Monday, February 23, 2009

The Coming Collapse and Then What?

by Michael Astera

February 23, 2009

Some of you may have read about what Paul Volcker and especially George Soros had to say at Columbia University in New York City a few days ago. Soros bluntly stated that the world economy is falling faster than at any previous time in recorded history, faster than the aftermath of 1929. Volcker agreed that we are in deep doo-doo. Eric deCarbonnel's well researched article predicting a catastrophic fall in global food production in 2009 has also gotten some attention.

California is already banko, as is Kansas I believe. The other day I read that 46 out of the 50 states are likely to be bankrupt in 2009-2010. If that's according to the official figures from the states themselves, which it is, then it looks like we have a good old fashioned systemic meltdown on our hands.

Note that California is not sending out tax refund checks, but still expects its citizens to pay their property and income taxes. The first action of the state will be to stop providing services to the people, while it continues to care for its own, its own being the state bureaucrats and retirees. How long do you think that will last?

Cities and counties nationwide are undoubtedly heading for default as well, as most of their budgets and bond issues were based on the real estate bubble. See HERE. And I refuse to believe that anyone above age sixteen and with an IQ above room temperature did not see this coming.

Lets look at employment. Forget the Reagan era fantasy numbers where those who have given up looking for work and those with part-time minimum wage jobs aren't counted. Count them in and we have at least 14% unemployment nationwide, right now. Best guesses are that at least 250,000 retail businesses will fail in 2009. The bankrupt states and local governments will also be forced to let people go. How many people are dependent on taxpayer money funneled through the state? How about all the drug treatment and DUI facilities with their employees and psychologists? All the privately owned road and infrastructure maintenance companies that depend on state contracts? All of the people in prisons and jails, and all of their guards and food suppliers etc? Then there are all of those who never show up on employment figures anywhere because they work for cash and don't file for unemployment when they are out of work.

Don't forget all of the more or less retired people depending on government pensions, all of which are unfunded or invested in shaky stocks and bonds. And all of the private industries who will lay off workers, and all of the retirees from those industries who are today depending on Ponzi-scheme pensions or pensions invested in a rapidly falling stock market.

And let's not leave out those presently employed by the Federal government, which has at least 50 trillion in unfunded obligations and is further in debt than all of the states put together.

Are we up to 30-35% yet? I'd say no problem. Those with no income are going to be willing to work for anything, even food and shelter alone, rather than starve and freeze or see that happening to their families. The competition for any employment will get fierce and wages will tank. Keep in mind, everyone I have read who is trying to tell the truth is saying this is going to be way, way worse than the 1930s depression. Hey, at least back then there were still family farms, and some could go back to them from the cities. A lot of people even in the cities still knew how to grow a garden or fix something when it broke. What happens to the large percentage of Americans who have been dependent on government food stamps and other support since the 1960s?

In a situation where perhaps 3 to 5% of the population is bankrupt and can't pay their property taxes, not to mention their mortgage, then that 3 to 5% will lose their homes and be out on the street. When that figure rises to 30 or 50%, what is going to happen? Will the Sheriff and his deputies be willing to try to throw half of the population into the streets to starve, just because the bankers and the judges tell them to? Yeah, probably. As long as the government is still able to tax the people they are oppressing in order to pay the Sheriff's wages. When that turnip is wrung dry, best guess is that the "long arm of the law" becomes a little more openly mercenary.

So far I've been describing what I see as the best case scenario: a gradual collapse of social order leading to a chaotic period of readjustment.

It's worth noting that I see no possibilities on the horizon for avoiding this. The only thing that could save the USA from its impending destruction would be a renaissance of manufacturing and agriculture and there is no sign of that happening. The last time things looked almost this grim to me was in the late 1980s when most of the heavy industry had already left the country; the collapse at that point was averted by the "software revolution", products that the world wanted and only the USA was providing. That economic windfall took the country through the 1990s up until the dot.com speculation busted the bank. By then the creative and productive advantage of the USA was pretty well gone and things might have been allowed to take their course, but the rich weren't done looting and no one wanted to be left holding the bag, so Greenspan and crew invented the housing bubble to get everyone totally in hock while pretending to believe there was free lunch tomorrow. Meanwhile, Congress gave tax breaks to the major corporations to ship all of the remaining high paying manufacturing jobs overseas.

There is no sign of anything like the software and PC revolution coming our way this time around. No sign of anything riding to the rescue; quite the opposite. Congress and the Fed have rewarded the commercial banks and Wall Street for their criminal fraud and incompetence by saddling the US taxpayer with another 10 trillion or so in debt, given directly to the banks with no oversight, based on the questionable logic that this money, borrowed from the Federal Reserve at interest and put on the US taxpayers tab. would be loaned back to the US taxpayer at even higher interest and that would somehow save the economy. But even that isn't happening; the banks are stashing the loot, unloading their toxic assets on the USA, and paying themselves bonuses. I'll only briefly mention the blatant attempt to crash the US economy on Sept.11, 2008, when 550 billion was secretly withdrawn from US banks over a period of a few hours. Funny the mainstream media hasn't mentioned that....and no one seems to have a clue where the money went.....

Which leads to the not-so-best case scenario, that this wholesale destruction of the wealth of the US is well planned and quite deliberate. In that case, which appears more likely to me, the general idea is to bankrupt the whole country except for a few big players, who then plan to foreclose and buy up whatever they like, using the very money that they looted from their victims. Civil disturbances will be handled by mercenaries such as Blackwater and Halliburton, who have a good recruiting pool available from the well trained subjects of induced psychopathy returning by the hundreds of thousands from Iraq and Afghanistan. Or from any of around 1,000 presently active overseas US military installations. They have already been screened, sorted, and field tested; their controllers know which of them will be suitable.

The detention camps are pretty much ready to go; KBR had a 400 million no bid contract awarded to fix them up a couple of years ago; Wackenhut seems to have gotten their share too. Under that scenario the newly homeless and starving will be offered food and safety if they just get on the nice yellow school buses; Katrina was a sort of dress-rehearsal for that and went off without any resistance.

One of the wild cards is the amount of guns in private hands in the US. For a number of years now the cops nationwide have been confiscating arms from anyone they stop or any home that they search, but they haven't made that much of a dent. In their favor, though, is the demonstrated cowardice of the population, which has never complained or resisted and probably won't. Most would probably trade whatever arms they have for a sandwich and a place on the bus. Whatever small pockets of resistance arose would either be obliterated with massive air strikes (if they appeared to pose a threat) or simply ignored and left more or less alone for a while if they didn't pose a major threat. Those in relatively remote areas far from major population centers might be left alone as not being worth the trouble. Plenty of time to mop them up later, and it's not like Americans have any history of resistance, unlike the Afghanis.

One or the other or a combination of the above seem very likely to be happening in the mid-term future, i.e. the next few years. In either case, the plan appears to be to offer relief from the chaos and starvation to the surviving population in the form of a World Government and a microchip implant.

I think it likely that the USA will be hit harder by this than anywhere else; they have farther to fall and the people lack any experience of living through hard times. It wouldn't be wise to count on any sympathy or help from the rest of the world. The rest of the world will largely be cheering the downfall of the greed and evil that the US has come to symbolize.

Will this all come to fruition? Will those who have been planning this for the past 250 years or so really manage to enslave the entire remaining population of the world?

I'm betting no, they won't pull it off. Things will get very hairy and a lot of people will starve and die violently, but the end result will not be the NWO dream/nightmare. If I thought there was a good chance the soulless ones and their servants would succeed, I'd likely be spending my time fighting instead of working on alternatives to the present mess.

Exactly what factors could intervene to cause the plan of world government and complete enslavement of the masses to fail? One major factor is the internet; more and more people are becoming aware of the planned scenario. If enough people wake up to the fact that the government IS the enemy and has been working against them since its inception, and enough people realize that the "solution" of a One World Government is exactly the plan behind the creation of the chaos and misery, that would make some difference. Those who continue to look for solutions from a blatantly criminal government, well, I guess they will get what they asked for.

The surest way to foil the enslaver's plot is a change of consciousness of humanity as a whole. This is beginning, and more than beginning it is growing. It might be characterized as "divine intervention" but not in the form of saviors or angels appearing in the skies; more like the emergence of a higher and wiser consciousness that most would readily accept, as they know in their hearts that it is right. That consciousness is the idea of living within one's means, and living in harmony with the planet that is their only home, in a sane and sustainable manner. The majority are not ready to openly accept such a thing quite yet, partly because of the deep hypnosis they have been placed under, largely because of their overriding fear of disapproval from their fellow victims of social programming. However, when a certain undetermined number of people have woken up at least partially, and started openly living their lives differently, i.e. honestly and transparently, there is likely to be a cumulative effect, a tipping point in the collective unconscious.

The most powerful tool for change is that of the living example: When we see others living the life that we secretly dream of living, a life of personal freedom, personal creativity, and personal satisfaction (as opposed to the phony goods sold us in the corporate marketplace), more of us will start to emulate that freedom, bit by bit, in our own lives. For that to happen we need living examples not only of life styles and choices, but of all aspects of health, agriculture, trade, manufacturing, building, transportation, energy, family, and community. All of the alternatives presented, new as well as traditional, must be wordlessly persuasive. They should be attractive and desirable for their beauty alone, and their superiority should be self-evident. By their fruits shall ye know them.

There is abundance in this world for all of us when and if we decide to follow our own personal dreams instead of the fake dreams of wealth, fame, sex, and control that we have been hypnotized, programmed, and coerced into thinking are our only choices. Personal abundance begins with an honest answer to a simple question: What sort of life would you really like to live?

The answer to that will be unique for each of us, and therein lies the key to abundance.

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

Michael,

an excellent article, thank you!

I agree with you 100% about everything you're saying here. And yes, there's definitely something huge going on with the collective consciousness of the mankind. I experienced this sudden and completely unexpected "awakening" over two years ago, and I'm seeing it spreading all over the world -- fast!

I think despite all the worrying news, there's a real and great chance that we the people of the world finally learn how to live in peace with ourselves and each other. This will mean an end to a great number of problems and suffering. I believe the force driving us this way is so strong that the chances of the NWO agenda actually succeeding are virtually non-existent. We do have to take this situation seriously though. Now is the time to wake up and help others do it too.

Peace!

- Jyri

Anonymous said...

Michael,
Very well put together article--solid.
The wolf is no longer in some other neighborhood somewhere across the tracks--it's howling on people doorsteps and it ain't gonna be knocking--My guess is that we will be seeing a lot less local produce this year as the fear is in the air and smart people are going to be canning what they have for their own use. They don't know that it's a wolf, but they can hear the breathing.
The big wal mart and similars are the only ones who are going to have the buying power with the way prices are going to shoot up as they are growing incrementally now--an apple is going to be 5.00--hospitals and health agencies are also going to be overrun by those who can't afford their meds--people are going to be dying right in their homes--I see an exodus from the city and then a return for most as that is where the distribution centers will be--i plan on staying right where we are--can't tell you of how many qualified people we know who are out of work and can't find it--your numbers are probably pretty close--but cash is going to be worthless and food and water are going to be the new gold--funny, before i read this i posted some very similar thoughts elsewhere--
I can see the Sheriff's thinking better of enforcing foreclosures when the first bullet goes through the windshield from 600 yards away--The banker finding a hole in his windshield will get the same message across--no job is worth what the second round in the chamber brings--people are going to get plenty pissed off--They won't know how they got fucked but they got fucked none the less and someone local is going to pay for it--
Our business may very well be kaput by the end of the year and we plan on doing as little as possible after that to keep out heads above water--not going to pay into the machine that seeks to strangle us--actually looking forward to it--
Picked up a nice M1A the other day for a song--all match grade--good 1,000 yard rifle for varmint hunting--
Will comment more as time and thoughts allow--Again, very nice work--I hope it gets play elsewhere--maybe Les can forward it to WRH? Give it a try!!!!

Jim (Jj)

Anonymous said...

Michael, good presentation, I like your unemployment numbers recap.
I am presently considering whether to head for another country or stay in the States. I would love to hear of your strategy in Venezuela. In my experience living in Mexico, I found that I tired of inescapably being the "Gringo" even tho my relationships were very good with many friends and offers to join families, etc. I feel the police state experiment in the U.S. is going well for the NWO types at the moment, because the people are still very comfortable, altho it is changing fast, and the media control has been absolutely effective so people are incredibly unaware of the mechanisms of their control and the motives. It seems clear that a great many will starve or kill each other for food instead of getting gardens going in time. I hope I am wrong.
So how goes it in Venezuela? What is your strategy to avoid being scapegoated as a foreigner?

m_astera said...

Hey Jj-

RE that match grade M1A, one good thing about getting older is that my farsightedness is getting worse. I could probably make something out pretty clearly at 1000yds.

Interesting point about local produce becoming scarce; people probably won't be trying to give tomatoes away. Giant zucchinis will still be free though, I'll bet. Not that people are going to be able to live on garden vegetables anyway; I was reading the other day that a person would have to eat 20lbs or more of vegies per day just to meet their calorie requirements.

I'm working my way toward doing some actual food-growing posts here, BTW. Anyone who wants a head start, first thing you need is a soil test, $20 from www.loganlabs.com Well worth the money unless you are better at guessing than I am. It's one thing to grow your own food; the higher level is to be able to live on it for a couple of years without your teeth getting loose from mineral deficiencies.

The word of mouth I'm getting from the States is that people just aren't spending money on anything unnecessary, whether they are working or not.

Good point about WalMart etc being the distribution centers. Big box stores have their place, and people like one-stop shopping. The concept will probably stick around but will evolve into something more people friendly. If fuel and transportation costs stay high it may not be possible for them to continue hauling produce from California or Mexico to Minneapolis, though. Our Northern European ancestors made it through the winter on sauerkraut, cheese, and smoked pork.

m_astera said...

Anonymous @9:42pm-

Is that Brian asking about Venezuela?

I'm not sure what my strategy is here. I came down with my best tools and a knowledge of agriculture only to find that skilled craftsmen are lower than dirt, and dirt farmers lower than that. Wish I were exaggerating but I'm not. They don't honor those who make or grow things in Venezuela, though that might change rather quickly as the oil bonanza screeches to a halt. I've also got a hunch that some chavistas who were quite well-to-do a couple of weeks ago are not pleased with the Stanford bank fiasco. Lose a few billion here, a few billion there, it starts to add up to real money.

I'm not concerned about being a gringo here; Venezuela is completely mixed-up racially and I don't greatly stand out. Almost no one that I have met pays any attention to the anti-US rhetoric. A lot of people have relatives in Miami anyway.

I am concerned about the economy and its effect on the food supply, as around 80% or so of the food is imported, up from 60% ten years ago. The curse of oil money, compounded by misguided Marxist theory that one can take a large family farm away from the family who has farmed it for the past hundred years and give it to people who have never run a farm.

What I fear is going to happen is that the food and the money will run out at the same time, probably within the next couple of months. Then the people are up against the law of Nature that says it takes at least three or four months from the time one plants a bean seed until one harvests a crop of beans. And that's assuming the beans don't get eaten before they get planted.

If things really do go to hell here, economically and food-wise, I'd think the blame would more likely be put on the present government than on the Evil Empire; after all, the Evil Empire didn't make any promises to the Venezuelan poor.

I'm just taking it day by day; don't know if there is anywhere on the planet that's guaranteed safe or immune from what's coming. I live on an island thirty miles from the mainland and a long ways from any big cities. This would surely be a better place to ride things out than Caracas would be.

Anonymous said...

Hi Michael,
I was thinking last night about distribution etc. again. I read where there is only 1.5 days of food in the pipeline as nothing is warehoused any more, just transferred as soon as it comes in--combine that with fruit and veggies being picked long before they have a chance to have any nutritional value and the soil they are grown in having no nutritional value in the first place--think plastic designer fruit--
Another trend here that i have been watching for years is the regionalization of gov't--first it was county--then tri-county--then regional--then the consolidation was at the state level and now the state is combining agencies that were already gargantuan and unaccountable into larger entities--these of course will be swallowed up due to lack of funding/taxes by tri-state agencies and then regional federal agencies and then the consolidation in washington--
Would be very interested to hear about products that can be used to add nutrients and minerals to the soil and will store well--i want everything we grow to be packed with what we need to stay healthy--
I look forward to your response--

Jim (Jj)

m_astera said...

Jim-

Here's a link that will give you all the info you need about soil mineral amendments; it's a pretty big website so look around:
soilminerals.com

Minerals equal soil fertility; organic matter is secondary. No worries about storing them; minerals don't "go bad". You will need a soil test to find out what your soil is lacking; that's just how it is.

As to government centralization and consolidation: If something doesn't work, you just do more of it. It's the government way.

There are no food reserves in the US other than what's in your pantry. Nor are there fuel reserves; what the Feds have in storage will be for their own use, to perpetuate their own power.

I'm guessing that the big food crunch will revolve around grains and beans, things people take for granted and don't grow in their gardens.

psychegram said...

Hey Michael,

That was a fantastic post. They're always few and far between, but pack a punch when they arrive. You hit the nail on the head, or maybe the nail in my head because those are very similar to my thoughts. Short term, more pain and terror than anyone but a very few really expects is possible; medium term, total collapse; long term, regrowth of the world into something worth living in again. Not too many people are looking that far ahead, sadly, but as the story of Noah makes pretty clear that's more or less always been the case.

Thanks for posting that link to Logan Labs. My sister's been wanting to do some soil testing in her little plot, so she might want that. My parents might, too; there's a lot of talk about getting a garden going during the summer. I'm going to try and talk them into spending the money that'd go to chemical fertilizer on one of those mineral packages from soilminerals.com, instead.

m_astera said...

Glad you liked the essay, psychegram. The present system is far too broke to fix and has to come down to make room for the new. I'm much more excited by the opportunity than I am nervous about the coming chaos.

A $20 soil test from Logan Labs is one of the true bargains left in this world. Anything else is guessing, which is what mankind has had to rely on for the past 10,000 years. If your life and your health may depend on the food you grow, why guess?

The minor and trace mineral amendment we sell, Agricola's Best, is the only product of its kind that I know of. However, it is not meant as a complete fertilizer, nor is it necessary for someone who just wants to grow a few tomatoes for a summer salad unless they demand some pretty outrageous tomatoes. If one already has good garden soil that grows excellent crops, it will take things to a noticeably higher level of quality.

m_astera said...

Jyri-

Just want to say thanks for getting the message.

su said...

Thanks Michael for a brilliant essay.
One that I have passed onto my American relatives en masse.

Anonymous said...

Su knows actual americans--not to be confused with us cyber ones--wow

lol

Jj

Anonymous said...

Will be seeking out minerals and logan labs on our return to the homestead--I'm excited to have a bumper crop this year--going to expand the garden and put up some sun shades with an old trampoline pad we held onto--just cow poop and grass clippings in there now--planted a bed and a half of garlic in the fall which usually comes up pretty well--do you have a good source for heirloom seeds--
In case you are wondering about my grammar, I don't have a question mark key on this laptop--
Jim (Jj)--lol

m_astera said...

Jim-

Su has relatives en masse, so watch what you say.

Thanks, susana, for passing it on. Hope they drop by and say hi. Just found a real scary link to what's already going on in Contra Costa county California: 40,000 families applying for 350 affordable housing vouchers, official jobless rate of 9.3%, the median home price has fallen 53% in the last year. And it's only starting.... http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=as3PyDwmDEQY&refer=home

As for heirloom seeds, no I don't have a source that I know well enough to recommend. I would encourage heirloom seeds but urge caution as the quality can be very spotty. Most quality seed suppliers give you a guaranteed germination percentage, something you might not get with heirloom seeds. One easy way to check would be to take a few of the seeds you buy and sprout them between damp paper towels in a warm dark place before you put the rest into storage.

The single seed company that I can personally vouch for is Territorial Seed Co. in Oregon; I've used their seeds for over twenty years. There are several others with great reps, Johnny's Selected Seeds being one. What you want is a company that specializes in quality seeds for small and medium-sized gardeners; some of the big seed companies sell their crap seeds in packages with pretty pictures to home gardeners.

An extensive gardening and agriculture library is available online at http://soilandhealth.org/. It has been put together by Steve Solomon, who has written a number of excellent gardening books. If you find the library worthwhile, please send him a few bucks to cover expenses. In the past he has rated and critiqued seed suppliers and would be likely to know who the best heirloom seed sources are.

Also keep in mind that the varieties you have grown in the past, even if they are F1 hybrids, will still produce viable seeds. Onion seeds will grow onion plants. Even if they don't breed true to the parent plant, you will still grow food and can select the best ones to cross for next year.

Your overall best bet is to buy open pollinated (OP) seeds from a reputable supplier. They are not hybrids and will breed true.

su said...

Michael,
Yeah watch what you say.
En masse means 4.
Which for my family is a mass.
Unfortunately they choose to continue their deep slumber.
So much safer I guess. We know how our worlds shook when questions started arising.

Anonymous said...

you want ...
a recipe to see bloom set and burst?
you need ...
open source - + encryption
transparant - + proprietary
-------white - + black-------
you rub ...
ice (white) - + rock (black)
together (like an ice age does) = grey.
Give it a while to get/go green.
For that
you mix ...
results with daily organincrement
(and don't call that stuff waste either,
watch a few urban permaculture if you dunno wadyemean)
The beauty of this crisis is its flimflam quality. Looking closely enough you will see. Digibits wielded as weapons? Yes. Well, just wait (for just weight), bring open source to bear before even basic boots (voeten in de aarde and all that) are soulless and unstartable -- after all, the urgency to stop big farmaffia - keeping if not setting pace in the run up, not so much gathering steam as distributing poisons, physical, social and spiritual, spreading vice through hell, earth and heavens - could not wish for better than this crisis, the ugly aspect of which is damn near costing us all our bees already.

Boot, install, operate, simple. No problem with that which a little socializing on your own block won't fix these digidays.So the big switch will be flip, like flash vid so quick.

Time waits for no one but weighs on us all.

This ain't no 7 years of failed harvest or 300 years of mine tailings that spill across all available arable land we then need to dig back to and not like at the already criminal beginning 'clear' again but uncover in some such, or also ((but much less and potentially much more sizable)) hypothetical, volcanic/meteoric event.
Arable land on this flying clod is dwindling and so if the analogy mud/dust = money/credit holds (iow, most ancient natural type lube/catalyst/carrier/medium is/as the social variety) then being stuck with loads of suitable dust but not much up and running fertile space and fitting climate left to apply it to puts an end to lust and prospects to haul them around. If the digital world (in crisis) merely reflects this ('growing' problem) as a roundabout way to remind us of and direct us back to the real sweat equity and other energy intensive ways to port batches of dust to where it can become gruesomely growsome instead of the sleigh of hand, the ghettoman's dream of riches, flASHING bits around they are welcome.
Lemme echo/elaborate analogize just a tad more on arable land
fit to grow our various (though perilously few, just like sound banks) foodstuffs.
To let seed saving go to such a narrow base is parallel and indeed precursor to letting banks imperil amountment and culminate in hiholy top ada iceberg hidyholism (some you see, much you don't) which would have us all on forced marches and pilgrimages round and round the mount perilous that some see as typically semitic interventions, a sad way of coping with desertification trauma, an infection which even the coldest and/or wettest regions on earth cannot seem to develop immunity to. If succesful integrees like me are not celebrated (not that I personally wannabe, i mean those with very little jewish blood and yet and/or so, come up with universals of some sort or another) we cannot hope to put a stop to the overrunning of Palis with scared Jews.


About civil liberties. One does not lose them. Probes are not necessarily invasive but will be where they need to be, perped upon those who do try to hide what needs to see light of day, be dismantled, etcetera. Nothing to hide (no distillery, hemp hothouse, goysin pass plant) is a great argument in the hands of neighbourhood centers -- god, are there ever too few of those, but not near as many as there are empty buildings to many ... and so i stay on topic for once: fake probs -- to forcefully remind those on the next rung up and more remote, all the way to those nearly elitist political parties to be transparant (another urgency here, this job has to be finished before this wonderful concept has been robbed plundered and bared of all meaning). Rule of thumb: you wanna be twice as big? Fine, go ahead, but you will have to quadruple your transparancy.


Back to the bits which are just as imaginary as the Jewish Reich or its wonderful deeds in Palestine (to just cite the latest and not greatest misdeeds). Change of bits for us will unfortunately not equate to a start of heart, let alone change of it for them. But that's for later. Let's have those software changes on the binarydouble shall we? Hell, after that, we can safely keep present crop of bankers on safely enough to make up for past crap.

Obama, I know you are assaulted by MoCIAd and all them sortaspooks have been insidiously assaulting you with sordid fables from day one (after which i detected it in your voice, just that once ... not that i am a decoy-posterboy-peptalk fan but the fact that folks like Peter Myers has high hopes for you counts for something with me), so it is hi time for a dreamteam to go with your status as our next generation's naive dreamident.
Here's what i suggest and urge upon you to do:
Take Peter Myers (who knows, respects and reposts Michael Hudson's work as well as i do), then supplement Open Source knowledgebodies with Todd Boyle and (very important) stipulate the bunch of them study Ulrich von Beckerath a while together (if only to stop leaving his penpal Heinrich Rittershausen to the goldbugs for instance), then we'd be in business on time and well on our way. The reign of big Bill (Gates type)writers is over, digitalia is too big too fail, you must bail and turn non-profit. It will then be a down-hill battle to reign in and convert the bullet and bomb building jobmarket, simply offering their makers and takers better jobs. To get some quick starters funds on the old system take out the top 10% of agressive bankers (those who didn't settle for less than waaaaaay beyond that figure in their wheely deaLIES), confiscate their money and start your largesse. Lavish gifting of subsistence tools and skill-instillment. Punish bigness and risktaking. Risk leaves less and less players who are also less and less viable on top of that. Curb it. And while you are at it, penalize BiGovt not for being large, but for not going opensource about it. Transparancy is one of the few magic words you chose to stock your confidence boosting arsenal with. Now fill that big word out or it will fill with tears that you shall drown in.

m_astera said...

Wow, susana! Your post led me on quite the journey, and I'm not done yet. Still with those voeten en de aarde marching round and round the mount perilous.

RE permaculture etc, please find the time to read the first chapter of The Ideal Soil here: http://www.soilminerals.com/TIS_Ch1.htm

In my vision it is the local community center that tells the tiny central gov't what it wants done; the empty buildings are to be found at DC and Pretoria. Perhaps we can turn them into tourist hotels.

Being unfamiliar with the names you listed, I did a search for Todd Boyle and ended up in a roundabout way at www.changemakers.net, a site holding a competition for ideas to change the world, sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. One of the categories, interestingly, is "Cultivating Innovation: Solutions for Rural Communities". There are no entries in that category. LOL

Demanding transparency has a serious downside for the psychopaths of the world, as they base their lives on their facades and their ability to lie and dissemble. Taking out the top ten percent serves to clear the way for the next lower tier to start backstabbing and climbing over each other in earnest. Forget the bankers and forget the government; withdraw all support from their phony stage and watch it collapse. This all needs to happen from the very ground and move outward, not upward or downward. I have no need of anyone to set policy for me or organize my life, and I am for sure not interested in paying someone with a gun to do that.

I don't know your personal history, but I lived most of my life in the US, Canada, and Mexico and have a good eye and nose for the reality. There is no hope to be found in Obama and never was any; he is a manufactured tool, crafted almost from birth to fill the role he has been placed in. That role is not to benefit humanity.

Looking for answers or even assistance from the governments of this world is like looking for nutrients from a mouthful of disease organisms.

As I see it, the change in consciousness that is happening will have the effect of opening people's eyes, just as it opened yours and mine. We don't need someone to tell us what to do.

Perhaps we can build a special reservation and set it aside for those who wish to have someone tell them how to live their lives, and for those who feel the need to tell others how to live their lives. Once a year we could see if anyone from the res was eligible for a closely supervised parole. :)

m_astera said...

Hi again susana-

Wanted to add a couple of things.

As I see it, we don't have a shortage of arable land, a shortage of food, or too many people. What we have is agriculture that is being run on a profit-driven industrial motive; the fertility of the soil is being mined out and sold away and the only things being put back are stimulants that force depleted soil to give up one more malnourished crop. The hybrids and GMOs are bred to tolerate starvation conditions and a high level of toxins. What is being produced is not even food, it's cartoon food, an industrial commodity measured in tons of weight and bushels of volume. Eating this food does not bring health, it brings malnutrition and disease.

The solution is to care for the land. Whatever is taken out and shipped away needs to be replaced. Is this economically viable?

"US net farm income was forecast at $71.2 billion for 2009, down 20
percent from the record posted in 2008" (Reuters)

"The mean (median) total medical expenditure is $2,266 ($433)."(Year
2000 survey, number in parentheses is dental expense not included in
previous figure)

So just for fun, lets add medical and dental together, as both are
largely due to malnutrition. $2,266 + $433 = $2,699. Things haven't gotten any cheaper over the past nine years, so we can safely round that number up to $3,000 per person. $3,000 x 300,000,000 in the US equals $900 billion, almost 13 times the net farm income estimates for 2009.

It appears to me that we could afford to remineralize the farms for quite a bit less than 13 times present net farm income. However, as Upton Sinclair noted,

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

Buying quality food will no longer be cheap in the future, not the way I see it. But growing healthy food for one's self can still be cheap.

I don't see government as the solution to anything. Rob one segment of the population, piss away half and put another third in your pocket, then take the ten or fifteen percent that's left and give it to some group in the hopes you will thereby purchase their votes in the next election.

We don't need government subsidies, we need the growers and producers to be getting a fair price for what they do, and zero taxes on all income or goods from productive enterprise. Only harmful things should be taxed, things like dumping toxins in the environment or destroying ecologies. And the corporation should be banned, period; no more evading personal responsibility.

Anonymous said...

Bravo! I am by no mean's an optimist but really enjoyed the tone of this post. More are "waking" and it is never pointless to wake ppl up.

su said...

Michael,
Do you feel these agricultural processes are deliberately in use to slowly kill us. I mean there must be a basic common sense that says you need nutrients to create nutrients and something that has the same chemcial bonds as a nutrient does not necessarily make it one.

I often feel the obesity epidemic is not because of the aspartamene or the microwaves or even the sedentary lifestyles but simply because one eats a meal with no value, the body is still going to push out hunger signals in order to get some needed nutrients. So one eats more empty food and same thing.
Our garden currently has a commando of chickens in it. I heard that was one of the best ways of enlivening the soil. What sayest thou?

And about the links - all talking about the observer, the witness, the one without second.
Love to you.

m_astera said...

Love to you too, susana, and thank you.

Are these agricultural chemicals in our food to deliberately kill us? I would say not exactly as deliberate poisons, though the poisoning is a profitable side benefit. The same consortium that owns the chemical companies owns the medical/pharmaceutical industry that profits from the illness their product engender, and more recently they have also taken over most of the world seed business as well as the major food distribution corporations. So they sell farmers poisons and poison seeds, then the food produced is sold to us. Both the farmers and the consumers then pay the same group to manage the sickness that the poisons and bad food cause.

"I often feel the obesity epidemic is not because of the aspartamene or the microwaves or even the sedentary lifestyles but simply because one eats a meal with no value, the body is still going to push out hunger signals in order to get some needed nutrients. So one eats more empty food and same thing."

You are correct. Briefly, in Nature, sweet things in particular are associated with a high mineral content, e.g. fruits and berries. It takes a lot of minerals to make fruit sweet; fruit grown on mineral-poor soil may look good but it will not be sweet.

The body is hard-wired to associate sweet with minerals, so when one eats white sugar the body is expecting minerals; when they aren't there, the body says eat more. Same goes for salt.

Susana, do me a favor, please? Re-post your question at the comments for the Survival Gardening essay that I just posted today, and I will answer your great questions in a bit more detail there where the subject is growing things.

Till then-
Michael

m_astera said...

The easy way to get to the new essay is to click on The New Agriculture at the top of the comments page.

Or here:
http://thenewagriculture.blogspot.com/2009/03/survival-gardening-part-1-got-food-real.html