Homestead mailing list

[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

In a message dated 9/16/2008 9:10:25 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
genegerue AT ruralize.com writes:


> >This is worth more discussion.
> 
> >Various people in various industries have done exceptionally well for  
> themselves and those who followed them. A far larger group have  
> failed. No one, no one has a crystal ball.

I still have to inject here that I'm not talking about reading tea leaves or 
drawing Tarot cards.  That's why most people do, alas, they simply look at 
all 
the blather and talking mouths and say "Well, some of them are right and some 
of them are wrong."

I'm talking about first sifting out the cheerleaders and people who have a 
stake in dispensing misinformation.  To wit:

Let me take Peak Oil as an example.  It is not a matter of "well some people 
believe this and other people believe that,  you say toMAYto and I say 
toMAHto, ya just never know".  Peakists have said, "Here is how much oil we 
use 
daily, here are the known reserves, here is the rate of new discoveries, here 
is 
the application of new technology.  Taken all together we are at a world peak 
production.  If you think the world is NOT at peak, then explain where you 
think 
more production is coming from."

When no feasible answer is forthcoming, the concern stands unabated.

It's much like that in the financial world.  In 2003 economists began raising 
conserns that lowering interest rates and giving real estate loans to people 
with no prospects for paying them back would mathmatically lead to our 
present 
situation.  The math simply wasn't there, soon or late it had to come 
crashing down.  The response to that was NOT based on math.  It was "They 
ain't 
making any more land ...eh ... people will retire and own two or three houses 
... 
eh ... immigrants will be forming new households ... and ...eh ... after all 
it's just a cycle, ho hum, seen it come and go, nothing to be excited about.' 
  
This sort of blather is not the same thing as a mathmatical analysis.

> 
> >If anyone, anyone, were correct fifty-one percent of the time we would  
> do very well to follow them.

When you eliminate the cheerleaders and the whistlers-past-the-graveyard, 
there are a great many that have been more than fifty-one percent correct, 
many 
85% or 90% correct.  

There's an old con game where you get 5000 addresses and then take any 
'yes/no' 'true/false' question, let's say, the presidential election, and you 
send a 
letter to 2500 of them saying Obama will win and a letter to the other 2500 
that McCain will win.  Let's suppose Obama wins.  You then forget the latter 
group, you've already blown it with them, and you send a letter to 1250 of 
the 
ones you sent the Obama letter to saying that in the upcoming heaveyweight 
championship A is going to win, but to the other 1250 you say B is going to 
win.  
B wins.  You forget the ones who got the 'A is going to win' and to 625 of 
the 
B wins group you send a letter that next week the stock market is going up, 
and to the other half that it is going down ...."

Eventually you will have about 30 or so people to whom you've made seven 
predicitons and they have all been correct.  You then ask them for money 
based on 
your ability to predict events and abscond with it.

This is the sort of thing that viewing it as 'well these guys were right but 
these guys were wrong, some say eether and some say eyether' leads to.

I read about the current debt crisis and bank closings four years ago with 
chillingly accurate dates and figures.   

> 
> >I like cottage industries. Even such industries must have customers  
> who not only want the product but who can pay cash or barter. Do not  
> depend on that condition. A sinking ship puts all passengers into the  
> water.

If one subscribed to the prevalent economic paradigm which requires a steady 
income.  The thing with the carefully chosen cottage industry is that you 
don't have to do business today, or this week, or even this month.  
Eventually 
will do fine.  When I finish a piece of even a subassembly, I set it on the 
shelf 
and there it sits maintianing its value.  I will hook up with a buyer 
eventually.  If I make no sales this week, fine, none this month, fine.  I 
don't need 
the money right now, I may not even need it this year.   But when the 
opportunity does come, I'm ready, I have the goods.   </HTML>