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Guest Post: Preparing Accordingly II
Submitted by TF Metals Report
Preparing Accordingly II
A frequent topic here has been the ongoing and still-building food
inflation crisis. The MSM is just now awakening and beginning to discuss
the implications. By the time the great unwashed become fully aware of
the magnitude of this problem, it will be too late. You, my dear reader,
still have time to prepare.
As you know by now, the endless money printing by our inept and foolish
"leaders" is causing prices to rise in all things dollar-denominated.
Economics 101 teaches us that more dollars chasing a static supply of
goods leads to an increase in price. Eventually, these rising input
costs are passed along to the consumer in the form of cost-push
inflation. This insidious monster is the most painful of economic
afflictions as rising costs are not met with commensurate rises in
wages. The pain to the consumer is great and often brings about social
unrest and upheaval. We will surely discuss this phenomenon in greater
detail in the days ahead. For now, I wanted to give you charts on some
items that we don't normally follow here, just so you can grasp the
dimension and scale of that which lies ahead.
First up is the primary commodity index, the C.R.B. Here is the current makeup of the index:
| Energy | Crude Oil, Heating Oil, Natural Gas |
17.6% |
| Grains | Wheat, Corn, Soybeans | 17.6% |
| Industrials | Copper, Cotton | 11.8% |
| Meats | Live Cattle, Lean Hogs | 11.8% |
| Softs | Coffee, Cocoa, Sugar Orange Juice |
23.5% |
| Precious Metals |
Gold, Silver, Platinum | 17.6% |
And here is a weekly chart:
When
did the index really take off? Last July. Why then? That's when the
realization was made that QE2 was coming. Will it continue rising? As
long as QE continues? Will QE ever end? No. It can't.
First up, coffee. Coffee is a great cost-push example. For now,
companies like Starbucks are trying to absorb some of this rise in price
by slashing margins and other internal "controls". They can't can't
keep this up forever, though, so soon your latte is going up in price. A
lot. Interestingly, SBUX has risen about 30% since July. Does that add
up for you? Me, neither.
OK, now, here's where the real problem is: Corn and the other grains.
The dispshit shills, LIESman, Krugman et al , can wax prophetic all
they want about the minimal impact these higher prices will have on the
consumer. You can draw three conclusions from this:
1) They are all profoundly stupid, almost to the point of partial retardation.
2) They are criminally negligent in their lack of basic economic education.
3) They are deliberately misleading people in the hopes of maintaining the ponzi as long as possible.
I'll let you decide which is true. I know which one I believe.
Back to corn. Look at this chart:
This near 100% move has occurred in the offseason. What happens if we get a little drought in the American midwest this summer?
What the shills fail to recognize is the interaction between
agricultural commodities. In this case, its the relationship between
corn, cattle and hogs. You see, if you're a rancher or a pig farmer,
your primary input cost is feed. (Ever heard of the term "midwest
corn-fed beef"?) When feed costs double, your first move as you attempt
to control costs is to sell some of your stock. As those cows and pigs
come to market, their presence has the same impact as any other increase
in supply...a temporary suppression of price. Yet, even in this
environment, look at a cattle chart:
And look at hogs:
The
only thing that has kept cow and pig prices from rising at the same
rate as the grains is this temporary increase in supply. Replacement
rate of a herd or barn is usually not much more than 1:1 so it follows
that all of the excess supply currently in the market will lead to a
commensurate drop in supply later this year. Add less
supply to increased demand (due to QE) and you get explosive price
increases. So, not only are the grains significantly more expensive,
protein is, too. Not good. Not good at all.
Thus the phrase: Prepare Accordingly. The time is now. We're already
seeing, in other parts of the globe, what hungry, desperate people are
willing to do. This will continue and get worse.
Prepare yourselves.
Prepare your families.
Prepare your friends.
Consider things through to their logical conclusions.
Be ready for any and all eventualities.
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Anyone else see things eschatologically? In other words, were fucked.
Read Isaiah. Read it deliberately and think about the corellations to our time. It's interesting to see how many times the Israelites' best "solutions" tended to make things worse.
The situation with corn is especially egregious as various states and the federal government are bound by law and regulation to dilute retail gasoline with a given percent of ethanol. This means that no matter how high the price of corn climbs, these governments will force those who blend retail gasoline to keep raising their bids until they secure the necessary level of supply. This is a recipe for financial and social policy disaster, especially since the price of corn has more than doubled since farmers became dependent upon the ethanol subsidies.
Worse, the high price of corn distorts the number of acres farmers will plant for other crops. The high price of cotton may cause as much as 1 million acres to be taken out of soybeans in order to grow cotton. Anyone who says that the ethanol subsidy affects only corn is ignorant of the marginal effects of government intrusion in free markets.
In the midwest, as the Dr. Barna's famous study of US hydrocarbon resources shows, much of that ethanol-bound corn is planted on land that sits atop an immense ocean of coal that could be mined and converted into liquid fuels like diesel. Yet, we drive the price of corn ever higher in our quest to be “sustainable” while forbidding the mining of the coal under the corn. It is sheer folly to burn food (and to drive the price of that food higher), when we easily could be burning some inedible source of hydrocarbons instead.
Liberals (er, “progressives”) love to scold the rest of us about “sustainability”, yet their demand to burn corn instead of crude oil cannot be sustainable, especially in light of the high food prices that may have been part of the dynamic that toppled Mubarak. It is not “sustainable” because government's ability to borrow or inflate to pay the subsidy will quickly be exhausted. The subsidy cannot stand the coming budget cuts.
I urge everyone to download Barna's study: OSD Clean Fuel Initiative. By Dr. Theodore K. Barna. : link: http://www.westgov.org/wieb/meetings/boardsprg2005/briefing/ppt/congressionalbrief.pdf
Notice the map on slide 3 and the total of US hydrocarbons on the next 2 pages. The US has over 2X the hydrocarbons than all of Arab OPEC, if only we had an appetite to use them.
I don't believe in subsidy. It fucks with a real free market.
Arab states haven't other resources than oil. Need to order out everything else. Most of our problems with those states are political. Especially when weapons and aid are freely given to favorites. We should just stay neutral and stay out.
I'm with you. QE2 is a subsidy. As far as the consequences I defer to one of of the smartest traders on the planet. Interesting to see the similarity with the depression.
http://www.tradingmarkets.com/stocks/commentary/don-t-buy-it---this-time-is-not-different-1483606.html
Subsidies means you often can buy locally and export with a profit, courtesy of the state.
Actually us progressives recommend hemp seed oil based fuels. Repuklican C. Grassley (R),IA, is responsible for ethanol.
Another precious conservative meme destroyed...
The study claims great things from oil shale production. It is simply a pipe dream. The returns from oil shale vs. the costs and environmental concerns will keep oil shale from ever being a viable alternative in any meaningful quantities. Here is a link to a scientific paper that puts things into a more rational light.
http://water.stanford.edu/nur/GP200A%20Papers/elliot_grunewald_paper.pdf
"...In general, oil shale has only been burned only in countries with dire
conventional energy prospects and processed into oil only during periods of exceptionally
uncertain oil supply...."
"...Large-scale oil shale development would carry major environmental costs
that must be considered in any assessment of the resource value. Direct environmental
damage would include ecosystem displacement, groundwater contamination, and air
pollution, and it is likely that even the global climate would be affected due to increased
greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, the minimal energy efficiency of shale oil
extraction means that these costs will more than likely outweigh the limited resource
benefits..."
"...In terms of raw energy content, oil shale is vastly inferior to coal,
firewood, and even manure. Pound for pound, oil shale contains around one-sixth the
energy content of coal and only one-fourth that of recycled phone books (Udall and
Andrews, 2004). Of this already nominal energy content only a portion is recovered in
net because of the tremendous amount of energy required for retorting. RAND estimates
that a production operation of 100,000 bpd would require a dedicated 1.2 gigawatt
dedicated power plant, comparable in size to the Seabrook nuclear plant in Connecticut
which serves more than 900,000 customers; production of a million barrels a day would
require ten of these. Shell has reported its ICP method is expected to produce about three
units of energy for every one unit of input energy (Lavelle, 2006). Even if this unproven
efficiency is achieved, it would imply a 30% reduction in the total net energy available
from estimated recoverable resources..."
"...While the energy benefit of shale is minimal, the environmental
implications of oil shale development would be tremendous. The most direct obvious
environmental impact of an oil shale industry would be the immediate displacement of
ecosystems in land under development. Surface retorting, which requires underground or
surface mining would strongly alter the local ecology and current land uses. Strip mining
would require some of the largest open-pit mines in the world. Around 1.5 tons of spent
oil shale is produced for every one barrel of retorted oil (Albulescu and Mazzella, 1987),
so a surface retorting operation of a million barrels per day would require more than half
8
a billion tons of raw shale to be mined and disposed of each year. Furthermore, the
retorting process increases the volume of the shale by 15-25 percent so that the pit or
mine from which the shale was removed cannot store all of the waste product (US DOE,
2004). Both surface and underground mining would require piling this material above
ground, thereby creating an unnaturally elevated landscape and likely causing decadelong
displacement of preexisting flora and fauna (RAND).
This new landscape would not only be reshaped but would also become
toxic and would alter both runoff patterns and groundwater quality. Spent shale has a
higher salt content than raw shale and contains small concentrations of arsenic and
selenium which can be mobilized by water that infiltrates tailings piles..."
The paper details other concerns about the massive quantities of water necessary for production, air quality concerns, salinazation of downstream irrigated farm lands,etc. I worked in the industry when Unocal was doing their pilot project in western Colorado which only ran as long as the government subsidies provided by the Synfuels corp. and Jimmy Carter lasted. it was a monstrous boondogle and played havoc with the local economies from the resulting boom and bust. My personal opinion is that oil shale is simply bullshit.
Just watch Gasland. Who needs water anyway.
But it sounds so good when T. Boone talks about it ...
Not all NG ruins water, the US is pretty far behind Europe with biogas but we are ramping it up. It's the fracking that's messed up not the fuel.
All forms of methane are capturable and can be fed into the already existing national grid.
Farts to fuel in NYC: http://inhabitat.com/farts-to-fuel-new-methane-processing-plant-in-green...
UC Davis has been doing it for a few years and cow ranchers in Nor-Cal are getting right into it.
Natural Gas burns at a considerably higher temp than gasoline and as a result when CNG vehicles go to get smogged in CA they often test cleaner than ambient air. NG ain't all bad.
Gail has a good analysis to support some of what is in the above referenced paper, speaks specifically to the Bakkan formation dates back to 2008 (just as they started with the HF.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3868
Up date via AP
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SHALE_OIL?SECTION=HOME&SITE=AP&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
I concur with you. I think it's bullshit and hype...... time will tell.
The Bakken shale is actually producing liquid oil at present. That formation is similar to the "oil shale" in name only. The Bakken and other formations that are being exploited by horizontal drilling are viable resources that happen to be trapped in a type of rock classified as shale (as opposed to sandstone,salt domes, etc.). While it is an actual oil source the USGS has wildly overestimated the reserves.
Oil shale per se is actually a solid that consists of fine grained sediments and kerogens that are also a solid. That is where the problems start. To get a liquid it has to be ground and heated to get the organics to a liquid phase. Oil shale of this type should really be considered as an ore, it first has to be mined before it can be processed. Oil shale and oil from a shale formation are two distinctly different things.
TO: nevadan
on Sun, 02/13/2011 - 16:18
#958130
"I worked in the industry when Unocal was doing their pilot project in western Colorado which only ran as long as the government subsidies provided by the Synfuels corp. and Jimmy Carter lasted. it was a monstrous boondogle and played havoc with the local economies from the resulting boom and bust. "
does 'western colorado' = craig?
pro,
Currently at 10%, going to 15%, at which point will destroy any car engine after a short period of time.Big $$$$$$$$.
Already seen many cases of luxury cars getting hit with $2-$4k repairs.
It will supposedly only be used in 2007 -2011 vehicles.
But what do you think a tank truck is going to do with a partial load?, thaul it back, nope, he's gonna dump it in the 10% tanks.
Dos, are you talking about NG? The engines in NG vehicles tend to last triple the length of gasoline engines, there's no solvent wiping away the vital oil film in the cylinder walls.
No gunked up oil, mechanically it's way past gasoline, I know, been using it and working on my own vehicles for years. Taxicabs, buses, shuttle vans, cop cars... Just spoke with a CNG Crown Vic owner told me his ride has 364K miles on it and has never had a major problem...
Sorry Dos, I thought you were knocking shale gas...
The option of buying in to local food cooperatives should still be available in many locations. Ideally, every family should have their own means of food production, and your surplus produce can be bartered or traded into any established network of food growers/producers.
It is absolutely vital that people begin making these preparations now. Make some phone calls and visit local farms in your area. It will be worth the effort when TSHTF.
I concur, the bartering is real and works great. I trade alternative energy info, tips on and actual building materials and available labor personell and I am rewarded handsomely with food every time I see my farmer friends. Then I save my organic seeds and give them to all of my neighbors with backyard gardens and they hook me up the next season. Coffee and anything else they sell at my local shop is all free for me (not counting tips) because I help them out in other ways. I tried a local barter network but they charge a /trade fee and a monthly membership fee so it was a little messy but mouth to mouth works well, good luck trying that at a starbucks or safeway.
The idea that can't have inflation without wage increases is laughably silly. Wages rise after teh money printing, not before for real inflation. So why not cap wages where they are at now and print a quadrillion or so to really rev up teh economy? Wages are locked to would be no inflation right?
The guys who get the money first, IE those that can pony up to he discount window or play flip that bond get free money to play with. That money gets gambled and works it's way through the economy finally filtering down on it's last step as wage increases. Totally mistaking cause and effect. It's like coming across a dead body full of gunshots wounds and saying the man died mysteriously and that caused the gunshot wounds to appear post demise.
Commodities will run until the Fed freaks and yanks back on the infinite fiat. It will be short term but the abrupt shift should crash the market and get commodities under control for a few months. After tapping the breaks gently Zimbabwe Ben will once again go pedal to the metal on the press.
LOL
Layman 1: "So wuts the problem with our country?"
Layman 2: "Eh, teh money printing."
ZH passerby: "Exactly."
"They are all profoundly stupid, almost to the point of partial retardation." WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! They know exactly what they are doing, and to whom. At the right time they, and all the wealth, will exit stage left. They are all members of the same club, and they don't let your kind in. So stop looking for help from the ones who are doing this to you.
Zappa was a great man.
(Now is that a real poncho
or is that a Sears poncho?)
One of Zappa's last compositions was a classical piece called "Outrage at Valdez"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oBTsOU6TG4&feature=related
He was a gifted man with a keen insight.
Hey Turd,
Congrats on having your post so prominently displayed on ZH.
Funny, I had to see the handwriting before I went to really focus on who the author was...:-)
Also, I enjoyed the post.
This is why the idiots that see the DOW/S&P to infinity are so, so delusional. How many food companies in the top 50? Retails? Restaurant chains? Apparel? Probably 3-4 months before the dam breaks. Martin Armstrong's inflection point of June 13 looks better every day. Crimex defaults within 90 days ( a birdie from Beijing told me so).
IMHO, your premise is wrong. They are not inept nor foolish.
Now what?
The paradigm looks completely different, doesn't it.
But you knew this.
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
Mark Twain
"When did the index really take off? Last July. Why then? That's when the realization was made that QE2 was coming."
I'm open to persuasion but non causa pro causa - correlation isn't causation. It is difficult to determine whether commodities are rising because of QE, increasing demand from emerging markets, supply concerns or a combination of these. In any event commodities are sui generis and each has its own dynamic.
++++
Tyler ...Hints about the future;,,,,,,,, The RUNNiNG MAN:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwOOkb-FyU8
We spend 12% of our income on food, whereas,
other peoples spend closer to 30-40%?
Not hard to see where this is heading - somewhere in between
Ouch!
http://news.tradingcharts.com/futures/5/4/153187145.html
WHAT IF: QE2 really didn't pump the money supply? All Ben's doing is redeeming those bonds early, exchanging liquid cash for bonds that have dropped in value since July 2010. The money supply is reduced if he's buying at a discount. Further reduced by removing interest payments too. All QE has done is increased LIQUIDITY, and watched it flow into commodities and RUSSELL + S&P Futures. The Market fell 9/21-9/24 after Fed's announcement 3 days. Then Tepper Tantrum on 9/24 ignighted boosters on CNBC.
These Food "shortages' are being implemented as part of the master plan to create, a "hell on earth" for the sheeple. The controllers wish to create WW3 ASAP, and they NEED chaos to do it. No better way that to, let half the world starve, and let the coming world war finish off the rest, to get to the stated goal of 500m people. This has nothing to do with commodity "prices" or "macroeconomics"... it's about POWER.... the assholes are going for broke this time, and they will be more brutal than ever before in the history of mankind.
+100
TPTB would prefer that we also kill each other off as part of their final solution. Engineered food shortages may be part of their plan for global depopulation.
The elite aren't worried, with their vast subterrainian complexes under Cheyenne Mountain and underground seed vaults in the Arctic Circle.
You should read Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine". It's a real eye opener.
Excellent book, but you end up a little numb after reading it, she just keeps on hitting you with one example after the next.....
If your theory is correct, a lot of us wont be here, and it will be taken out of mans hands.
Hell on Earth is an understatement to the Nth*.
No way -- lots of extra people around means you don't have to pay them very much.
"As you know by now, the endless money printing by our inept and foolish "leaders" is causing prices to rise in all things dollar-denominated."
Your "leaders" pal, not mine.
Unplug from the corporations.
And join a free American people.
http://republicfortheunitedstates.org
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/recession/6190818/US-credit-shrinks-at-Great-Depression-rate-prompting-fears-of-double-dip-recession.html
Strong work Turd, Your thoughts go beyond mere metals for mere mortals.
Turds thoughts only extend as far as inflation stories... i'm worried his brain has lost all sense of balance or his eyesight only sees inflation red, not deflation blue... yes corn has risen X% and pork bellies Y% but does Turd not see the special offers on 6 Packs of Budweiser, TV's at half price and 2-Bed Condos with 40% off... he's missing out on all the bargains to be had!!!
LOSS LEADERS: Like the clap, it will always be with us.
my economics 101 class was taught by H-P
Any chance in addition to the usual inflationary Warp Factor 5 hyper-bollox you could also include some figures that don't look so One-Eyed?
Here's a list of less-hyped consumer goods i'd like you to cover to counter the inflation story with a deflationary balance;
- US property (home and commercial)
- TV's (there's a glut coz nobody is buying)
- Cars (the dealerships are desperate because nobody is buying)
- white goods (washing machines, dishwashers, tumbledryers etc)
- furniture, carpets and tiles
- clothing (sale, sale and more sales)
Yes i hate to disturb this inflation orgy and look at the wider economy through more than just the inflation-only X-Ray detectors, but in the real world (remember that?) out there life isn't all about food stuffs. And sorry to be 'practical' and 'realistic' about this but am also not aware of any food or beverage shortages in America either... sorry to burst the hyperbole, now pass another bear please and shut up
only you can watch in history that social unrest and riots always happened for the sole reason when people dont have enough to eat and NOT becoz they cant buy a car or a tv.
In inflationary times, if one has no end of money, one doesn't have to worry about whether to buy food instead of gas for the car so that one can go to work. But that's the reality for many, Bub. The price of food determines not only what we eat, but IF we eat. Wake up!
There is usually very good reason for riots... "it's the economy stupid". Protests and rioting appears at the bottom of economic recessions which is where Egypt is at right now and where much of the Western world is headed very shortly
I'm not at all immune to what's happening but if there's food riots there's usually a bloody good reason (poverty or in the case of the Mexican Tortilla riots, the US Govts ethanol subsidies hitting prices)
What i am saying however is please STFU about "inflation, inflation, inflation". There's alot of deflation out there making an even BIGGER IMPACT on peoples lives which also needs talking about. The one-eyed bias is bugging me as is the constant hyperbole
What you think is 'deflation' may just be an illustration of Exter's pyramid.
you take the pyramid then and i'll take looking at a balanced view of reality if that's ok
Perhaps instead of tell people to "STFU" you should spend some time researching the data to make a intelligent, cited argument for you position! Your "balanced view of reality" does not appear to be grounded in hard facts but in hunches and opinions..... Bad form.....
Speaking of pyramids Cairo real estate is likely cheap at the moment. No inflation in sight. BIG SALE!!!
Do the amenities include bread-helmeted servants? :>D
Tyler had a post the other day (a little hyperbole to it) but the link was a good read. Most of your question will be answered at this site. MIT is creditable and unbiased (but I could be wrong), the data seems accurate & reasonable at first blush.
http://bpp.mit.edu/
http://bpp.mit.edu/daily-price-indexes/?country=USA
The MIT Billion Price Project, for Jan 1, 2011 the CPI was 1.50% and the MIT number was 2.54% annual inflation. So what is the impact of 1% understatement of the CPI over 6 months? Interesting looking at the historical comparison between the two methodologies, seems to be a decoupling in the last 6 months... (more pronounced in the last month).
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out....
Cars have a looong way to go before anyone calls them "cheap". Clothing is cheap as long as it isn't natural fiber. People can live for a long time with old cars, old clothes, old TVs and old furniture. Food, not so much.
tinfoil hat on mode... when did this start.. how long has it been planned.. and when did the plan come most clearly into view? and by plan, i mean famine leading to world war 3..
i would say that the earliest you could connect the two would be at the bp spill.. "And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea" r16:3. it was then, when reading of the aftermath, that it first dawned on people that if the bp disaster was a 'false flag', one of the implications was the potential for food chain collapse.
next, around the time of the cardinal cross, one of the things to come out of it were the fires in russia. now this was a much more clear signal that food was going to be used as a central component of the global game that was unfolding. and, btw, if you trace back the earliest records of fires in russia, they were from a town which has a very intimate history with a little organization called the OTO. scariest club in town..
when there are multiple plots going on at the same time, but you are just one of the "vulgate" class, trying to survive, it is rather unclear what direction things are going to go until the pattern emerges..
i would say that the immediate predacessor of what is now blatently obvious was the whole dead birds/fish/cattle show.. it was the 'food chain collapse' signal..
and now we are here.. and when i ask my average fellow american about the situation in egypt, they say 'yeah, facebook and google started the revolution'.. those who follow the news think it is all about 'the muslim brotherhood' and the rise of islam (which of course, it will be, for religious radicalism (from all sides) is the necessary ingredient for ww3).. those who have a financial education can see the clear connection between monetary policy and food riots... but usually this crowd (yes, the zerohedge crowd) stops here.. like this global change is happening because of the shortsightedness of some central bankers???
im sorry, but this is not just about prolonging a ponzi scheme.. this is about the creation of a new world order.
I agree that killing most of us is the ultimate plan, but I think thanks to the internet it will blow up in their face short-term. Long term, we are probably looking at famine and WWIII as a race war, Europe vs. the entire Middle East. America must resist the NWO's false-flag campaign to drag us into this war. Ultra long term (50 years?) I think it will all come down to who controls the most nano-drones, and which kool-aid additive is in their stingers. If the drones can be hacked and crowdsourced, we win. If not, Game Over.
Have you people ever heard of supply and demand? For example, corn is an ingredient in many non-food products, including ethanol. In addition, this increased demand is evidence of a sustained recovery. In fact, the measures put in place by the Bush administration are responsible for what will be the greatest economic turnaround in this great nation's history.
Also, our success in the Iraq and Afganistan wars will only only help promote world peace and bring about a new stage of world-wide economic growth. Stability is the key to investment and growth. In case you can't fathom that, fathom this: We have not been hit here in the USA by a terrorist attack since 9/11/01. Imagine the economic fallout if we had been hit again and again by the terrorists!
For those invested in gold and silver to hedge against inflation, get out now! That is my warning to you, as the renewal of growth in the worldwide economy will wipe out your so called "investment" as the world realizes how worthless both are in the context of money and the economy.
6/10. Too much information. You want to focus on less points, but elaborate.
Also, by reducing the amount of information, you have more ammunition for further trolling.
think Phil saying Bush is responsible for an "economic turnaround" sure comes under the heading of too much information... too much dis-information in fact!
Phil is old school, funny as shit. Maybe the best performance artist troll evah! He stays in character and does not flinch for a second.
Go ahead, ask about his wife. That is, if he comes back to post at all. Primarily a hit and run artist.
Now where has Benjamin Dover been? I always thought they were the same person. He used to be a contributor and it was a howl of a good time watching how pissed folks would get taking the shit seriously. I mean pissed man. Even when they were told it was a joke they were hopping mad.
Come back Ben.
Come back Phil.
Props Phil, props.
Ben Dover, I used to know his brother in law, Claude Bolls.
1 /?a?r?ni, ?a??r-/ Show Spelled[ahy-ruh-nee, ahy-er-] Show IPA –noun, plural -nies.
1.
the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning: the irony of her reply, “How nice!” when I said I had to work all weekend. 2.
Literature .
a.
a technique of indicating, as through character or plot development, an intention or attitude opposite to that which is actually or ostensibly stated. b.
(especially in contemporary writing) a manner of organizing a work so as to give full expression to contradictory or complementary impulses, attitudes, etc., especially as a means of indicating detachment from a subject, theme, or emotion.
I guess the surge in coffee prices also reflects increased demand... along with wheat, cocoa, oil, soy, rice...
As for our 'success' in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars being somehow conflatable with the lack of successful terrorist attacks in the US since 9/11... you don't think it might be more related to increased airport security? Having lockable cockpit doors? That kind of thing?
Finally... although both metals' prices are being suppressed, gold's price is almost entirely dependent on the degree to which people view it as a monetary alternative, whereas silver is also an industrial metal with an increasing number of applications, and which by most estimations will soon be facing a supply squeeze. To put the two metals in the same bracket illustrates an astounding lack of knowledge. Twat.
The reason we have not seen repeated terrorist attacks on our soil is that airport security is air tight. As for gold and silver. Gold is the traditional storage of wealth and silver is the traditioanl form of money. You can't just print silver and gold. You have to go and mine it out of the gound. This leaves fairly little room for banking shenannigans.
I think OBL is still not charged for the crime he is committed, leaves a room to speculate that all was done somebody else.
US airport security is a joke. You want security, fly El Al. The reason we haven't been hit again is that there really aren't that many terrorists willing to die for the cause, and many of the ones who will do it are dumb as rocks & are easily caught.
Either you are being totally facecious or you are smoking some really good shit...where can I get some?
and now we leave this fiat, Kool-Aid commercial and return to our regular programming
Some people get brainwashed, but I see you went for the high pressure power wash. Good for you Phillip
Wow, thanks for clearing that up Phil.
so taco bells beefy taco is only 35% beef, and beef is 25% higher, that is 25% of 35%, or less than a 10% rise in their cost for beef. Think outside the Fed.
Try watching "Who Killed the electric Car?" they said suburbia would start to die if gas got to $4.50 - $5 a gallon and ethanol takes 20-25 barrels of oil to make 1 barrel of that crap, destroys engines, seals etc. and gets worse mileage than gas too.
well, let's start: physics, thermodynamics, chemistry, efficiency, green movement (coal fired cars), nature, infrastructure-NOT!,
and the beat goes on. Long time before we get to individual people.
- Ned
Thanks for the blog, Turd. I read it often.
I heard somewhere that 40% of all the corn we grow is turned into ethanol. Is this possible?
Something like 4 per cent, not 40.
It's not ALL bad, the corn is just stripped of the starch, leaving the mash or
DDGs, which is sold again and used as feed for cattle and hogs. More troubling is the approval of new genetically modified strains used specifically for ethanol production - they are not suitable for use in food products, but how this will stay out of the food chain remains to be seen.
Thanks.
About 40% of all the corn I eat is turned into methane.
Maybe there aren't any cigarette smokers among ZH readers but if there are let me point out that it is ridiculously simple to grow your own tobacco wherever you live, and its completely legal to grow your own. If you have a garden, great, but is all you have is a patio or balcony, no problem. You can even grow indoors under lights. Depending on the variety you grow, 1 plant will yield 1/2 pound or more of cured leaf. That's a lot of smoking material. There are plenty of heirloom seed varieties available. And if you don't smoke but are preparing for when TSHTF tobacco is always in demand in a barter society. I've grown my own for years. Check out www.cultivatorshandbook.com
I have several packets of seeds (tobacco!) that intend to start this year, just because. I bought 25 pounds of American Spirit several years ago, but burned through it as our wonder full legislature raised tax so a can went from 7 to 38. I hope they die in a fire.
I need to get ready, I think. Live in zone 4
If I'm gonna grow poison I much prefer opium.
Reasons to believe in conspiracies:
A. No one can be this stupid.
B. All of the Rube Goldberg solutions offered like "cash for clunkers", Dodd-Frank and Obamacare.
C. There are a small number of people at the top and they would like to stay that way.
Reasons to not believe in conspiracies:
A. Have you met some of the people on top? They just aren't that smart - most are a bunch of self-congratulatory shysters.
B. So many of the top 1 - 3% are so afraid of the unwashed masses that they will buy them off in the end.
C. Even the best laid plans come to naught due to unintended consequences or unforeseen circumstances.
I do not believe that these guys are the clever-est humans to have walked the earth.
In the meantime - more pain for us...
"A. Have you met some of the people on top? They just aren't that smart - most are a bunch of self-congratulatory shysters."
this is certainly true of the VISIBLE people 'at the top'
these visible people are just functionaries for the 300 families that actually run this planet
and you don't have to believe in conspiracy theories - you just have to imagine that there are humans on this planet who think long term and big picture - we in the western world have been trained to think instant gratification and very tiny picture
Big money is out there, making moves, so conspiracy or not ain't it funny that child molesters get more attention on CNN and other "news" networks.
I was having a discussion about food and how its likely reformulation will happen as prices continue to surge.
Will artificial sweeteners become cheaper than corn syrup and sugar? And sweet processed foods use these in place of real food?
Anyone have a way to track prices on aspartame or similar sweeteners?
All I know is that my hooker is charging 35% more...she says it's getting more expensive to feed her kids...
Tedster - in Zone 4 one of your best choices is a variety called 65 day Havana. It's a great smoke, grows about 5 - 5.5 feet tall and matures in 65 days. Makes a fine cigarette or pipe tobacco - very smooth and pretty potent too. It's a common commercial variety in Wisconsin. An internet search for the exact phrase 65 day havana will find seeds. Very easy plant to grow in pots or in a garden. Cures to a fine yellow-brown. Lots of info on curing etc on the web or on my site - not rocket science. Have fun.
Thanks for the help - I have some seeds already from the Victory seed co.,
"packed for 2009", might they still be good?
About 100 seeds per packet, I have 5 packets of "Wild Tobacco" 3 packets of "Little Dutch" and 1 packet of "TN86". Thankfully, every packet of seeds has the Surgeon Generals warning!
I have an Aerogrow so might start some in that, they should be ready for transplant in a month or so. Should piss off the neighbors, too - every little bit helps.
Scaremongering nonsense really.
Just a bubble, has no one seen a bubble before? hell, we had the same bubble in early 2008 (and in Gold too).
Look how that one burst.
Anyone who believes these commodities are just going to continue to shoot to the moon is likely to be surprised in les than a year, probably within 6 months.
And QE for ever? Come off it TF, wake up to reality rather than your own prejudices.
Perhaps you should provide some line of reasoning or evidence that QE will end.
Or does that not jive with your own prejudices?
I might also note that the conditions now, as in 2008, point toward imminent hyperinflation. The tools they used to stop it last time have been exhausted. Don't say we didn't warn you.
So that's why 2 pounds of pork tenderloin was 6 dollars. A nice pork chop is one dollar. That's in high priced Canada.
Looking to short TSN, BRFS, CBOU as well as SBUX. The latter looks to be in a nice rising wedge.
Hi Tedbits - 2009 seeds ought to still be good. Check out J. L. Hudson for some great heirloom tobacco seeds (look under nicotiana). 'Wild tobacco' could be anything, but is probably N. Rustica. A very potent tobacco - one of the major varieties grown traditionally by Native Americans. The TN variety is almost certainly Burley - you'll likely be disappointed with that one. Try to find the 65 day Havana I recommended - in zone 4 you can't do better than that little gem. Also, you can get free seeds from the government. You heard me right. The National Plant Germplasm System has seeds for every variety of every plant that has ever been collected or grown commercially in the US, and they are free for the asking. Not just tobacco - all kinds of food plants, herbs, etc. There are literally hundreds of great tobacco varieties - stuff like Frog Eye Orinoco ( a great smoke by the way). the web address is http://www.ars-grin.gov/npgs/orders.html
With the snow piling up and the temp. in the single digits I just finished planning & purchasing the heirloom seeds for my garden this summer. Thanks for that link I will be using it.
Thanks for the information AS. I know that it will be very useful to me here in SC.
Thanks.
Hi Tedbits - 2009 seeds ought to still be good. Check out J. L. Hudson for some great heirloom tobacco seeds (look under nicotiana). 'Wild tobacco' could be anything, but is probably N. Rustica. A very potent tobacco - one of the major varieties grown traditionally by Native Americans. The TN variety is almost certainly Burley - you'll likely be disappointed with that one. Try to find the 65 day Havana I recommended - in zone 4 you can't do better than that little gem. Also, you can get free seeds from the government. You heard me right. The National Plant Germplasm System has seeds for every variety of every plant that has ever been collected or grown commercially in the US, and they are free for the asking. Not just tobacco - all kinds of food plants, herbs, etc. There are literally hundreds of great tobacco varieties - stuff like Frog Eye Orinoco ( a great smoke by the way). the web address is http://www.ars-grin.gov/npgs/orders.html
A-S : You Da Man! Thanks for that link. Yup, N. rustica, will plant that one for show, but seek out the 65 day variety you mention.
What is bizarre, overall, have been stocking and stacking for many years. Now in the last few years all this stuff has gone mainstream. Something about the 90s told me this was going to end badly, but my timing was off, figured it would be another 20 years or so, about the time of my alleged retirement. And the level of corruption and so on, is far greater than I would have believed.
I don't see what all the fuss is about. Didn't you know IHOP is home of the pancake rEVOLution?
http://tradewithdave.com/?p=5321 . Don't miss our guillotine piece on how Mervyn King weighed in his own head in Great British Pound of Flesh http://tradewithdave.com/?p=5310.
Dave Harrison
tradewithdave.com
Re. sbux. I am not a buyer of sbux, but they are expanding into emerging markets. Emerging markets that export agricultural commodities, like food.
IMO - the currencies of emerging market countries, that export food and maybe some other commodities like palm oil and rubber will find buyers.
Therefore, the purchasing power in these countries may be protected and sbux is on to something.
Thanks for the blog Turd.
Blueberries up 52% and Snickers Bars up 48% in 18 months....tip of the iceberg.
Yep, they already have passed some of the cost on via stealth increases or outright price increases. BK jr whopper was $1, now $1.49.
Hey Tyler: I was at the NPC and thought BB comments were not properly reported. He pushed back on the concept that the US Fed is seeking to stabilize global systems. For any dictator, communist or central banker listening, BB said that his concerns are the US alone.
When, (gently,) pressed further he said that if other central banks/countries are playing games with their currencies and don't have the reserves to handle the impact of QE, that's tough. I was stunned.
BB is breaking anyone out there who is using their currency or trade policy to block the flow of all our dollars...and the cheap American goods that will come after.
Its like monetary water-boarding.
Maybe, BB knows he's on his own and the only way to save the US is to flood the world with dollars and then force global markets to buy our cheap goods. He's going to force China, and anyone else trying to de-value their way to economic growth to either pay dearly for it, or give in and allow more balanced trade
I agree with one of the posters above who said, that the "softs" will run, only so far as they will reach a breaking point, (like oil.) What then?
Yes, it will be hard in the US, very hard, but we are the reserve currency and still the leading economy. We produce guns and butter. This is going to really hurt many of the economies/governments we hate.
All this talk about social networking bringing down Tunisia and Egypt? Its Ben and he knows that his actions are going to lead to blood in the streets. But there will be less blood here (we exchange dollars for everything,) and I bet he's thinking other economies will succumb to the "old world order" rather than risk losing power.
For those of you who will say that this concept works for everything but oil, consider the economies that produce oil. Are they fair to their citizens? Do they use their revenues to promote human rights? Do most OPEC nations have open governments? We know the Arab world is young, poor and unemployed.
Maybe this is the mother of all Imperialistic moves. Also, since it seems we're going to save our banks (tbtf,) and pump the world with trillions of US dollars, (this is our only and therefore best idea,) the entities who profit from this are the leading US global multi-national corporations, who are, it just so happens, the key clients of the big banks...his member banks.
It makes Reagan's gambit to break the Soviet Union look like a game of checkers.
A couple of problems with this... first, what American products are people going to buy from us? Guns and food? That's not enough to keep people employed.
The other problem is that the American people don't have the reserves to weather endless QE...
Exactly.
We have an unelected, unaccountable Federal Reserve commandeering our foreign policy and our domestic policy for decades to come. He is telling us who is really in charge of the country. He is on a one way trip with the USD and it is supposed to end in a global fiat entity.
We need to end the Fed, and accept no further private banking fiat monsters, including the IMF.
Let's get the terminology right:
"Inflation" and "deflation" have to do with the money supply. When the money supply gets larger, that's inflation. They're inflating the money supply. Like inflating a baloon, it gets larger. Deflation is shrinking the money supply. Like deflating a baloon, it gets smaller.
"Rising prices" and "falling prices" have to do with the things we buy with money. Prices rise, stay level, or fall.
Inflating the money supply beyond the increase in goods and services causes prices to rise, all other things being equal, because each unit of money loses value, requiring more units of money to purchase the item
Deflating the money supply beyond reduction in goods and services causes prices to fall, all other things being equal, because each unit of money gains value, requiring fewer units of money to purchase the item.
Supply & demand affect prices also.
In residential real estate we have a unique situation where supply is growing slightly but demand is falling sharply due to massive unemployment, massive under-employment, and massive chain-of-title destruction by lenders. Sharply falling demand for homes causes prices to fall dramatically.
Inflating the money supply at the same time (via massive monetization of government debt) counteracts some of this dramatic price collapse.
The Fed hopes to inflate the money supply enough to halt this dramatic price collapse and reverse it, making prices actually rise again, despite the massive collapse in demand for homes.
But inflating the money supply enough to halt the demand-collapse price collapse in housing causes prices of other things (where demand is still strong) to rise dramatically. Examples are food, fuel, and precious metals, where prices have risen 30% - 40% in the past year.
Econ 101
Why would the Fed want to massively inflate the money supply to halt the demand-collapse price collapse in housing, knowing full well it's causing large price increases in food, fuel, etc?
The Fed hopes to maintain real estate price levels so banks won't have to mark down the value of real estate on their books. But it's not working. Real estate prices are still falling. So the Fed tells the goverment to change accounting rules allowing banks to keep real estate values high on their books. This is called "mark-to-myth" accounting.
Acct 101
"Mark-to-myth" accounting is fraud.
Law 101
Fraud is perfectly ok when government does it and allows banks to do it.
Govt 101
But nobody wants to buy a home with a street value of $50,000 when the bank says it's worth $200,000. So demand for homes collapses further, causing street prices to collapse further.
Econ 101
See, a first year college student can figure this stuff out.
But PhD economists apparently can't.