Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[tradingpost@lobo.net]

Perceptive Mark & I agree on Barlett. Yes, investment banking demands 
endless unsustainable growth but its unnecessary & most of us gain 
nothing from it. I'm no expert but in the end we all have to rely on the 
information we can get & use our own judgment to protect ourselves. We 
can see economic decline is beginning and it affects how we live. 1/4 of 
our population is in dire poverty, & the generation that coped with the 
Depression is about gone. It bothers me that back then 1/2 of our people 
(US) lived rural but survived (my parents family in KS) while city folks 
had it much worse - & we don't have that cushion today.

Today the vast majority has no everyday DIY survival skills or knowhow. 
It's get a paying job & pay for everything you need - if you still can. 
Problem now is dire predictions are coming true. Most likely IMHO is the 
argument for inflationary depression & chaos. Permanent. That article is 
only one of many trying to explain the whys of it all. Bottom line, 
preppers are woefully unprepared for the real challenges we're starting 
to see now.

So what to do now when we're going to see life becoming unaffordable & 
distribution networks breaking down, etc. I'm not putting my faith in 
MREs or being armed to the teeth against roving hordes, since people 
can't get far on empty stomachs & empty gas tanks. People everywhere 
need to talk about these things.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
--Henry David Thoreau

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 1/10/2013 at 8:48 AM Mark Nagel wrote:

> Excellent article, thank you for sharing.  On surface it appears to 
> have
> no significant flaws.  But...
>
> The dead-man-in-the-closet is GROWTH.  ALL of these issues stem from 
> the
> basic flaw in the premise that our activities (generally covered under 
> the
> umbrella "economic") REQUIRE growth.  Since we reside on a finite 
> planet
> it is mathematically (read "physically") impossible to maintain such a
> basis forever- at some point growth would/will stop.
>
> All the currency manipulations throughout history have all occurred as 
> a
> result of being unable to deliver on the promise of "growth."
>
> "Have you ever wondered why China, Japan, and the oil exporting 
> nations
> have such enormous U.S. Treasury bond holdings, despite the fact that
> they hardly pay any interest these days? The reason is definitely not
> because those nations think 1.6% interest on a 10-year unsecured loan
> to a nation known to have a reckless spending habit is a good
> investment. It’s because they have little other choice."
>
> That measly 1.6% growth roughly means a doubling of 
> activities/consumption
> in just under 44 years.  Look around and ask yourself if you think it
> possible to double everything you see around you, and doing so in just 
> 44
> years.
>
> There is no other way to create growth, either realized in physical 
> terms
> or, in the case of what we've been seeing for many decades now, 
> through
> the virtual.  "Virtual" is really no more than that which is detached 
> from
> physical reality: un-backed expansion of "credit" (a borrowing of
> tomorrow's future growth for today).
>
> Backing currencies with physical elements, such as gold and silver, 
> while
> providing a ground point, proves problematic because not enough gold 
> and
> silver can be extracted to meet the demands of "growth."  Gold, as 
> those
> wishing to distract from the underlying problems point out, is, 
> according
> to them, nothing more than a "barbaric relic."  Those who gain the 
> most
> from growth (upper "strata") could not tolerate anything that would 
> place
> growth in check.  And, the buffer class, the "middle class," would 
> [will]
> essentially disappear with the loss of growth.
>
> I would caution people that it is meaningless to look around for there 
> to
> be someone/some group to blame this on.  Seems that we were firmly set 
> on
> this path a LONG time ago: "go forth and multiply."
>
> I would hope that people understand what Dr. Albert Bartlett has 
> warned,
> that the greatest shortcoming of the human race is its inability to
> understand the exponential function (interesting that we seem to get 
> it
> when it is applied to the notion of "compounding interest").
>
> Anyone looking to change anything need watch/read/listen to this
> presentation (this has made more impact in my life than any other 
> thing):
>
> http://www.resilience.org/stories/2004-08-29/dr-albert-bartlett-arithmetic-population-and-energy
>
>
> - Mark Nagel
>
> P.S. The oil issue isn't "peak oil," nor is it "cheap oil."  It's: 
> "peak
> export of affordable oil."  Jeffery Brown was one of the first people 
> to
> understand the ramification of this being an export issue: I'd figured 
> it
> out before running across an article by him on this very thing- even
> exchanged some e-mail with him on this.  I use "affordable" because I
> think that this brings it to the personal: "cheap" just seem so 
> abstract.
>
>
>
> To: OWL-OldWaysLiving@yahoogroups.com; 
> livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
> From: tradingpost@lobo.net
> Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2013 21:49:01 -0700
> Subject: (")OWL(") preppers - seriously?
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>      A personal view - we've seen some of the "preppers" (staged,
>
> choreographed) shows on TV. I have several criticisms but my first
>
> reaction is they're prepping for all the wrong things & wasting tons 
> of
>
> money that people like myself will never have. Time for wide ranging
>
> discussion, different opinions & all.
>
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> For years I've followed various writers of all stripes warning of
>
> economic decline or collapse. To me this recent article seemed to tie 
> up
>
> some loose ends on the subject, but it's a bit technical or boring:
>
> http://aspousa.org/2013/01/commentary-why-peak-oil-threatens-the-international-monetary-system/
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> paul tradingpost@lobo.net