- Starting in 1982 and until now I've worked as a horticultural
consultant to government and private enterprise, advising new farm operators and
upgrading old farms. Although I'd caution people against it, I saw many
instances of "the next great thing" rushed into production, then
withdrawn after five to ten years of problems. A fine example of this
was shown on a CBC documentary some years ago about farms in Newfoundland
and Prince Edward Island. Because of the area's long history of low
farm income, Canada Agriculture promoted the "salvation of the
family farm" by turning them into monocultural producers for mass
market food factories, mostly potatoes for chip makers..
-
- After twenty years production
had not only peaked but the soils and environments were so degraded
they were subject to erosion, heavy invasion by pests and diseases,
and required ever more costly "fixes". There was one fortunate
exception, however. It seems an old-time family farm of less
than 160 acres, too small to qualify for monoculture, had maintained its
"archaic" mix of small diary herd, vegetables, hay production,
and orchard. Having "failed" to make it in the new trend, it
was now in very healthy condition in both finances and total environment,
and had proved resilient to both market vagaries and environmental degradation.
In the end, Canada Agriculture reversed its position and recommended farmers
go back to their traditional diverse and sustainable polycultural
approach.
-
- If truly conservative thinking and practices were
followed rigourously, we would stop creating ever greater "new problems"
to solve. Of course, this happens in finance as well, e.g., the egregious
Greenspanning phenomenon of the past 20 years, which is why we're in so
much trouble. Popular economist and writer Dr. Robert Heilbroner
(The Worldly Philosophers, et. al.) had written warnings about this in
the late Seventies and early Eighties, when a few souls were concerned
the deficit was getting out of control. I felt it was important, so I
reprinted an essay of his in my monthly financial newsletter, T.R.A.I.N.
-
- In it he convincingly argues that all the Fed
can do is print money and tinker with interest. He did not assert as Greenspan
has that its role was to make the economy get up and go by printing more
fiat currency. Perhaps it's as simple as "better the devil you
know than the devil you just created." Well, Frankenmoney will soon
crush what little life is left in the greenback, and then we can all witness
another replay of substance, but not style, in history. Hang on to your
gold and silver!
-
- The markets are very shaky,
trading far more on greed and emotion instead of reason, they
tumble on any bad news, in spite of all the "rah rah" cheerleading
of the tube boobs and government spokespeople. If people would only
read a little history to see that we're going through yet another replay
of old scenarios! The Stock Market Crash of '29 was preceded by a real
"stock market crash" in farm commodities. Having received record
high prices for grains supplied under WW1 contracts, farmers borrowed
heavily, bought more land, new equipment, and expanded agressively. Unfortunately,
prices then collapsed for several years running, which set off massive
defaults and losses of income and properties. The paper markets followed
in five years. The rest, as they say, is history.
-
- Now we're being fed a new mythos from
the ag chemical and seed giants that biotech this and genetically modified
that will save the world. REMEMBER: These are the same clowns who told
you this would happen in "The Green Revolution" of the Sixties,
another dim history they want you to forget.
-
- The real revolution in technologically
driven societies is that they've undergone a transformation in hierarchy
and stability. Earlier, traditional societies were stabilised from the
bottom up by a mass of worker-drones, with managers atop them, priests
and scientists atop them, the ruling classes atop them, and finally the
god-king, chief theocrat, whatever, at the pinnacle. Regardless
of what we might think of this arrangement, it existed within
parameters dictated by a less degraded planet, so it had enough margin
that it was stable, and could recover reasonably well from systemic
shocks, whether from human ignorance or natural disasters. This was our
classic social pyramid.
-
- The crucial problem with societies
compulsed by technique (a truer statement of our situation, as technology
properly speaking is the study of technique, as biology is the study of
life processes, botany the study of plant processes, geology the study
of Earth, etc.) is they become extremely complicated, unstable and given
to collapse from very slight fractures of their constructs. You know,
Shakespeare's "for want of a nail, the kingdom was lost,"
or Dr Joseph Chilton Pearce's "crack in the cosmic egg" type
of thing.
-
- The social pyramid has been inverted:
the entire construct is precariously balanced on an individual who generates
whatever it is the rest are anxiously waiting for, whether information
or a new 'wonder drug.' In 1500, if a book-keeper made an error,
the next ten minutes couldn't bring down a cascade of derivatives
that beggar nations in their wake. Today a technician makes
a simple entry error, and at a single keystroke s/he can send
markets staggering in a few seconds, or even nuclear weapons ablaze. I
know, because I've done it in my own life!
-
- When I'd written my Canadian Commodities
Broker exam, I started in the new office of my former broker,
Daniel Ho. I'd shorted a contract earlier in the day, and the market started
going against me. Even twenty years ago new electronics had quickened
the pace of trading, so I had to offset my position ASAP to prevent further
loss. I picked up the phone and called our floor trader at the CBOT and
sadly told him to sell another contract. I'd hardly put the phone down
when Daniel said from around the corner, "Don't you want to buy instead
of sell?" Gadzooks! In my fog over the few hundred dollars I was
losing I'd made the wrong order, and immediately called back to place yet
another order, now for two contracts. Fortunately for me, in the thirty
seconds between the two calls, the market had turned again and I made a
hundred dollars! I was too new to this stance, and my thinking hadn't
adjusted accord
-
- As Einstein or Oppenheimer remarked after the first
atomic bomb went off, "Now everything's changed but our thinking."
We've seen this happen enough times now that it should inform all
our thinking, but it does not, which is the main reason we keep getting
into Big Trouble. To the extent that we fail to act accordingly, it's
gotten worse since then, for the reasons set out above. What to do, what
to do?
-
- I wrote in a poem thirty-plus years
ago, "the woods are their own revenge." Once they are gone,
they will be gone for a very long time, maybe forever. Forests twice
covered the now arid, barren land of Greece; only ten percent of our
planet's original stand of forest remains from three thousand years
ago. The oceans are fished out and ready to collapse. The USofA, with five
percent of the world's population, consumes sixty percent of its petroleum.
What's truly insane is that its military consumes sixty percent of that,
so we now have the military going over seas to secure more oil!
-
- I've worked on this Problem and the
lesser problems associated with it for a long time; here are some positive
conclusions:
-
- 1. We don't need any more research or
commissions to re-invent the wheel.
-
- 2. We already
have What We Need in Dr Eugen Loebl's Humanomics, Cobb & Daly's For
the Common Good, and E R Schumacher's Small is Beautiful
, all published more than fifteen years ago, but not yet put into
everyday practise!!
-
- 3. It's time to re-establish a Civilian Conservation
Corps in lieu of military service; an entire nation needs useful, good
work to rebuild its soil, water, and forest treasures.
-
- What we don't have - in spite of Dubya's
blissful ignorance - is endless time to address the crises we have made
for ourselves.
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