WEB OF DEBT BLOG

WHO WILL PAY, WALL STREET OR MAIN STREET – THE TOBIN TAX OR THE VAT?

28 Responses

1. 

   hungry4food, on June 30, 2010 at 7:27 am said:

   Can The States can issue State banking privileges under the 10th Amendment and order the Federal Reserve to issue funding based off intrinsic value of natural resources after sensing control by eminent domain bill taking back control of all Federal lands resources for state benefit like Utah is doing , see this ; http://naturalresourcereport.com/2010/04/oia-plan-use-state-to-condemn-and-liberate-federal-land/ , the States would assay , and recapitalize the state budgets and then working together with other states draft creative needs programs that put people back to work , like alternative energies , sustainable living modular’s using materials that would be engineered from our dirt lands ????
   We have abundant amounts of Just plan old dirt so we need to figure out a way to use it in a thick enough wall that insulation is achieved . This will create a low CO2 usage in energy use .
   We have got to come up with alternatives to keep these kinds of things from ever having a chance to happen .
   Florida Gulf oil spill: Plans to evacuate Tampa Bay area are in place

   http://www.examiner.com/x-17299-Hernando-County-Political-Buzz-Examiner~y2010m5d9-Gulf-Oil-Spill-2010-Plans-to-evacuate-Tampa-Bay-area-expected-to-be-announced

   http://www.sciencecorps.org/crudeoilhazards.htm
   Raining Oil, Mysterious Crop Ailments on the Gulf Coast and the Death of the Republic.
   http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/24743?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
   this is just awful …
   http://www.bt.cdc.gov/gulfoilspill2010/2010gulfoilspill/pregnancy_oilspill.asp

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2. 

   hungry4food, on June 30, 2010 at 7:27 am said:

   we need to start building these , http://www.verticalfarm.com , near oceans and desalination plants , and grow Bio Algae for fuel and Pulp from the Algae can be used in feed additives because its a high protein .
   Gulf of Mexico Intended to be an Algae Farm? Startling Indeed , this is a very interesting read …….

   http://investigatingobama.blogspot.com/2010/06/gulf-of-mexico-intended-to-be-algae.html

   http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/biofuel/4213775

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3. 

   Jere Hough, on June 30, 2010 at 12:11 pm said:

   All true, Ellen. Unfortunately I think most of it will never come to the attention of the multitudes that need to understand this, or any other money or tax reform issue. The “class war” issue is notable, except Warren Buffet famously said, “If there is a class war, MY CLASS (the rich) has already won it”. I think that might have been true from about the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

   Sweeping money reform is the only answer to our mounting economic, social and political problems, IMO.

   Keep up your vigil. Your voice for reason and peaceful reform is inspiring.

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4. 

   Robert Scheide, on June 30, 2010 at 6:59 pm said:

   I sleep with your book under my pillow. When I need a mental pickup and you and Elizabeth Warren are my medications.

   I do not see how elections will ever fix this, we do not have the time think to win one seat at a time. Even though I do think that if we could pick and choose we could put a large enough number in congress and state legislatures to pull a Blue Dog on them.

   The only solution I have ever come up with gets little traction on my blog. The solution is simply this. Store up on the sly about 3 months worth of supplies . Then all hands just stay home from work, sitting on your front lawn giving them the single finger salute, till they must ask what do you creeps want?? Not to make you a target but somebody effective could step forward . You and Elizabeth would do a fine job. Give them your list. Then we will collectively tell them when they comply we will return to work.

   I know it’s a lot to ask , but truthfully , will be risking anything we are going to loose from continued complacency

   It’s the only thing I can think of that doesn’t require a leader to start , you just have to stay home. One can always dream. You and Elizabeth make that dream seem possible..

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5. 

   richard wilson, on July 1, 2010 at 12:55 pm said:

   Ellen mentions the oceans of money that could be raised from a 1 percent Tobin tax on the derivative trade. She did not mention currency trading. The global Forex trade is about $4.5 trillion per day, 16.1 percent of which occurs in the USA, or $724.5 billion per day. Thus, a 1 percent tax on US currency trades alone would yield $7.2 billion in US revenue each day, times 365 days = $2.6 trillion per year in revenue for the USA.

   The other issue is austerity programs, which will obviously create a full-blown depression. Why are banks doing this? Well, we know that our money system is a Ponzi scheme, because it’s a debt-based system. Debt constantly expands until it is so huge that it threatens to collapse the entire game. Hence, every few decades the banks contract the supply of money (i.e. decrease credit) in order to deflate the overall debt bubble. That is, the banks deliberately cause depressions so they can start over with a new Ponzi scheme, and resume inflating the overall debt bubble once more. Meanwhile austerity measures also increase the power of banks by destroying social systems run by governments. Further, austerity measures allow the super-rich to buy public resources for pennies on the dollar.

   Ellen notes that the money supply is currently shrinking at a rate not seen since the 1930s. The US government allows this because that’s what the big banks want.

   The solution (as Ellen has been saying for years) is a public banking system that preferably does not use a debt-based system of money.

   Since we can’t overthrow the Fed, this means public state banks like North Dakota’s.

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6. 

   Joseph Danison, on July 2, 2010 at 3:35 pm said:

   Our financial system resists change because a significant portion of the general population are stakeholders. What are the numbers?

   How many people have “unearned income” from investments? Everyone who receives a pension, for example, is umbilicaly connected to Wall Street. It is not merely households with modest investment portfolios, who consider themselves quite sophisticated and financially savvy. The popular aspiration is to join the investor class and let your money “work” for you. No one aspires to actually labor for a living. That’s just depressing and “blue collar”. We all want money to magically appear, by direct deposit, so we can devote ourselves to “hobbies”, ie, things we really want to do that are fulfilling. This is the American Dream. This is what most people understand capitalism to be:

   You say: “If I had a million dollars, I’d invest it and live comfortably off the interest and never work again.” Of course you would! You’d write the next best seller or find a cure for cancer. That’s what I’d do, too.

   Once upon a time, during The Long Depression ( the 19th Century )., the investor class was minuscule. Everyone, meaning the majority who were farmers and factory workers feared, mistrusted, hated, and did not understand Wall Street.. The gold standard, which was deflationary, ruled. Eventually the system changed because people got tired of not having any money. This was the “progressive era” that gave us “bimetalism” and The Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Wall Street began to seduce the general population. creating the investor mania of the 20’s. The Great Depression struck anyway. FDR devalued the dollar and the deflationary grip of the gold standard began to be gradually loosened until many years later Nixon got rid of it.

   Here’s the point, the unearned income that is the ultimate wet dream of every working stiff who wants to imitate a Wall Street hot shot is only possible if you can beggar your neighbor. This is what the banks are doing, as Ellen points out, borrowing cheap, loaning dear. Easy Street is the spread between the two.

   Ellen’s state bank solution does not cure the disease (Ponzitis), but it does offer a significant palliative because it makes credit available more cheaply, to most everyone, or a significant number. North Dakotans enjoy more fiscal stability because they have agreed not to beggar their neighbors so extremely through usurious interest rates.

   To make capitalism work, ultimately, we must all become investors and receive unearned income while we are at the same time working stiffs with access to affordable capital engaged in productive enterprise.

   “None are saved until all are saved”, a poet once said.

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7. 

   Zarepheth, on July 4, 2010 at 8:46 pm said:

   Ellen’s work was where I first learned about the evils of our monetary system. Further research has taught me about more evils and a bit about how they are all linked together in our nation’s (and world’s) overall economy.

   It all boils down to private entities acquiring and using public resources (or privileges) without fully compensating the public for the resource (or privilege). The banking industry has acquired an exclusive privilege to create our nation’s money supply. They don’t pay a penny for this privilege, but if you or I as individuals attempted to excerise this privilege, we’s soon be jailed for fraud. If the banking industry had to pay the full value of this privilege back to the community (or lose the privilege), our communities could more easily afford schools, road maintenance, community health care and so on.

   But the privilege to create money is just one of many public resources or privileges that individuals or private corporations may acquire for far less than they are worth. Mineral rights, land, use of radio frequences, water rights, taxi permits, and so on are all things that ought to belong to the community and anyone who wants an exclusive claim on a piece of them ought to pay the full value of those resources as determined by competitive auctions.

   Correcting the line between public and private in all places would soon persuade investors to only take what they can immediately and economically use. It would provide a revenue stream to the community which could not be hidden by tax shelters, and would likely exceed the community’s cost to manage the resources and privileges, allowing the community to meet its various obligations without resorting to taxes on production: income taxes, sales taxes, value added taxes, …

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8. 

   Bruno Behrend, on August 31, 2010 at 6:14 am said:

   I recently wrote two pieces on a dramatic tax and entitlement reform plan over at the Chicago Boys Blog.

   The posts are;

   http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/14340.html

   http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/14564.html

   First, we need to phase out government based entitlements and swap them for yearly stipends for every American over 21. $15,000 should do.

   Over the next decade, Soc. Sec. and health care bureaucracies wouldn’t be needed.

   To finance all of this (the transition will be expensive), we do a four year phase out of all income taxes (Cap gain, personal, corporate, and FICA) and replace them with;

   1. A broad goods and services tax (GST amount to be determined)
   2. A broad and low 5% energy tax on gas and electric
   3 A steeper phased in gasoline/fuel tax (about $1.50)
   4. A transaction tax on all financial trades (2-3%)

   I’m reading web of debt, and not fully convinced, but intrigued. Is there a seminar, class, or study that confirms a new financial system can work?

   Reply
9. 

   Birch, on September 7, 2010 at 7:24 am said:

   We’re in the new financial system, and this system of privately created debt money has been confirmed not to work. Most of history provides excellent examples of why a system like Ellen suggests would work way better.

   This new system we’re in is unique in that all of humanity is expected to serve the “free” markets, rather than the markets existing to serve the needs of a “free” humanity. It’s absurd.

   Keep reading.

   Reply
10. 

    hungry4food, on September 7, 2010 at 8:20 am said:

    its all about resource consolidation and population control worldwide partner thats why you don’t see any private M1 capital even willing to be in emerging markets that drive resource expansion the will is gone because of the science thats predicting unsustainable overpopulation . The will to hold Financed paper by the M1 private capitalists is gone because they know that a 30 year note will have a hard time being sustained in a home development investment if Water cannot be sustained , we are reaching the limits of earths carrying capacity , its just that simple , with current systems , and environmentalists are standing on the ways we could expand , like massive infrastructure works that make expansion possible . The kinds of infrastructure works Government has and are financing will only maintain currenct population numbers .
    Start researching overpopulation , earths carrying capacity , and Water shortages , and learn what the real problem is facing us all . Its will not matter what kind of Banking system you try to implement .

    Reply
    • 

      hungry4food, on September 7, 2010 at 8:30 am said:

      How can you invest in a mission statement like this coming from the top echelons of International public finance ?? This is not a good sign and your banking hopes will be met with extraordinary difficulty , because of this limiting fundamental on capital expansion from resource expansion

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_financial_institutions

      Reply
    • 

      Zarepheth, on September 12, 2010 at 8:56 pm said:

      The Earth’s carrying capacity is greatly underestimated. For the past two hundred years (or more) mankind has produced more than enough food to feed every man, woman, and child on the planet.

      Despite large quantities of people dying from starvation, the problem is not insufficient production – but inequitable distribution. Even in the U.S., the government actually pays farmers to _not_ farm their land. They’ve been doing this since the 1970’s. We could readily support a larger world population – assuming we could learn to live peacefully with each other and properly distribute wealth and resources.

      The main reason we live in a world of scarcity is not that resources are scarce, but that large chunks of the commons are owned by private concerns who will not share with their nieghbors (unless the neighbors pay exhorbinant fees) and a world monetary system that insures there is never enough money to properly distribute the goods and services mankind produces. Ellen is working on correcting the latter problem, but the former must also be addressed to create a sustainable economy.

      Reply
      • 

        hungry4food, on September 13, 2010 at 11:27 am said:

        Zarepheth I agree with you about the ability to produce enough resource supply like food , there are plenty of ways to do it , The part about subsiding food by the Government is in part a way to control food costs but I think it also is skewing the futures markets reading on true future supply forecasting , and I think its to make the price overall lower for world markets .
        But the idea that there is Progressive leaders in the debate over Population reaching earths carrying capacity is going on, http://www.overpopulation.org/ , and these people are bending the ear of our president .
        Paul R Ehrlich; Bing Professor of Population Studies and President of the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University and co-founder of the field of co-evolution.
        US: The population bomb is still ticking 13 December 2009
        http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20091211105819323
        These guys wrote the stimulus bills and the direction those funds were to be implemented , and its basically went to Operate Government and Nothing to stimulate private sector capital Formation and expansion . Pauls argument with Agronomist Norman Borlaug is clearly one that needs future debate , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug .
        And Instead of resource supply expansion projects being designed and Government Policies promoting them to expand the industrial bases to them be a Jobs promoting activity . This of course is pressure coming from the progressive Environmentalist who have turned into Marxists in their belief of Earth first Humanity second philosophies , and the voting block they represent has the progressive wing responding the way we see them , less industrial activity , more Government economic dependency , and they have control of the banking sector through the Federal Reserve to reduce and Limit M1 Finance platforms that leverage and Hold Long Term Debt for growth and expansion of the Money supply , like Ellen mentioned , that there is not the Money supply out there in the hands of the consumer .

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        • 

          hungry4food, on September 13, 2010 at 11:29 am said:

          Here are some examples of how Government is Limiting the industrial activity to satisfy the Environmentalist Voting blocks ,
          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVTGK1uYqJo&feature=player_embedded – the wildlands project
          http://lisaintx.wordpress.com/2010/07/28/raindrops-falling-on-your-head-be-careful-they-could-belong-to-the-federal-government-soon/

          http://www.onenewsnow.com/Perspectives/Default.aspx?id=1123236
          http://ideas.usda.gov/ago/ideas.nsf

          And this debt shows the lack of private sector industrial expansion , http://www.usdebtclock.org and here is a example of the need for a whole host of needed resource expansion but no will to finance it or create it , This show clearly that the World market is not working , why , looks like a unwilling Government ;
          http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-10/russia-may-lose-15-000-lives-15-billion-of-economic-output-in-heat-wave.html

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          • 

            hungry4food, on September 13, 2010 at 11:30 am said:

            And instead while we dither with our direction on Resource usage China is consolidating all the worlds resource out from under everyone .
            Sinochem approaches Temasek on Potash Corp bid tie up
            http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page72068?oid=110942&sn=Detail&pid=102055

            China’s state-owned Sinochem Corp has invited Temasek, the Singapore sovereign wealth fund, to join a consortium that may bid for Canada’s Potash Corp
            Rare earths are vital, and China owns them all
            http://www.marketwatch.com/story/rare-earths-are-vital-and-china-owns-them-all-2009-09-24?link=kiosk
            PetroChina’s 60% stake in oil sands project may appear good for Alberta’s economy, but it’s bad for Darfur
            http://www.africafiles.org/article.asp?ID=21681
            China hails $US3b oil deal with Iraq. August 28, 2008 … desperate for energy that it is prepared to make significant concessions to secure oil supplies, …
            http://news.smh.com.au/business/china-hails-us3b-oil-deal-with-iraq-20080828-44xr.html

            Reply
      • 

        Birch, on September 13, 2010 at 5:26 pm said:

        Well put, Zarepheth, but I would go beyond the problem of inequitable distibution and fault the system that requires distribution at all. Most of the people that are going hungry live in places that had been inhabited by subsistence societies for millenia. Their means of growing food were destroyed by the white man not only to make room for cash crops, but mainly to implement hunger as a motivation to work for the white man that destroyed his culture. We can all grow enough food to live on, even in urban settings, but capitalism values commodities according to how far they’ve been shipped, and how much they’ve been processed.

        Profit and gain were not motivating ideas until a couple hundred years ago. Subsistence is the prime motivator, and once the false dieties of consumerism fall from grace, subsistence will again be our fortune. Subsistence living can not cause hunger, subsistence cultures will not let their members go hungy (you know this if you’ve ever lived with one). It is profit that causes hunger.

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        • 

          hungry4food, on September 13, 2010 at 8:04 pm said:

          Birch I respectfully disagree with the idea that a system that only focuses on the moral aspect of sustainability will meet the needs of society if that society is expanding , without some form of innovation thats profit potential is a goal ,
          Let me ask you if Ellen gives away her Book for nothing , so the subsistence of the great good is achieved ?
          I think the idea that sharing a knowledgeable aspect of logic with the hope that a sustaining level of profit is the result from ones efforts shows here in this chart , https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html , the nations societies that practice a capitalist system actually are the sustainable ones in terms of Population growth , and if the population is sustainable it becomes a easier effort to supply quality to the entire population , thus equality is achieved . Flaws in any system need to be purged , its just you don’t want to sacrifice your Liberties for the sake of trying to achieve greater equality , because any private or public bureaucracy can fall victim to the greed and power over the delegation that is responsible for administrating quality to the society . The trade policy of the last 16 year that has allowed multi -national Corporate consolidation of the Manufacturing , wholesale and retail sectors of our economy that drove the small Business mom and pop local economies out of business over this period of time is why we lost the equality this country used to enjoy that kept our cash circulating in our country helping out communities rather than it always flowing out the door over to China and they only turn around and loan it back taking treasuries as security , when they manipulated their currency over the years of the Free trade agreement and along with the Tariff Free Importers like the Wall Marts and Kmarts of the Multi-nationals that imported tariff Free alkl these years , not paying tariffs that should have been paid into our Medicare and Social Security systems to off set the loss of manufacturing jobs we saw as our work that paid these deductions were outsourced , we have become a Consuming nation ONLY and that means all the money spent ends up circulating out of our country and over to the Currency manipulator in the world thats sucked away all durable wealth creation in the world , CHINA . Their currency value should have rose by now to par levels with all the other nations in the world , with all the years of consolidation of the durable wealth creation they have sucked out of every corner of the world , and who lets them get away with it , the Federal Reserve , our Congress and Administration , over and over and over again .

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          • 

            Zarepheth, on September 13, 2010 at 8:46 pm said:

            Be careful about freedom versus equality. Thus far, the two major choices we’re always presented with are Capitalism and Communism.

            We know where both lead: in large societies, communism leads to innefficient production as people are rewarded the same for their labor whether they work or not. However, it seems to work in some small communities, like religious monestaries whose members all willingly participate.

            Capitalism rewards laborers for their work – until the wolves come out and start gobbling up the commons and forcing laborers into slavery. At which point the laborers no longer receive the work of theirs – instead handing it over to their “employers”, “landlords”, or “banks”. Just because they call it “freedom” does not mean they are really free — they’ve just been left with the choice of work for a pitance or die, the same choice actual slaves have.

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            • 

              hungry4food, on September 13, 2010 at 9:18 pm said:

              Zarepheth I don’t trust Government to do the right thing for all either , they fall victim of Greed for power and do whatever it takes to stay in power and is we all are dependent on that one source instead of a greater group of private sector entities I think we get a Better chance at the breaks than just a One order system of Government Ran bureaucracies doling out the means to our lives .

              Reply
          • 

            Birch, on September 14, 2010 at 5:31 pm said:

            Wow, hungy4food, you’ve got some good ideas, and some… well, I don’t know where to start.

            When I was younger, I said that none of our ploblems could be solved unless we solved the overpopulation problem. I guess I still beleive this, but now it seems to me that any solution to overpopulation is dependent on empowering the unempowered, which is directly related to righting the unbalanced economic structure. That’s how I ended up here.

            Capitalism doesn’t lead to lower birthrates. So far as I understand, many nations with high birthrates are part of the capitalist system as well; the difference is that they are nearer the ass of the capitalist beast, and the nations with low birthrates are nearer the mouth, to put it politely. Fertility rates are more closely related to the proportion of life effort a population has to expend on survival. Capitalism depends on large populations of barely surviving people to do its dirty work. Also, population increase is an important part of capitalism’s addiction to growth, hence the confusing issue if illegal immegration in the U.S.

            You may well be right that profit is a necessary motivator in our society. Yet, satisfying the needs of society constitutes a profit to that society, or at least the erradication of a deficit. Sustainability isn’t moral or immoral. It is an absolute requirement that has devastated many, perhaps all, civilizations of the past. The deserts of the Sahara and Mesopotamia were created because civilizations ignored the laws of sustainability in preference of their own laws. Perhaps they could plead ignorance, but we can’t. The assumption that a profit is necessarily economic in nature must be overcome.

            Okay, I’m confused here. On one hand, you seem to be concerned about the planet’s ability to support its human population. On the other hand, you see environmental protection as an obstacle to industrial expansion that would… do what? Do you not see that water, air and land are not commodities to be consumed? They are the vital ingredients of life – all life – of which humanity is a small and dependent part. Without trees and phytoplankon, all people die a miserable death. Trees and phytoplankton have been in precipitous decline for a long time. Economics becomes tradgically irrelevant.

            The idea then is to create more out of less resources, while using less land and creating less waste. We need to want less and enjoy leisure activities that don’t involve consumption. Again, profit is not needed as a motive where survival is the goal. In fact, this is where profit becomes an impediment to progress. Herman Daly has thoroughly explored the ideas of a steady-state economy, I think that’s where I got my distain for profit from.

            Living with less may sound grim to the consumerist devotee, but it is actually quite liberating. Objetively, walking and soccer are no less enjoyable than ATVing and NASCAR. Certainly, it’s healthier, and frees up tons of resources for the needy.

            Inequality results when excessive liberties are granted to the ruling elite. If their liberties are harmonized (yay, I got to co-opt that word!) with everyone elses, there will be plenty of wiggle room to move toward equality.

            As to dumping on China, whenever I hear it done on the news it comes off as the bully on the school yard complaining because he got beat up by the poor kid. The U.S. has become a consumption economy because it chose to. All your manufacturing businesses left because you opened the door and let them go. We said it was stupid as we watched it happen. It was done under the lame excuse of free trade and competition, to lower prices and increase consumption. Well U.S., you lost the competition. You got seriously swindled by your leaders.

            The kicker is that China made its comeback by selling the U.S. useless plastic junk to feed the Consumerist religion. Yes, the whole thing is wrong and sad to watch, but China is not to blame. I’ve never been to Walmart, have you? The place disgusts me when I have to look at it.

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            • 

              hungry4food, on September 14, 2010 at 8:53 pm said:

              Good debate Birch , thats for the thoughts . I am torn between Giving Government to much control over our way of life , I do on the other hand know that your reasoning for the sustainability of nature is a Must but to put Government totally in control by amending constitutional liberties that allow is access to resources to the point of complete economic collapse and Federalizing the production and distribution all in the name of environmentalism which the environmentalist who have turned into the 21st century Marxists revolutionaries of our time would like to have Government vote this practice in to save the earth from Humanity , and I think this is where we need to have a public forum where the factions of society can find a common ground to work from , then maybe some kind of economic plan can develop that leaves a system in place that motivates Innovation by some kind of improvement in ones life other than a Government mandate system that tells you to do what they say or else , all in the name of sustainability , because I don’t think peace will be sustainable then .

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        • 

          Zarepheth, on September 13, 2010 at 8:37 pm said:

          Actually, I think any highly developed societ will always require distribution (long distance transport) of goods and services.

          Although the U.S. could easily feed itself, many crops can be grown more efficiently in other parts of the world. Even in the continental U.S., some crops grow well in Florida or California, others do well Minnesota and the Dakotas. Shifting to local production may work for some crops, but would become extremely inefficient for others – especially when dealing with the volume needed to feed 300 million people.

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          • 

            Birch, on September 14, 2010 at 2:24 pm said:

            I think that there have been highly developed societies that have understood the wisdom of being happy with that which was available to them in their own environ. Unfortunately, their histories are routinely destroyed by our society to obscure the fact that there are altenatives to the dogma of international trade. I guess this is part of my beleif system, perhaps no more than wishful thinking.

            How many of us now take for granted that we can buy exotic fruit all year round? I eat mangos in the Yukon! Not often, but it’s a treat.

            When you talk of crops being grown more efficiently in other parts of the world, you haven’t mentioned the cost of transportation. Oil doesn’t cost $1/L. It has huge social and environmental costs, both in extraction and through consumption, that until recently have never been considered in economic calculations. It is not efficient to ship grain to a country that is able to grow grain. Also, when oil is involved, it is by its nature unsustainable. If you want to talk about transportation by sailboat or oxcart, that’s a different story. (As the ox and drawer eat what they need for the trip, how far can they go before there is nothing left to deliver?)

            Most of what we eat should be appropriate to where we live, maybe supplemented by a small proportion of specialty nutrition from far away. If you can’t grow it in Minnesota, you don’t really need it – it’s luxury. If it’s inefficient to grow it in Minnesota, it shouldn’t be a Minnesota staple. There are varieties of grains, beans, fruits and berries, vegetables, and livestock appropriate to almost every corner of this planet. We now take all sorts of exotic luxuries for granted, and probably even consider them a defining aspect of a highly developed society. This is decadence, a word appropriately derived from ‘decay’. This is what happened to Rome as it fell apart.

            In a nation that purports to fear terrorism, it is odd that they allow themselves to be utterly dependent on such long and fragile supply lines. Real homeland security would focus on local production. Where I live we fear the fragility of capitalism, and prepare for the day the trucks stop rolling up the Alaska Highway.

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            • 

              Zarepheth, on September 14, 2010 at 8:34 pm said:

              Neither Minnesota or the Yukon is an efficient place to grow citrus fruits. Knowing the importance of Vitamin C to good health, I’d recommend some sort of transportation from Florida to Minnesota and points further north.

              You are right, however, in pointing out that transportation expenses – both financial and ecological need to be considered when determining the best length of supply lines.

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              • 

                Birch, on September 18, 2010 at 5:54 am said:

                Vitamin C: Cranberries, soap berries, blue berries, crow berries, cloudberries, many herbs and roots… not to mention all the vitamins available through fermentation. Fermented meat was an important pre-contact source of nutrition for the Inuit, where growing stuff really is an issue.

                The early explorers in the north only had issues with scurvy when they ignored local knowledge. I picked 30 pounds of wild cranberries already this fall in a few idle afternoons. They carpet the forest, and store themselves through the winter.

                Citrus is a great source of vitamin C, but there are much purer sources up here.

                Free for the picking.

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                • 

                  hungry4food, on September 18, 2010 at 7:04 am said:

                  I agree with the Survival approach because there is no way we will see the supply-side economics grow our way out of the debt thats building up so collapse is coming . Take a look at this site , http://www.usdebtclock.org . If we were to see the market grow its way out of this people incomes would have to double right now all around the world , and we know thats not going to happen because the environmentalist groups have their foot on the throat of resource expansion by way of voting power over the Government and are forcing them to write legislation that restricts expansion and income growth from expansion

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11. 

    hungry4food, on September 7, 2010 at 8:47 am said:

    we need to see The US Government start to make Massive Investments in Infrastructure expansions like this , but the environmentalist Marxists that are major contributors to Political campaigns are running Policies that restrict expansion in all areas of resource works , and this will result in worldwide conflicts because peace has always been a beneficiary of abundant access to resources in a society . If the US Government would follow this lead then we could start to see a return of private capital investment that would Generate interest in equtiy circles to want to reinvest and form capiatl expansion again which would drive economic gorwth once again , but the Factions within the enviromentalists is strong in Public sway ,

    http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/eba9c49c-b9c8-11df-968f-00144feabdc0.html

    Reply
    • 

      Birch, on September 20, 2010 at 10:42 am said:

      Good discussion.

      I wish environmentalist groups held sway over government – what a different world it would be. As it is, they are merely a very convenient scapegoat for the detrimental effects of the boom and bust cycle of greed. Environmentalists didn’t destroy the softwood lumber industry in B.C. for example. The international logging companies clearcut all the accesible trees as fast as physically possible, saturating the market, leaving not enough behind to feed their gigantic mills. They sacrifice long term sustainable profit for a spurt of immediate profit, then run off in search of the next stooge. Parks are typically made of the fragmented remnants that corporations leave behind.

      The boom and bust of resource extraction fits like a puzzle piece with the financial cycle that is so lucritive for those who call the shots. Exploiting more resouces will only continue to feed the beast, leaving us even less to survive on afterward. By eliminating the debt ponzi scheme, and adjusting taxes away from goods and toward bads, or land, we would be able to develop incredibly more value from the resources we already have.

      Earth is not growing, and economics must reflect that. There is only so much energy that comes from the sun, but we mock that power with neglect and incomprehensible levels of waste. Try living off grid for a bit, and you will realize how much our oversized houses consume even when we think everything is turned off.

      Consuming more resources will create more waste, but feed no more mouths. The more we waste, the more the corporations profit, the greater the gap between rich and poor. Feeding the world’s population can only come from respecting the power of the sun and the Earth, and appreciating what is available to us in our own backyards.

      Land allocated to the public for protection is not wasted, it is preserved and available for innumerable renewable enterprises. The minerals and other resources in it don’t go away. Land wasted by extraction is useless afterward – seriously depreciated or actively poisonous. It is isolated from the public for private gain, and once the privateers have taken their gain, the reclamation costs are dumped back on the public with effectively no recompense. Sorry, temporary boom employment doesn’t count as recompense because the dilocation of bust weighs as a seriously heavy cost to society.

      Another value of wilderness totally ignored in economics is now being extensively studied in psychology. There is a very strong link between the shocking rise in mental illness and the isolation of urban population from nonhuman life, or wildness. Merely knowing that large areas of entact wilderness exist can improve the mental condition. We are more connected to the natural world than any of us can imagine, and we totally rely upon it for survival.

      To demand alienating more land for exploitation is to be a pawn on the corporate team. To demand that it be protected as public land at least until there is some sanity, equality, or even a recognition of reality incorporated into economics, is to be a pawn on the side of humanity, and life in general.

      Cheers.

      Reply

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