Why Should We Even Pay Taxes Anymore?

The following article is one about our House Speaker Pelosi and the expense she inccurs traveling on the tab of the taxpayer. I recently got screwed on my taxes by my ex wife and had to set up monthly payments to the IRS to pay my tax bill. I struggle like most of you and $100-$200/month extra out of my check to pay taxes is alot of money to me. According this article Ms Pelosi has racked up $101,000 just on booze and food during her flights back home to San Fransico not to mention the over $2 million it costs taxpayers to fly here back and forth!!! I just shake my head when I see these things and wonder what in the world is wrong with our country? Please read the following article and then send an email to your Sen and Rep letting them know you do not approve of this type of spending.

Our elected officials think we are all dumb sheep in their flock and that we do not pay any attention to what they are doing. They need to know we are watching and if this continues maybe we will all just decide that paying taxes is something we are no longer interested in.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=123472

Tax Revenue Chart

 

I have not been writing much anymore because I see no reason to continue to re-hash the same information over and over. To update you quickly on my beliefs, I still believe we are headed for some very bad times. The government has done a good job of inflating the economy so that people continue to live and not ask many questions but there has been nothing changed that leads me to believe there is any hope for life as we use to know it. Below is a chart I found tonight that tells the story perfectly. If you are not real fluent in inflation/deflation I suggest you do some reading and try to understand how to prosper during both.

Why A Weak Dollar Will Affect You

So as I sit here tonight reading and thinking about the state of our world I got to looking at the US Dollar Index charts and came up with a theory that I felt I should share with you.

The US Dollar is in the process of crashing and has been for some time now. We had a blip in the dollar during the scare last fall and winter as people got out of stocks and commodities and parked their wealth in US Dollars. Now that people realize there is no possible way we could ever have sustained deflation due to the expansion in money supply they are now fleeing from the dollar and back into real hard assets.

To the normal person sitting at home reading this wonders what does this have to do with my everyday life? Why should I give a rat’s ass about the US Dollar Index? How could a weaker dollar ever affect me? Well, I will give you a few examples as to why and how it will affect you and every other Joe Suburb in America.

When the dollar losses value is does not mean that you can all of a sudden not buy anything with your dollars it just means you can buy less with your dollars. It means that if you made $100,000 and the dollar drops 10% you would basically need to make $110,000 to buy the same items the next year. If you take any raw commodity and overlay its chart with the US Dollar Index chart you will get a near perfect inverse. What this means is that as the dollar goes up commodities go down; as the dollar goes down commodities go up.

Why should Joe Suburb worry about commodities? Commodities are all of the basic things you use in everyday life, most importantly gas, food, water, electricity, lumber, rubber, copper, etc. As everyone has been listening to the talking heads preach about how we are headed to recovery they have not noticed that oil has doubled in price the past year!!!! So I really don’t care if the Dow is up 20, 30, and 40 percent!!! The most basic commodity that we need for life as we know it went up 100% and I see no reason why it will not continue to rise as the US Dollar falls.

The most common argument I get is that “We don’t drive as much as we use to so higher oil prices will not affect me.” Double LOL!!!!! Do we realize that every single stinking thing we consume, buy or need is transported to us on truck? That if oil goes up it raises shipping rates and in turn raises prices you pay for items? That not only does shipping raise prices but a drop in the US Dollar also raises the prices of all basic raw commodities including food, which in turn double dips you with increased prices twice!!!

Here is what I am talking about folks; the following are some examples for you on how the US Dollar Index affects your life.

1)      The US Dollar Index has dropped 18.699% over the past 4 years. In very simple terms this means that if you had $60,000/year job in 2005, you now need to be making $71,219.40/year to consume the same about and same quality of goods you consumed in 2005.

2)      We are not at the lowest levels we have seen the past 4 years though. In April 2008 the US Dollar index was 22.575% off of its highs set in Nov. 2005. I see zero reason why we will not get to the lows set in 2008 soon. We are only 4% away from those levels now. The US Dollar Index has dropped 16.856% since March 2009 so the trend line does not look real promising. (It does not take a Ivy League grad to assume the dollar will go down in value when the supply has more than doubled)

3)      Gold has risen in price 140% since 2005 to current record levels of $1200/ounce!!!

4)      Silver has risen 216% since 2005.

5)      Oil has risen 160% since 2003

To wrap it up in a nut shell, I have been saying that the coming inflation is inevitable and will hit Joe Suburb the hardest since he has no hedge against it. Farmers and other raw material producing people will be fine because they have a natural hedge built in for inflation. When the dollar goes down corn goes up so I have no worries but as you can see that when the dollar goes down at the rates it has been Joe Suburbs salary does not increase fast enough to keep up with it. Not to mention that his salary does not increase near fast enough to keep up with the rise in raw commodities.

Below are a few charts that show the inverse with the US Dollar index and few raw commodities.

A Very Very Scary And True Link!!!

The following is a link to a video that shows the chage in unemployment over the past 18 months. Take some time to study the color chart before you start the video and then after you play the video you will be shocked at how screwed the majority US counties are!!! after seeing this I was reminded to why we will not see a turn around in our economy anytime soon.

After posting this I recieved some text messages from my good buddy Lutter on his theory on how South Dakota will no longer be net exporters of people because there will be no opportunities for them outside the state. After watching this video I have to agree with him and think that people in other states might actually migrate back to South Dakota do to the lack of jobs elsewhere.

 

Click on the link below the map to see the video.

Erik 

http://cohort11.americanobserver.net/latoyaegwuekwe/multimediafinal.html

 

A Scary Sign

Below is a link to an article that I believe everyone should read. I came across it in my tri daily checking of CNBC website. Most times I find nothing but junk on their site but on occasion they report a good story. The thing is though that this story will get very few hits and the people that do read it will not understand the severity of it.

 http://www.cnbc.com/id/34153788

It is an article explaining that US mint is no longer minting the 1 ounce Gold Eagle coins do to a depleting supply of gold in the mint. This is alarming for a few reasons and reasons most people would not think of.

1)      There has not been an official inventory done on the amount of gold held by the US mint for years. So how do we even know if we have any gold remaining in the mint. You read that the US has a huge reserve of gold but that was from years ago, how do we know if they do since they don’t do inventories any longer. It’s like me telling my banker I have 100 stock cows but he never comes to check on them.

2)      That there is obviously a fear that paper money is worthless since people are loading up on physical gold.

3)      That this country is printing worthless paper faster than a fresh divorced gal gets hit on in the Canton bar but is now unable to mint real money (Gold coins).

4)      I believe this is only the start and they will stop minting silver coins in time as physical silver inventories become depleted.

 

Scary stuff!!! My advice is load up on as much physical gold and silver as you can. I have been buying junk silver coins on ebay for a little over a year and am finding it harder and harder to actually win an auction due to the demand for these items.

 

Happy Thanksgiving

 

Erik

Money Quote

“No legal tender law is ever needed to make men take good money; its only use is to make them take bad money.” (Stephen T. Byington)

 

I came across this quote tonight and had to share it. It spells out exactly our current Fiat Currency system.

Erik

Jekyll Island

I recently took a trip to St Simons Island, GA to visit my best friend. I had been there before and my favorite part of the trip was Jekyll Island which is about ten minutes from his house. So of course we had to go over there again on this trip.

Jekyll Island is one of the best kept secrets in America. I never learned about it in History class and never really knew what it was about until i read the book Creature From Jekyll Island which explains how the Banksters locked up some politicians on their private island and created the Federal Reserve. Most of you know my feelings on the Fed and how I believe it is the absolute worst thing that has ever happened this country so I had to share of photo of myself in front of the room inside the clubhouse at Jekyll Island where the biggest crime against Americans was ever commited.

Here is a good link for more info on the Jekyll Island Club.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jekyll_Island_Club

The ClubHouse at Jekyll Island

The Laziest Cities In American!!! This One Is Awesome!!!

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-25-laziest-cities-in-america-2009-11

Inflation For Sure

The below chart shows the amount in which our money supply has grown over the past 40 years. Note what has happened in the last year. You still think your dollars are valuable?

 

Some Thoughts On Gun Ownership

After talking to my buddy Lutter/OBG I had some thoughts on how our experience with Hyperinflation will be way different than those experienced in other countries in the past. The biggest difference will be the fact that we as American citizens own more firearms than any other civilized country in the world. When I say that I don’t mean just a few more either, we have a shitload more!!!!!

 I got to thinking about this and it makes sense. Just about every person I know owns at least one gun. I personally have 15 guns and I have friends and relatives that own well over that. We are also well diversified in our weaponry. Most folks have at least one rifle, one shotgun and one pistol.  

 The reason I bring this up is because we have enough legally registered firearms in the US to arm almost every man woman and child. Below are few other countries and how many firearms are available per 100 people. These are the high estimates which I believe are more accurate due to the number of non registered firearms in circulation.

 

-         US – 97/100 people

-         China – 4/100 people

-         Germany – 39/100 people

-         Russia – 13/100 people

-         Mexico – 15/100 people

-         Canada – 38/100 people

-         Argentina – 14/100 people

-         England/Whales – 7/100 people

 There are two reasons that these numbers are important. First being that an economic collapse will much deadlier than one in any other country in the world. Out of shear desperation people would have access to take matters in their own hands more in US than any other country. I don’t see this as a bad thing but rather a good thing. Here is why.

 -         It is much harder for our government to turn us than it would be in a country like China. If the Chinese government wants to keep their people down the people are not armed well enough to revolt.

-         I believe it gives our population much better chances to defend ourselves against lawlessness like that displayed during the LA riots and the aftermath of hurricane Katrina.

-         It would make an invasion by a foreign nation much harder. This one is important because if our dollar collapses there will be some pissed off folks in foreign governments that will want some collateral for our debts. There is also a risk of foreign governments attacking a country that is in complete disarray.

 I was reading today about the biggest reason the Japs did not invade the US during WWII was the fact that our population was so heavily armed. In talking to Lutter today he made a great comment “The second largest military in the world is the US Armed Forces and the largest military is the US population”. I realize that most of us our law abiding people and will not ever use our weapons to harm anyone but just the fact that we have them will always be in the minds of those who want to harm our population, be it our government or someone else’s. Keep your guns, buy more and don’t ever let some politician tell you that you can’t have them. It is crucial that we keep enough weapons in this country to arm every single person if need be.

 

Erik

Audit The Fed Update!!!

I take back all the nice things and support I have given to Tenn. Sen. Bob Corker. It did not take long for him to get bought and fall into the web of lies we call government politics. The following is an update on Ron Pauls efforts to audit the Fed. Please take the time to click on the link and let your Sen. and Rep. that you support a full audit of our Federal Reserve System.

Erik

 

Take Action to Defend a Legitimate Audit

Dear Supporter of Transparency,

On Tuesday, Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Bob Corker (R-TN) introduced “The Federal Reserve Accountability Act,” an attempt to derail HR 1207/S 604 by passing a bill that prevents a full audit and full transparency from America’s secretive central bank.

While language in this bill would permit a limited audit of the Fed’s actions in the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and similar high profile bailouts, it would not allow an audit to review the Fed’s inflation of the money supply or its agreements with foreign central banks, among other shortcomings.

Additionally, the names of the institutions who received the funds would not be available until one year after each “emergency” program ended, which is nowhere in sight.

Click here to get the contact information for your senators and urge them not to support this attempt at stopping our historic effort to force the Fed into a full scale audit.

Seventy-five percent of the American people, over two thirds of the House of Representatives, and over a quarter of the Senate support Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed legislation.

With those historic levels of support, there is no excuse for settling for anything less than a full Audit the Fed bill. Anything less is merely an attempt to stop our efforts as we get closer to passage of a real bill.

Let your senators know you expect them to support the American people’s demand for full transparency, not some watered down measure designed to stop a full audit!  Click here to take action!
Sincerely,

The Audit the Fed Coalition

HelathCare II

Am I the only one that believes this whole healthcare reform crap is a bunch of BS? I look at this deal a couple of ways.

1)      It is a huge smoke screen on a wedge issue that has been battled for years and years. The smoke screen has been laid so that everyone stops talking about the collapse of our economy and to put any financial news on the back burner. Most Americans have zero interest in the truth about our economy but a huge percentage of them would love nothing more than another hand out from the government.

2)      Growing up in a political family I realize that the main goal of most any politician is to get re-elected so that they do not have to work real jobs. What better way to get re-elected than to bring home healthcare for everyone!!! Or better yet cheap healthcare for everyone!!! There is not one politician in Washington that gives a damn if Americans are healthy and can afford going to the doctor. All they care about is getting elected again.

The real problem is not expensive health care and expensive doctors. It is two things.

First being prevention, there is a very small majority in America that is interested                in not ever going to see a Dr. I believe that there is even a percentage of our population that likes to go to doctor’s and find this experience being one they need to feel good about themselves. Is there any incentive in this healthcare bill that is focused on prevention? I have not found any. I see no place that I will be rewarded for eating well and taking care of myself so that I do not need healthcare. Rather I view it as I will be taxed for the rest of my life to fix people that chose to eat crappy foods and sit on their asses watching American Idol. Below is a link I wrote about this awhile back and some ideas I have that I believe should be added to the healthcare bill.

http://sustainablecattle.com/2009/08/23/healthcare/

I also believe after talking to my good buddy Lutter/OBG that another huge problem in health care is lack of competitiveness. I view doctors in no more of an elite category than, car mechanics, plumbers, agronomists, electricians, school teachers, etc. Think about it for a minute, a car is not a lot different than your body and a car mechanic performs the exact same duties on your car as a doctor does to your body. The difference is that a person can become one of the above with 0-4 years post high school education. If we were to allow people to become specialists in certain areas of healthcare/prevention with a 2 year degree we would see a lot more competition and rates would naturally be driven down. Imagine if one had to go to college for 7-8 years to become an auto mechanic what would happen to vehicle repair rates?

Lutter’s idea on this is to make these specialists have a sign when you walk in that states how people have died and been disabled by their work. That way you could choose for yourself which one you wanted to work on you based on past success rates. Naturally the ones who injure the least amount of people would get the most work and could charge according to their rate of success. The current system rewards doctors pretty much the same no matter their success rate!!! If they do a crappy job they get to keep overcharging for their crappy work because there is not enough competition.

Below is video link to the Charlie Rose show as he interviews Denis Cortese, president and CEO of the Mayo Clinic. I found it very interesting because he shares a lot of the same views as I do on this issue.

 http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10496

 

 Erik

A Must Watch Video On Inflation

The following link will take you to a great youtube video on the coming inflation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzmYI_4XCbM&feature=pyv&ad=3034525444&kw=glenn%20beck

Jim Rogers Quote

Read an article about JIm Rogers and pulled the following out of it. Very good quote!!! For the complete article click on the below link.

Best Comment Of The Night

Addressing one audience member’s question, Rogers asked if the young man were an MBA. The questioner admitted to holding an MBA and was promptly told he should swap his MBA for an agriculture degree from Texas A&M.

“You should become a farmer,” Rogers said.

That’s an old line for Rogers, but he added a new wrinkle. If you’re not going to become a farmer, you should open the first Lamborghini dealership in Iowa. Because with farmers closing in on extinction just as the world needs more food, that’s probably what they’ll be driving in a few years.

http://silverbearcafe.com/private/10.09/china.html

Great Book

My friend Andy borrowed me a book that I thought i would share with you folks. It is a great book and even if you do not share my views on the economy and possible collapse of our economic system I suggest reading it. As a fella told me once, what will hurt to be prepared!!!! Hopefully nothing ever happens and we all continue on but if somethign was to happen I believe even the smallest preparations will put you ahead of most Americans. There are two links below. The first is a brief description of the book on wiki and the second is a link to buy the book.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriots_(novel)

http://www.amazon.com/Patriots-Novel-Survival-Coming-Collapse/dp/156975599X

Some Intersesting Info On World Population And Wealth

 

 

I found this chart as I was doing some research for some worthless information that I will most likely never need, but I am sure you will find the numbers on this chart as interesting as I did!!! LOL

 

First I found the world population numbers very interesting. In the 1000 years between 500AD and 1500AD, population grew .2 billion people (67%) or roughly 200,000 people/year (0.07%/year). Now take the 100 years between 1900AD and 2000AD. World population grew 4,350,000,000 people (263%) or 43,500,000 people/year (2.63%/year). Is it just me or does this information make you set back in your chair and say WOW, how in the world are we going to be able to continue this trend? How will all these people continue to be fed, have cheap energy, houses, etc? What will the next 100 or even fifty years look like? If they represent the last 50-100 years there is absolutely no possible way we can continue our lives on the same course.

 

The second thing I realized is that we have not gotten any richer in the past 500 years. In 1500AD the average person had $541 (in today’s dollars) in gold and silver. By the time 2000AD came around the average person had $605 in gold and silver. WOW!!! In 500 years we have managed to save $64 dollars/person. That’s like $0.12/year!!! What blows my mind even more is that the 3500 years prior to 1500AD we also could only manage to save $0.12 cents/year/person!!! More or less the whole problem of spending to much and not saving has been a problem for the last 4000 years.

 

I know there will be people that say “you didn’t take into consideration that over the last 100 years we have been saving paper money that they did not have 1000 years ago”. This is true and there is a reason I did not mention US dollars in this post and that is that US dollars are worthless and have no real value, so there is no reason to calculate them as savings. Also, when the shit hits the fan and our current Fiat currency system falls flat on its face and people realize our paper dollars are worthless, this is the amount of gold and silver that will be available to us. Meaning that the average person will be worth $605, a lot different than what we believe our current net worth’s are at the present.

 

 

Erik

 

 

Estimated World Gold & Silver Inventory on a Per Capita Basis

Date	World Population (billions)	Cumulative Gold Production (billions ounces)	World Gold Inventory Per Person (ounces)	Cumulative. Silver Production (billions ounces)	World Silver Inventory Per Person (ounces)	Ag:Au Ratio *
2000BC	.08	0.01	0.10	0.1	1.00	10:1
1200BC	.09	0.02	0.22	0.2	2.20	10:1
600BC	.10	0.04	0.40	0.4	4.00	10:1
300BC	.15	0.08	0.40	0.9	4.50	11:1
500AD	.30	0.19	0.59	2.2	6.90	12:1
1500AD	.50	0.30	0.60	4.1	8.20	14:1
1800AD	.98	0.45	0.46	7.4	7.60	16:1
1900AD	1.65	0.81	0.49	13.2	8.00	16:1
1950AD	2.52	1.99	0.79	23.2	9.21	12:1
1975AD	4.00	2.97	0.74	29.9	7.48	10:1
2000AD	6.00	4.34	0.72	40.9	6.82	9:1

 

 

 

 

Estimated World Gold & Silver Inventory on a Per Capita Basis

Date	World Population (billions)	Cumulative Gold Production (billions ounces)	World Gold Inventory Per Person (ounces)	Cumulative. Silver Production (billions ounces)	World Silver Inventory Per Person (ounces)	Ag:Au Ratio *
2000BC	.08	0.01	0.10	0.1	1.00	10:1
1200BC	.09	0.02	0.22	0.2	2.20	10:1
600BC	.10	0.04	0.40	0.4	4.00	10:1
300BC	.15	0.08	0.40	0.9	4.50	11:1
500AD	.30	0.19	0.59	2.2	6.90	12:1
1500AD	.50	0.30	0.60	4.1	8.20	14:1
1800AD	.98	0.45	0.46	7.4	7.60	16:1
1900AD	1.65	0.81	0.49	13.2	8.00	16:1
1950AD	2.52	1.99	0.79	23.2	9.21	12:1
1975AD	4.00	2.97	0.74	29.9	7.48	10:1
2000AD	6.00	4.34	0.72	40.9	6.82	9:1

 

DOW 10,000!!!

As we watch the excitement around a 10,000 point Dow I have some thought to share on this topic.

I am amazed at how people believe that if the Dow is up life is good for everyone. Most people believe this is the ultimate gauge for our lifestyles. Hello!!!!! Is anyone home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This whole stock market deal is such a bunch of crap and most Americans don’t even get it because they believe we are still in competition to accumulate dollars long term. Most people believe that long term wealth will be measured by how many paper dollars you die with. I am not sure where to start but I will give it a shot. I hope it makes sense when I am done.

First off, it is my belief that the government has polished the ultimate turd with this stock market rally. With them believing that if we have a rally in the stock market the flock (American Public) will feel safe and not riot in the streets, the whole while commodities have been slowly creeping up. People are so dumb they don’t even realize that most commodities have had a larger increase than the Dow since March. How will this affect most people? Answer: The shit they need to survive will rise in price also leading to needing more and more rallies in their 401K to purchase essential items.

Before I get off the above topic I believe that as long as the Dow goes up most people will give a shit less that their gas and food also raise in price. I am all for a rise in food prices due to my profession so bring on the 20,000 point Dow!!!

I have been calling for inflation for months. I see zero reason around it due to the fact that our dollars are not only worthless but we are printing more and more worthless dollars everyday!!!

What I believe we are seeing in the markets is not a recovery at all. It is inflation. People that are holding worthless dollars are not interested in holding them any longer due to the fact that the supply of them is going up everyday and their value is declining everyday. In turn they are being forced to find other places to park their wealth so that it does not evaporate every day the dollar goes down in value.

It is a very simple process and a very simple idea to grasp. The whole idea in the end is to not have many dollars and have a lot of real hard assets!!! The whole game is to accumulate dollars and then get rid of them as quickly as possible buying real things. It is similar to a game of hot potato.

I hope you see the resent flash of inflation as an opportunity to unload some worthless paper and get a few semi loads of canned peas bought up!!!! The end game will not be how many paper dollars you have but rather wealth will be measured in how much food, land, ammo, gold, silver, vodka, etc. you will have accumulated.

 

Erik

Screwdflation!!! Deflation crossed with Hyperinflation!!!

I talk a lot with people about the state of our economy. We talk mostly about if the US is headed for a deflationary recession or inflationary recession. After spending hours of reading about both and getting both sides from the experts(experts-I still have not found what makes someone an expert!!!) I believe we are headed for flat out get ready to get screwdflation!!!

 I see a deflationary period for everything and everyone (the situation we are currently in), followed by a mass inflationary period for certain items while others remain in mass deflation. I see no way we are not going to be headed quickly north towards inflation on raw commodities and dollars. Commodities are short and will remain short. We have not solved any energy problems (they are actually becoming worse each day gas goes down and people drive more), have not figured out how to double corn, soybean and wheat production, cow numbers are way down and the Gov thinks printing money has become some kinda video game, each day trying to beat the high score set by the other guy!!!

Meanwhile, there is no way houses, cars, SUV’s, boats, Rv’s and all the other over valued depreciating assets the “Me Generation” has been spending its hard earned, devalued dollars on will continue to hold there values, even though they have already been hit hard. Joe suburb, in my eyes, is going to be double dipped. He and his family are going to see the things that use to be affordable, be not so affordable anymore. When I say affordable I don’t mean cheap. Food, gas, heat, electricity, etc have not been cheap the last few years but they have been affordable for most Joe Suburbs.

He has had plenty of access to cash (credit)!!! For starters, the overvalued house. The days of using the cracker jack box in the burbs as an ATM machine are OVER!!! No more going back to the well and re-uping the home equity loan for a little cash to buy the boat or pay the credit card off, that has been used to support his unsustainable life.

Speaking of credit cards, that game looks to be over soon also. I foresee a day, not to far away, when Mr and Mrs Suburb head to Wal-Mart to load up on some high quality Chinese plastic only to have their Visa declined due to a drop in their credit limit. What in the wide wide world of sports happpens now? No more refinance, no more credit card, the boat, RV, SUV, Car and House are all worth less than whats owed against them. All of sudden the basics (food, gas, heat, electric, etc…) are not affordable at any price!!!

Now think if these basics, due to inflation in commodities, go up 20%, 50%, 100% or more? Welcome to Screwdflation Mr and Mrs Suburb!!! Don’t worry it could be worse, at least you now know were the bottom is!!! It’s not all that bad though, I have been there a few times and once you realize the life you have been living, trying to impress everyone else, is super unsustainable, things get better. Once you realize the time you spend with your kids is more important than how many soccer camps you can get them into a summer, you are on your way to recovery.

 You will start to realize that supper is the most important hour of the day. It will hit you that cable TV is actually a curse to creativity and your kids will be just fine without 24hr cartoon access.  When you have hit full circle, you will even start to realize that the crazy guy on the edge of town that everyone thought was crazy is not crazy at all!!! He had shit figured out!!! His house is paid for!!! He has no credit card debt, does not buy things unless he has cash, has had real convo’s with his children, wife and family in the last ten years, he has no monthly bills other than food, electricity and heat (maybe not heat, he might be burning wood, corn or some other sustainable form of fuel). You will start to see that the paid for vehicle he drives is not such a piece of junk. When he offers you some homeade apple butter from his apple trees you will start to see what you have been missing these last years, while parading your child around to every organized activity some over acheiving soccer mom has put together, trying to advance her social standing in the burbs.

You might even realize that Screwdflation really isn’t all that bad!!! (for sure your kids will enjoy being able to stay home and spend time with their family) When your in Screwdflation you don’t have to worry about anything other than eating and thats a task we humans have been able to perform just fine for many years before 10,000 channel satalite TV and Super Wal-Mart!!! You will see that its kind off fun to play a board game with your kids on Friday night after a home cooked meal vs. going to Chucky Cheese, blowing a couple hondo on video games for the kids while having a I’m cooler than you competition with the other dads on who has the slickest new BlackBerry!!!

I could go on and on folks but I am done for now. I am 32 years old and I have figured it out in a short time. I have lived the life of Joe Suburb and now of “Erik Highland Township Sustainable Farmer Family Man With Many Real Friends” and can tell you which one I enjoy more and which one will effect me less by a worthless dollar or a collapsed housing market!!! I hope everyone takes a look at their daily routine and just slows down a little, take some time for the family and try to think of what you would be doing right now if it was 1917. Good luck with Screwdflation and  don’t look at it as a bad deal. You just might have some real fun for once!!!

Erik

Lutter’s Latest Column- Very Very Good!!!!!

Tales from the Outback

By Bryan Lutter

 

We got back from Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW), TX a couple weeks ago. We drove down there to catch UFC 103. One of the things we noticed about Dallas/Fort Worth (population 2 million) is that there are a few differences between that place and Gann Valley, SD (population 17).

 

The five differences between DWF, TX and Gann Valley, SD

1)      Bar Scene is not the same in the two places. Before going to a bar/club in Dallas, one must dress properly.

If you are a guy, this means you need to drop roughly the value of a new semi-auto shotgun and a case of shells on an outfit. The outfit will look exactly like all the other dudes’ outfits. Your shirt will not be tucked in, your hair will stick straight up, and you will have three days of stubble growing.  If you try to cut costs and buy cheap clothes however, you will just look like a bum. The holes in your jeans can only be made by a kid working in a sweatshop in Cambodia. That is a rule.

 If you are a gal, this means you need to drop the value of TWO new semi-auto shotguns on an outfit. The resulting fresh set of duds will have your gal looking like a high-end prostitute, which is evidently the goal.

Dressing for a night out at Ken’s Service in Gann Valley involves putting on clothes. The “sniff test” will get you the cleanest dirty shirt you have. Your jacket and cap were provided by a seed corn company proudly displaying its logos. You can never go wrong in Gann Valley wearing bibs. The holes in your jeans will be made on the ranch. (Ditto for the chicks)

2)      Their economies are different.

People in DFW trade the same money back and forth with each other. Near as I can tell its 100% retail/service sector. The entire thing is based on folks selling $150 jeans with lots of holes made in Cambodia to a guy who sells tickets at the movie theater to a girl who sells $8 cups of coffee to someone who sells a car made in Japan. It appears that as long as high-school girls in DFW never wear the same outfit twice in the same year, their entire system will continue without a hitch.

Gann Valley has a pretty boring economy. People there run around in blizzards carrying new-born calves on their back. They put these critters in their bathtubs on stormy nights. Then the next year they sell them for approximately the exact same amount their grandparents sold them for. Gann Valley is in Buffalo County, which recently beat out Shannon County SD as the poorest county in the USA. So when it comes to making $$, obviously the folks in my home town could learn a lot from the good people of DFW.

3)      Entrepreneurship also has its divergence.

We met an enterprising individual in DFW who made it big. This little 5’3” fella with his cap on backwards stepped out of a $350,000 Bentley with three models and a bodyguard in tow. He had to take off his silly cap to enter the club, but the gals he was with had nothing left they could remove. This 25 year-old kid made a crazy video and sold it to “Girls Gone Wild” for $10 million dollars.

The same guy in Gann Valley would probably start up a hunting lodge. He would turn an old grain bin or chicken coop into a bar with bunk beds for hunters to stay. These hunters all have unlimited $$, because they come from the fantastical land of the Starbucks economy.

4)      Lifestyles also have disparity between the two places.

I’m not sure why, but for the most part, really cute girls tend to move away from Gann Valley. At the same time, they tend to gravitate towards the Metroplex. I thought a lot about this, and I think the answer is found on the cover of magazines. What is on the cover of a men’s magazine like Maxim, etc? Why, a beautiful young girl is. What is on the cover of every single woman’s magazine? Gee golly, it’s the same thing, a beautiful girl.

So you see; booty is drawn to booty. Kinda like herds of critters if you will, they sort of move together.  Dudes move to the land-of-the booty for obvious reasons. I figured this out, and it’s every guy in a Metroplexes job to look rich. That’s how you get the girl. Meanwhile, every girl’s job is to find out which fellas are faking their prosperity.

It’s an incredible system that keeps the engine of economic growth in urban areas humming along. Near as I can tell, roughly 95% of the US economic system is driven by the pursuit of booty.

 

5)      Commodity consumption/production isn’t the same on both of these places.

While Texas leads the nation (including Alaska) in production of oil and natural gas, the Lone Star state is actually a net-importer of energy. There are lots of folks there who do a lot of stuff that consumes energy, so they import massive amounts of coal to fill their energy gap. At this point, I’m not sure whether or not TX is a net-importer of food, but given the massive number of restaurants, (Houston ranks number one, while DFW ranks number two in eating out per capita) I’d be surprised if they weren’t. Meanwhile reservoir levels in the DFW area are surprisingly low given the massive rainfall they enjoyed the last few years. It appears DFW will become a net-importer of water before long.

Buffalo County (home of Gann Valley) exports more energy on a per capita basis than nearly any organized (if you want to call us that) county in the nation. The Big Bend Dam on the mighty MO kicks out tremendous amounts of juice, while the handful of residents in the County sip tiny bits of it.

Cattle outnumber people in Buffalo County by nearly a thousand to one, and we export thousands of bushels of grain for every man, woman, and child. Drinking water is never even a thought.

Outside of those five differences, life in DFW seems pretty much the same as it is in Gann Valley. The toughest guy from both places is Travis Lutter. Travis fights UFC veteran Jason Macdonald in Canada on Oct 2^nd. The fight will be available on HDTV via ppv.  Folks from both of these towns will be pulling for Trav.

 

Support Ron Paul’s Efforts To Audit The Fed Reserve

The following is a link to Ron Paul’s online petiton to audit the Fed Reserve. It takes 30 seconds to fill out. I suggest anyone that is interested in the future of our country to take the time to read about this bill and seriously think about getting behind Mr. Paul and his efforts.

I am pround to see Rep. Stephanie Herseth, SD has already co-sponsored the bill but am very dis-appointed that Sen. Tim Johnson, SD and Sen. John Thune, SD have not yet got behind it. If you do support this bill make sure to email Sen. Johnson and Sen. Thune and voice your thoughts.

http://www.auditthefed.com/

I also have attached a link to Rep. Ron Paul’s website. I suggest checking it out as it has alot of good information.

http://www.campaignforliberty.com/#25023

Thanks

Erik

Tall Grass Prairie Returns To Section 16

I notice some interesting things tonight while we were out driving around in the hay fields. There is a patch on our farm that because of how it lies we don’t farm it. Ever since I have been a kid we have always just cut it for hay.

 

This spring I had the cows out grazing the alfalfa that is part of this field and they had eaten the brome grass in this area down really short. I took the cows out of the field because I wanted the alfalfa to start growing for hay season. When it came time to take the first cutting of hay I thought I would just swing down in this little odd shaped patch and cut it for hay also. After thinking about it for a bit it hit me that that was native prairie and we had never really given it a chance to see what Mother Nature wanted to grow in there.

 So I left the patch and have had fun watching the wildflowers grow in and amongst the June grass all summer. What seen tonight though really surprised me and why I had not seen it until tonight is beyond me. We were driving through this patch of prairie and all of sudden tons of native grasses started to appear and the more you looked the more you found. It was one of the neatest things I have ever witnessed. I have seen a lot of native grass in my life due to the CRP program but I had never seen native grasses from 100 year old seed before. It might sound weird but it was somewhat breathtaking to witness.  

 Many things amazed me about this feat including the fact that I have never and my grandpa before me had never seeded any type of native grasses on this patch. So after thinking about it I realized that the seeds that grew these plants had been in the ground for long damn time. The other thing was that if we leave nature alone it has a way of growing what will best thrives in it. It also brought me back to scene from the show America’s Lost Landscape in which a Native American man is talking about prairie and Mother Nature. He said that as long as there is one stalk of grass left in the world that the natives believe the prairie will come back some day. He said the prairie is not dead it is just sleeping.

 

I have thought about this tonight and realized that I did something different this year than other years. I had let the cows eat the brome down hard in the spring and had really slowed it up allowing the native to germinate and grow without the competition of the cool season grasses. I know that they do some of this in game production areas to introduce natives and can see now that it really does work.

 Cool season grasses like Brome have their place I am sure, but it is obvious to me that if Mother Nature had her choice the soils of Highland Township would be covered in native tall grass prairie plants.  

 

Erik

Lutter’s Latest Article

Tales from the Outback

By Bryan Lutter

I’ll never forget when “Nike Air-Jordan” shoes started bringing $150/pair in the late eighties. What a depressing time for a kid growing up during the farm crisis! Everything cool remained priced out of reach of us. The extra hours of hog chores just added insult to injury for every farm kid in the country.

I don’t remember any senate hearings to investigate Nike shoe prices.

In the late 1990’s, CNBC and other financial networks had an ACTUAL birthday party for the Nasdaq every time it added 1,000 points. A basic computer price brought several months pay for the common man. 

I don’t remember any politicians pounding their fists over the inflated price of a desktop computer.

I’ll get to what REALLY burns me, but first a little background;

In April of 2008, the inventory of unleaded gasoline in the USA was at a 22 year low and the world consumed 2 mbpd more oil that it produced. Attempts to increase oil flows at the wellhead were thwarted for years, so the market in early 2008 simply rationed (via high prices) what it could produce. It obviously lead to a meltdown in the global economy, but it worked. The new, lower consumption rate was easy for the world to supply. The market solved the energy crisis.

Every week some politician demonstrates their need to be hung from their fingernails by calling for regulations into commodity speculation. Here’s a little news flash for these imbeciles, rampant money printing creates inflation. Inflation increases the price of finite commodities like oil and gold.

The government likes to promote its welfare/warfare activities without annoying the taxpayer. So at times it simply prints $$ to pay its bills, adding to the supply of $$. Whenever this happens in grand-scale, the buying power of each $ falls, so gasoline prices shoot higher as the counterfeiting practice goes into high gear.

Below is an in interesting speech about inflation and currency debasement captured VERBATIM from Diocletian. This is the guy holding the hot potato as the Roman Empire crumbled under its own bloated weight in 301 A.D. Those politicians had bills to pay and didn’t have the means to accomplish the herculean feat, so they clipped edges off coins and diluted the gold/silver with pewter until nobody trusted their government’s money anymore. People demanded many more of the debased coins than the quality old coins. Prices rose as a result of the deliberate Roman policy.

The last sentence below is especially troubling;

“Who is of so hardened a heart and so untouched by a feeling of humanity that he can be unaware, nay that he has not noticed, that in the daily business of the cities, an exorbitant tendency in prices has held in check neither by abundance nor by seasons of plenty…. Inasmuch as there is seen only a mad desire without control, to pay no heed to the needs of many,…it seems good to us, as we look into the future, to us who are the fathers of the people, that justice intervene to settle matters impartially.”

History is replete with government attempts to create price controls. In every case the prices ran out of control in the first place thanks to government manufactured inflation. The result of price controls in every case has been and will be physical shortages.

The only problem with the futures markets is delivery. A man with a contract for a given commodity can not deliver against the contract in an efficient manner, and this is a huge problem which prevents convergence from occurring. The sad thing is that politicians have no desire to fix a problem; their goal is to intimidate and attempt to break the laws of supply and demand in their favor.

It’s pretty obvious that bull markets in the worthless things produced in metro areas are perfectly great, while a major bull market in basic commodities are met with an Act of Congress.

Thanks to supply restraints, in my opinion, crude oil in 2011 will either be over $200/barrel, or we will be in ANOTHER oil-induced recession. I expect the governments all over the world to lie, cheat, and steal, to protect what’s left of Business As Usual. Say hello to the Fall of the American Empire.

Consumers Ratchet Back Credit

I have been saying on this blog for many months that it will not matter how much money the Fed prints, how much credit becomes available for consumers or how bad the government encourages people to take on more debt. The reason it does not matter is because for one people are sick and tired of being in debt and for two there are not enough credit worthy people in our country to borrow enough money to keep our ecomomy rolling.

I also have said that our whole economy was built on easy credit and for it to continue at even the slightest glimpse of how it was it would require our people to contiue to abuse easy credit.

The following article blew my mind. It states that American people have ratcheted back borrowing by $21.6 billion since June!!! The number was just a little off of estimates. Economists had estimated the number was going to be $4 billion!!!

http://www.cnbc.com/id/32738637

I am telling you folks, we just can not and will not continue down this whole easy credit, spend it if you got it way of life. Our world is changing and we all better get ready for a simpler stay at home lifestyle.

 

Erik

Peak Water

I watched a great show on PBS last night about water shortage in Las Vagas. After watching the show I became very interested in the topic. The following is a great article explaining Peak Water. This is a topic we all need to pay attention to and one I will be writing about in the future.

http://theburningplatform.com/economy/peak-water-1

Erik

 

After posting this I recieved an email from my friend Andy with the following articles. I suggest reading them as they are very interesting articles about peak water.

 http://www.rangemagazine.com/features/fall-09/fa09-big_brothers_water.pdf

http://www.rangemagazine.com/specialreports/05-fall-move-an-ocean.pdf

A Great Quote!!!

“In real life our species has such a modest ability to deal with distant outcomes or to defer gratification that a bad ending is probably inevitable. We need, it seems, the shock of a Pearl Harbor to really gear up and make sacrifices.” -             Jeremy Grantham

South Dakota State Fair!!!

The follow post was sent to me by a good friend. After reading it I realized just how correct he is on his feelings towards state fairs. I am one of those quilty parents that has never taken the time to bring my kids to the state fair for reasons none other than I believe I have better things to do and don’t take the time.

I think this post goes hand in hand with the direction our country needs to and will go in the coming years. Our whole society needs to slow down a bit and get back to the basic simple things in life. I had a friend tell me that he was going to the fair with his kids this year because he also thought it was important for them to experience it. He made a comment that really hit me hard, he said that when he was a kid the only event he and his family looked forward to was the state fair!!! He is only 35 years old.

Think about that for a minute. A kid only looking forward to one event the entire year. Not because he liked it so much but because his parents didn’t run him around to soccer, baseball, football, basketball, cub scouts, dance class, etc the whole rest of the year!!! They found simple ways to stay home, do things with family and friends and go to one big event every year. Now he remebers those times very well because he does not have a whole bunch of meaningless running around to cloud his memory. This friend of mine is a very good and normal person, was a good high school athlete, has a good job and is a good husband and father. It makes me think that maybe we do way to much activity planning and doing for our children. I believe this is something that will need to change in the future and things like the state fair will become bigger parts of our life in the future.

 

 

Enjoy the following post and thanks for your thoughts Andy.

 

Since Erik has been letting his blogging duties slide; I thought that I would contribute this week.

 My sons and I went to the South Dakota State Fair on Friday and stayed until Sunday afternoon.  This isn’t the first time I’ve been to the fair but it was the first time that I’ve taken my sons and it was the first time we have entered exhibits. 

 Now, one 288 pound market gilt does not a farm make; but, to my ten year old son Patrick and his brothers, it does make the summer.  This is his second year in 4-H and it makes me proud that he loves it so much.  My other two sons, Garrett, age 8 and Marshall, age 7, did not make the age deadline for this year, but worked just as hard as their brother and helped him with his swine projects.

 The part of the fair that I want to talk about is what the fair is all about:  It’s about organizing with your friends to get the projects trailer’d and up to the fair.  It’s helping each other to make sure that everyone has their bases covered.  It’s about watching our kids talk about the same things and do the same things as their parents and I did 25-30 years ago. 

 It’s seeing your old college friends and their kids, talking about the old times, running into friends you haven’t seen for years, old friends letting you stay at their house for two days (Thanks Cooter), and talking about doing it again next year.

 It’s wandering to the Freedom Stage to hear Riders in the Sky (for free), sitting down, and having a good friend tap you on the shoulder to invite you to sit with his family.  It’s about people who have been camping in the same spot for years and years and seeing the same family next to them every year. 

 It’s watching my eager kids arrive and then carrying my sleepy kids to car at the end of the day.  It’s the faces my kids make when a carnival ride turns their stomach and that foot-long corndog comes back to see daylight again.  Speaking of faces, the priceless looks on my sons faces when they walked out of the tent that houses The World’s Smallest Woman, was something I’ll never forget.

 It’s showing the kids the displays in each of the buildings and teaching them that the fair isn’t just about carnivals and food, but about people.  People showing us what they can do, make, learn, build, design, create, craft, invent, grow, raise, and teach.

 There are a lot of things that are conspiring against the fair:  the economy, early (and too eager) school districts and their start dates, migration from the farms, ranches, and rural parts of the state, and legislators who’s priorities are demonizing all things they don’t understand (and promoting areas in the state that suck the rest of us dry).  So yes; “Take In The Big One” and make sure that next year, you get to the fair for at least one day.

 If you didn’t make it to the South Dakota State Fair this year or the past few years, you’re missing a great way to cap off the summer.  Make sure that you and your kids are a part of it next year.

HealthCare

Does anyone else think this whole Healthcare reform deal is a bunch of bull shit? I am sick to death of the time and money being wasted on this issue. It is directed and rewards all that is wrong with the behavior of US people.

 Why on earth would we design a healthcare bill that will continue to reward a society that continues to live unhealthy lives? Why are we so focused on spending trillions of dollars on future healthcare instead of rewarding those who choose to just live a healthier life which in turn leads to less need for healthcare?

 It all just seems so simple to see what is wrong here. We have lived the last thirty years on fast manufactured unhealthy foods that now we all have serious health problems!!! Surprise surprise!!! Along with the health of our food declining very fast we have also chose to work jobs that require many hours of the day sitting on our asses staring at a computer screen. Put the two together and guess what happens? We end up with a bunch of damn people going to the doctors. The whole deal is a racket!!!

 

Here are some ideas I have for healthcare reform.

 1)      If you are unhealthy and have no insurance, tough shit, you should have thought about that before eating that last box of twinkies. Here are your options, get in shape, eat better and get a job that provides health ins. If you cannot do this then just go to the doctor, get fixed up and file bankruptcy when you get the bill in the mail because obviously you do not give a shit about your life enough to take care of it so filing bankruptcy really is not going to bother you much.

2)      I think anyone who plants a garden should be able to write off all their garden and food preservation expenses.

3)      There should be an additional child tax credit if you raise your food and teach your children how to eat carrots and lettuce.

4)      A person should be able to write off any gym membership expense or any expense incurred while pursuing an athletic activity.

5)      A person should get a tax credit if they can produce a certain dollar amount of food purchased at farmers markets or local natural food producers.

6)      There should be a 50% tax put on any foods with high fructose corn syrup or many other very unhealthy food additives. This would fund public Healthcare for all the unhealthy people of the US. It would be like prepaying your doctor bills. If your going to eat shitty food and make yourself and your kids unhealthy than your responsible for paying for it in advance.

7)      I would like to see a 50% tax on fast food for the same reasons.

8)      And many more ideas based on the same lines.

 

Basically if we made it expensive to eat bad food and cheaper to raise and eat healthy food what do you think would happen to the number of sick unhealthy people in America? It is the dumbest thing I ever seen to ignore the cause of the problem and continue to throw money at the results.

 

Erik

Some Thoughts On The Hogs

Our pig project is going very well. I have had more fun with these little critters than I thought I would. I am just absolutely amazed everyday on how we as humans have been able to transform an animal’s natural environment and behavior so as much as we have that of swine.

 The pork industry has over the past maybe 30 – 40 years went very fast from open range dirt hogs to cement and iron caged confinements. With all the talk about huge animal confinement farms the hog industry and the chicken industry are the worst. Cattle are not nearly as confined as these other two and can not be raised even close to the assembly line style that hogs and chickens are raised.

I know which pigs look happier to me!!!

 

 I have not had a lot of experience in the hog business as I have mainly raised cattle and that is where most of my livestock knowledge has come from. I have been in many hog confinements over the years and have had the experience of working with some hogs in a confinement situation on my uncle Harvey’s farm so I do have some memories of the behavior of these animals in that situation. What I had never seen until just lately is the behavior of hogs in an open natural environment on dirt. One of the many differences I notice is that when a person walks into a hog confinement it is so loud with squeals from the hogs. I very seldom ever hear so much as a little squelch out of our hogs unless of course one wanders into the electric fence.

 I had no idea on how resourceful hogs are if they are just left alone to rut and dig on their own in nature. Over the years of being around livestock I catch myself asking the question how did these critters get along before we showed up. They must have had ways of taking care of themselves before humans interjected into the mix and decided we had to do everything for them. I have found myself asking this question over and over as I watch our pigs live everyday. I have zero money invested in buildings, equipment and feed (so far). Our pigs are happy, they run up to the gate every time they see a human coming across the yard wondering what good treats we have for them!!! They are so excited just to play and rut through what is left of the cattle manure pile from last winter. I could see that pigs are a lot like people. They don’t want to eat straight corn every meal, every day for their entire lives, just as we wouldn’t be real happy if momma served us a baked potato every meal of every day of our lives. We would survive but would not like it very much.

 Today I observed something very telling to me on why the current confinement system we raise pigs in is most likely not the correct way to raise pigs. I fed them a couple buckets of corn slop on the dirt like I do everyday. I sat around and watched them happily dig through the corn and dirt. Then they all stopped eating the corn and went out to forage on greens. Then they came back to eat a little corn, then went back out to forage on greens again. Then they rooted through some manure and back to corn again and so on and so forth. It hit me like a ton of bricks at that moment that how could the meat from an animal that is not allowed to grow muscle happily and in its natural behavior be equal to that of an animal allowed to grow in a natural and happy environment.

A pig buffet!!! A little corn with a side salad!!!

 

 I simply came up with the answer that it can not. The pork that we purchase at the store is from animals that have been confined away from their happy natural environment all of their lives. They have been pissed off, stressed out and un-happy their entire lives. I would imagine the stress, un-happiness and ground premix baked potato as their only choice of feed would lead to meat that is not nearly as healthy or tasty as meat from an animal allowed being stress free and happy.

 I am not saying we need to shut down all the hog confinements in the country. If people want to eat cheap pork from these types of operations I am all for it but I have made the decision that I am no longer interested in it and hope that people realize that there are other options out there. For starters, pigs are cheap and anyone with a little extra space can raise their own hogs for meat but I also hope you start to think about how the meat you eat was raised and if there is something out there that might be more flavorful and better for you.

 

Erik

Mother Nature

As I was out baling hay tonight I made a few observations that brought some loose end theories of mine together.

 I have been thinking for awhile on what purpose if any weeds like thistles play in our environment and why are they here. As farmers we have battled weeds over and over every year since we broke the first tall grass prairies. I am not sure what the proper definition of weeds actually is but basically they are anything other than the crop that is being grown in that field. Think about that for a minute. Because after you think about it you will see the depth in which we have single handedly changed Mother Nature in less than 100 years.

 The reason for my above comment is that before we started breaking prairie and farming it with grain crops there where many species of plants growing on the prairies. Many different types of grasses, legumes, forbs and wildflowers all shared the same soils. So in realizing that why then do we find it so amazing that Mother Nature is trying to diversify her soils by giving us what we call weeds? Our soils were never meant to continuously grow single plant species over mass acres of land.

 I have spent most of my working life being paid to advise farmers on how to kill weeds and have been very good at it. I also don’t enjoy many weeds in which I find myself spraying them to eliminate them from my fields and am quite sure if I continue to grow grain crops this will be a never ending battle in which will cost much money and much of my time. I also want to say that I have zero problems with people who spray weeds and I think that it will need to continue at some rate as long as we have people on this earth that need to eat.

 What I am starting to ask myself though is what is Mother Nature telling us? Is she trying to tell us that the current path we are on of single crops year after year is not the proper way? Is she telling us that in order to keep our lands and soils productive for many years to come we need to practice more biodiversity? Is she telling us that we have abused our soils and that weeds are just a normal healing process in order to return organic matters to our soils? I believe now that all of the above are correct. And this is why.

 I have a real sour spot on my farm that is low and wet and has never produced anything that I can remember since I was a little kid. But yet my grandpa, uncle and I had continued to till this spot in the spring, plant it, watch it grow to weeds, spray it and drive over barren dirt each fall with the combine. How Dumb!!! What did we think? That all of a sudden that little patch of soil was going to suddenly become ok to raise corn and soybeans? That some miracle was going to happen and it would drain, flush all of the salt out and raise a crop? I guess we did but I am telling you it never happened.

 Instead I got sick and tired of it and planned a new seeding of alfalfa and grasses to include this spot to see if I could get some type of hay to grow in it so I could at least get some type of product of this patch of land. What has happened now after four years has been very amazing for me to see and has taught me how Mother Nature will heal the land if you just leave it alone and give it a chance.

 The first year nothing grew in this spot except a few cockleburs. The second year I had another good crop of cockleburs and little grass but still a lot of bare dirt and alkali. The third year brought me a very thick crop of cocklebur and somewhat nice stand of grasses. Each year I had just let everything grow instead of spraying the weeds. I cut all the hay around this spot and decided to just leave it alone and see what happened. I also figured that as long as something was growing it was at least putting a root into the ground which would both open the soil up a bit and also provide some much needed organic matter. Organic matter from cockleburs is just as good as organic matter from brome grass.

 Now tonight as I was out baling I was baling around this spot and I really noticed the difference. There are now no cockleburs, a little foxtail barley, timothy, brome, reeds canary and some native sedges growing in this spot. Again I have not cut it for hay choosing to leave the plant matter to die and treat the soil this fall. But I was just amazed on how Mother Nature found a “weed” that could grow in this soil that we had abused for so many years and used the “weed” to heal the soil, making it a productive soil again. But the difference is that I gave it a chance and found a system in which it could be successful. I gave up on the idea that it would raise corn or soybeans and found a crop in which would someday thrive in this type of soil. I can only imagine that in a few more years this patch will be a very productive hay meadow in which will not resemble the bare dirt it once was.

 This all has me believing that maybe when we have a bunch of thistles in our pasture or a bunch of waterhemp in or beans that maybe we should stop and ask ourselves some questions. Maybe we need to ask ourselves if what we are actually doing is right and is it helping to keep our soils productive for future generations. I am sure that 400 years ago there were very few if any non-productive patches on the tall grass prairie.  

 Last fall my pasture had grown into a mess of thistles. I had always done a good job of keeping the thistles sprayed bit last year they just got way out of hand and was not possible to get ahead of them. So I decided to let them go and have them sprayed in the fall and ask myself some questions on how I was treating the land and what was Mother Nature telling me on my grazing practices. I agreed with her that I had been pushing my grazing a little too hard and was letting my cows into the grass to soon in the spring and leaving far too long in the fall. So after spraying it last fall I decided that no matter how tempted I was to turn the cows out in the pasture this spring I was not going to do it. Instead I let the pasture heal itself and rest. I kept my cows in a drylot and just put them in the pasture a week ago. I was amazed at how fast the grass grew and how few thistles were out there this year. This is just another example of how we need to ask ourselves sometimes what are we doing wrong that Mother Nature gives us weeds to try and heal her soils.

 After my pasture experience I have decided that I have found the reason for thistles. When we abuse the land so badly by overgrazing Mother Nature has no choice but to grow a plant that will not be grazed. She places thistles in our pastures so that cattle can not eat them and instead they will grow nice and tall with deep tap roots that pull nutrients from deep in the soils. Then the thistles die and return to the earth, decaying and releasing the nutrients back into the soil in an effort to heal the soil. It is the same thing that happens in well managed pastures and hay fields except Mother Nature is saying your dumb ass and since you cannot handle the temptations of all that extra forage to graze your cows on I will place these prickly “weeds” here instead so that you have to remove your grazing cattle and give the land the rest it needs. Make sense?

 Next time you see a mess of weeds on your farm ask yourself a few questions, then make a few changes and give the land the time and care it needs to heal.

 

Erik

Our New Hog Project

My neighbor Dave stopped by the other day and thought maybe we should get in the hog business. He had a line on some feeder pigs and thought it would be a good idea to use my cattle yards to fatten a few up for a winter meat supply. As Jay, Tamela, David and I sat around and talked about it we decided to go with 6 feeder pigs.

The next day David showed up with eight feeder pigs just in case someone wanted more!!! In turn I think it was a good idea becasue as I have told people what we are doing everyone seems to want some pork when butcher. David, Jay and I fortified a yard for them and unloaded them. It was alot fo fun to watch the little pigs run around so excited to eat grass, weeds and root in the cattle manure.

We put them in a solid little yard I use to sort cattle. We also put a run of electric fence around the bottom of yard which after we got working seems to be the best way to keep these little guys from mrooting under the fences.

I used a piece of gaurd rail as a feed bunk which seems to work very well and got a hog water tank from my Dad. All in all we spent zero money getting set up with this deal and don’t really plan on spending much money at all during this whole project. I have some ground milo and hulless oats I feed them along with all our table scraps and garden scraps. The pigs also love any green plants, so as we weed the garden we take the weeds over to the hog pen and feed them to pigs. They go nuts when you show up with a handfull of weeds and grass.

It has been a very interesting deal. I have never really been around hogs that are not confined so it is fun to see them in a more natrual enviroment.

The pigs rooting through some grass.

The pigs rooting through some old corn stalk bedding

 

The Hog Boss of Section 16

David sharing his hog thoughts!!!

Rebulit Cattle Squeeze Chute

I wanted to post some pictures from our lastest project here at Section 16 Welding Co. Jay and I took and old squeeze chute I had that didnt work at all and revampt it into a nice working cattle squeeze chute.

First I cut off the old piece of shit self chatch head gate. I would say that if you are thinking about buying a head gate do not purchase a self catching one. There are a number of reasons I do not like them and a manual catch gate works so much better. After cutting the old gate off we welded some mounts on the squeeze chute for a used For-Most manual gate I had bought a year ago. After getting that all mounted we put new boards on the bottom to open the bottom of the chute up if we need to milk a cow or get a calf started. These doors work ver well and I will use them alot. We then welded some hooks along the top rails of the squeeze chute to hang a jug of pour on or a cattle prod, etc. We then rebuilt the old backup gate and mounted it. Jay had a good I dea to use a cable to raise and lower it, then he took the cable and attached it to tight to the bottom rail so that it always has tension it. This allows for the cable to always stay on the pulleys and always keeps it in reach to raise and lower the gate. We also welded a table onto the side to set supplies on while we are working cattle.

If you have any questions please feel free to email me. There are plenty of old chutes setting around the country that can be revamped for little money. After seeing what a new one costs I see no reason not to rebuild an old one.

 

Erik

A Top Ten List From Lutter

Tales from the Outback

By Bryan Lutter

 

Top 10 Things I’m Thinking About Today

1) Michael Jackson died. I don’t care. Is the world a better place without him? Probably, one thing is for sure though, there is something seriously wrong with the media for blowing this thing up.

2) California is a laboratory for “How-to-not-run-a-State”. They have a fiscal crisis because they believe in a bizarre, bottom-up economy where productive members of society get taken to the woodshed while the wagon-riders get free everything. I think it’s funny that they have to print IOU’s. The day (and its coming soon) that the responsible States have to bailout the socialist States is the first day of the 2nd American Revolution.

3) Unbelievable conditions have lead to stupendously happy corn and spring wheat fields. Grain carts will be very busy if we can hook a few more rains.

4) My brothers and I bought some heifer pairs last spring. With all the grass and need for critters to eat it up, hopefully the endeavor will convince them (and more importantly my sisters-in-law) to do more of it. I’m very proud of our brand it’s AU (the elemental symbol for gold) with a little symbol on it.

5) Al Franken, former comedian, is now a senator. All this proves is my long-held belief that when the Plains States decide to secede from the Union, we sure as the world must leave those goofy Minnesotans behind.

6) Cap N Trade – I don’t know what to say. This new legislation will add $3,000 per household per year to utility bills, and it unfairly impacts northern States like SD because we need to keep warm in the winter, all because some folks think they can change the weather. The inmates are clearly running the asylum.

7) Australia may be a good place to escape to as this country self-destructs. “Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on Wednesday to get out of Australia, as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks.” reads the news there. What a great idea!!

8) “Audit the Fed” is a bill stalled in the House, and stalled in the Senate. This REALLY burns me. Don’t kid yourself, the most powerful force on earth is the banking cartel we shamefully call the Federal Reserve. This shadow government (the Fed) has ZERO oversight, zero regulation, and affects the day-to-day lives of all Americans profoundly. The Audit the Fed Bill has huge support, and just yesterday it was brought to the floor for a vote, but Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska pulled some strings to stop it.

9) I will post my letters to Senators Johnson and Thune in this newspaper next week concerning the Audit the Fed Bill.

It’s insane we worry so much about whom politicians are sleeping with. I’ll tell you who they are toying with, its you and me. We will have zero economic prosperity until the puppet masters at the Federal Reserve are brought to heel.

10) We had a super Independence Day Celebration in Woonsocket. I’m thankful the planners included the log rolling contest and the tri-athalon this year.  I encourage more people to do the tri-athalon next year, as its not about racing, its about  saying “No” to the advancement of old age. I hope next year they include WWE-style wrestling in a big ring with ropes a person can bounce off of. It would be fun for local community members to body-slam each other.

 

Are We Selling Our Soul To Sell Our Dollars?

As I sit and watch the bottom completely fall out of the grain market I had an interesting conversation today with a guy that made me think of some things that I want to share.

 We were talking about the grain markets and the fundamentals in it. We were having a good conversation about which direction we thought things will go in the next six months when the guy I was talking to brought up an interesting observation. Now this particular friend of mine is very smart, he is a farmer but is also a licensed commodity trader and follows news and the markets better than anyone I know. He has given up on TV since the switch to digital TV leaving him only the internet to receive his information. He also has predicted correctly about every move in the past two years in the grain market. So needless to say his opinions hold a lot of water in my eyes.

 I was going on about how China has doubled their holdings in US Debt over the past year and how Russia has all of sudden tripled their holdings. My friend then made the comment on how it is so funny on how the commodity index has fallen apart since Giethner went to China on his recent sales trip to get them to buy more US debt. Also how funny it is that Obama is in Russia on a similar sales call.

 Is it just me or are we seeing first hand the US government selling its soul to China and Russia in order to get them buy our bad debt? It is almost like they told us they would buy some debt but we need to do something for them like collapse our markets so that they can buy cheap commodities. It seems all too convenient to not have some bearing.

 As I talked about this with some other people today I came to the conclusion that politicians will make more people happy and receive more votes with cheap grain than they will with expensive grain. With this being the case I see no reason why we will see a huge run up in grain prices anytime soon. I also feel we have a huge corn crop on the horizon so this deal could be perfect storm for the collapse in grain prices.

Debt, Sports Betting and The Muscle!!!

I came across these numbers and thought some of you might find them interesting. They are the top holders of American Debt.

 

-         Luxembourg – $87 billion

-         Banks and Credit Unions – $107 billion

-         Russia – $120 billion

-         United Kingdom – $124 billion

-         Insurance Companies – $126 billion

-         Brazil – $133 billion

-         Caribbean Banks – $177 billion

-         Oil Exporting Countries – $186 billion

-         Other Investors – $413 billion

-         Pension Funds – $456 billion

-         State and Local Governments – $523 billion

-         Japan – $635 billion

-         Mainland China – $739 billion (Up from $492 billion a tear ago. Hong Kong holds another $71 billion

-         Mutual Funds – $770 billion

-         Federal Reserve and Intra-Government Holdings – $4.8 trillion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 Ok now a few of these numbers really standout to me. First being Russia. One year ago they only held about $48 billion of our debt. Why are they now so eager to buy up our debt? I don’t have an answer but I can’t help but think that they feel they need a little more leverage on us. It also makes me understand why President Obama is over there right now on a sales trip. If I had a farmer all of a sudden tripling his seed order I would most likely pay him a visit and see if he needed a little more!!!

 The second one is other investors. This being people like you and I who buy up government bonds as a safe investment. With the current downturn in walking around money and the years of paying down debt ahead of us I don’t believe this sector is a prospect to buy up any new debt.

 Thirdly Japan. I have to laugh when I see this one because that country is in udder lost financial universe!!! Their plan of buying US debt so we would continue to buy their cheap exports has not worked so well for them.

 Fourth is of course China. This number has not quite doubled in a year. They are somewhat on the some course as Japan but I have a feeling they will stop buying when they see that our expanding debt does not mean more purchases of high grade Wal-Mart goodies. It also alarms me to see how big of a chunk of our mortgage they hold.

 Lastly, the Fed Reserve. How in the world can our dollars be legitimate when our own government controlled banking system buys its own debt!!! LOL!!! What a joke!!! It is a little more complex than that but you get the drift.

 In closing I will say this. When a fella goes a little over one weekend betting on football games hoping to hit the home run and things don’t quite turn out the way he thought they would, the bookie tends to send a little muscle after him to remind him of the debt he owes. When the poor guy can’t pay the bookie back, he starts to send the muscle over on a more frequent basis taking things the bookie finds of value to him in return for the money owed. The bookie does not stop coming until he is a little more than 100% satisfied the items he has taken are of equal value to money owed to him.

 I see zero difference in our betting the future of our country by continually going deeper into debt than that of a guy losing all his ball game bets and not having the funds to cover it. When I look at the list above I am certain that there are a few of bookies on that list that will not be ok with repayment in devalued American dollars or with no payment at all. So that leads me to the question of what will those bookies want of ours that is equal value to the money owed. Maybe Iowa?

 

Erik

A Message For Independence Day

Hey Cliffy,

The following would be great to post on Independence Day. It was written by the Commander at the Alamo as it was surrounded by Mexican Forces. It shows the the never say die attitude of “The True” American spirit.

Thanks
Andy

To The People of Texas and
All Americans In The World –
February 24, 1836

Fellow citizens & compatriots —
I am beseiged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna — I have sustained a continual Bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a man — The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken — I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls — I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism, & every thing dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch — The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country —

VICTORY OR DEATH

William Barret Travis
Lt. Col. Comdt.

Hey Cliffy, The following would be great to post on Independence Day. It was written by the Commander at the Alamo as it was surrounded by Mexican Forces. It shows the the never say die attitude of “The True” American spirit. Thanks Andy To The People of Texas and All Americans In The World — February 24, 1836 Fellow citizens & compatriots — I am beseiged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna — I have sustained a continual Bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a man — The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken — I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls — I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism, & every thing dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch — The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country — VICTORY OR DEATH William Barret Travis Lt. Col. Comdt.

0

China Is Scared Of The Dollar

I came across a couple sentences in the following article I needed to share. First off I have been saying for a long time that China will wise up and start spending their huge reserves in foreign currency on hard assets like commodities due to the weakening foreign currencies.

 The other thing that stuck out was the statement by an adviser to the Chinese Gov that stated it would be better for China to buy land in the US than it would be to buy US Dollars!!! WOW!!! A few days ago in a post about foreign governments buying farmland in other countries I challenged people to think about China wanting the right to farm the state of Iowa in payment for our debt owed to them. I had made the statement in an exaggeration to clarify but maybe I am on to something. Scary stuff folks.

 

http://www.cnbc.com/id/31535631

 

Erik

The New Housing Plan

The following article is the second one I have read about the new housing stimulus they want to pass in Washington.

 http://www.cnbc.com/id/31448492

 The new stimulus is a proposal they want to pass that would allow anyone who buys a new house a $15,000 credit. The old bill was $8000 and was only for first time homebuyers who made less than $75,000. The new bill is being proposed for anyone!!!

 So after reading this I had a few ideas. The first being green shoots. All we have heard is that all these new green shoots are showing up all over in the economy. We are hearing how all these positive signs are showing up saying that our economy is headed north soon. My idea is that if the economy was looking so rosy why would need a new housing stimulus to help the economy?

 As far as stimulus and especially housing stimulus, I see absolutely no reason on how any of it will help. The housing deal was way inflated and has no place to go but south to right the ship. The only way stimulus will help this sector is if it continues forever and at a lot higher rate. $15,000 a house is not nearly enough and would need to continue forever.

 It remind me a lot of the farm bills in the seventies, eighties and nineties that rewarded farmers to over produce grains that we already had a huge supply of. It makes no sense to pay farmers to raise corn if we already have a surplus of corn. As it makes no sense to pay people to buy and build houses when we are already way over built.

 The housing industry needs a good clean out just as the pork and milk industry have had to suffer through many times in the past thirty years. When those two industries get to big and over produce, the price falls out, a bunch of people lose an ass load of money, the financially sound ones survive and we continue on. The same thing would happen in the housing deal if just let it wash out like it should.

 My last thought on this deal is that this is absolute proof that our government will not allow us to fall into deflation but will do everything in their power to lead us to inflation in an effort to keep this smoke and mirrors economy moving north.

 

Erik

Flatbed Project

We have been working on my old GMC pickup for awhile. We made some good progress the past few days and I wanted to share the pictures with you.

New Dollars

I seen a number the other day that really made me sit and wonder how that particular number will affect us in the future. $961 billion!!! Anyone know what that is? It is the amount of brand new US Dollars that have been printed in less than a year!!!

 By all estimates I could find the amount of currency in circulation in Sept 2008 was around $800 billion. Since that time the Fed has more than doubled that supply. So I ask myself what would happen to the value of corn if US farmers all of a sudden doubled production this year. More than likely we would be selling it for a much cheaper price than we are paid for it today, so why would that be any different with dollars.

 Just my guess, but I would imagine the value of dollar will have to eventually be cut in half or more. I see no reason how it can continue to maintain any higher value than half of its current value. No wonder why most foreign governments are trying very hard to escape any long positions they have in the dollar.

 I have said for many months that our dollars have a very good chance of becoming worthless. I see actions like this only backing my theories 100%.

 

Erik

Gerald Celente

I have been following Gerald Celente for awhile now. When I first started seeing him on TV and reading his stuff I thought he was a whack job but then I started seeing that he has been correct on about every prediction he has ever made. Not being able to argue with his winning percentage I started paying a little more attention to him.

He is an interesting guy that knows that facts and argues for them. What I find is that unlike most people that just say everything is going to be OK but have no facts, He actually has alot of facts to base his predictions on. The following link is a recent interview of his that is a must read. If you like what he has to say there are many interviews with him on youtube.com.

 http://silverbearcafe.com/private/06.09/celente.html

Erik