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Coping: Grain Pricing, Co-ops, and A Little Career Planning

A number of people wrote in about those 50-pound sacks of multi-grain that I told youi about earlier this week, wondering about price and all.  The source of the tip offers this:

In response to those who are being quoted $40+ for cracked multi-grain, they must be ordering online and paying shipping charges for delivering the 50 lb sack. Honeyville quotes $18.34 as of this AM for a 50 lb bag of 9 grain cracked cereal. That is up 40% from the traditional $13 it has been for several years, but the price of wheat alone has doubled or tripled in the last year, so it could be a lot worse. The net increase still amounts to just $5 more, so it should still be affordable.

Buyers need to find a bulk grain warehouse in their area and go pick it up (literally). The delivery services consider a 50 lb sack a serious delivery and charge for it.

There are lots of local co-ops around - check them out!  One in the Seattle area I am familiar with is PCC...

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While I was running out the daily tally of "shortages"  in the Google news search engine, I noticed a headline out of this weekend's Seattle Times, that begged for comment:  "Gates sees engineer shortage looming" goes the story.  Gates is onto something here (not just because he's super rich, either, although that may help).

If you read my subscription newsletter, you'll already know my general view is that globalism is about stretched to near its limits, and that over time we will have to see a re-industrialization of America and that will mean the all-time high of the service industries will come down to more sustainable levels and that regular folks will have to get back into the business of making "things" because over time, globalism is self-liquidation, in the sense that as purchasing power parity (PPP) really does work out, the relative cost advantage of cobbling a shoe in India, rather than making it close to where it's consumed will evaporate.

A fine and lofty economic notion, you're thinking.  But, what does this have to do with how I spend my weekend?  Ah, just so.  It begins with a little research into what you might be doing tomorrow and a great source in this regard is the US Department of Labor's Occupational Outlook.  Here, you can see what expected demand for various professions will be, and along with demand comes what?  Higher wages.

My suggestion to you is that you look up your current line of work (if you've managed to remain employed) and see what the trend is.  Then, figure out two or three other jobs you might like doing and compare them with your current gig.  If you find a higher growth alternative, and can start reading up on the subject, getting a little training now, and do the transition before the whole herd of service economy folks are pushed into it, you'll not only get a head start/seniority, but you'll maybe get yourself into a position where you will be able to move up the food chain into a supervisory role.  Thinking money here.

There's also a section called "Tomorrow's Jobs" which is worth visiting because it offers the mainstream's view of where jobs will be in the future.  And example:

I don't happen to agree with some of their projections, because it's misses things like a collapse of the US dollar, the end of conventional importation schemes to work labor rate spreads internationally, and the whole rest of it, but education and health services seem like pretty save bets.  Seems like there's a never-ending supply of people that need more edumacation.  Not to mention a case of bird flu, or whatever spills out of a lab next, eh?

I'm not suggesting you go out and bury yourself in student loans to pick up just any old job, mind you.  But, I am suggesting that you can pick up a trade like metalworking, one of the skills I'm brushing up on, at very low cost by simply getting the books, some tools, and teaching yourself.

My sense is that time is coming when the more skills you have, everything from backwoods survival to being able to build a modest home including the wiring and plumbing of it, and making of some simple goods for sale will be very valuable contributions to your odds of surviving whatever comes along, especially if we "go Argentina" with the dollar over the rest of the fall and through winter.

Oh, and if you've got kids in school, print up that Gates article and make 'em read it. Free lunches aren't forever and the more money your kids make, the better your odds of having a fall-back position should social security fails in some future economic calamity.

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Around the Ranch

OK, there I was, pushing dirty around a culvert at the creek and I noticed wate5r coming out of the Kubota diesel.  "Yikes!" I'm thinking to myself, with only 100 hours on it, why is a nearly new diesel overheating?  I was working it hard, but not that hard.

A cool down and jaunt back up the hill to the hose led to the answer:  I had been doing a fair amount of bush hogging and the brush was about 6 feet tall and going to seed.  Ah, the seeds.  There had been so many of them sucked into the screen ahead of the radiator that they had stopped up the air flow.

No problem: a couple of minutes with the hose, and all clean again, it was back to work...a first that even a few farmers might not have encountered.

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Elaine got the mouse finally.  She'd been tearing apart and sterilizing the kitchen every day for nearly a week.  Fine mouser, she is.  Better than the cats, any day.

Friday November 16, 2007

So Much for Liberties

As if American's Liberties aren't in enough trouble already, we reported in a special update yesterday that the offices of the Liberty Dollar folks in Indiana had been raided, and among other things, two tons of newly minted Ron Paul commemorative Liberty dollars had been confiscated.  Sadly, the report is now more widely reported.  Here's what's on the Liberty Dollar web site:

"Dear Liberty Dollar Supporters:

I sincerely regret to inform you that about 8:00 this morning a dozen FBI and Secret Service agents raided the Liberty Dollar office in Evansville.

For approximately six hours they took all the gold, all the silver, all the platinum and almost two tons of Ron Paul Dollars that where just delivered last Friday. They also took all the files, all the computers and froze our bank accounts.

We have no money. We have no products. We have no records to even know what was ordered or what you are owed. We have nothing but the will to push forward and overcome this massive assault on our liberty and our right to have real money as defined by the US Constitution. We should not to be defrauded by the fake government money.

But to make matters worse, all the gold and silver that backs up the paper certificates and digital currency held in the vault at Sunshine Mint has also been confiscated. Even the dies for mint the Gold and Silver Liberties have been taken.

This in spite of the fact that Edmond C. Moy, the Director of the Mint, acknowledged in a letter to a US Senator that the paper certificates did not violate Section 486 and were not illegal. But the FBI and Services took all the paper currency too.

The possibility of such action was the reason the Liberty Dollar was designed so that the vast majority of the money was in specie form and in the people’s hands. Of the $20 million Liberty Dollars, only about a million is in paper or digital form.

I regret that if you are due an order. It may be some time until it will be filled... if ever... it now all depends on our actions.

Everyone who has an unfulfilled order or has digital or paper currency should band together for a class action suit and demand redemption. We cannot allow the government to steal our money! Please don’t let this happen!!! Many of you read the articles quoting the government and Federal Reserve officials that the Liberty Dollar was legal. You did nothing wrong. You are legally entitled to your property. Let us use this terrible act to band together and further our goal – to return America to a value based currency.

Please forward this important Alert... so everyone who possess or use the Liberty Dollar is aware of the situation.

Please click HERE to sign up for the class action lawsuit and get your property back!

If the above link does not work you can access the page by copying the following into your web browser. http://www.libertydollar.org/classaction/index.php

Thanks again for your support at this darkest time as the damn government and their dollar sinks to a new low.

Bernard von NotHaus

Monetary Architect"

I expect the real reason for the raid is that these are the folks who have stepped on the 'tail of the beast' by suing over the bankster-backed paper currency.  What happened to Article 1 Section 10 of the US Constitution which specifies gold and silver is money?