Loading ...Farmboy….I tried to decipher your Code….
…..but gave up……welcome back …hope to see you around …we miss you…..09 ?
Farmboy, more on food production.
We just heard an interesting TV documentary on BBC World News where one analyst said that there are now three converging events that are coming together as the ‘perfect storm’ to disrupt world food production and pricing of food as we have known it up to now: (1) globally, now for the first time, urban dwellers now out-number agrarian dwellers, which means that there are now more humans consuming food than there are humans producing food (that statistic is not new for North America or Europe, but globally it is a new situation); (2) there is recently a marked increase in the proportion of the world’s population that is now beginning to seek meat as part of their diet (again this is not a new trend for North America, Europe, or other countries like Australia or New Zealand), and this trend has profound influence on the increased amount of water and energy that is required to produce a unit energy of food value when the additional step of meat production is involved, compared to direct human consumption of plant products without the plant products first passing through the digestive systems of animal food producers; and (3) recent increased demand for fuel (ethanol) production from grains that were up to now grown mainly for direct human consumption or the less efficient production of domestic meat supplies, as referred to in (2) above.
It looks to me like the globe is in for challenging times in the near future, not only for global-scale food production, but also for extraction and distribution of fresh water to the locations where it is needed to sustain human populations.
Lots to think about here. Cheers. Equiz.
Farmboy
Great to see your handle at the Tent!
Best wishes, keep strong friend. ipso
Maya (19:25) Oh, and one other thing you forgot to
mention about your ‘bigger-than-Texas’ facts about the size of jurisdictions where you live - geophysically the Hawaiian islands are continuously expanding, both in mass above sea level and in lateral area gradually extending above sea level. That is one powerful chain of volcanic vents in your basement there. Cheers. Equiz.
Flash! The big China slowdown-read all about it!
China Watch:
June 11 – Bloomberg (Li Yanping and Nipa Piboontanasawat): “China’s export growth unexpectedly accelerated in May… Overseas sales rose 28.1% from a year earlier, after gaining a revised 21.9% in April…”
June 12 – Bloomberg (Nipa Piboontanasawat): “China’s money-supply growth accelerated to the fastest pace in four months in May… M2… rose 18.1% from a year earlier to 43.6 trillion yuan ($6.3 trillion)…”
June 13 – Bloomberg (Paul Panckhurst): “China’s retail sales rose 21.6% in May, close to the fastest pace in nine years…”
June 12 – Bloomberg (Kevin Hamlin and Nipa Piboontanasawat): “China’s food inflation slowed last month… The increase of 19.9% from a year earlier compared with a 22.1% gain in April…”
June 10 – Bloomberg (Madelene Pearson): “China, the world’s fastest growing major economy, may invest more than A$30 billion ($28.5 billion) in Australia in fiscal 2008, Treasurer Wayne Swan said…”
Japan Watch:
June 11 – Bloomberg (Mayumi Otsuma and Keiko Ujikane): “Japan’s wholesale prices rose at the fastest pace in 27 years and the current-account surplus narrowed… Producer-price inflation accelerated to 4.7% in May from 3.9% in April…”
It’s all them nasty ole spec-a-laters!
Commodities Watch:
June 11 – Bloomberg (Winnie Zhu): “China’s crude oil imports jumped 25% last month from a year earlier as state refiners boosted fuel production to meet higher demand… Crude imports rose to 16.2 million metric tons in May…”
PM_Energy @ 13:58 pm.
Just imagine. What would the everything look like in a free energy world. What if you could subtract all the energy cost from everything manufactured. What if you could transform elements into other elements - even gold (what would that do to the price of gold). Driving home today I was thinking how much better the landscape would look like without all the utility poles and transmission lines (everyone would have local generators). There would be no fresh water shortage. Millions of suffering and starving people would have access to good food and water. Automation and mechanization would handle all the back breaking drudgery work so that time could be devoted to other hopefully higher pursuits. If access to the technology is widespread the cabals days would be numbered. Just imagine!!
What really frost me though is that this and many other beneficial technologies has been known and suppressed by those wishing to continue to siphon off the sustenance of the laborers.
Maya….correction to trivia
I figured if there was something that wasn’t right, somebody would let me know!! That’s the beauty of the Tent, not much gets by this outfit. Honolulu, whow-that is one BIG city.
Cheers to you Maya, the long lifed one !
Dusty
maya
inhabited by wildlife. mostly fish .. swimming things
Dusty - trivia
Interesting stuff… but one correction. Jacksonville, Fla. is not the largest city. Honolulu is.
The City and County of Honolulu encompasses the entire island of Oahu. In addition, all of the outlying islands, reefs, and atolls that are not specifically part of Hawaii county (Big Island), Maui County (encompassing Molokai, Maui, and Lanai islands) or Kauai County, all fall under the administration of the C&C of Honolulu.
This includes the entire chain of the Northwest Hawaiian Islands out to Midway and Kure atoll, a string of islands that would stretch from Los Angeles to Chicago. Honolulu is the largest area city in the world…. most of it inhabited by wildlife.
And yes, we live on average 5 years longer than most. 
The McClellan oscillator calls for gold botttom
Incumbent Math: Rally Stalling
Bottom Line by McClellan Market Report
P.O. Box 39779, Lakewood, Wash. 98496
June 10:
Gold is headed downward toward a bottom due June 19-June 26. Stocks should bottom June 23-June 27, and then head up into a July 2-July8 top of some importance. Longer term, we are entering into a multi-year inflationary period lasting until 2014.
During election years, stock prices nearly always continue up into July. What happens beyond July depends on whether an incumbent is in office, or a first-termer. Incumbent presidencies tend to see weaker markets from July to November, due to the greater doubt about the future which their impending departure engenders. But lately, we have been seeing a weak stock market that is not (yet) rallying into July, and that foretells even greater weakness when we enter the typically weak late-summer period. We have seen good investing environments, and this ain’t one.
Tom McClellan
Hi there Farmboy
It’s great to hear from you again. Dang those laptops with meese pads. I hate them with a passion.
On a recently purchased newer Laptop, Sony Brand, I spent about 3 fruitless days trying to disable their built in touchpad. Wanted to use my newest ‘thing’ the wireless, batteryless, cordless mouse with up/down and side to side scroll wheels. More on that neat thing in a moment.
Finally, utterly exasperated, started Googling for some info on ‘how to disable’ a touchpad.
There are tons of info out there, but finding specifics for your type computer takes a mighty amount of reading & sorting. When I did find it, (the info, not the mouse), someone earlier had asked specifically and exactly the question I had. For the same Brand. I printed the answer out so as to be able to follow the necessary 14 or more ’steps’ required to disable a Sony touchpad. Won’t repeat it here, but they buried the necessary ‘turn off’ so deeply within subsets of sidebar boxes it’s a wonder anyone ever discovered the method.
And now on to the latest WONDER of the Computer Whirrled.
All I can say is……..it Works Great, Works just as advertised.
Now, just hope the info stuff copies correctly below:
Battery Free Wireless Mouse with Magic Pad
Battery Free Wireless Mouse and Magic Pad
14 customer ratings: Customers rated this product 5 Stars
Item# 9414
Price:$29.99
In Stock
Add to cart
Add to Wish List
Overview
* Battery Free- Go wireless but without the baggage of batteries
* Uses the mouse pad to get power via USB
* 2 Scroll Wheels- horizontal and vertical
* Intelligent 4th & 5th button- customize its function
* Feather-Like weight
* 2X Click Button- opens files with just a single click!
Another hurdle for PMs to overcome-Gang, how likely is coordinated $ intervention?
Barron’s Online
Monday, June 16, 2008
COMMODITIES CORNER
Got Your Back, Greenback
By ROBERT FLINT
If the buck rallies, commodities speculators may get burned.
CONCERN FROM TOP MONETARY officials that dollar weakness is contributing to inflation may be a signal to investors to go long the greenback. Should the worries culminate in central-bank intervention to support the U.S. currency, then the dollar is the place to be, at least in the short run.
The intention is to deflate the speculative commodity bubble that has made use of the dollar’s exchange rate to finance position-taking. Perhaps the jawboning alone will be enough to cause speculators to rethink their strategies. But many analysts believe that, at some point, the Fed, ECB and other G-7 central banks will have to back their words with action. That would involve selling massive amounts of euros to buy greenbacks in the spot market.
If history is a guide, the euro probably would lose five or six cents — a huge intraday dip — as speculators all rush for the exits. Follow-through trading could drive the single currency even lower, and burn speculators so badly that they’d abandon their efforts. Until a few weeks ago, such a scenario would have been highly unlikely, due to U.S. opposition to intervention on ideological grounds. But with Bernanke moving the goalposts from recession to inflation, intervention again enters the realm of the possible, if still improbable.
Drawing advantage from the greenback’s renewed strength isn’t hard, says Joseph Trevisani, chief market analyst at FX Solutions in Saddle River, N.J. In fact, it requires the simplest approach of all — just make sure your assets are denominated in dollars. During the lean years, when the dollar, interest rates and stocks were all declining, some investors sought better returns by diversifying into holdings abroad. If they’re now convinced that the euro’s advance above $1.60 has been blocked and that intervention will reinforce its retreat, they should bring their non-dollar assets home, says Trevisani.
coin shop
Visiting family in Ohio this week, I am from Flordia. Stopped in the local coin shop to check out prices….They are asking $5. over spot for the 2008 Silver Eagles and $4.00 over spot the other Eagles. On Peace and Morgan silver dollars they want $4.00 over spot. I was thinking this is rather steep over spot…any comment? The 90% silver coins seemed price right. $1.2o for a dime. $3.00 for a quarter and $6.00 for a half dollar. May take some 90% home with me.
Farmboy
Glad to hear you are still with us. Every “cog” in this wheel called the Goldtent is important. Every member offers something of value to the group and that is an understatement when it comes to you.