Watch Out for HR 875

And on yet another front, HR 875 was introduced last spring to protect consumers in the area of food safety. Like most bills, it is deceptively worded and presented. But some of the (hopefully) unintended consequences would be to restrict all food producers, including back yard gardeners growing tomatoes for the summer. Penalties for nonconformists include confiscation of land and the details sound like it was written by giant Agri-Business lobbyists. Read more about it here, here, and here. Beware because it's coming up for voting before Thanksgiving.

I think it's time that a "Time Out" be declared in both the House and the Senate. We just don't need reams of legislation passed every session to satisfy legislative egos or to develop new nanny state regulations. And the naughty children who are our current Congressional Clowns need to stand in the corner contemplating their sins for a few months.

Economic Forecast

This is the last paragraph from "All I Ever Needed to Know about Economics I Learned in Genesis," that I read this morning...

"Running the printing presses day and night to churn out dollar bills is not going to revitalize the economy. At is most basic level every economy is about dealing with the “dust from the ground” of which we are made, with the rocks and soil of this planet. We aren’t like God, able to create ex nihilo; we aren’t angels who can sustain ourselves on “information.” The real stuff that makes an economy hum is fished or grown or mined. It is taking the raw materials of this earth, “by the sweat of your face,” and making it edible, wearable, or otherwise usable to some other human being that forms the basis of any economy. When we see growth there, that is when we will be back."

It reminds me of the maxim I learned in the fifties that all wealth is created by farming, fishing, mining, and manufacturing. All other industries or vocations merely served those wealth generating ones. Then in the late eighties, Everyone began to say that this was the Information Age and we no longer depended on that old maxim. At the same time, we began transforming farming into massive Agri-business enterprises that relied on government handouts and practically eliminated the family farms, began allowing other countries to fish our coastal waters without protest, began denigrating mining as environmentally harmful, and began shipping our manufacturing overseas. Those Everyones ignored the fact that computers and information technology was a form of manufacturing although they quickly began shipping all those related services overseas also.

We were lulled into thinking that because bankers and investment advisors were wealthy themselves, that they were creating wealth for our country's economy. Then last September, as it collapsed, that empire showed itself to be a mere house of cards as our personal wealth collapsed with it.

I pray that we have the will to rebuild the US economic base.

Food Costs Going Up?

I don't ever remember paying more than $1.00 per avocado in my many years of buying groceries. But this week, the lowest price I've found is $1.12, with much higher prices at several grocery chains. According to some prognosticators, this may be a portent for the near future all over the US.

But it's not just avocados. Sugar, sorghum, corn, and wheat crops have been bad due to drought conditions or bad weather in several states, especially *California and Texas, which will cause both price increases and shortages in those commodities and everything that either eats them or is made from them. There may be a temporary decrease in the price of beef as ranchers sell off their herds early, but expect higher prices down the road.

Consider buying and storing while it's relatively easy and cheap.

*Remember that at least part of the problem in California lies with the EPA which is redirecting the resevoir water to save the smelts instead of saving the crops for the people.