits."
More benefits of vertical gardens:
Erected against warm walls, they can become microclimates resistant to killing frosts. "That can mean starting your garden earlier in the spring and continuing with it later into the fall," said Derek Fell, a horticulturist from Pipersville, Pa., who has developed a backyard device he calls the "Skyscraper Garden." "Climbing plants like spinach or pole snap beans will bear all summer, giving you up to 10 times the yields of similar bush varieties."
Plants grown in vertical gardens are less disease-prone. "Having them grow upright gets more air circulating around them," Perry said. "Less accumulated moisture means less disease."
Little or no stooping is required. "Forget all that bending over as you plant or prune," Perry said. "Everything is conveniently in front of you."
The weight of a maturing vertical garden can fracture or rot buildings if it's not installed properly, however. Using lightweight potting soil rather than saturated topsoil will help reduce the load.
"I cannot think of any downside to vertical gardening except not all vegetables are suitable for growing tall up supports — lettuce, cabbage peppers, eggplant for example," Fell said. "But they can be used as an edging below the vining plants.
"By extending your (planting) bed away from a wall like an apron, you can have the best of both worlds — climbing vegetables at the back and compact, low-growing vegetables at the front."
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=9474502
Terminator Seeds 3: Convergence of our food supply to Global Powers and the great “Culling”?? You decide.
http://lisaintx.wordpress.com/2010/01/01/terminator-seed-3-plot-to-control-our-food-supply/
Food Prices to Jump 6%
January 5, 2010
By Jerry Lackey
San Angelo Standard Times
SAN ANGELO, Texas — There are some mixed signals coming from several economists as they predict what consumers will pay for food at the grocery store once they return to normal routines of shopping in this new year.
Although the latest Texas Farm Bureau Grocery Price Watch shows food prices fell in the fourth quarter of 2009, a survey conducted by Wells Fargo & Co. predicts retail food prices may jump as much as 6% in 2010.
Rising milk, beef, pork and chicken prices will double the pace of U.S. food inflation this year as livestock supplies shrink and rebounding economies boost demand, says Michael Swanson, a senior economist at Wells Fargo & Co.
“Producers of cattle, hogs, dairy cows and poultry cut production after a jump in feed costs last year, reducing supplies as demand for meat is rising at home and abroad,” Swanson said. “Corn, the main source of animal feed, will rally in 2010 because of record demand for grain to make ethanol.”
Swanson predicts protein inflation will be much higher than people are anticipating. Corn is a proxy for feed costs, and right now the value of all meat and dairy output is below the price of feed on a long-term relative basis, he said.
However, food prices on the 16 items sampled across the Lone Star State rang in at $50.29 in the final quarter of 2009, having fallen 17 cents, on average, since the last informal survey conducted in the third quarter. The survey also found that fourth quarter prices had fallen $1.68, on average, from Texas Farm Bureau’s first Grocery Price Watch at the start of last year.
“This has definitely been a tough year for all of us, farmers, ranchers and consumers alike,” said Texas Farm Bureau President Kenneth Dierschke. “Economic and commodity markets took a dive. Mother Nature tossed us one of the worst droughts ever. But even in hard times, our farmers and ranchers continue a grand tradition of growing the best possible food and fiber in ways that ensure they remain the most affordable in the world.”
The Waco-based Texas Farm Bureau, the state’s largest farm organization, launched the Grocery Price Watch in 2009 following the success of two other long-running annual survey programs, Food Check-Out Day and cost of the Thanksgiving meals.
For 12 years, the Farm Bureau’s Food Check-Out Day has compared the average food bill with housing, federal taxes and medical care. For more than 20 years, the farm bureau’s cost of the traditional Thanksgiving dinner has recorded only slight increases for the home-cooked meal.
Dierschke, who operates a cotton and grain farm at Wall, 10 miles southeast of San Angelo, said the current survey was conducted during the week of Dec. 13-19 by 22 volunteer shoppers all across Texas. This final quarter survey marks the first full year of the TFB Price Watch, and it will serve as a benchmark for future annual food price comparisons.
He said shoppers of dairy goods picked up some of the largest savings of the quarter with cheddar cheese falling an average of 78 cents to $4.17 per one-pound block and ice cream falling an average of 48 cents to $5.01 per half gallon. However, whole milk was up 39 cents to $4.03 per gallon.
Other items noting price declines in the final quarter of 2009 included turkey slices, down 41 cents to $4.45 per 16-ounce package; cornflakes, down 27 cents to $2.91 per 18-ounce box; grapefruit, down 17 cents to 85 cents per pound; cake mix, down 14 cents to $1.14 per box; bread, down eight cents to $2.12 per 24-ounce loaf; and porterhouse steaks, down a nickel to $8.28 per pound.
The largest single cost increase during the fourth quarter came in the price of boneless pork chops, up 52 cents to $3.56 per pound. Other increases included lettuce, up 51 cents to $1.58 per head; tomatoes, up 42 cents to $1.78 per pound; dried pinto beans, up 18 cents to $3.93 per 64-ounce bag; and lean ground beef, up two pennies to $2.62 per pound.
According to Phil Lempert, the “Supermarket Guru” and a spokesman for ConAgra Foods, the new year will usher in some foreseeable food trends.
He predicts food brands will continue to use “real foods” on ingredient labels while also shortening the label’s length.
“In the wake of the recession, many Americans switched to private label or store brands because they offer better prices,” Lempert said. “In 2010, major food brands will develop co-branded private label foods with retailers that will feature brands’ key ingredients.”
Americans are getting back to basics, Lempert said, by shifting away from the art and glamour of meal preparation and are now focused on preparing easy, great-tasting meals to nourish their families. The purer the ingredients and the less complex the ingredient label, the better.
Another factor — The Country of Origin Labeling or COOL — is driving consumers back to the local butcher when it comes to meat purchases. Now, more than ever, people want to know where their food is coming from, especially in the meat case where the labels can often list multiple countries of origin.
Lempert said more brands will focus on positioning their products as “relaxation” foods rather than “comfort,” with the message of helping people relax and unwind.
http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2010/jan/04/windmill-food-prices-may-jump-6-percent/
Food Prices to Jump 6%
January 5, 2010
By Jerry Lackey
San Angelo Standard Times
SAN ANGELO, Texas — There are some mixed signals coming from several economists as they predict what consumers will pay for food at the grocery store once they return to normal routines of shopping in this new year.
Although the latest Texas Farm Bureau Grocery Price Watch shows food prices fell in the fourth quarter of 2009, a survey conducted by Wells Fargo & Co. predicts retail food prices may jump as much as 6% in 2010.
Rising milk, beef, pork and chicken prices will double the pace of U.S. food inflation this year as livestock supplies shrink and rebounding economies boost demand, says Michael Swanson, a senior economist at Wells Fargo & Co.
“Producers of cattle, hogs, dairy cows and poultry cut production after a jump in feed costs last year, reducing supplies as demand for meat is rising at home and abroad,” Swanson said. “Corn, the main source of animal feed, will rally in 2010 because of record demand for grain to make ethanol.”
Swanson predicts protein inflation will be much higher than people are anticipating. Corn is a proxy for feed costs, and right now the value of all meat and dairy output is below the price of feed on a long-term relative basis, he said.
However, food prices on the 16 items sampled across the Lone Star State rang in at $50.29 in the final quarter of 2009, having fallen 17 cents, on average, since the last informal survey conducted in the third quarter. The survey also found that fourth quarter prices had fallen $1.68, on average, from Texas Farm Bureau’s first Grocery Price Watch at the start of last year.
“This has definitely been a tough year for all of us, farmers, ranchers and consumers alike,” said Texas Farm Bureau President Kenneth Dierschke. “Economic and commodity markets took a dive. Mother Nature tossed us one of the worst droughts ever. But even in hard times, our farmers and ranchers continue a grand tradition of growing the best possible food and fiber in ways that ensure they remain the most affordable in the world.”
The Waco-based Texas Farm Bureau, the state’s largest farm organization, launched the Grocery Price Watch in 2009 following the success of two other long-running annual survey programs, Food Check-Out Day and cost of the Thanksgiving meals.
For 12 years, the Farm Bureau’s Food Check-Out Day has compared the average food bill with housing, federal taxes and medical care. For more than 20 years, the farm bureau’s cost of the traditional Thanksgiving dinner has recorded only slight increases for the home-cooked meal.
Dierschke, who operates a cotton and grain farm at Wall, 10 miles southeast of San Angelo, said the current survey was conducted during the week of Dec. 13-19 by 22 volunteer shoppers all across Texas. This final quarter survey marks the first full year of the TFB Price Watch, and it will serve as a benchmark for future annual food price comparisons.
He said shoppers of dairy goods picked up some of the largest savings of the quarter with cheddar cheese falling an average of 78 cents to $4.17 per one-pound block and ice cream falling an average of 48 cents to $5.01 per half gallon. However, whole milk was up 39 cents to $4.03 per gallon.
Other items noting price declines in the final quarter of 2009 included turkey slices, down 41 cents to $4.45 per 16-ounce package; cornflakes, down 27 cents to $2.91 per 18-ounce box; grapefruit, down 17 cents to 85 cents per pound; cake mix, down 14 cents to $1.14 per box; bread, down eight cents to $2.12 per 24-ounce loaf; and porterhouse steaks, down a nickel to $8.28 per pound.
The largest single cost increase during the fourth quarter came in the price of boneless pork chops, up 52 cents to $3.56 per pound. Other increases included lettuce, up 51 cents to $1.58 per head; tomatoes, up 42 cents to $1.78 per pound; dried pinto beans, up 18 cents to $3.93 per 64-ounce bag; and lean ground beef, up two pennies to $2.62 per pound.
According to Phil Lempert, the “Supermarket Guru” and a spokesman for ConAgra Foods, the new year will usher in some foreseeable food trends.
He predicts food brands will continue to use “real foods” on ingredient labels while also shortening the label’s length.
“In the wake of the recession, many Americans switched to private label or store brands because they offer better prices,” Lempert said. “In 2010, major food brands will develop co-branded private label foods with retailers that will feature brands’ key ingredients.”
Americans are getting back to basics, Lempert said, by shifting away from the art and glamour of meal preparation and are now focused on preparing easy, great-tasting meals to nourish their families. The purer the ingredients and the less complex the ingredient label, the better.
Another factor — The Country of Origin Labeling or COOL — is driving consumers back to the local butcher when it comes to meat purchases. Now, more than ever, people want to know where their food is coming from, especially in the meat case where the labels can often list multiple countries of origin.
Lempert said more brands will focus on positioning their products as “relaxation” foods rather than “comfort,” with the message of helping people relax and unwind.
http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2010/jan/04/windmill-food-prices-may-jump-6-percent/
Why the U.S. “Food Safety” Bills Should Worry Even Rich Wall Street Bankers
January 5, 2010
By Michael Schmidt
The Bovine
Here’s a fascinating proposition, from Patrick Henning:
In the 1980s, a British psychiatrist lived in the US. He was making a great deal more money than he could ever have made in the UK but for financial reasons, he went home. He returned because his daughter had a medical condition and he said that he could never be rich enough in the US to be sure she got adequate care, whereas in the UK, even on a considerably smaller salary, he knew she would be covered by the health system there.
Photo: Sure they may be rich enough to have a plane in every garage, but if S-510 is allowed to pass the Senate, even the super rich may eventually not be able to buy any food worth eating. (Seaspook’s Rants)
Wall Street brokers are not immune from their own fears of threatening things happening in the world. Out of fear for their own lives, they do the opposite of that psychiatrist. They hope to be immune from world issues by amassing unheard of wealth. And they have the money, already, through stealing from everyone else in the country.
The problem is that with one issue, they, like the psychiatrist, could never protect themselves from no matter how much money they ever take. The issue is not healthcare – they could buy whatever kind they wish. The issue is food.
What is about to happen to it here is not something they could ever adequately protect themselves and certainly not their children from. And moving will not help because the forces here which are set to destroy food are doing what they can to impose those same conditions internationally. Unless it is stopped here, food is threatened everywhere.
And what is the threat? Multinational corporations such as Monsanto, Cargill, Tysons, the pharmaceutical industry, etc. have a “food safety” bill in the Senate (S 510) that will allow “the Administrator” to enforce regulations that would require farmers to use “best practices” in agriculture. Unfortunately, those will be defined by “the Administrator” who is expected to be Michael Taylor, Monsanto VP and lawyer and the man who deregulated GMOs and is associated with getting rBGH into the food supply. By being in a position to set the definition of “best practices” and “science based,” the Administrator can impose GMOs, pesticides, antibiotics, hormones, irradiation of food, chemical washes, and other products and processes for animal health, the environment, and human health. Those products and and processes are increasingly rejected by the public and exposed as deadly by scientific journals but they are the lifeblood of agribusiness and the pharmaceutical industry (Big Pharm). S 510 and the other bills would mandate their usage and punish (to the point of elimination) any – such as organic farmers – who would normally completely avoid such products and reject such processes.
Photo: The lack of any decent food (due to bills like S-510) sure could take the shine off owning a posh ski chalet in the mountains. (ScrapeTV)
If the bill passes, American food will become extremely dangerous to human health. But it would be the only food available so would still sell. And the illnesses it would create would be a high yielding crop to harvest for profit by the pharmaceutical industry.
The unbounded excesses of greed the country has seen Wall Street exhibit may be partly driven by their personal fear of what is happening politically and economically, and be their means of trying to shore up security for themselves. While they may be able to insulate themselves and their children in some ways and for some little time from the more total destruction of food that big Pharm has designed, ultimately, this destruction of food will pose a danger to them as well. Restaurant food would be affected. Catered food would be affected. Food in shops, food in markets (If markets even remain), the whole pleasure of food would be gone.
If the bill and related ones pass, food would become mutant, poisoned and irradiated as well. Irradiated food is dead food and dead food is valueless for sustaining life (cats in Australia fed irradiated pet food have already died from it).
So, what’s a terribly rich Wall Street person to do?
They must understand that no one can eat money. People must have food to live. It isn’t enough that food just look like food. Virtual food, PR food cannot keep people healthy or even alive. It must not be irradiated, pesticided, chemicaled to death. Food, to be food, must sustain life. To do that, it must be real, normal and alive, all things that industry is set to eliminate.
Photo: Is the world a richer place when there's one less thing -- healthy natural food -- that money can buy? (Propertyinvesting)
When it comes to food, Wall Street has reason to be afraid. At the level of food, rich doesn’t make them any different from other human beings and so what happens to food makes them one with everyone else. In that sense, they are still Americans, and what happens to the American food supply is critical to them, too. S 510 and the other bills go dramatically against their own interests for themselves and their children’s future. If they want to enjoy eating out, farmers markets, food as they travel, food in stores, food at celebrations, they have reason to be very worried, and reason to act.
There are two good things in this. The first is that while Wall Street may represent a special interest that has taken from this country, not all destructive corporate interests intersect with their own. People can live without money but no one can live without real food, so what Big Pharm plans is a threat to Wall Street people. Wall Street is still human and real, unpoisoned, undrugged, unradiated food is very much in their own interest.
The second good thing is that, ironically, they now have vast resources to stop these bills. They have a chance to protect themselves but more, they have a chance to redeem themselves by saving everyone else. Unlike the British psychiatrist, there is no safe place to go anymore when it comes to food, so Wall Street folk must make their own country safe, for themselves and their children and grandchildren.
And the threat to food is far worse than anything Wall Street did.
Maybe it will turn out that through their plundering, Wall Street amassed enough power to stop something none of us would have been able to do in their stead, and they will be able to do a literally world saving good because they did a huge but lesser wrong.
Photo: Yachts with private heli-pads could always be repurposed by the super rich to forage for wild edibles in Alaska after organic local produce has been outlawed and we're left with GMOs at the Groceteria. (Bornrich.org)
Nader’s new book is fictional, about how the very rich find their own hearts and use their great wealth save things. With food, though, the real life Wall Street rich need only find their own true self-interest, saving their own health and their children’s lives to have reason to save food. Along with that sustaining platter, they would get a very rare dessert – a hope to redeem themselves in the eyes of their own countrymen.
Topped off by an incomparable cherry – a world not filled with increasing illness and death.
Ralph Nader’s book is called “Only the Super Rich Can Save Us“.
More on Ralph Nader’s book:
“In the cozy den of the large but modest house in Omaha where he has lived since he started on his first billion, Warren Buffett watched the horrors of Hurricane Katrina unfold on television in early September 2005. . . . On the fourth day, he beheld in disbelief the paralysis of local, state, and federal authorities unable to commence basic operations of rescue and sustenance, not just in New Orleans, but in towns and villages all along the Gulf Coast. . . He knew exactly what he had to do. . .”
So begins the vivid fictional account by political activist and bestselling author Ralph Nader that answers the question, “What if?” What if a cadre of superrich individuals tried to become a driving force in America to organize and institutionalize the interests of the citizens of this troubled nation? What if some of America’s most powerful individuals decided it was time to fix our government and return the power to the people? What if they focused their power on unionizing Wal-Mart? What if a national political party were formed with the sole purpose of advancing clean elections? What if these seventeen superrich individuals decided to galvanize a movement for alternative forms of energy that will effectively clean up the environment? What if together they took on corporate goliaths and Congress to provide the necessities of life and advance the solutions so long left on the shelf by an avaricious oligarchy? What could happen?
This extraordinary story, written by the author who knows the most about citizen action, returns us to the literature of American social movements—to Edward Bellamy, to Upton Sinclair, to John Steinbeck, to Stephen Crane—reminding us in the process that changing the body politic of America starts with imagination.
http://thebovine.wordpress.com/2010/01/02/why-the-u-s-food-safety-bills-should-worry-even-rich-bankers-of-wall-street/
Why the U.S. “Food Safety” Bills Should Worry Even Rich Wall Street Bankers
January 5, 2010
By Michael Schmidt
The Bovine
Here’s a fascinating proposition, from Patrick Henning:
In the 1980s, a British psychiatrist lived in the US. He was making a great deal more money than he could ever have made in the UK but for financial reasons, he went home. He returned because his daughter had a medical condition and he said that he could never be rich enough in the US to be sure she got adequate care, whereas in the UK, even on a considerably smaller salary, he knew she would be covered by the health system there.
Photo: Sure they may be rich enough to have a plane in every garage, but if S-510 is allowed to pass the Senate, even the super rich may eventually not be able to buy any food worth eating. (Seaspook’s Rants)
Wall Street brokers are not immune from their own fears of threatening things happening in the world. Out of fear for their own lives, they do the opposite of that psychiatrist. They hope to be immune from world issues by amassing unheard of wealth. And they have the money, already, through stealing from everyone else in the country.
The problem is that with one issue, they, like the psychiatrist, could never protect themselves from no matter how much money they ever take. The issue is not healthcare – they could buy whatever kind they wish. The issue is food.
What is about to happen to it here is not something they could ever adequately protect themselves and certainly not their children from. And moving will not help because the forces here which are set to destroy food are doing what they can to impose those same conditions internationally. Unless it is stopped here, food is threatened everywhere.
And what is the threat? Multinational corporations such as Monsanto, Cargill, Tysons, the pharmaceutical industry, etc. have a “food safety” bill in the Senate (S 510) that will allow “the Administrator” to enforce regulations that would require farmers to use “best practices” in agriculture. Unfortunately, those will be defined by “the Administrator” who is expected to be Michael Taylor, Monsanto VP and lawyer and the man who deregulated GMOs and is associated with getting rBGH into the food supply. By being in a position to set the definition of “best practices” and “science based,” the Administrator can impose GMOs, pesticides, antibiotics, hormones, irradiation of food, chemical washes, and other products and processes for animal health, the environment, and human health. Those products and and processes are increasingly rejected by the public and exposed as deadly by scientific journals but they are the lifeblood of agribusiness and the pharmaceutical industry (Big Pharm). S 510 and the other bills would mandate their usage and punish (to the point of elimination) any – such as organic farmers – who would normally completely avoid such products and reject such processes.
Photo: The lack of any decent food (due to bills like S-510) sure could take the shine off owning a posh ski chalet in the mountains. (ScrapeTV)
If the bill passes, American food will become extremely dangerous to human health. But it would be the only food available so would still sell. And the illnesses it would create would be a high yielding crop to harvest for profit by the pharmaceutical industry.
The unbounded excesses of greed the country has seen Wall Street exhibit may be partly driven by their personal fear of what is happening politically and economically, and be their means of trying to shore up security for themselves. While they may be able to insulate themselves and their children in some ways and for some little time from the more total destruction of food that big Pharm has designed, ultimately, this destruction of food will pose a danger to them as well. Restaurant food would be affected. Catered food would be affected. Food in shops, food in markets (If markets even remain), the whole pleasure of food would be gone.
If the bill and related ones pass, food would become mutant, poisoned and irradiated as well. Irradiated food is dead food and dead food is valueless for sustaining life (cats in Australia fed irradiated pet food have already died from it).
So, what’s a terribly rich Wall Street person to do?
They must understand that no one can eat money. People must have food to live. It isn’t enough that food just look like food. Virtual food, PR food cannot keep people healthy or even alive. It must not be irradiated, pesticided, chemicaled to death. Food, to be food, must sustain life. To do that, it must be real, normal and alive, all things that industry is set to eliminate.
Photo: Is the world a richer place when there's one less thing -- healthy natural food -- that money can buy? (Propertyinvesting)
When it comes to food, Wall Street has reason to be afraid. At the level of food, rich doesn’t make them any different from other human beings and so what happens to food makes them one with everyone else. In that sense, they are still Americans, and what happens to the American food supply is critical to them, too. S 510 and the other bills go dramatically against their own interests for themselves and their children’s future. If they want to enjoy eating out, farmers markets, food as they travel, food in stores, food at celebrations, they have reason to be very worried, and reason to act.
There are two good things in this. The first is that while Wall Street may represent a special interest that has taken from this country, not all destructive corporate interests intersect with their own. People can live without money but no one can live without real food, so what Big Pharm plans is a threat to Wall Street people. Wall Street is still human and real, unpoisoned, undrugged, unradiated food is very much in their own interest.
The second good thing is that, ironically, they now have vast resources to stop these bills. They have a chance to protect themselves but more, they have a chance to redeem themselves by saving everyone else. Unlike the British psychiatrist, there is no safe place to go anymore when it comes to food, so Wall Street folk must make their own country safe, for themselves and their children and grandchildren.
And the threat to food is far worse than anything Wall Street did.
Maybe it will turn out that through their plundering, Wall Street amassed enough power to stop something none of us would have been able to do in their stead, and they will be able to do a literally world saving good because they did a huge but lesser wrong.
Photo: Yachts with private heli-pads could always be repurposed by the super rich to forage for wild edibles in Alaska after organic local produce has been outlawed and we're left with GMOs at the Groceteria. (Bornrich.org)
Nader’s new book is fictional, about how the very rich find their own hearts and use their great wealth save things. With food, though, the real life Wall Street rich need only find their own true self-interest, saving their own health and their children’s lives to have reason to save food. Along with that sustaining platter, they would get a very rare dessert – a hope to redeem themselves in the eyes of their own countrymen.
Topped off by an incomparable cherry – a world not filled with increasing illness and death.
Ralph Nader’s book is called “Only the Super Rich Can Save Us“.
More on Ralph Nader’s book:
“In the cozy den of the large but modest house in Omaha where he has lived since he started on his first billion, Warren Buffett watched the horrors of Hurricane Katrina unfold on television in early September 2005. . . . On the fourth day, he beheld in disbelief the paralysis of local, state, and federal authorities unable to commence basic operations of rescue and sustenance, not just in New Orleans, but in towns and villages all along the Gulf Coast. . . He knew exactly what he had to do. . .”
So begins the vivid fictional account by political activist and bestselling author Ralph Nader that answers the question, “What if?” What if a cadre of superrich individuals tried to become a driving force in America to organize and institutionalize the interests of the citizens of this troubled nation? What if some of America’s most powerful individuals decided it was time to fix our government and return the power to the people? What if they focused their power on unionizing Wal-Mart? What if a national political party were formed with the sole purpose of advancing clean elections? What if these seventeen superrich individuals decided to galvanize a movement for alternative forms of energy that will effectively clean up the environment? What if together they took on corporate goliaths and Congress to provide the necessities of life and advance the solutions so long left on the shelf by an avaricious oligarchy? What could happen?
This extraordinary story, written by the author who knows the most about citizen action, returns us to the literature of American social movements—to Edward Bellamy, to Upton Sinclair, to John Steinbeck, to Stephen Crane—reminding us in the process that changing the body politic of America starts with imagination.
http://thebovine.wordpress.com/2010/01/02/why-the-u-s-food-safety-bills-should-worry-even-rich-bankers-of-wall-street/
That was an excellent article!
Glad to be of help.
If someone cuts our phone line, ADT automatically calls and sends the police, so no worries there.
Ah, you beat me to it! Was gonna post about that.
I'm guessing they are all pretty much the same. Although a friend of mine tried a smaller company a couple of years ago and had nothing but problems.
We've been using them since 1994 without any problems at all.
LOL! Wouldn't be surprised! Seriously though, just the thought of them coining their 'own' money is very scary.
Now, gold coins from United Nations
December 19, 2009 18:40:00 IST
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Now, the United Nations is also lured by the glitter of gold. In a bid to raise money for its projects, United Nations has licensed the minting of gold bullion coins bearing its logo to provide a public option world savings currency.
Oro gold coins are hoped to contribute to making the UN better funded by 2015, with revenue rising by ten to 15 per cent.
The coins are set to be produced in Europe and then distributed globally, with any licensee able to produce such bullion under contract.
There is a danger that if the US dollar weakens, there will be a strong move towards the Oro. In turn, this could potentially drive the value of the coin up to a level where international governments will not allow it to be circulated.
UN coins were previously made purely for commemoration in the 1970s, but they hold no monetary value.
http://www.commodityonline.com/news/Now-gold-coins-from-United-Nations-24025-3-1.html
Now, gold coins from United Nations
December 19, 2009 18:40:00 IST
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): Now, the United Nations is also lured by the glitter of gold. In a bid to raise money for its projects, United Nations has licensed the minting of gold bullion coins bearing its logo to provide a public option world savings currency.
Oro gold coins are hoped to contribute to making the UN better funded by 2015, with revenue rising by ten to 15 per cent.
The coins are set to be produced in Europe and then distributed globally, with any licensee able to produce such bullion under contract.
There is a danger that if the US dollar weakens, there will be a strong move towards the Oro. In turn, this could potentially drive the value of the coin up to a level where international governments will not allow it to be circulated.
UN coins were previously made purely for commemoration in the 1970s, but they hold no monetary value.
http://www.commodityonline.com/news/Now-gold-coins-from-United-Nations-24025-3-1.html
Holland - Biggest Snow Circle Formation Ever - Pics
http://www.rense.com/general88/snowc.htm
Excellent! They should help you a lot with getting over it quicker.
Good ol' chicken soup will probably work wonders, along with lots of Vitamin C, D3, and some multivitamins.
We're Screwed!
ShadowStats.com founder John Williams explains the risk of hyperinflation. Worst-case scenario? Rioting in the streets and devolution to a bartering system.
Comments (66)
Thursday, December 31, 2009
By Phil Maymin
Courtesy of John Williams
Economist/statistician John Williams shifts through the government’s rose-tinted data
Do you believe everything the government tells you? Economist and statistician John Williams sure doesn't. Williams, who has consulted for individuals and Fortune 500 companies, now uncovers the truth behind the U.S. government's economic numbers on his Web site at ShadowStats.com. Williams says, over the last several decades, the feds have been infusing their data with optimistic biases to make the economy seem far rosier than it really is. His site reruns the numbers using the original methodology. What he found was not good.
Maymin: So we are technically bankrupt?
Williams: Yes, and when countries are in that state, what they usually do is rev up the printing presses and print the money they need to meet their obligations. And that creates inflation, hyperinflation, and makes the currency worthless.
Obama says America will go bankrupt if Congress doesn't pass the health care bill.
Well, it's going to go bankrupt if they do pass the health care bill, too, but at least he's thinking about it. He talks about it publicly, which is one thing prior administrations refused to do. Give him credit for that. But what he's setting up with this health care system will just accelerate the process.
Where are we right now?
In terms of the GDP, we are about halfway to depression level. If you look at retail sales, industrial production, we are already well into depressionary. If you look at things such as the housing industry, the new orders for durable goods we are in Great Depression territory. If we have hyperinflation, which I see coming not too far down the road, that would be so disruptive to our system that it would result in the cessation of many levels of normal economic commerce, and that would throw us into a great depression, and one worse than was seen in the 1930s.
What kind of hyperinflation are we talking about?
I am talking something like you saw with the Weimar Republic of the 1930s. There the currency became worthless enough that people used it actually as toilet paper or wallpaper. You could go to a fine restaurant and have an expensive dinner and order an expensive bottle of wine. The next morning that empty bottle of wine is worth more as scrap glass than it had been the night before filled with expensive wine.
We just saw an extreme example in Zimbabwe. ... Probably the most extreme hyperinflation that anyone has ever seen. At the same time, you still had a functioning, albeit troubled, Zimbabwe economy. How could that be? They had a workable backup system of a black market in U.S. dollars. We don't have a backup system of anything. Our system, with its heavy dependence on electronic currency, in a hyperinflation would not do well. It would probably cease to function very quickly. You could have disruptions in supply chains to food stores. The economy would devolve into something like a barter system until they came up with a replacement global currency.
What can we do to avoid hyperinflation? What if we just shut down the Fed or something like that?
We can't. The actions have already been taken to put us in it. It's beyond control. The government does put out financial statements usually in December using generally accepted accounting principles, where unfunded liabilities like Medicare and Social Security are included in the same way as corporations account for their employee pension liabilities. And in 2008, for example, the one-year deficit was $5.1 trillion dollars. And that's instead of the $450 billion, plus or minus, that was officially reported.
Wow.
These numbers are beyond containment. Even the 2008 numbers, you can take 100 percent of people's income and corporate profit and you'd still be in deficit. There's no way you can raise enough money in taxes.
What about spending?
If you eliminated all federal expenditures except for Medicare and Social Security, you'd still be in deficit. You have to slash Social Security and Medicare. But I don't see any political will to rein in the costs the way they have to be reined in. There's just no way it can be contained. The total federal debt and net present value of the unfunded liabilities right now totals about $75 trillion. That's five times the level of GDP.
What can we, the people, do to stop the government from, you know, taking all our money?
We should have acted 20 years ago. There's not much you can do at this point to prevent the eventual debasement of the dollar. This involves both sides of the political spectrum. It's not limited to the Republicans or the Democrats. They've both been very active in setting this up.
What can individuals do?
The only thing individuals can do now is look to protect themselves. I wish I could see a way, but shy of severe slashing of the social programs that is so politically reprehensible and would create such problems and social unrest, I don't see that as a practical solution.
If you're a young 20- or 25-year-old guy or gal, would you move to another country? What would you do?
We still have a great country. We're going through a period of economic pain. It's happened before. This is the kind of thing that's taken us decades to get into and it will take us decades to get out. Although the hyperinflation is going to be limited largely to the U.S., the economic downturn will affect things globally. I can't tell you how things will go with a hyperinflationary Great Depression, which is where I see things going.
It's the type of thing that will tend to lead to significant political change. People tend to vote their pocketbooks. You could have the rise of a third party. You could even have rioting in the streets. I'm not formally predicting that — anyone can run these different scenarios. For the individual, what you need to do, from an investment standpoint, look to preserve your wealth and assets. Don't worry about the day-to-day fluctuations in the markets. What I'm talking about here is over the long haul...
[Gold is] going to be highly volatile, as will the dollar, over the near term, but longer term, physical gold I would look at as a primary hedge for preserving the purchasing power of your wealth and assets. Maybe some physical silver. Get some assets outside the U.S. dollar. I might even look to move some assets physically outside the United States. The key here is to look at a longer range survival package, battening down the hatches, and preserving your wealth and assets during a very difficult time. Once you're through that, you'll have some extraordinary investment opportunities, and I can't tell you what it's going to be like on the other side of this crisis.
Dr. Phil Maymin is an Assistant Professor of Finance and Risk Engineering at NYU-Polytechnic Institute. The views represented are his own.
Comments (66)
http://www.fairfieldweekly.com/article.cfm?aid=16014
OH, that's definately yucky! Feel better!
On the Brink of Disaster – by Jacob Laksin
Posted by Jacob Laksin on Dec 24th, 2009 and filed under FrontPage.
Jacob Laksin is managing editor of Frontpage Magazine. He is co-author, with David Horowitz, of One-Party Classroom: How Radical Professors at America's Top Colleges Indoctrinate Students and Undermine Our Democracy. His work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Philadelphia Inquirer, The Weekly Standard, City Journal, Policy Review, as well as other publications. Email him at jlaksin@gmail.com.
As this magazine goes to press, Senate Democrats are set to present the country with America’s most unwanted Christmas gift: a shotgun overhaul of the country’s health care system that would hike taxes, inflate the deficit, and raise insurance premiums, all while dramatically expanding the government’s role in health care.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid claims that Democrats now have a 60-vote majority that would allow them to trump a Republican filibuster and push the country’s most polarizing piece of legislation toward a final vote this morning. But while that could be a political victory for Democrats and President Obama, who has praised the Senate bill for including “95 percent” of what he wants, the successful passage of the bill would mark a setback for fiscal responsibility and set the stage for a large new burden on American taxpayers. Even without its two most unpopular elements – a government insurance “public option” and a Medicare expansion for those as young as 55 – the Senate bill remains a spectacularly bad deal.
Wishful Accounting
Literally the biggest problem with the legislation is the cost: an expected $871 billion over the next 10 years. Republicans charge that this price tag actually understates the true cost of the legislation, which they peg as high as $2.5 trillion. Not to worry, counsels President Obama:
“For all those who are continually carping about how this is somehow a big spending government bill, this cuts our deficit by $132 billion the first 10 years, and by over a trillion in the second. That argument that opponents are making against this bill does not hold water.”
Appealing as the president’s arithmetic might be, the $132 billion in savings is largely illusory: It is based on the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) projections of promised cuts – for instance, a 21 percent reduction in Medicare physician payments scheduled to go into effect in 2010 – that Congress has yet to make and, likely, never will. History offers a sobering guide. Despite repeated Congressional pledges to cut Medicare costs, it is now the country’s largest government program and a perennial drain on the federal budget. With $89 trillion in unfunded future liabilities, it will also remain one for years to come.
That explains why the CBO hedged its projected $132 billion in savings with the conspicuous caveat that this estimate “is subject to substantial uncertainty.” In touting the Senate bill, President Obama has neglected to mention this part of the CBO’s findings. And no wonder: The CBO has warned that its long-term calculations are based on the assumption that the spending cuts promised in Senate bill “are enacted and remain unchanged throughout the next two decades, which is often not the case for major legislation.” Thus, the deficit cuts forecast by the CBO are based entirely on assumptions about Congress’s ability to make Medicare spending cuts – assumptions that the CBO itself acknowledges are unsafe. President Obama’s dubious contribution to the health care debate has been to elevate such wishful accounting to the status of hard proof.
The Taxman Cometh
Of course, spending cuts, even if they should materialize, won’t pay for the budget-busting legislation. So the Senate bill includes some $400 billion in tax increases that range from the burdensome to the downright bizarre.
In the former category are insurance mandates that would compel Americans to purchase health insurance or face a fine of $750 for individuals and $2,250 per family. Not only is that a tax in all but name, but it would primarily affect those making less than $250,000 – a clear violation of President Obama’s campaign promise not to raise taxes on those in the lower tax brackets.
Higher-income individuals and small businesses would also see their taxes rise. Individuals earning over $200,000 and families earning over $250, 000 would be hit with a Medicare payroll tax. Small businesses with 50 employers or more who don’t offer health insurance would face a “free rider” penalty that could total $28 billion over the next ten years.
While the wisdom of taxing small businesses in an economic recession may seem questionable at best, the Senate bill applies the formula liberally. Among the odder tax increases in the Senate bill targets the country’s 20,000 indoor tanning salons. Although this would be a large cost for a small industry – about 90 percent salons of have just one owner – Democrats have deemed salons a worthy victim as they seek to collect $3 billion over the next ten years to pay for their health care spending spree. (The cosmetic surgery industry narrowly escaped the taxes thanks to its superior lobbying clout.) Besides spurring additional job cuts, the new taxes are likely to be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices.
Bigger industries will also feel the strain of new taxes. The medical device industry, one of the country’s more innovative fields, would face the prospect of $20 billion in new taxes over the next decade, the product of a $2 billion annual tax that would rise to $3 billion in 2018. Unsurprisingly, industry representatives have protested that the tax increase could slow research and development in an industry responsible for such lifesaving medical advancements as stents that reduce the rate of heart bypass surgeries. How punishing an industry that has helped improve health care can be considered a worthwhile “reform” is one of the puzzles of the Senate bill.
Paying the Premium
Spending and tax increases arguably could be justified if the Senate bill did what it is supposed to do – namely, reduce health insurance premiums that are rising faster than American’s wages. Instead, it would raise premiums for most Americans.
A recent actuarial analysis by management consulting firm Oliver Wyman found that annual premiums will be 54 percent higher five years from now if the Democrats’ “reform” passes. Individuals would see their premiums increase by $1,576, while families would pay an extra $3,341. Young people, ironically among the most steadfast supporters of the Democrats’ reforms, would also come off the worst under the Senate bill. Of all demographic groups, they would see their premiums would rise the most, as much as 35 percent in some cases.
There is no mystery behind the increased premiums. The Senate bill would force insurance companies to provide policies on a “guarantee issue” basis that does not discriminate against those with preexisting or chronic medical conditions. The likely result: Those with chronic conditions would purchase insurance, while younger and healthier people would choose to pay a fine. With a disproportionate number of sick among the enrollees, insurance rates would rise for everyone.
Let’s Make a Deal
Even more unseemly than the substance of the Senate bill is the sleazy and borderline corrupt way it has been brought to the brink of passage.
The most obvious outrage is the undisguised vote buying directed at wayward Democrats, most prominently Nebraska’s Ben Nelson. For agreeing to join ranks with his party on the health care bill, Nelson won a concession from Congress to permanently exempt his state from paying the $45 million annual cost of expanding the Medicaid program for the poor. (Never mind that Nebraska has comparatively low levels of poverty: 35 states have higher poverty rates.) The other 49 states will have only a yawning budget gap to look forward to. Fittingly, the deal has since aroused questions about the constitutionality of such ethically challenged deal making.
The “Nebraska compromise” is only the most blatant example of what Sen. Orrin Hatch has aptly called the Senate bill’s “grab bag of back-room Chicago-style buyoffs.” Slightly less generous but no less scandalous sweetheart deals have also been offered to Vermont, Massachusetts and Louisiana. Vermont and Massachusetts will get temporary increases in the portion of their Medicaid costs paid by the federal government. In Louisiana, once-waffling Democrat Mary Landrieu discovered a sudden appreciation for the health care legislation after her state was presented with a $100 million handout.
The bill has also proved a boon for assorted Democratic allies. AARP, the leading lobby for the elderly, would stand to benefit if Congress made good on its plans to cut payments for programs like Medicare Advantage, since that would drive up demand for the Medigap policies offered by the organization. Unions would also catch a tax break. Although the bill would impose a hefty 40 percent tax on high-cost “Cadillac” insurance plans, it would specifically exclude favored constituencies like the longshoreman’s union. (Policemen, firefighters, construction workers, coal miners, and some farmers and fishermen are already protected from the tax penalty.)
{Why on earth are we going to beat up people who actually have really good insurance coverage?? Does this make sense to anyone? Is it just to demean them and pull them down to the levels of people with no ins. or barely ins. coverage? I can see no salient point to this, except further destruction of anyone with money.}
When not bribing their way to final passage, Senate Democrats have tried to achieve victory by legislative fiat. Leading the way is Harry Reid, who snuck the now-notorious “Section 3403” into an amendment to the Senate bill. The section, which refers to the power of the Independent Medicare Advisory Board, also established by the bill, to hold down Medicare costs, stipulates that
“it shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.”
In other words, the Democrats’ work is not to be undone. In fairness to Reid, the measure makes a certain amount of sense. To control the runway growth of Medicare, any advisory board would have to be immune from the political pressures of Congress. As a procedural matter, Section 3403 nevertheless represents a dangerous – and transparently undemocratic – breech of Senate Democrats’ authority.
Change We Can’t Believe In
For all its flaws, the one virtue of the Senate bill may be that it differs in some important ways with its predecessor in the House. Indeed, some liberal House Democrats have already complained that they cannot support the Senate bill. Meanwhile, the defection of Alabama Congressman and conservative Democrat Parker Griffith to the GOP earlier this week may be a sign that moderate and Blue Dog Democrats are worried about the electoral consequences of supporting their party’s health care agenda. Since the two versions of the health care bill have to be merged later this January, these factional splits can only delay Obamacare’s final passage.
The bitter irony for President Obama is that most Americans now consider that a good thing. When the administration first announced its plans to transform health care, the country shared a common belief that the system could not be left as is. That belief remained unchanged even as certain elements of the Democrats’ plan, such as the government insurance option, became unpopular.
No longer. According to a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, a majority not only opposes the Senate bill but, for the first time, more support the status quo over the bill’s passage. The health care “change” that Obama promised has arrived. And Americans, increasingly, hope it doesn’t succeed.
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LindaRivera 1 day ago
They live in an entirely different world than we do. Our reps are highly paid with many perks. They live high on the hog in the lap of luxury. They are incapable of identifying with struggling Americans. It is easy for them to wreck American lives with their nasty health scheme and their miserable cap and trade. Every day congress is in session, it is scary. More taxes. More money printing. More borrowing. More debt. More power and control over the people.
Why Your Representatives Should Make You Mad as Hell
John W. Whitehead
10/29/2009
Imagine a world exempt from parking tickets, where gym membership is free and health care is second-to-none. In order to receive these benefits, you also only have to work two, maybe three days a week—a time period during which you will be shuttled around in a nice car. The other days of the week you can spend at home with your family. Luckily, every weekend is a long weekend and you won’t have to be back at work until Tuesday evening.
This job description might seem too good to be true, but for our so-called “representatives” in Congress who enjoy incredible job perks ranging from free meals to membership in swank health clubs, all at taxpayer expense, it seems that there is such a thing as a free lunch—literally and figuratively!
Congressional salaries are certainly generous enough, with members of Congress receiving $174,000 a year on average, and people in leadership positions making more. However, for many Congressmen who belong to the so-called “Millionaire’s Club,” this is negligible in comparison to their net worth. (Senator John Kerry (D-MA), who heads up the club, has a net worth of $167.8 million, while Senator Herb Kohl (D-WI), at the lower end of the spectrum, boasts a net worth of $5.6 million dollars.)
Incredibly, American taxpayers are underwriting lavish perks for these very same millionaires, as well as their congressional cohorts. The perks being enjoyed by those in Congress have provided comic relief for many a talk-show host, but contrast these perks with the plight of the average taxpayer struggling just to make ends meet, and you’ll find this is no laughing matter.
For example, while veterans were being forced to suffer poor service and deplorable conditions at Walter Reed Army Hospital, politicians were being whisked up to Ward 72 at the very same hospital via a “golden elevator,” where they can enjoy medical treatment surrounded by chandeliers, fine china and original artwork. Should members of Congress or their staff not be able to make the trip to Ward 72, a private, on-call doctor is also on hand at the Capitol. Furthermore, while 47 million Americans struggle without any kind of health insurance, those in Congress receive superb, discounted health coverage which cannot be denied them because of their age or a preexisting condition.
On top of their six-figure salaries and the millions in taxpayer dollars spent to maintain offices in their home state and in the nation’s capital, Congress also enjoys other benefits such as free life insurance, a generous retirement plan for life, 32 fully reimbursed road trips home a year, and travel to foreign lands. Then there are the “extras,” including discounts in Capitol Hill tax-free shops and restaurants, free reserved parking at Washington National Airport, use of the House gym or Senate baths for $100 a year, free fresh-cut flowers from the Botanic Gardens, and free assistance in the preparation of income taxes.
Unfortunately, there’s more. While more than 15 million Americans are currently out of work and the rest of the nation is laboring longer hours for less pay, Congress enjoys a three-day, Tuesday-to-Thursday work week. Believe it or not, since returning to session, the only time the House of Representatives has actually voted on a Friday was when they approved a 5.8 percent increase in their own budget.
Then there’s the way Congress manages the nation’s checkbook, running up deficits and spending outlandish sums of money on pork barrel projects. If you or I were to manage our finances this way, we’d quickly find ourselves out on the streets.
As for abuses of office, they run the gamut from neglecting their constituencies to engaging in self-serving practices, including the misuse of eminent domain, earmarking hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracting in return for personal gain and campaign contributions, having inappropriate ties to lobbyist groups and incorrectly or incompletely disclosing financial information.
Pork barrel spending, hastily passed legislation, partisan bickering, a skewed work ethic, graft and moral turpitude have all contributed to the public’s increasing dissatisfaction with congressional leadership. Thus, it is little wonder that a recent CNN poll shows Congress with a 29 percent approval rating. You’d be hard-pressed to find employees with such dismal performance evaluations getting a pay raise of any kind. Conveniently, Congress doesn’t have to worry about that since they voted in 1989 to give themselves an automatic raise every year.
Congress should be America’s representative body, yet too many of its members bear little resemblance to those they have been elected to represent. Many of our politicians live like kings. Chauffeured around in limousines, flying in private jets and eating gourmet meals, all paid for by the American taxpayer, they are far removed from those they represent. Such a luxurious lifestyle makes it difficult to identify with the “little guy”—the roofers, plumbers and blue-collar workers who live from paycheck to paycheck and keep the country running with their hard-earned dollars and the sweat of their brows.
Does this make you mad as hell? It should. There is no reason why the American people should be taking this kind of abuse from people who supposedly are representing them.
The average American understandably feels helpless and disconnected, yet whose fault is it really? As the old maxim goes, people get the government they deserve. For too long, Americans have failed to hold their elected representatives accountable. Thus, the onus is on us, “we the people.”
Let this be the starting point for you to turn the television sets off and do something about these problems. Whether or not you agree with their politics, the Tea Party Protesters have set a good example for what needs to be done. Get involved. Get organized. Find out who your representatives are. Contact their offices. Review their records. Keep track of what they’re doing and how they’re voting. Make your voices heard to the representatives who are doing a poor job of representing you, and if they don’t listen, take action and remove them from office.
http://www.rutherford.org/articles_db/commentar...
http://frontpagemag.com/2009/12/24/on-the-brink-of-disaster-by-jacob-laksin/
Thrifty families accused of prolonging the recession
Gráinne Gilmore, Economics Correspondent
Anxious families are repaying debts instead of spending in the shops, amid concern over the uncertain economic outlook. The share of income saved in banks and building societies has risen to its highest level in more than a decade, heightening fears that faltering consumer demand could prolong the recession.
The savings ratio — the gap between household income and spending, which is often used to repay debts or add to savings — soared to 8.6 per cent between July and September, the highest level since 1998.
Analysts fear that consumer spending, which rose by 0.1 per cent in the third quarter, its first growth since the start of the recession, will remain muted as households continue to repay debts and save.
Consumers repaid about £5 billion more than they borrowed between July and September last year and the same period this year, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This is a sharp fall compared with net borrowing of £43 billion in 2008 and £120 billion in 2007.
The economist John Maynard Keynes argued that while saving may be a virtue for an individual, a nation of people doing the same would slow the economy. This in turn would hurt those trying to save more. He called this the paradox of thrift.
At the end of last year, households owed more than 180 per cent of total net disposable income, according to figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. By contrast, German households owed 98 per cent, French consumers owed 100 per cent and US households owed about 130 per cent.
Ben Read, an economist at the Centre for Economic and Business Research, said: “Everyone borrowed too much and they are now paying the price. People need to save more, and this will act as a drag on recovery.”
Howard Archer, the chief UK and European economist at IHS Global Insight, said: “With the prospect of the VAT rise, more tax rises after the election and higher energy bills next year, consumers will want to have a bigger savings buffer.” The data from the ONS also showed that the country remained mired in recession in the third quarter. While GDP is expected to rise in the final three months of this year, some analysts foresee little growth in the first half of next year. Jonathan Loynes, chief European economist at Capital Economics said: “There is a chance of a double-dip recession. We are not out of the first recession yet.”
A 0.8 per cent rise in exports, the first increase since the beginning of the recession in 2008, has provided a glimmer of hope — but the ONS said that economic output has dropped 6.03 per cent since Britain entered recession in the second quarter of 2008, confirming the sharpest decline since quarterly records began in 1955.
Professor Charles Goodhart, a former official at the Bank of England and a leading economist, warned that a contraction in bank lending and the money supply could see the US and Europe slide back into recession.
He said that policymakers had ignored the danger signs. In a report for Morgan Stanley he wrote: “What has happened to all the monetarists? Growth in money holdings and lending has plummeted. Thirty, or 40 years ago they would have been forewarning doom and destruction at this juncture and casting anathemas at the authorities.”
Your Comments
54 Comments
Brian Lewis wrote:
When I first went overseas in 1961, the first thing I noted was that prices overseas were much less than in the UK (eg Miami or Hong Kong. Purchases then tended to be made outide the UK and this has continued for 50 years. The pound sterling was not very strong either. Why on earth would UK citizens hould save pounds sterling to preserve a future escapes me. Now saving generally is an excellent idea but not I think in a depreciating currency.Economists need to explain why spending more is a good thing - unless there is no future!
December 24, 2009 8:18 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (3) Report Abuse Permalink
Kieran ODonnell wrote:
When the banks were bailed out by the tax-payer, the Government assumed they would use it to create loans and credit, however this is only half the story.
Because of the "Fractional Reserve System", this new money allowed the banks to create from thin air (just entries on a computer screen) up to NINE TIMES the amount they were given.
Because the Government bew they could legally do this, they assumed they would because in effect, there was no risk. Not only were the banks being bailed out to stay afloat, they were also allowed to create new money to loan out.
So despite being given (for arguments sake) 10 million, they could loan out a further 90 million in loans, increasing the money supply to the system.
But they didn't.
Instead they used the money to invest abroad to prop up overseas operations, and pay themselves bonuses (although this is a small amount in comparison).
Consequently, the Bank of England was forced to start printing because the banks never loaned out this money within the UK, and the money supply needed to be ratchetted up... and fast!
Because the banks never loaned this money within the UK, it has now in effect... gone! We now have the prospect of hyper-inflation because our pound has been diluted, which in real terms is in fact another tax. If your pound devalues by 5% in one year, then in effect you have been taxed an extra 5%.
Fortunately for us, for the time being anyway, other countries are pulling out of recession, so we're unlikely to see a unified devaluing of all the major currencies like was seen in North Korea. However be ready for that Monday morning when it's announced that every £100 you have is now worth a new £1, just like what happened on the 4th December in North Korea.
December 23, 2009 11:18 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (6) Report Abuse Permalink
felix foreman wrote:
Ho, ho, ho! Nice one Clive Burghard! Do you really think that? I, for one, very much wish my government had got into the euro PDQ thus avoiding a 30% devaluation in my purcasing power. However, I feel guilty having cashed in all my Co Op dividend stamps(collected over thirty loyal shopping years) at one go in April 2007. As a careful chap, do you think it's my fault?
December 23, 2009 5:47 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (7) Report Abuse Permalink
Clive Burghard wrote:
The biggest problem with this Government, is that it is living beyond OUR means.
December 23, 2009 5:46 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (22) Report Abuse Permalink
Clive Burghard wrote:
If the British People had any intelligence they would dump the EU immediately, and invest in themselves!
December 23, 2009 3:53 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (16) Report Abuse Permalink
Ed Collins wrote:
A sort of boom n bust cycle? Can't be that; not since The Grand Intellect announced several times (as usual) he had ended this.
On the one hand people are urged by TGI to save more for retirement: now, they're being urged not to save but to go out and spend.
The fact is that consumers have already spent future disposable income and that is the debt now being paid down.
Does the higher savings ratio also explain the improved trade figures which it has been claimed are benfitting from the devalued GBP?
December 23, 2009 2:55 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (7) Report Abuse Permalink
Michael West wrote:
If the thrifty ones are also smart, they'll put their savings in swiss francs before they lose it to inflation.
December 23, 2009 1:39 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (14) Report Abuse Permalink
E Mackie wrote:
' Terry Farrell wrote:
On the 2nd January, all the savers are going to withdraw their cash from all banks simultaneously on line.'
December 23, 2009 9:33 AM GMT
I know you're probably joking and it's unlikely ever to happen, but if it did the banks would close their online facilities within minutes. The resulting queues would see their doors closed shortly after. It's never mentioned anymore but the run on Northern Rock was because a businessman tried to move his savings, £1m+ to a foreign bank, in Cyprus I believe. His transaction failed and the manager refused to take his calls. Result - he went to the bank and demanded his money, was refused, at which point he and his wife barricaded the manager in her office, police were called and the press arrived. Within hours queues were forming and the doors closed. That's what happens when banks don't have the readies. The rest is history.
Banks rely on people not knowing there is not enough real cash (the folding stuff), to go round should everyone, simultaneously decide to withdraw. But people should not worry as we have discovered the banks are 'too big to fail' and the taxpayer will pick up the bill. LOL.
More worrying is the negative GDP. Our financial system relies on exponential growth but, understandably, with the exception of our Gordon and his magic printing press, people either won't or are not in the position to spend huge amounts of money.
December 23, 2009 1:34 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (13) Report Abuse Permalink
Border Burg wrote:
yes families saving and repaying debt is something the government can learn from. well done you families.
December 23, 2009 12:03 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (59) Report Abuse Permalink
Riccardo Martinez wrote:
Michael Paul wrote
"it will take 20.9 years to get out of this mess or we are due for roaring inflation sometime soon."
I think that's right. I heard a rumour that the powers that be are planning a "use it or lose it" policy after the election, ie inflation, as the only way to get the public finances out of this hole. Public sector cuts and high taxes (natch) but a continuation of low interest rates and QE to stoke inflation.
Anyone with any sense will put their money in foreign investments of some sort.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article6965784.ece
Thrifty families accused of prolonging the recession
Gráinne Gilmore, Economics Correspondent
Anxious families are repaying debts instead of spending in the shops, amid concern over the uncertain economic outlook. The share of income saved in banks and building societies has risen to its highest level in more than a decade, heightening fears that faltering consumer demand could prolong the recession.
The savings ratio — the gap between household income and spending, which is often used to repay debts or add to savings — soared to 8.6 per cent between July and September, the highest level since 1998.
Analysts fear that consumer spending, which rose by 0.1 per cent in the third quarter, its first growth since the start of the recession, will remain muted as households continue to repay debts and save.
Consumers repaid about £5 billion more than they borrowed between July and September last year and the same period this year, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This is a sharp fall compared with net borrowing of £43 billion in 2008 and £120 billion in 2007.
The economist John Maynard Keynes argued that while saving may be a virtue for an individual, a nation of people doing the same would slow the economy. This in turn would hurt those trying to save more. He called this the paradox of thrift.
At the end of last year, households owed more than 180 per cent of total net disposable income, according to figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. By contrast, German households owed 98 per cent, French consumers owed 100 per cent and US households owed about 130 per cent.
Ben Read, an economist at the Centre for Economic and Business Research, said: “Everyone borrowed too much and they are now paying the price. People need to save more, and this will act as a drag on recovery.”
Howard Archer, the chief UK and European economist at IHS Global Insight, said: “With the prospect of the VAT rise, more tax rises after the election and higher energy bills next year, consumers will want to have a bigger savings buffer.” The data from the ONS also showed that the country remained mired in recession in the third quarter. While GDP is expected to rise in the final three months of this year, some analysts foresee little growth in the first half of next year. Jonathan Loynes, chief European economist at Capital Economics said: “There is a chance of a double-dip recession. We are not out of the first recession yet.”
A 0.8 per cent rise in exports, the first increase since the beginning of the recession in 2008, has provided a glimmer of hope — but the ONS said that economic output has dropped 6.03 per cent since Britain entered recession in the second quarter of 2008, confirming the sharpest decline since quarterly records began in 1955.
Professor Charles Goodhart, a former official at the Bank of England and a leading economist, warned that a contraction in bank lending and the money supply could see the US and Europe slide back into recession.
He said that policymakers had ignored the danger signs. In a report for Morgan Stanley he wrote: “What has happened to all the monetarists? Growth in money holdings and lending has plummeted. Thirty, or 40 years ago they would have been forewarning doom and destruction at this juncture and casting anathemas at the authorities.”
Your Comments
54 Comments
Brian Lewis wrote:
When I first went overseas in 1961, the first thing I noted was that prices overseas were much less than in the UK (eg Miami or Hong Kong. Purchases then tended to be made outide the UK and this has continued for 50 years. The pound sterling was not very strong either. Why on earth would UK citizens hould save pounds sterling to preserve a future escapes me. Now saving generally is an excellent idea but not I think in a depreciating currency.Economists need to explain why spending more is a good thing - unless there is no future!
December 24, 2009 8:18 AM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (3) Report Abuse Permalink
Kieran ODonnell wrote:
When the banks were bailed out by the tax-payer, the Government assumed they would use it to create loans and credit, however this is only half the story.
Because of the "Fractional Reserve System", this new money allowed the banks to create from thin air (just entries on a computer screen) up to NINE TIMES the amount they were given.
Because the Government bew they could legally do this, they assumed they would because in effect, there was no risk. Not only were the banks being bailed out to stay afloat, they were also allowed to create new money to loan out.
So despite being given (for arguments sake) 10 million, they could loan out a further 90 million in loans, increasing the money supply to the system.
But they didn't.
Instead they used the money to invest abroad to prop up overseas operations, and pay themselves bonuses (although this is a small amount in comparison).
Consequently, the Bank of England was forced to start printing because the banks never loaned out this money within the UK, and the money supply needed to be ratchetted up... and fast!
Because the banks never loaned this money within the UK, it has now in effect... gone! We now have the prospect of hyper-inflation because our pound has been diluted, which in real terms is in fact another tax. If your pound devalues by 5% in one year, then in effect you have been taxed an extra 5%.
Fortunately for us, for the time being anyway, other countries are pulling out of recession, so we're unlikely to see a unified devaluing of all the major currencies like was seen in North Korea. However be ready for that Monday morning when it's announced that every £100 you have is now worth a new £1, just like what happened on the 4th December in North Korea.
December 23, 2009 11:18 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (6) Report Abuse Permalink
felix foreman wrote:
Ho, ho, ho! Nice one Clive Burghard! Do you really think that? I, for one, very much wish my government had got into the euro PDQ thus avoiding a 30% devaluation in my purcasing power. However, I feel guilty having cashed in all my Co Op dividend stamps(collected over thirty loyal shopping years) at one go in April 2007. As a careful chap, do you think it's my fault?
December 23, 2009 5:47 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (7) Report Abuse Permalink
Clive Burghard wrote:
The biggest problem with this Government, is that it is living beyond OUR means.
December 23, 2009 5:46 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (22) Report Abuse Permalink
Clive Burghard wrote:
If the British People had any intelligence they would dump the EU immediately, and invest in themselves!
December 23, 2009 3:53 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (16) Report Abuse Permalink
Ed Collins wrote:
A sort of boom n bust cycle? Can't be that; not since The Grand Intellect announced several times (as usual) he had ended this.
On the one hand people are urged by TGI to save more for retirement: now, they're being urged not to save but to go out and spend.
The fact is that consumers have already spent future disposable income and that is the debt now being paid down.
Does the higher savings ratio also explain the improved trade figures which it has been claimed are benfitting from the devalued GBP?
December 23, 2009 2:55 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (7) Report Abuse Permalink
Michael West wrote:
If the thrifty ones are also smart, they'll put their savings in swiss francs before they lose it to inflation.
December 23, 2009 1:39 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (14) Report Abuse Permalink
E Mackie wrote:
' Terry Farrell wrote:
On the 2nd January, all the savers are going to withdraw their cash from all banks simultaneously on line.'
December 23, 2009 9:33 AM GMT
I know you're probably joking and it's unlikely ever to happen, but if it did the banks would close their online facilities within minutes. The resulting queues would see their doors closed shortly after. It's never mentioned anymore but the run on Northern Rock was because a businessman tried to move his savings, £1m+ to a foreign bank, in Cyprus I believe. His transaction failed and the manager refused to take his calls. Result - he went to the bank and demanded his money, was refused, at which point he and his wife barricaded the manager in her office, police were called and the press arrived. Within hours queues were forming and the doors closed. That's what happens when banks don't have the readies. The rest is history.
Banks rely on people not knowing there is not enough real cash (the folding stuff), to go round should everyone, simultaneously decide to withdraw. But people should not worry as we have discovered the banks are 'too big to fail' and the taxpayer will pick up the bill. LOL.
More worrying is the negative GDP. Our financial system relies on exponential growth but, understandably, with the exception of our Gordon and his magic printing press, people either won't or are not in the position to spend huge amounts of money.
December 23, 2009 1:34 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (13) Report Abuse Permalink
Border Burg wrote:
yes families saving and repaying debt is something the government can learn from. well done you families.
December 23, 2009 12:03 PM GMT on community.timesonline.co.uk Recommend? (59) Report Abuse Permalink
Riccardo Martinez wrote:
Michael Paul wrote
"it will take 20.9 years to get out of this mess or we are due for roaring inflation sometime soon."
I think that's right. I heard a rumour that the powers that be are planning a "use it or lose it" policy after the election, ie inflation, as the only way to get the public finances out of this hole. Public sector cuts and high taxes (natch) but a continuation of low interest rates and QE to stoke inflation.
Anyone with any sense will put their money in foreign investments of some sort.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article6965784.ece
This was really, really good. A great listen.
True. But what do you mean, I thought you spoke rat! lol
Hope Santa was good to you and Peter.
Thanks! Off to bed now! Santa's coming you know....
Huh, I guess I was thinking thoughts of having 'an older brother' type situation. Could be, but probably just my brain is tired. lol
Well, off to bed for me. Got a house full of company tomorrow and I'll be cooking all day.
Merry Christmas to you and yours!
Well, that's true too. I suppose it would depend on how lonely he was, whether or not he would accept them.
Poor Peter. I feel so bad for him, and you of course too.
Will you get another pair of boys while Peter is still here? They may at least keep him busy and he won't be alone.
I have to admit, Nicky was my favorite. Just something about that face.
Oh dear God, I'm so sorry to hear that news. And poor Peter, he must feel terrible without his friend.
I'm so sorry about Nicky, a heartbreak for sure.
Hey, I wanted to wish you and the boys a Merry Christmas and a super Happy New Year!