In the past, when Americans compared their standard of living to that of their Chinese counterparts our well being was hands down better off than those living under the Communist regime. A recent Gallup survey, however, shows some thing has changed over the last three years.
Gallup surveys in China and the U.S. reveal Chinese are struggling less than Americans to put food on their tables. Six percent of Chinese in 2011 say there have been times in the past 12 months when they did not have enough money to buy food that they or their family needed, down significantly from 16% in 2008. Over the same period, the percentage of Americans saying they did not have money for food in the previous 12 months more than doubled from 9% in 2008 to 19% in 2011.
…
Fewer Americans had access to basic life necessities in September. The nation’s Basic Access Index score fell to 81.4 last month — on par with the 81.5 measured in February and March 2009 amid the recession.
Americans’ access to basic necessities has never fully recovered after declining amid the 2008 to 2009 financial crisis and has declined further since February of this year.
…
These findings are based on more than 29,000 interviews conducted each month from January 2008 through September 2011 with American adults as a part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.
…
While the recession officially ended more than two years ago, the effects on Americans continue to linger.
Unemployment remains high and more Americans than ever are living in poverty, which may lead to more people struggling to access basic life necessities such as healthcare, food, and shelter.
Although the vast majority of Americans still report that they are not having trouble accessing basic necessities, the trend is currently going in the wrong direction. Additionally Gallup’s global research finds Americans are now struggling more than Chinese to afford food, a reversal from 2008. If the worries about a double-dip recession come to fruition, even more Americans may start having problems meeting their basic needs.
While economists, analysts and television pundits argue about the severity of the recession or a double dip in the recovery, it’s obvious that Main Street is experiencing depression-like economic symptoms. The key data points, the ones that really matter to the average person on the ground, show that more Americans than ever before are on food stamps, millions are losing their homes, purchasing power is dropping, and unemployment is out of control.
A lack of access to basic life necessities is also rearing its head in the form of rising crime. Cities across the country have reported large-scale garden vegetable thefts, and weekly news reports show that theft of metal – especially copper – is on the rise as people struggle to get by.
All of this comes at a time when leaders in Washington say that the country is experiencing economic growth, albeit sluggishly, and that more spending in the form of stimulus is needed to prevent further degradation. Based on recent comments by those holding top positions in the public and private sectors there is a serious possibility that the economic crisis will revert to something worse than what we have experienced since 2008 – something even worse than the Great Depression.
Given that Gallup’s survey suggests around 60 million Americans don’t have money to feed themselves or their families, we can only imagine what the coming food crisis in America will look like amid a significantly deteriorating economic situation.
I know my family is trying to get by on a lot less then we did 3 years ago, and the costs of food is getting stupid.
Food should never be out of reach by cost to even the most poor, its a life necessity
I know my grocery dollar shure isnt taking us as far as it has in the past
VRF..I do know there was a time when I cleaned the fridg and threw it behind the big wild rose bush….not now…I use those leftovers (not enough to freeze) and make a meal.
But, my fridg is cleaner!!! (smiley inserted here)
Food Bitches!!!
“the costs of food is getting stupid”.
It sure seems/feels like it.
Mac, is there any way you, or someone, could contact a grocery supplier and ask for a list of food/products prices (milk, eggs, bread, flower, coffee, hamburger, gasoline, chocolate, chips, lettuce, tomatoes/fruits, paper, pens/pencils etc etc) in 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010?
If I had kept track I would post it, but I am not in that business, but someone/somewhere has an easy to access historical price list(print outs) of all of those prices, we just need to find it. I looked online, but a good list is not easy to find.
Id just like to confrim my feelings that it seems like a gallon of milk used to cost about $1.95 in 1999 and today it cost $4.50+.
One thing I know for sure, my income has not doubled since 1999.
I actually contacted a couple of local restaurants, one of which is owned by a friend of mine and I am waiting to hear back regarding their wholesale food costs. I asked my buddy to send me over a cost list from 2007 and one for this quarter. Hopefully he’ll be able to get me the info in the next couple weeks… I will most certainly relay my findings here.
🙂 Thank You Mac.
I bet we will be shocked at the numbers. Somehow reported inflation numbers dont feel like they match what I am paying, which is more more more.
Well, due to prepping activities.. I can attest that prices have risen significantly. Very basic items like dry beans increased in my local ( favorite ) store a few months ago. No matter the variety, each package increase by exactly 20%.
In addition, many items have seen stealth price increases.. via reduced package size or complete repackaging. Many items are now packaged only in little “packs” contained within a larger package. Several packs of 6-8 cookies or crackers contained in a larger package.. seems fine; but the total net weight seems to have declined by 20-30% while the price wither stayed the same or slightly increased. Stuff like that is very hard to catch..
@ Sam not Sam
“Semantics don’t change the facts.”
I’d call that “non-responsive,” Sam.
Fraud and duress make contracts null and void.
‘Semantics’ that.
Wrong thread.. JQP.. check the correct one.
Just remember this- food cost are not calculated into inflation numbers just like oil. This is because of the bogus excuse that food and oil prices are too volatile a commodity to be an accurate indicator of inflation. I can tell you this though with great certainty, my bank account is getting sucked dry because of the the higher food and oil prices and what’s really scary is that I see the prices increase on an almost annual to bi-annual basis.
I recently found an entire local newspaper from the early 80’s. The classified adds from this paper were shocking to say the least. New cars for well under $10,000, and food adds with incredible low prices when compared to now.
The only difernce from then to now, is simple inflation. The car you buy now isn’t worth any more thaqt it was then. The grocery item you buy now, is the same as you bought then. Again, it’s just inflation being the difference.
This little percentage of inflation we have had, and now a much larger ammount, is just like a license to steal from you. No matter how hard you save, you gain nothing from doing this, as your dollar disappears from your savings account as you watch it.
Now, the next wave is here, when it all comes tumbling down. We now will witness the complete collapse of one system, and the beginning of something new. What was, will not be , what we did know, will never be the same again. Get used to this change, as you will never see your old “normal” again. Welcome to the new “normal”.
Yes, Greaseman, inflation is covert theft of your money by the monopolistic private central bank in collusion with a government that doesn’t protect you—it is called “free market” capitalism.
Hey Greasman, you said the difference between then and now is just inflation. Oh dear sir you need to look at the “regulation” changes between now and than. If not on the product you see listed than on its transportation, on its harvest or production, on its storage or even sales. Oh there is plenty of inflation but rules have chanced since the days of Reagan too.
A friend of a friend of mine helps run a distribution center that serves one of the main food chains. I don’t want to venture a guess which one, this was two months ago or so. She said to my friend that in a year or so, canned foods (especially vegetables) would be scarce on the shelves. She said stock up.
A grain of salt, I know, but I considered the source. She is apparently in a position to know, since they do short, mid and long term projections for deliveries.
Stock up on canned goods if that is part of your plan.
And I swear I won’t raid your pantry. And before any of you acuse me of saying the sky is green, re-read the post here… The sky is not green.
Like my Grandma Daisy used to say, if the can has a dent or looks swollen, don’t buy it, I am sure everyone already knows this, it just came to mind reading the post from Sheepdog!
The sky is blue and that is due to rayleigh scattering.
As A Mom website began keeping track of inflation, on most common grocery items, beginning in Nov. of 2010. It doesn’t go back as far as you requested, but it’s a start. Pretty eye-popping on some items!
http://www.asamom.org/group/surveymoms
Since the thread is about food prices, maybe you’d also be interested in the quality of food.
Activist Post provided links to a very interesting site that has researched the corporate links of the “natural” and “organic” food industries. The site also provides some very interesting “report cards” on the quality of various foods.
Don’t miss the sidebar content:
http://www.cornucopia.org/
The link you provided takes me to a place were a login / password is required.. can you copy and paste the information ? I’d like to see it, but don’t need to get on another mailing list..
Not a perfect article, but BLUF: Rising incomes in Asian and our stupid ethanol program here are two big reasons why Americans are paying more at the grocery store. Article is four years old. Add printing money, droughts and floods to the article… and there you have it.
http://www.economist.com/node/10250420?story_id=10250420
Mal
the dollar value has been going south at a fast forward pace. the dollar is not money, it is a note of debt (frn). Read “The Creature from Jekkyl Island, a second look at the Federal Reserve.” M-1 and M-2 “money supply”
has not been reported for the past couple years. the quantity of frns is approaching $Zillions. We the people in what is left of the USA are slaves to the private corporation, the Fed. ask your fed congress person if this is true. I promise you that it is.
“One thing I know for sure, my income has not doubled since 1999.”
To be honest, mine has sort of tripled since then.
OTOH, to do that I went through 6 different jobs, and lived in three different states.
Long story short, I made my own raises. Mind you during this time I did get stupid and think I could retire as a teacher, and spent six of those years in one spot.
I consider it a lesson learned – if you want stability and security, you sort of have to get out there and negotiate for it, and to seize opportunities as they arise. It’s a trait-set that carries well into prepping and barter skills.
Though the teaching has been severely neglected by the Catholic Church, even in traditionalist circles, these things are gravely sinful:
unjust wages
unjust prices
usury.
A just wage is a wage that allows a working man to provide his wife and children with the necessities, though not luxuries, of life. A just price in not “free market” or “what the market will bear.” Usury is the taking of ANY profit on a simple loan of money.
The Church also teaches that there are several “sins that cry to Heaven for vengeance”:
taking advantage of widows, orphans, and the poor
withholding wages from a working man
murder
sodomy.
That was the reason that provoked Jesus’s only violent reaction in the bible, the money changers bought all of the 1/2 sheckle coins and were selling them at a 200% profit…..
Religion has sod all to do with these things. You can be moral and recognize wrong without having to believe in fairy tales and fables. Usury is theft but as a global society we do not recognize it and as such the bankers exploit this.
The definition of a ‘just’ wage is a mute one – what constitutes this – having a flat screen TV, smart phone, latest Yank Tank SUV, etc.
The only think that matters is the here and now….the afterlife is propaganda dreamed up to explain to the peasants that life may be bad on earth but when you die heaven will be ‘nice’. We are generally not ignorant as peasants from the Middle Ages and what we are dealing with are man made and decidedly earthly problems.
It’s not about religion, it’s about a relationship with Jesus. It’s starts now – as soon as you invite Him to be Lord of your life, not in the afterlife. Abundant life is for now and all eternity. He loves you. Give Him a chance.
@Nexus789:
Yes and No.
Yes, one can recognize the failure in morals inherent in these things without necessarily having learned them via religion. On the other hand, religion just happens to be how we as a species received most of these teachings (unless of course you an point to a verifiable and older source of this information).
“The only think that matters is the here and now…”
Then why even bother prepping? Get out there and enjoy the booze and the hookers! Oh, wait. You mean folks do plan for the future? That folks do perceive something beyond this mere mortal coil?
Shit, man – even Science is bumping up against these things; ideas and concepts that religion has held since Neanderthals practiced it. Consider that in both camps we have a point of creation (generally accepted by most hardcore science communities as the “Big Bang” theory), and even of multiple planes of existence (see also mTheory / String Theory). While certainly not perfect analogues, there is a creepy feeling, with each big discovery by the physicist community, that we as a species have already covered this ground before.
—
Now I do agree with you that there are definite man-made and decidedly earthly problems. Problem is, I don’t think Man in general is yet able or capable of overcoming some of the messes that we’re all beginning to stumble into.
“The definition of a ‘just’ wage is a mute one – what constitutes this”
I agree perfectly here, but there is already a definition at hand: I’ve always considered a “just” wage to be one which is considered by the market at large to be commensurate with the skill level and experience required for a particular position. Has bugger-all to do with what you can buy using the resulting paycheck.
Of course, this rankles with the Progressive crowd, since that means that the market decides – and not some bureaucrat, or some idealistic yutz who thinks he can run the world on unicorn farts and rainbows.
Then again, the market has a cure for that, too. If you think janitors should be paid $100/hour, then you’re more than free to open a janitorial business and pay your employees $100/hour. Good luck finding customers…
Indeed one can reason to a moral code through the natural law written on every man’s heart—too bad that the pagans all around us do not reason at all.
What is amusing to me is that the Judaic “saints” of the “free market” religion (Von Mises & Rothbard) deny that one can reason to a moral code (denying the evidence before their very own eyes that the Platonists did it). They also deny making any value judgements, having a blind eye to the adjudged value they themselves place on private property. So much for their “science.”
Better men than I see Von Mises and Rothbard as self-impressed bigoted boneheads hardly deserving of the reverence accorded them.
**********
You’ll forgive me if I don’t take your word for it regarding the afterlife.
**********
Regarding this comment, “We are generally not ignorant as peasants from the Middle Ages,” what “we” are you talking about?
Even when it comes to the handful of people I meet who actually know more than peasants of the Middle Ages, on average they give no evidence of having any more wisdom than those peasants. Knowledge is not wisdom and I even dispute that the average American even has more knowledge than those peasants.
That’s just dumb. If you have price controls then you won’t have food in the stores. Food costs are the result of supply, demand, and the value of the currency.
That’s just dumb. In “free market” capitalism, food costs are the result of monopolies, subsidies, destructive farming practices, and debased currency.
I should have added: “People won’t be able to afford the food that is in the stores.”
Oh wait, that is what is happening now.
I think you are misinformed as to what “free market capitalism” is. There has been no such animal here in the US since shortly after the creation of the central government. In a true free market system you would be able to buy and sell anything at a value that you and your buyer agree upon. This would apply to wages as well. Everytime a government subsidizes or regulates an activity they are distorting markets and the results are no longer free. This means requirements for business licences, permits, business taxes, mandatory employment rules such as health care or OSHA compliance all act to make the cost of doing business more expensive which business then passes on to the consumer. And this is all before central bank actions which cause inflation and further reduce purchasing power. When a business can buy legislation which raises it’s competitors costs then you no longer have free market capitalism. What we have right now and have had for years is crony capitalism which is about as similiar to true free market capitalism as fiat money is to sound money. I suggest you study basic economics some more before you assert that free markets are responsible for the mess that we are currently in.
@ Moon is a Harsh Mistress (Heinlein, eh?)
As a “recovering Libertarian,” I am adequately informed (and over-propagandized) about what exactly “free market” capitalism is. “Some of my best friends” are Jewish Libertarians and we argue these points. Among the free market zealots are a couple of professed (but nominal) Catholics who have never addressed (because they CANNOT address) the moral questions put to them by my betters, e.g.,
Christopher Ferrara,
The Church and the Libertarian,
ISBN 1-890740-16-0
http://www.remnantnewspaper.com/Archives/2010-ferrara-church-libertarian.htm
Even if you are a non-Catholic, but consider yourself a decent and moral person, there is much in the book for you. Anyone can solidify their doubts about the free market by reading this book.
“Free market” capitalism is an immoral theory that, notwithstanding making a great show of their pseudo-science of praxeology, has no real understanding of human behavior or of history. At the risk of repeating myself, one of the most fundamental flaws of “free market” economics is their premise that business and government are enemies. Business buys government and they become partners in crimes against humanity. This has been true through all the centuries of capitalism. Praxeology that, Von Mises/Rothbard.
Another flaw: the laughable pretense that it is a science that makes no value judgments. In their seminal works the prime “free market” theorists, Von Mises and Rothbard (both Judaic) make themselves a capitalist parody of the anti-Christianity of the seminal Communist theorist, Rabbi Moses Hess, the rabbinical mentor of Karl Marx. “Free market” capitalism and communism are two sides of an anti-Christian coin, both the “science” of communism and the “science” of “free market” capitalism were theorized by rabidly anti-Christian Jews. The fruits of Communism and predatory Capitalism should make that clear.
When “free market” enthusiasts claim that “real” free markets have not been tried, they remind me of obstinate UC Berkeley Communist Professors defending the genocidal and economic failures of Judeo-Communism with claims that “real Communism hasn’t been tried yet.” Yes, two sides of the same anti-Christian coin with the same lame excuses for their moral failures.
I choose to drink neither of those poisons killing us today.
There is “the third way.”
I am quite willing to try capitalism restrained by authentic morality and justice (hint: distributism).
@ Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Sorry to be verbose.
“Free market” THEORY is not science. Like the “flat earth” theory, the free market is a FLAWED theory. What you call “crony capitalism” is not a different theory; it is the simply the outcome of the flawed free market theory. Just as gulags and piles of bodies axiomatically follow the flawed theories of Communism, “crony capitalism,” perpetual war, and economic crimes against humanity follow the flawed theories of the “free market.”
John Q.,
Wow, you bring in a very interesting perspective about what an appropriate market place looks like. I think you are onto something. Your point is missed entirely by anyone who dismisses Scripture, and missed by most of us who have grown up in the Christian machine.
So, why do we (they) assert and practice a non-biblical market system, but call ourselves a Christian nation? Have we grown up indoors and never seen the firmament, but been told the sky is green?
Consider that the biblical model of finance-business is independent of American exchange, and certainly foreign to global exchange.
Anyone think that is unlikely? Consider this… By the time that the Catholics and Protestants solidified their machines of control (organized religion), many dissonant elements were clear. Among the most glaring is that basically ALL Levitical law was considered fulfilled and no longer operational in the New Covenant… Except the Law of Tithing. Convenient.
And that was after Paul and the disciples provided a working example in the Book of Acts. Christ said He would build His church on Peter, and undoubtedly, there is Paul. He didn’t say anything about these monsters we created.
Enough said, I guess we his highness obama may have unwittingly been correct when he said we are not a Christian nation. In an awful sort of way…
@ Sheepdog
Thank you, but the Holy Bible does not support your animus against the Church as “organized religion.”
Jesus founded His Church with the commission to teach (Matthew 28:19-20), govern (Matthew 18:18), and sanctify (Matthew 28:18-19, John 20:23).
Logically consistent with those commissions, Jesus founded one Church, singular, with one central authority (Mattthew 18:18), a visible organized society (Mark 4:11), and called for oneness of doctrine (John 17:11 & 17:21), not an anarchy of churches having mutually exclusive doctrines like the 35,000+ US sects of Protestantism in which everyone gets to make up his own doctrine and be his own little “pope.”
Jesus compared His Church to a number of very visible objects: a body, a kingdom, a sheepfold, a net, a city, a field. Jesus Christ, true God and True Man, Messiah, Second Person of the Holy Trinity, God did not compare His CHurch with a disorganized rabble of conflicting doctrines and morality.
No, the disparagement of His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church as “organized religion” is based in the Original Sin of Adam and Eve, that men “might be as gods (Genesis 3:5). Emulating Lucifer, many men declare “Non serviam.” They will not serve God, but their own traditions. Remember, that was the key judgement against the Pharisees, that they voided the commandments of God for the man-made traditions of the rabbis (Mark 6:7-9).
Sorry, typo… should be Mark 7:8-9.
The one market that has never been free, except in very few historical circumstances, is the right to violence.
Organized city states, nations and religious institutions have spent a long time holding onto the monopoly of violence.
If you are not empowered to shoot the people ripping you off, then you are not in a free market.
The whole idea of a true free market is that all monopolies, including the monopoly on violence, need to be removed, for the experiment to even begin.
You keep quoting your imaginary friend to deride economists though.
The only difference between you and an atheist, is that you believe in one more god then the atheist.
Our local grocery chain says they toss approximately $3-5,000 of meat, produce and bakery EVERY night. At one time there was an opportunity for homeless people to take the food. But, one of the complained that something made them sick and the stores were told “no more freebies”. The stuff is all in dumpsters and fenced off. This a waste and appears as no alternative.
In San Francisco there is a group that [illegally] salvages that food and feeds the homeless. They have to change their venue to stay ahead of the police who enforce the “health” codes.
I work for a major grocery chain. We throw away that much daily, and its not allowed to go out the door. Same reason. And corn was eight ears for a dollar two years ago, three for a dollar today. Gotta have our SUV’s, you know.
Living in corn country I can tell you that the price increase of corn has to do mostly with the increased production of biofuel.
When Charles Manson and his band of murderous misfits were squatting at the Spahn Ranch movie set, north of Los Angeles, back in the late 60’s they subsisted on groceries removed from grocery store dumpsters each night.
POA: You can forget that strategy today. 🙂 Now the grocery stores do not throw out their food to the dumpsters. They now cart it to the local food bank and take a market value tax deduction for their donantion.
If you can’t afford to eat it is nature’s way of telling you you shouldn’t be alive anymore.
-Elvis, member of the 1%
Afford has nothing to do with growing your own food. I have yet to insert a quarter into a machine so I could get a tater or mater from the garden. It is free. Well, except the labor part. Heck, even fertilizer is free.
Of course, I am sure you were just being witty. Two green thumbs up!
I don’t know how to say it, but, well, you’re approximately half right.
In the hard, cold calculus of the ecosystem, yeah, not enough food means a lot of people dying of starvation.
OTOH, I get the feeling that the vaunted “1%”, unless they are very capable, cunning, and able to stockpile massive amounts of food, will fall just as easily as everyone else.
Without police protection, they will have to rely on privately-hired security… and that will last only as long as it takes for at least two those private bodyguards to realize that they can be the boss instead.
Oh, wait – bunkers? That’s just a fancy name for “mausoleum”. 😉
With prices going up and wages going down or vanishing, is it any wonder? Personally, I haven’t had a raise in 3 years. While I still have plenty, people I work with are nearly at their wits end.
I know one janitor that, by the time he pays for health care for his family and his taxes, there is $250 left in his check per week. Fortunately his two sons are working also but for minimum wage jobs.
…at least they all have work, for now. Cityfolk just have no where to turn.
I do. All those years of making good wages I sunk in to some land. It doesn’t really matter what happens I’ve got water, coal, timber and dirt. In the end, thats all you really need. There are times, lately, where I feel like the luckiest man on planet earth.
Even my kids notice the hike if food prices. More than once they grab something at the store, look at the price and put it back without asking. They know there is not a cent to spare. We are getting by with buying in bulk at resturant supply stores. We are lucky to have a Winco nearby, but even they are starting to have to raise prices. Just three years ago I would fill a cart to overflow with 160 bucks there. Now I cant even top it off for less than 200. Lots of homemade, homecanned, soups, stews and homemade bread. Fresh fruits and veges are getting harder to come by. I only buy on sale. With growing children, (mass consuming teenagers at that) I worry about a diet getting consistently heavier with starches. But the pioneers survived and even thrived on a similar diet, so I guess it’ll all be okay. Looking forward to seeing if there are any blackberries left. They grow wild here (free!) but between the craptacular summer and lots of other people looking to top off their pancakes, I don’t know if there are any left.
MLG, are you in the Willamette Valley?
I’m in Salem.
@ Plain Old American
Wow, your earlier comment about the founding of the USA was an astonishing explanation of much that is wicked about the USA: “…ordained by God himself…”
So, Americans are now the Chosen People. No wonder we have fallen into the pit.
Understand that Judaism freely admits it is not the Old Testament religion of Moses and also freely admits that Judaism is a religion that nullifes God’s Law in the Written Torah (Old Testament) with the Oral Torah of the rabbis’ Talmud and Kabbala. The Oral Torah DEIFIES the Chosen People (the men anyway, women are “witches” in the Oral Torah), especially DEIFIES the rabbis whose word, they teach, TRUMPS THE WORD OF GOD. GOD OBEYS THE RABBIS.
“God smiled and said: ‘My sons have defeated Me, My sons have defeated Me!’ God’s sons ‘defeated him’ with their arguments. Rabbi Yehoshua was correct in his contention that a view confirmed by majority vote must be accepted, EVEN WHERE GOD HIMSELF HOLDS THE OPPOSITE VIEW.”
Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Bava Metzia 59b, Steinsaltz Edition [NY: Random House 1990], Vol. III p. 237
“…the Babylonian Talmud represents God in the flesh…”
Rabbi Jacob Neusner, Rabbinic Judaism, Minneapolis MN: Augsburg Fortress, 1995. p. 62
“The Holy One, Blessed be He, speaks Torah out of the mouths of all rabbis.”
Haggadah 15b
“… The rabbi constituted the projection of the DIVINE on earth. Honor was due him more than to the scroll of the Torah, for through his learning and logic he might ALTER THE VERY CONTENT OF MOSAIC REVELATION. HE WAS TORAH, not merely because he lived by it, but because at his best he constituted as compelling an embodiment of the heavenly model as did a Torah scroll itself.”
Rabbi Jacob Neusner, “The Phenomenon of the Rabbi in Late Antiquity: II The Ritual of ‘Being a Rabbi’ in Later Sasanian Babylonia,” Numen, Vol.17, Fasc. 1., Feb., 1970, pp.3-4
The Koliner rebbe [17th century rabbi of Prague] states: “Our Zaddikim’s (famous Orthodox rabbis) words are more important than the Torah of Moses As our Sages teach: A ZADDIK DECREES, AND GOD OBEYS.”
Jeremy Dauber, Antonio’s Devils: Writers of the Jewish Enlightenment and the Birth of Modern Hebrew and Yiddish Literature, Stanford University, 2004, ISBN-13: 978-0804749015, p. 276
In four simple words—”ordained by God [H]imself”—you have explained why the US government defies God’s Law and submits to the other nation of “Chosen People.”
Yes, our national religion teaches that we, like the rabbis, may trump the Word of God—promoting abortion, sodomy, usury, preemptive war, experimentation on unknowing US citizens, etc.
I believe your insane Johnyy boy…
@ SKS Lover
Look at the fruits of this nation.
Anyone who thinks that abortion, sodomy, usury, experimentation on unknowing people, preemptive war, false flag ops, etc. are evidence that this nation was “…ordained by God…” is in deep diabolical disorientation.
We are a nation that does indeed act as though we are Chosen People who can nullify God’s Law.
Tragic, but true.
hello Plain old American and MLG…I am out on the Coos BAy coast…it is nice to see that there are a couple of us in the area…Coos Bay is nice for clams, crab and fish..I stock up regularly with this stuff…prices have jumped hugely this year…I have a tracker notebook I use..suggested by the frugal lady years ago…milk at Safeway for half gallon 1% which we use, went from 1.49 to 1.99 in 7 months..something is really wrong…all prices have jumped or are jumping…I still rely on cash and carry or other restaurant supply housed for the bulk stuff, and when I can get there, I hit the Asian markets for whole grain rices …still pretty cheap..
Wow! Four words got you going pretty good. I am wondering what eight or ten might do 😉
Please do not put words in my mouth. That is one of my pet peeves. I never intended to infer that Americans are the chosen people. That interpretation is wholly owned by you.
When you consider that a ragtime bunch of farmers defeated the greatest war making nation in history I believe it is fair to suggest that God had a hand in it for His own reasons. As to the purpose of His reason I could only speculate but it is my opinion that America was not founded as a strictly secular nation.
BTW. It took almost a month but I have finally received my copy of The Church and the Libertarian. I have a huge reading list but will try to get to it shortly. I also have one that I need to get to but I do believe that I will be recommending it to you.
John, you can preach at me all you want.. i’m athiest ;D
@Plain Old American
OK, then lets leave it at this.
The USA is in no way a nation “ordained by God.”
@ Plain Old American
OK, then let’s leave it at this.
No way that the USA is a nation “ordained by God.”
@ breadmomma
Have you seen any data on the radioactivity of those Coos Bay clams?
I am curious how Fukushima is affecting West Coast seafood.
“I’m in Salem.”
PDX checking in here.
You just gotta know where to go… WinCo is okay, but I can find equivalent prices w/ Freddy Meyer, QFC and the like. Sometimes it takes one of those club cards (which are actually easy to get with fake information and a throwaway email addy), but in general it all hashes out. Wal-Mart and Costco are even cheaper for groceries, though the latter will cost you and a couple buddies a few bucks per year for a membership.
Overall, it’s not that hard. You may find higher prices at the farmers’ markets, though the trade-off there is that you get fresher food w/o the pesticides and such (I usually hit those up for the home-grown spices, which keep their flavor a lot longer than the pre-packaged stuff).
I’m outside Seattle.
Could it be the Anonymous and JQP are one and the same ?
Same post below, different names..
We still have blackberries up here in Washington. Olympic side west of Seattle.
In Port Angeles they are thick but we might get a freeze tonight.
That’s great, Our Black Raspberries petered out about a month ago. Clay
I put in new fruit trees this year to help stave off the prices.Luckily, the trees were at our local home inprovement center AND reasonably priced. I bought two of each and also of different (species?) types. So now I have Oranges and Lemons that ripen Christmas time, Peaches and apples for summer and fall (yes you Can grow them in Florida you just need the low chill variety)and pecans and figs.( I’m not sure when they fruit). granted I won’t see fruit from the new trees anytime soon, but I figure it’s better late than never. I also buy in bulk , MLG and find it’s a great way to save. It is my practice to only buy and consume whatever veg and fruit is in season. Not only to keep the price down, but I believe you stay healthier that way because you are consuming a wider variety of produce year long.I wish I could grow some decent blackberries though, berries and I just don’t get along in the growing department.
Yeah, and did you notice that Walmart (along with most grocery stores) started their “save a tree, use plastic” campaigns about 5-6 years ago?
Hint: The real reason has nothing to do with trees.
It has to do with making you think you got more than you really did by hauling out all those dinky little plastic bags!
You can fit 3 of them inside one of the old fashoined brown paper bags.
Oh, and I guess it is never supposed to occur to you that plastic ain’t exactly environmentally friendly.
@ SSPXer
Have you seen these?
http://mauricepinay.blogspot.com/2011/10/benedict-xvi-to-further-alter-1962.html
http://mauricepinay.blogspot.com/2011/10/letter-from-bishop-fellay-to-bishop.html
http://revisionistreview.blogspot.com/2011/10/how-can-pope-benedict-let-go-of-ancient.html
you are lucky. And you were fortunate to have the forsight to buy your land. congrats, and a pat on the back for smarts.
Over the last 3 years my wife and I have dealt with rising cost of food and the weakening dollar through several means..Eating meat only three to four times a week, shopping at discount store, growing a garden and learning to can. there is so much people can do to stretch their dollar and supplement their dinner table. Have a great Saturday everyone! Clay
It’s Saturday?? oops.
Did it sneak up on ya JJ?
Just got home from wally world and have a perfect example to leave everyone. Two years ago, a basic trip to the grocery department would add up to a 100 dollar bill. Today, it came out 149 dollars. That is a frightening thing to happen to a newly retired person. I see no relief from the creeping theft of our standard of living by our government. The only man even running who honestly states what is going on has absolutely no chance of being elected. Ron Paul is telling it, but the establishment is firmly in control and will keep on squeezing the juice out of this formerly great nation.
Agreed. Dr.Paul makes the rest of the candidates look like Alfred E. Neumann’s extended family.
I like a lot of what Ron Paul says, but I can’t agree with his foreign policy.
Both countries are now filled with mind-numbed automatons incapable of independent thought. They will get whatever the statist powers decree. Ask yourself, how many people do you personally know who would be able to sustain themselves without any form of outside input?
The “American way of life” is merely a few generations long illusion. You’ll see what that means when the power grid goes down. Wake up now or be jarred awake later. Trade those worthless FRN’s for real goods now before you can’t. Get out of the city, try to reconnect with being actual humans if you can. If you can’t or won’t, then prepare for the chaos that will envelope your life. Godspeed.
There are still bargains out there.
Meijer has 10/$10 and 11th free on many items that will store for quite awhile or eat now.
I rarely ever buy anything unless on sale.
and yes sales are rarer these days and sale price may be higher.
Just the same we must stock up when pricing presents itself.
People worry about a few percent on a checking account.
I saved 30%-50% on many groceries yesterday.
I keep telling people they bettr have 6 mos of groceries on hand.
Some tell me they are lucky to just eat today.
Especially older people.
One poor ole gal at Wendy’s said she had to hold down 2 jobs these days….and I’m talking 70+ yrs old!
And we “aint seen nothin yet folks”.
Is Lybia going to bomb us now that we are beating protestors??
Sorrry Libya not lybia.
She’s holding down two jobs because they won’t give her full time and the way I express the price increase on food??…they’re quartering us to death.
Digger, have you noticed over the past few years manufactures have packaged items in smaller amounts to make prices look stable? Clay
Clay…have you checked out Kraft mac and cheese? I haven’t bought any in several years because we just do not like it, but had a kid visiting who loves the stuff. I bought a box, opened it up and stared at amazement at the eeny, teeny noodles that were in there. WOW was all we could say.
Yes indeed. Coffee used to be in 3 lb. cans (48oz.), now it’s in 39oz. cans. Orange juice same – once in 64oz. cartons, now in 59oz. cartons. And pretzels and chips – half product, half air.
Yogurt was 8 oz. Now 6 oz. Just one example….
I shop the same way you do, Digger. Absolutely, positively nothing that is not deeply discounted. I shop the loss leaders and replenish my stockpile – I don’t really just “grocery shop” any more.
Oops – absolutely nothing except milk. 😉 I have the powdered stuff but REALLY don’t love it.
I just got back from spreading my poor little savings account around a few different stores and am pleased to say that my stockpile is back up to 6 months without a single trip to the store. (‘Cept for milk 😀 )
Thats how I have been able to stay on top of things as well. I have a good 4+ month supply and only buy on sale items and am rarley at the chain stores. Cash & Carry along with grocery Outlet are my main stores. Hell even my local Albertsons and Fred Myers/Kroger do not accept competetors coupons any long. Today is going to be another prep. day for me. Just finished off one 25lb rice and need more Spam. Yes I like Spam. The key is to buy what you like and have a list. Stay inside the list and stat away from the shining packages. The only time I splurge is during football games. Go Pack Go! from Washington state!
Does anybody use a local feed store for any of the grains. I’ve read they are ok for human consumption, they just can’t be marked for people to eat becaue of the way they are transported, but getting some to get for a last resort circumstance has its appeal!! Any Thoughts, looking for advice.
oops “because”
Claymation.You might have to do some winnowing to get all the dust out of feed mill grain wheat.
Thanks Patriot, I am going to the next town over today to the feed store and check it out. I’ll keep you informed. Clay
I’m in Beijing, definitely people are getting fatter.
DaShui: Welcome. We would appreciate your perspective of events in China as WE must get OUR info from the lame stream media.
I am blessed, because no matter how bad things have been for us financially, we have had our basic needs met.
I’m thankful that we don’t live in a cardboard box, that we have food on the table and in the pantry and that we have a car to get me to work and back. And, of course, that I have work.
Food should never be something that is out of reach for people. This breaks my heart.
Daisy: Food should never be used as a weapon! You are correct. The Government knows its an awesome weapon to use, but I have a feeling they are gonna wish THEY never woke this GIANT (us) up!
“Control food and you control the people.”
~ Henry Kissinger
Daisy: Yeah, I hate that four eyed fruit fly!
Or end up “just a swangin….”
the article fails to take into account that the chinese do not have food stamp programs. nor do they have unemployment insurance. which is why the numbers were always high in the past.
the poll itself doesn’t have enough info to tell us who the sample was, when it was taken or how many people participated.
if you take a sample of 100 citizens from say…detriot and 100 citizens from Hong Kong you will get this type of result.
the depression currently runs in pockets. places like detriot were hit hard while other places are not.
then the basic question itself is open to interpetation. It ask if you struggled to get food not if you couldn’t get food. To us if you get laid off and go on food stamps you are struggling to get food. In china…there is no food stamps. You work or starve.
this article is too skewed to show accurate result.
I’m really getting tired of hearing how much better off china is than the usa. I’m tired of having the USA compared to another cutler altogether and making out that we are somehow the worst place in the world to live.
yes, the USA has issues and has been affected by the criminals of wall street and the capitol. yes, we have a lot of work to do to have these people held accountable and reinstate the glass-stegal act.
Just yesterday I read an article about how we need to move to china to get a job. That country has over billion people. how can they not have enough workers?
just sick of the proganda BS about how much better china is.
I understand what your saying, and it is true that figures dont lie , but liers can figure.
But it is also true that the cost of food in this country is getting out of line, and fast.
China will have its day, when this will all catch up to them too..this is world wide and there will come a time when all this growth in that nation will come to score.
And i completely agree with your sentiments.
Regardless of whether comparisons with other countries is “propaganda and BS”, as stated in the article above: “something even worse than the Great Depression” is at “our” door NOW. Not only can this “gooberment” not STOP IT at this point, but there is plenty of “evidence” to suggest that this is literally “by design”.
That is my opinion: But a large, dedicated, amount of research has gone into it.
If China did not have a food stamp program, and obviously we do, then this is even more frightening. This means that their standard of living has risen without the handout, and our has sunk WITH the handout. I would like to see that data factored in but I’m afraid it would look even worse for us. I work with a man from china and he told me that people there do not look at us the way they used to just a few years ago. Before, if you work hard, study hard and get to America, there are riches to be had. But now, he said they see us as poor. And even worse than poor, in debt. What is the trend now, is to come over for a university education and then go back and work there. So we are exporting brains AND brawn…that’s not good folks.
China’s “wealth” is mostly a stack of USA IOUs. The Chinese (and Indians) have been converting their USA paper into gold as fast as they can without driving up the price of gold, but it is doubtful that Chinese “wealth” will outlast our collapse.
Already you may have seen the collapse of the Chinese housing bubble and the suicides of the bankrupted Chinese wealthy who are in debt to Chinese usurers.
Rachel: Food Stamps For China
http://shtftimesepitaph.blogspot.com/2010/11/food-stamps-for-china.html
The objective of the corporarions that run the US, is to not only move all work overseas somewhere, but to lower our standard of living to meet the rest of the world. I love the US as much as the next person, but things are fundamentaly changing daily, and never will go back the way it was.
Get use to everything the way it is, because untill we have some kind of revoulution, and change back some of these ridiculous laws that allow these companies to move overseas, things will only get worse.
I get sick of hearing about what voting this guy, or that guy, or this party or that party in, will do to make a change. Folks, untill all these crooks running our system are gone, and I’m talking 90% plus of them, nothing is going to change. They are all bought and paid for, and don’t work for you. Why do you think nothing ever changes, or gets better.??
We have all been screwed by our leaders from all parties, and now it’s time to pay for our lack of attention to to the foxes who have been guarding the hen house. it’s over, get used to it.
I grew up in the Third world and most Amerikans even in Detroit have no idea what bad is!
China is in bad shape also.
With to many mouths to feed and to little food to feed them.
This is why infinite growth is not possible.
RED
That seems to have been the plan set forth back in 1990-2000, and so it comes to pass. I wonder if “they” are oh so pleased with themselves? I wonder if seeing a once great, proud nation feeling like crap mkes them happy? How smug “they” must feel as “they” get richer while making so many much poorer.
How little progrees we have made as humans in 4000 years. We suck as a rcae of people. What a bunch of fkng losers we are. In 4000 years it is still the same old crap, there will be kings and serfs.
“They” are not smart, there is nothing new here.
If they were smart, “they” were smart they would figure out a way to spread the wealth, eliminate starving/homelessness/joblessness, they would not delight in hoarding all of the wealth at the top.
“They” are losers. “They” have learned nothing, done nothing in 4000 years. “God” must be disgusted when he looks down and sees this mess.
“They” are not smart; they are near being totally subjective. They see only what they want to see and go on their way into more subjective thinking.
You probably realize that about one person out of twenty-five people is a sociopath. And you probably can guess government activities attract sociopaths like candles attract moths.
May I suggest that the fundamental problem is Satan’s war against God? All that we decry are symptoms of that war.
I already read this on a prepper blog—soooo….. I’ll be the b***h here; how many like my neighbor didn’t have meat the month of August???(she told me) but paid
$80 a month for directv and $29 for checking??
I’m just saying…..
Now, back to my biscuits for the freezer…I can beat Mrs. B’s any day…have a good one!!
The only thing that might be worse is watching someone using a benefit card to buy strip steaks or the like. Just makes me sick to be in line behind them with my no name cereal and 80/20 pack of ground beef. peace
Well, I’m just chatty cathy this saturday morning.
Claymation–have you seen them buying cases of water? That gets me. I saw one buy thirty dollars worth of bottled water with foodstamps.
Aint it the truth, its just crazy to the point of making ya want to vomit
Drives me crazy everyday. My store accepts EBT(foodstamps) and I can tell you stories all day long.
I read a story on that bottled water thingy, its some huge scam the state governments are trying to combat. The welfare scambits will buy bottled water, dump out the water, and send the plastic bottles in to recycler for cash.
My experience was with a low balance EBT and she kept puting back oysters…yes, oysters, because the balance was taht low…requiring the store manager to come every time to hit a key at closing time.
I believe this was a ploy to get others agrivated at closing time to give her money, ya think??
I just saw a woman use her welfare card to buy about 10 lbs of lobster. True.
It just strokes me out to find out that restaurants and fast food joints are getting the gov. to allow people to use their SNAP cards at restaurants. Life just gets crazier and crazier.
@ KB Really, what chains are doing this?
I bet there is a $100 cell phone bill in there somewhere too 😉
People like that get cell phones free. Didn’t you know that it’s a right to have everything handed to you. That is what’s wrong here as well.
If that was to me for the neighbor story?? Oh, for sure!!!
Talk about personal responsibility!
Many of them never have a bill that LOW. The “poor” seem to always have the latest and best phones.
Hey, I’ve got one. My assistant told me (whined to me) that she had to feed her kid top ramen and spagettios for an entire week to get to payday. Then her iphone rang. I asked her how much that thing cost. 145 a month. Duh. Not to say that there isnt a food problem in this country. I know that there are hardworking good people struggling with it that have sacrificed. But so many are not adjusting their life and expeditures as they need to to lessen or delay the hardship.
She probably pays for cable TV, also.
Speaking of losers!
CATV is free as well! Hell we pay to have their childrens asses wiped. F the system and the goverment buying votes. I guess I see it as I’m tired of paying for people who refuse to do for themselves. We all work hard and sometimes fall on hard times but work through it. Many are in the system (Obama’s gonna pay my bills) and I see those people as bought sheeple. Vote for a guy because he promises you free everthing and your welfare check is in the mail. Please prepare and be safe my friends. Sorry about all the ranting today guys.
I have to laugh. I worked for over 37 years and guess what? I still have and use the first, and only, personal cell phone I ever bought. Then again my “new” car is a 2000 Camry 4 cylinder, LOL.
JJ: Please send biscuits soon, I’ve got gravy!
We ( my girl and I ) recently stopped eating meat altogether, along with sugar and boxed or prepared foods. We both have lost weight ( me 15 lbs and her 10 ) feel way better ( though both very healthy with good energy ) and spend far less on groceries per week allowing us to purchase more fresh vegetables. I’m a regular lifter and because of the better diet have actually increased strength while losing weight. We have no cable and bank at credit union ( free checking – no fees ) Watch only occasional movie with no commercials and mostly read and have hobbies which require thinking and hand eye coordination ( wink ). We’re much happier. . .now back to preppin’. . .
Time to send most of our Congress people to Uganda along with our Nobel Peace Prize winner to become advisors to defend themselves only. Dig up Ted Kennedy too and send him over. See how well they can feed themselves over there.
http://silverbearcafe.com/private/10.11/chinesetroops.html
It logical,
1. All jobs moved to China due to outsourcing,
2. They sell you (and us) the crap they produce in prices that the local business cannot compete.
3. They eat less.
4. They don’t have needs, locked in a factory 16 hours/day.
5. They breed 1,2 kids at the most. This means less family expenses until kids reach the age of 18.
6. How many Chinese pay for their kids, ballet, karate, gymnastics, quitar, piano, or foreign manguage?
7. The analogy of prices to salaries is much better than ours.
I forgot the most important of all.
They don’t lose their time writting and responding in survival sites. 🙂
Manos—this is our entertainment—we can’t afford anything else!!!!!
We get our books at the library and picture puzzles at flea markets and DG for $1!!
Good morning JJ,
I know what you mean. This my entertaiment too, and some bbq with our parents.
Prices have gone way up for everything.
This survey may be correct, but we American’s have a very bad vice of “trying to keep up with the Jone’s,” that might be exacerbating the problem. It amazes me that people will often choose to pay for all sorts of things they don’t need and end up not having enough for food.
Neighbor across the street from us has peeling house paint and a front porch light that hasn’t worked in three years, but she’s got Dish TV, by crackey!
P.S. Like a dummy, I tried to help this woman several years ago. Bought some perennial shrubs on sale in late August for our house and a couple extra for her. Offered to plant them for her; she said, “No, I’m not in a planting mood today – maybe tomorrow.” She put them on her side porch. They sat there…September, October, November, December, January, February. In March she threw them away because (duh) they were dead. That was IT for me.
I have previously posted about the two basic distinctions in our economic system.
The first is the producer. He is the one that creates wealth and good jobs. This is accomplished by mining, farming or otherwise harvesting natural resources and includes those that add value to the resource in any stage. Example would be logging company, sawmill, trucking company, building supply and finally the carpenter. The added value could even be knowledge or wisdom added to paper by an author.
The second division in the economy is what I call the parasite. While his service may actually be necessary he truly contributes nothing to the economy. This would include most government employees, lawyers and financial service workers. Even though they may be necessary the fact is that if they grow too big they will destroy the economy. That is not the case with the producer. That is what has happened to America. Our producers have been beaten down while the parasites have multiplied.
Previously, in a closed or at least somewhat circumscribed economic area, labor had pricing power and could therefore afford to purchase the products and services made / provided by his employer, the producer. In addition there was sufficient profit left over to fund the parasite class.
Illegal immigration introduced a severe market distortion by reducing labor’s pricing power and additionally caused an increase in the parasite side of the equation as the benefits normally provided to labor by the producer were now shifted to the government. A compounding factor was the new availability in greatly reduced labor costs for manufacturing producers (not agriculture & mining) by using slave labor in totalitarian countries.
The resulting inability of labor to extract a fair wage should have resulted in diminished pricing power for the products and serivices. This did happen to some extent by retailers that positioned themselves to take advantage of the lower costs of products. Wal Mart and Harbor Freight are two that come to mind. Unfortunately the agriculure component (food producers) were limited in being able to take advantage of the slave labor AND the parasite government grew by orders of magnitude. Not only did the government grow, it’s labor costs are not restrained by the market in any meaningful way and they are grossly out of balance. Now labor’s wages are continually diminishing while costs of life’s necessities are rising. Coupled with the decreasing value of the currency American labor has been forced to used debt to maintain their standard of living.
DK has pointed out that we do not have free trade. He is correct. The producer has no restriction on relocating his facility to slave labor locations but American labor is not capable of taking advantage of the lower cost of living by relocating himself or family. Clark has argued that trade with China is a small percentage of GDP and is therefore not a significant issue. The problem with Clark’s point is that trade with China constitutes a far larger percentage of that portion of GDP attributable to the producers and is wholly irrelevant to that portion of the GDP consisting of bank fees and social worker salaries.
All market always return to their true value.
The answer as I see it is that the global economy is a complete failure unless the people of the world were willing to submit to a global government. As a Christian, American, Liberty loving veteran I am not. The result is, in my humble opinion, small regional economies. We produce for those around us and trade is limited by transportation costs or safety or some combination of factors. The capitalist will still be profitable but the unbridled avarice and rapaciousness that we have suffered under the globalist bankers is not sustainable.
OK. Rant off. If anyone has read this I would truly appreciate thoughtful responses.
POA
I agree 100%.
Buy locally produced food and goods, even if it costs a bit more. Then watch while the standard of living for your area improves.
We also need to learn to be happy without keeping up with those darned Joneses. That sense of entitlement has driven the economy overseas as folks all try to buy the best electronic gadget for the cheapest price, just so they can get more electronic gadgets.
Daisy,
WIth that kind of local economy and small scale capitalism talk, you are sounding like a distributes. 🙂
…like a distributist.
POA: That “small percentage of GDP” amounts to more than $300 billion dollars year after year. That’s real money. $3 trillion over ten years.
Provide your own list. And that number is just the tip of the iceberg that is showing.
My point is that when Clark said China trade was a small percentage of our GDP that percentage is far larger fraction when the parasite portion of the GDP is removed. IOW China trade is huge compared to the value of the goods and services produced within the US.
Wall Street, Government numbers are not really relevant as they are not going to be as significant in the new economy.
POA: I know. I just wanted folks to see the number. Stats can be manipulated in a number of ways, which is why Clark and other globalists like to hide them if they can.
They can’t.
$300 billion a year is 25% of our deficit this past year; which is the proper comparison. To compare it to a “small percentage of GDP” was his attempt at propaganda.
It didn’t work! 🙂
Globalism is largely enabled by a cheap energy supply.
I.E. the ability to make a widget in China and ship it to America and still be money ahead.
As we move forward energy extraction is going to get more expensive.
Oh and please don’t tell me about FRAK-gas & Bakken shale I work in the energy biz.They very are plenitiful but they are not cheap to extract and are not going to get any cheaper. Total cost per well is quite high and if prices drop below what they are right now drilling stops.
Back to my point cheap transport fuels make globalism possible and mega agriculture possible. As fuel are more expensive to extract it drives up transportation & farming cost. Food gets more expensive & Chinese junk gets more expensive. And population growth is also driving costs. As is a nasty La Nina weather cycle that is driving down crop yields.
Just some facts folks.
RED
@ Plain Old American
When I have opposed “the free market,” I have suggested restraint upon capitalism. The restraints would prohibit usury, unjust wages, and unjust prices. I would also argue for an end to “immortal unaccountable personhood,” a.v., an end to corporations.
I have also suggested consideration of distributism:
http://distributistreview.com/mag/
Distributism appears to be simply repackaged and renamed good old fashioned communism. I browsed the link a bit. Seems like the same old idea called a new thing which will end up with the same old failed result.
Capitalism is the only economic form that has had a proven track record of elevating millions from poverty to self sustaining status. Do people get missed ? yup. Do some achieve more than others ? yup.
I still prefer that to communism.. sorry, distributism.
No offence intended.. but that’s what it seems to be to me.
Distributism promotes PRIVATE property. Does that really “appear” like Communism?
I do not disparage Capitalism that is restrained, only “free market” Capitalism that is not anchored in morality.
I would argue that Distributism is morally-restrained Capitalism.
Words have meaning..
If I choose to call a big stinky pile of crap ” previously digested nutrients”.. it doesn’t change the fact that it is just a big stinky pile of crap.
Distributism = Communism.
New word, same old pile of crap.
Previously digested nutrients….
LMAO
Thanx,
Yes, words have meaning—words like “PRIVATE” property, very different from “COMMUNAL” property. Key words with meaning.
Sam,
The following is a joke which touches political systems using cows:
Socialism: You have 2 cows and you give one to your neighboor.
Communism: You have 2 cows, the government takes both, and gives you some milk.
Fascism: You have 2 cows, and the police takes both along with your provisions.
Nazism: You have 2 cows, the police takes both, and kills you and your family.
Capitalism: You have 2 cows, you sell the one, you buy a bull, you increase to a herd, you sell the milk, and the meat, and you become rich.
Greek economy: You have 2 cows, you sell them to whatever price, with that money you pay in advance an expensive BMW, and the rest of the debt will be paid in 38 years.
Chinese economy: You have 2 cows, you put 300 workers to milk and take care of them, you claim high employment rate and high productivity, and you execute the journalist who investigated the case.
British economy: You have 2 cows, and both are gay.
Have a nice weekend Sam. It’s raining in Crete tonight.
Good analogy.. stay safe..
LMAO… thanks for the smile 🙂
ps
dont stop now… what about French economy or Iraq or Korea(N&S)??… this could turn into a classic…. oh and do India too…
That Guy,
It goes on and on, but i know only some more:
India economy: You have 2 cows and you just love both of them.
Russian economy: You have 2 cows. You count them to find out that they are 5. You count them again to realize that they are 42. You count for a thrid time, and they are 2 again. You stop for a while to take a rest, and before start counting all over again you open another bottle of vodka.
Italian economy: You have 2 cows but you don’t know where they are, so you have a lunch break.
Zimbabwean economy : You had two cows yesterday, today, you have 2 trillion cows.
Cattle-based derivitive economy : You pledge two cows as collateral to the bank, suddenly, you have two million cows being pledged as collateral world-wide.
German economy : You have two cows, but the French and Polish cows are ripe for the taking.
Canadian economy : You have two cows. Their names are Daisy and Flossie, no one will ever eat them.
Chinese economy : You have two cows. You eat them both, and an hour later you’re hungry again.
Mexican economy : You have two cows, but the grass is greener on the other side of the Rio Grande.
Union-run economy : You have two cows. You got a problem with that?
That’s Awesome, I really want to copy that down and hang it at work is that OK… It is raining in Western New York also, but it is also 44 degrees F. right now. Old man winter is just around the corner. Peace Clay
Yes British bulls are often Gay ;>)
Capitalism is the unequal distribution of wealth; socialism/communism is the equal distribution of poverty.
The above is a very true axiom.
That’s just stupid, John Q Public. If you want communism, move to Cuba and see how it’s working for them. Wage rates are the result of supply and demand. When the government forces wages up, you get unemployment. How many McDonalds jobs would there be if everyone had to earn $30,000 a year? You really need to learn how economies work. I guess your Marxist college professors didn’t teach you much about the real world.
Why would you say something so foolish? I have repeatedly stated my opposition to Communism. I am a Catholic. No institution has been so clear in its opposition to Communism as the Catholic Church (though, since the disarray since the Second Vatican Council and the infiltration of the Church BY Communists, as I mentioned in my earlier post about Bela Dodd, the opposition has been neglected). Incidentally, I had no Marxist professors.
What about YOUR understanding of “how economics work”? What about YOUR understanding of “the real world”?
In the real world I live in the economy works like this: Big money buys off the government, pays for legislation to destroy their competition, pays for legislators to give subsidies funded by taxes on working people, buys off the government to obtain monopolies, buys legislators to give them tax breaks, immunity from accountability, and dispensations to pollute the air and water I breathe, paying little or no taxes, while taking jobs to places where they can obtain slave labor, and creates an ‘economy’ where a father’s income is not enough to provide for his family so the mother must go to work and the children are raised in “schools” that program, but do not educate or teach children how to think carefully or logically, and solves problems by going to war against people who never lifted a finger or raised their voices against me.
That is your free market capitalism.
The world has suffered your free market capitalism—”economy” divorced from morality—since the Judeo-Protestant revolt began the dismantling of Christendom. Men have made themselves “that they might be as Gods” (Genesis 3:5) thinking that they have successfully contrived “free market” and other loopholes in Gods Law.
To borrow your own phrase, “That’s just dumb.”
“Be not deceived, God will not be mocked.” Galatians 6:7
John Q. Public,
You’re somewhat right, but you venture off into the wilderness with your definition of “free market capitalism”. What you describe is crony capitalism or fascism (the marriage of big government and monopoly corporations), NOT “free market captalism”. We haven’t had “free market capitalism” in this country since before Wilson/Roosevelt lived in the White House. Wilson ushered in the Federal Reserve and our current banking system; Roosevelt ushered in Big Government and the welfare state.
Do we really want a world that is so paced and pressured that we need “fast” food? an “economy” in which Americans and Zimbabweans are selling each other GMO soy and meat byproduct burgers?
Do we really want a world where there is a place for empty, synthetic, and arguably poisonous “food”?
Do we really want a world with so much economic pressure that we must multitask?
Do we really want lives with so little life that we must conceal that truth with oxymorons like “quality time”?
As for me, I don’t want to live or die as an oarsman on Sam and Farm Cat’s “free market” slave galley.
Here we have an agreement. Life here is short. Does one spend it working to have a huge bank account full of FRNs or do you know your daughter’s smile?
I will look at it a bit later.
The benefit that capitalism has over any other economic system is that (theoretically) you get rewarded on your intellect and sweat. The less you work, the less you get.
If we could institute that precept into our system (without undo harm to true charity cases) to the point that hunger would override laziness I doubt we’d have quite as big of a problem to solve.
Agreed on all those points.
This is due to the American choice. Those having trouble buying food still have cell phones, cable, xbox, etc,etc,etc…..I only started prepping after the sell of my business. My income got limited and I was on a budget, but I had wants beyond my budget. To fulfill those wants I stopped spending on expensive meals out, then on expensive foods in, and now I have more stored food then I’ve ever had. The American consumer makes a lot of crummy choces.
Agreed, Jim.
I have tried to make the point with Sam not Sam that fraud and duress influence people to make bad choices. Sam not Sam argues that people must be held to their bad choice (no choice?) contracts allowing no exceptions for fraud and duress. He dismissed my concerns about fraud and duress as “semantics.”
Just because you CAN seduce a woman into a life of prostitution, does that absolve you of any culpability? Must she remain in the life of prostitution because she once was seduced into it?
So, just because banksters’ marketing campaigns and materialist advertising CAN—and DO—seduce many of us into mountains of usurious debt (after which the banksters collapse their very own fiat money system), does that absolve them of any culpability? absolve them of any restitution? Must we remain in that life because we once were seduced into it? Should the seducers and looters be allowed to keep their ill-gotten gains? I say, “No!”
As to “the terms agreed” that Sam not Sam defends, duress also voids contracts. People short of the necessities of life frequently put those necessities (as well as unessentials) on credit cards with usurious interest rates. The necessities (not the unessentials) make those contracts under duress—hence void.
EVERY contract based on fraud and/or duress is null and void. I argue that the banksters manipulation is fraudulent and with duress; such debt is null and void.
They Create Debt From Nothing, We Owe Them Nothing
http://mauricepinay.blogspot.com/
Fatally flawed arguement.. wanting/desiring/demanding a nicer, bigger, shinnier “whatever” than the neighbors have and that you can afford does not constitute duress.
Borrowing money that you can’t afford to repay or that through no fault of your own you can no longer repay does not constitute “duress” on part of the original lender.
If you want to get mad at someone, try the WHite House. Try Congress who put lenders under TRUE duress by threatening to remove their banking licenses unless they lent to the “economically disadvantaged”. Try Barney Frank and Chris Dodd.. those two people ALONE did more to cause the near collapse of our banking system and housing market than any two other people on the planet.
Bankers lend money. That is what they do. That service is not duress, it is necessary.
Fatally flawed argument.
Usury is not a service. Usury is a crime against humanity. Usury is duress. Seduction is fraud.
The Commie from Kenya is a middle management puppet. He is culpable.
The upper management and owners, a.v., banksters and “international” financiers, are even more culpable.
Prosecute the guilty; leave the innocent alone.
The argument from the Word of God:
“If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor, that dwelleth with thee, thou shalt not be hard upon them as an extortioner, nor oppress them with usuries.—Exodus 22:25
If thy brother be impoverished, and weak of hand, and thou receive him as a stranger and sojourner, and he live with thee, Take not usury of him nor more than thou gavest: fear thy God, that thy brother may live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor exact of him any increase of fruits.”
Leviticus 25:35-37 (you may also note how Judaism has subverted Mosaic Law of the jubilee years)
http://www.drbo.org/chapter/03025.htm
“Thou shalt not lend to thy brother money to usury, nor corn, nor any other thing: But to the stranger. To thy brother thou shalt lend that which he wanteth, without usury: that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all thy works in the land, which thou shalt go in to possess.”
Deuteronomy 23:19-20
http://www.drbo.org/chapter/05023.htm
“A psalm of David. Lord, who shall dwell in thy tabernacle? or who shall rest in thy holy hill? He that walketh without blemish, and worketh justice: He that speaketh truth in his heart, who hath not used deceit in his tongue: Nor hath done evil to his neighbour: nor taken up a reproach against his neighbours. In his sight the malignant is brought to nothing: but he glorifieth them that fear the Lord. He that sweareth to his neighbour, and deceiveth not; He that hath not put out his money to usury, nor taken bribes against the innocent: He that doth these things shall not be moved for ever.”
Psalms 14:1-5
http://www.drbo.org/chapter/21014.htm
“As I live, saith the Lord God, this parable shall be no more to you a proverb in Israel. Behold all souls are mine: as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, the same shall die. And if a man be just, and do judgment and justice, … Hath not lent upon usury, nor taken any increase: hath withdrawn his hand from iniquity, and hath executed true judgment between man and man: Hath walked in my commandments, and kept my judgments, to do truth: he is just, he shall surely live, saith the Lord God. Though he doth not all these things, but … That giveth upon usury, and that taketh an increase: shall such a one live? he shall not live. Seeing he hath done all these detestable things, he shall surely die, his blood shall be upon him.”
Ezechiel 18:3-13
http://www.drbo.org/chapter/31018.htm
“And if you love them that love you, what thanks are to you? for sinners also love those that love them. And if you do good to them who do good to you, what thanks are to you? for sinners also do this. And if you lend to them of whom you hope to receive, what thanks are to you? for sinners also lend to sinners, for to receive as much. But love ye your enemies: do good, and lend, hoping for nothing thereby: and your reward shall be great, and you shall be the sons of the Highest; for he is kind to the unthankful, and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.”
Luke 6:32-36
http://www.drbo.org/chapter/49006.htm
You keep choking at usury.. but you seem to believe that if one person or company does charge usury; then, therfore, the person who willingly borrowed the money is under absolutely NO obligation to keep their word and pay back what they have borrowed.
Theft is theft. Not all people who default on a loan is committing theft; there are penalties in the contract which covers default.
You seem to be stating that you are free to borrow from me and never return what you have borrowed.
I have no objection to lending without usury, it is a good and charitable way to be; but if someone borrows knowing that interest is due.. THEY have a moral obligation to repay what they have borrowed or accept the agreed penalty for not having done so.
Thous Shalt not steal. One wrong, does not and can not justify another wrong.
Fatally flawed argument.. as I stated before.
You could make an effort to read more carefully, Sam not Sam. That might fix the problem of what you “seem” to read.
To willfully default is indeed theft.
To be the victim of fraud and duress, rendering a contract null and void, is not theft.
The differentiation of “fraud & duress” vs I wanna newer and shinier gizmo is the basic point of disagreement between you and SNS. At least that is the best way I can summarize it.
My question is very subjective. How much advertisement could be considered informative? How much is suggestive? How much is manipulative? At what point is a person absolved of responsibility for acting on impulse?
When someone makes a choice they must be held to account for it. Absolving people of the responsibility for their choices will only serve to ensure that greater numbers of folks will be inclined to make poor choices if you are going to foot their bill.
On a side note, does anyone know anything about a group known as wayseers?
Good questions, Plain Old American. If St. Thomas Aquinas were alive today, I’ll bet he could answer them. I can’t fully answer them, but I think some principles would be these: (1) at the point where marketing ceases to be informative and becomes seductive is when subliminal imagery is injected and base emotions are manipulated.
(2) at the point when people are faced with a gross imbalance of power, unjust wages and/or unjust prices for the necessities of life, usurious credit and perhaps other contracts are under duress.
That said, I think those questions are made moot by the simple fact that usury is gravely sinful. There is/was enough agreement on that point that almost all the states have anti-usury laws (of varying definitions). The banksters are so wicked that they trumped those state laws by buying Congressman to pass a federal law allowing usury emanating from a state where it is uncontrolled (e.g., Delaware and North Dakota are infamous) to be enforceable even in states with anti-usury laws.
So, consider an analogy. If you entered into a murder-for-hire contract by fraud or under duress (or even simple stupidity or wickedness), would you consider such a contract enforceable? I think not. Why should it be any different for usury, after all, it is a gravely sinful abuse of widows, orphans, poor people, and working people. Why shouldn’t people suffering such an unequal balance of power be able to escape such abuse?
Anyway, I would say that since usury is such an evil, that usurious agreements are not enforceable at all—no more enforceable than murder-for-hire contracts would be enforceable.
Again Jim, yes, it is choice…I chose to keep internet instead of directv.
That decision also was hinged on the fact that if cell has to go?? I still have land line.
And every choice is personal, I’m sure—but many we see right through ad Forest Gump stupid; if not stupid, irresponsible at best.
+100
what are you paying for a gallon of milk?
a loaf of bread?
a pound of rice or box of pasta..?
I know the prices on just these few food items has gone up significantly in my area
A gallon of milk in Ontario is approximately $4.75.
A pound of rice is 55 cents at the best price I could find.
A loaf of no-name whole wheat bread is $1.89.
3.29 gallon milk central ca,
8.99 for 25lb bag of white rice Costco last week
4.99 for 2 loafs of bread
6.99 for 8 bags of pasta Costco….same price at least 3 yrs.
3.50 for a dozen pop tarts….great to add to your daily calorie ct if running low
See what happens when you don’t play nice, you don’t have as much spare cab fair at the end of the day to buy preps…
VRF,
Some prices for you to compare:
A loaf of bread, half a kilo, around 1 euro,
A box of pasta spaghetti 0,90 euros,
A meat tin of 250 grs around 2,20 euros,
A box of sugar around half a kilo, 1 euro.
A sixpack of bottled water of 1,5 liters each, around 2,5 euros.
Manos, using an online calculator I did the conversion from Euros to USD.
Bread: 1.38
Pasta: 1.24
Meat tin (Spam?) 3.04
Sugar: 1.38
Water: 3.45
For the non-metric among us, half a kilo is just slightly over a pound.:)
Walmart’s cheap brand milk was 3.32 US this morning when the wife went shopping, a generic loaf of White cheapest bread was 1.29 US. I’m 60 miles south of Buffalo, NY How about those Bills! Clay
The bottled water is the only thing way out of line with us I think here in the States. I can buy a 35 pack of bottled water at Costco including recycling fees (oh joy) for about 3 to 3.5 Euro’s (under $5)
Jim,
Here is expensive, and the tab water is not potable; too much cloride.
The first spare money i have, i’m going to buy some filter which is installed under the sink. It’s cost is around 650 euros, and must be cleaned every six months with a cost of 30 euros each time.
Water is expensive in Crete because it’s rare. Being an island, the springs move the water to the sea.
Bad water management from local authorities added to the problem, and now it’s late.
Rural Alaska
Gallon of Milk $9.99 I use powdered
Gallon of gasoline $6.13 at the cheap pump
Loaf of bread about $5.00 on sale. I make a lot of bread.
Kids lunches at school $5.00 unless you are low income, which I’m not because I work hard. My kids take lunches from home.
Eggs $5.00 a dozen
Holy toledo, Countrygirl!
How on earth do you manage with prices so high!?!
I shop in the one of the bigger towns and mail in food. I do twice yearly barge orders, and we cook from scratch, garden, and I do have a decent job. I live here because of the subsistence life style in which I can raise my children. They know where there food comes from and live close to the earth. It is a predominately Alaskan Native commuinty, although we are not Alaskan Native.
We hunt and fish and as I said raise chickens. I occasionally buy pork, but other then that have not purchased meat in years. We eat about 40 salmon a year, 2-4 caribou, a moose and sometimes muskox or bear. We also supplement with rabbits, lynx and bird meat and other fish. We pick wild berries in the summer.
It truly is like no other place on earth.
Barge orders, twice a year a company out of Seattle sends out a catalog to costal communitities in Alaska. When I went to pick up my pallet of various things, I felt my heart swell as other members of the community waited to pick up there one, two or three pallets of household products. These folks don’t know, but that supply that will last untill springs is insurance for them.
CG – Alaska must be a beautiful place to live, but the cost of food seems terribly high. I’ve never been there, but the pictures I’ve seen are breathtaking.
From the Mountain State (as of this week):
Gallon of milk – $3.49
Loaf of white bread – 89 cents
Large can of Folgers – $14.49
Carton of orange juice – $2.99
Box of spaghetti – $1.29
Jar of spaghetti sauce – $1.49
Pound of real butter – $3.89
Pound of bananas – 59 cents
Pound of Swiss cheese – $4.99
Pound of romaine lettuce – $1.99
Dozen eggs – $1.59
20 lbs. wild bird seed – $6.89
Gallon of gas – $3.49
WOW!!!
Coffee is sure high there – when not on sale at all here a can of Folgers is $9. Yesterday I got a few cans of Hills Bro because they were down to $4.97.
I wish we could swap bread and milk for coffee! But I think the bread and milk would not survive the postal service too well. 🙁
Pardon me, but Holy Crap!! I hope you are paid well at what ever you do. You need to make some friends here in the lower 48 and let them post stuff up to ya. My wife wants to know if you subscribe and save through Amazon or the like to help save you money. My wife is also teacher and kids here pay $1.50 for school lunches. Peace Clay
Yes, Amazon is probably losing money on there free shipping to Alaska. But it is a great deal. They used to not ship food to Alaska and I’m sure it is only a matter of time until they stop again.
As I said I live in rural Alaska, there are a couple of large communities that have better prices and we mail out of those communities.
I purchase chicken feed for my hens at $20 a bag and then pay $24 to ship it to my community.
Yes, the pay is not bad, but as there is in any community there are ways to save money and we do everything we can.
My kid just asked if he could order a video game from Amazon because he knows we do not purchase anything other then essentials here . . . and some produce.
Hi Claymation,
We paid $10.99 for classic roast folgers last week. Up $ 2.00 in a month. No kidding. I told my husband he was going to have to aquire a taste for cheaper coffee. Also I get my chicken feed from the Feed store. I am going to check out grains there.They say some of our foods cost more because of trucking it so far. I’m 100 miles from Bangor. I saw a women buying 10 lobsters with a food stamp card. I wondered about it becuse she could have gone to the lobster pound and save a few bucks. I don’t pay much attention to that. I figure the people need them. But it does fry my butt when I see people using their cards to buy food from the Swans truck. I can’t afford that. Must be nice.
stay prayed up, keep prepping
Wow!
I went to the Safeway in Fairbanks one time to get some instant coffee. It was spendy but they asked for my “club card” number and it lowered the price to slightly gouged.
Thans to all of you who gave prices, I have to do some grocery shopping soon, I wanted to see how I fit in to the price structure..or if they fall in line with what I see here.
I’ll tryt o remember to post my findings on what i buy this time at the grocery store
Ok I did a bit of shopping today, We didnt need much, due to stock, but here are some of the prices
Milk $3.00 gal
Bananas .67 cents lb
progresso soup $1.25
roast beef lunch meat $3.49
red apples 12 $2.99
betty crocker cake mix $4.79
bread..$1.69
campbells condensed soup $1.50
yoplate yogurt .70
We have a Kroger Card , so I think these are after the discount..
Trickle down economics worked!
HOORAY! IT WORKED!
… ok, it was supposed to trickle down within the United States…
Details, details! Nevermind that, the theory worked!
Vote Republican in 2012!!!
… like I know people absolutely WILL, given all the comments I’ve been reading online lately.
Republican Platform 2012: “The beatings will continue until morale improves”
It will! It will trickle! I know it! They just need another tax break, those poor souls, and they’ll start creating jobs any day now!
Click your heels together three times and say “there’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.”
Funding wars against Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, and having military bases in over a hundred countries is VASTLY more important than allowing people to “keep their own money” to pay for food. Anyone who thinks eating is more important than war is obviously a “traitor”.
Read all about it at FreeRepublic.com where every 10th article is focused on calling Ron Paul a “traitor”.
The wars are expensive and will prove unwinable (we can never win the way we are running these wars), but Afg. costs about $2B/week, while the federal deficit is about $4B/day. Seems USA has a money leak somewhere else besides our huge military machine.
We have always been at war in Uganda!
Military bases in over one hundred countries? There is certainly a military presence in over one hundred countries, but not bases. If you want to consider a safe house a base, then OK… Either way, a lot of money goes down the toilet because of these ventures.
Americans are stuggling more than Chinese to feed themselves. Is this why I am eating more Chinese food lately?
No, your eating more Chinese food lately so that when they repo on the U.S. you just happen to live in a city they will repo on 🙁 . Kinda like Terra-forming they are just educating you in regards to there food first then their customs and if you are useful their language. Enjoy your Wontons and egg rolls…..
By thew way, I still can eat on $160-$200 a month. It’s not that hard (yet).
Foster Farms chicken thighs and frozen vegetables, look for the specials. I’ve heard of people that can actually get by on less, although IMO if you wanted to do that you’d have to go with freeze dried rations.
Fresh vegetables and fruits are getting rather stupidly expensive. That particular trend is concerning, although… if you have land you might be abel to eventually supply your own. Never tried it, I don’t have very much land.
Bananas for my kids were $0.79 a lb and apples which are in season were $0.59 a lb. I’m pretty excited a local store near us has cabbage for $0.38 a lb. Let’s see, cabbage stew on Monday, Fried cabbage on Tuesday, stuffed cabbage on Wednesday. I will make sauerkraut for sure! Any other suggestions, I may need a can of glade, but I think that would offset any savings on the cabbage. Clay
Just strike a match. Much cheaper than Glade.
I believe kimshee is illegal anywhere within two miles of POA.
🙂
Cabbage rolls! Yummy and they freeze well!
That’s the plan Daisy. 😉
Fried Cabbage ? Exactly how does that work ? Never heard of such a thing.. but I love cabbage, so please do tell ?
Sam~
Fried cabbage:
Thinly slice fresh cabbage. In some oil (we use olive) saute some thinly sliced onions and minced garlic. Once those items are slightly browned and fragrant, toss in the cabbage and a tbspof brown sugar. Stir fry until lightly browned – I usually have to add oil once more. Season with salt and pepper to taste. 🙂
Thanks.. sounds good. And easy.. we’ll give it a try
You can skip the brown sugar and toss the fried cabbage into your noodles, more roughage, more vitamins. Stir in an egg and you have a balanced meal for 1 person for about $1 (fuel included), even if you buy organic and high omega 3.
Claymation, regarding your tomato blight. Get some epsom salts and powdered milk. Mix a 1/4 cup salts with 2 tablespoons of milk in about 5 cups of planting soil. Place a cup or two of the mixed dirt in the hole where you’re going to plant the tomato plant. Once planted, sprinkle another 2 TBS of milk around the stem. This took care of my blight. The spores stay in the soil, and I plant in containers, so I was desperate. It REALLY worked well, and my tomatos were abundant last year. And remember, if the blight gets the tomatos, it can also go after the cucumbers!
I will give it a try next year! Thanks so much. Clay
You don’t need much land.I have a spot in the corner of my backyard. I grew 5 rows of green beans, 11 rows of peas along with tomatoes, cucumbers,peppers, onions,cantaloupe. Now bringing in my second crop of peas, still getting tomatoes. I harvested enough greens (turnip,collard,and kreasey) (sp) to feed an army. My garden is only 20’x25′.
Know what you mean. We put away 40 quarts of tomatoes, 20 pints of assorted pickles, 40 assorted squash, beans etc… will use the seeds next year, can’t beat it. Peace Clay
I’m cutting back a little this year.. my son kept whineing about having too many plants to water. I’ll only have about 90-100 tomato plants; 30 different varieties this year.. 🙂
LOL
My grandkids think I work them too much when I get hold of ’em. Work! It does the body good!
Sweet SNS, we put in 50 tomato plants but had a pretty bad blight at one point, I ended up pulling about half. Hopefully better luck next year. Going to let the spot where the tomatoes were go fallow for a year or two, already tilled a new spot for them for next year. We pressure canned 15 quarts of butternut squash today though. Happy Harvesting! Clay
HSL,
I’m jealous, you live where it’s warm.Turups did terrible this year. Put up some tomatoes and carrots. No second crops here. We’ve already had a frost. I blanched some cabbage this year for the first time. Did I spell that right? Brought 100lbs potatoes, red and white from Aroosticook county for $9.00 for 50lbs each.Trying to learn how to use more seeds from garden every year. I’m not that good at it. Especially the smaller seeds. It’s hard to dry them out and go through the whole process. I bet claymation does it.
I do dry my own seeds Lynda, and I have posted a quick guide in this thread, it is awaiting moderation. Clay
Costco just had a “deal” and it might still be there. $799 for a year’s worth of packaged foods. This is the prepper stuff; not mountain house but their other brands. There were enough calorie servings of various items from meets to vegetables and drinks to sustain a person for 12 months for $800. Free delivery and no sales tax means one person could eat for $67 a month. I’m sure you could up it to $100 a month for some treats. Even at our minimum wage that is about 1/14t or 7% of an annual income for a full time person here. I wonder if the Chinese only need 7% of their minimum wage for food?
Pure unmitigated BS. I can still feed a family of four on five dollars a day. I think what this reflects is the politics of the situation not truth. Politically it is great to claim kids go to bed hungry and families cannot afford to buy food. But realistically it is BS. Most/all poor people in this country live better then the middle class in the rest of the world. Most people who claim they cannot get food for their kids get food stamps, WIC, school lunches (and breakfast and dinners too), etc. Most poor people are poor because of chemical addiction and I am willing to bet dollars to doughnuts ( or should I say dollars to beers) that the adults in most these families still smoke, drink and do a little pot but still complain they cannot feed their family. BS
The cold hearts and the blood lust evinced on this blog cause me more worry for the outcome than the rhetoric of entitlement evinced at Occupy Wall Street… and some of you, ahem, identify yourselves as Christians. Will He know you when He comes?
When folks here are having to make tough decisions (car insurance or rent?) it is not un Christian to refuse to support the professionally lazy. Are you infering that society owes an indigent a Blackberry or an Ipod?
I still remember a teacher in Jr. High School praising America. He said even the poor people have two pairs of shoes. He was more than right. Did you see the picture of America’s “poor” taking pictures of Michelle Obama in the soup kitchen with their $300 phones?
I will help. I will contribute. I will NOT enable.
I am in total agreement with all of that.
Please do not imagine that I endorse the rhetoric of entitlement. I have no soft spot in my heart for the people who insist that Medicaid should pay for breast augmentation and sex changes, that welfare should pay for steak and liquor.
As far as I am concerned it is not the proper role of government to provide charity at all; that is the role of churches and charitable individuals.
I am also in favor of “teaching a man how to fish,” not simply “giving him a fish.”
Our thoughts exactly.
Which way on the breast augmentation? Increase or decrease. I’m all in on beatifying the surroundings up to Charlie’s with perkiness.
aint that the truth! you forgot that they always have enough gas in their big cars to get them where they need to go and for cruising up and down the street looking for their next hit, mark or victim.
And have cash for lottery tickets.
Those are investments!
There was a lottery winner in Minnesota if I remember. Saw the story on Yahoo some time back.
He was a homeless guy with only a dollar in his pocket. A lottery ticket was just about the only thing that dollar would buy.
He won!
As others have mentioned many americans can afford cable, cell phones for the family, going out to the movies, cigarettes, etc. but just can’t find money to buy enough food. It is like the druggie/alcoholic who always has their fix, but “just can’t find the money for Susie to get braces” in their budget.
As for China, who really gives a royal dog’s rear? How about we all wake up to the fact we all could learn to live without a lot of luxuries? How about we focus on america and what is important to our nation’s well being and stop worrying if the Joneses in China went on vacation and ate shrimp.
The only Joneses I’m keeping up with speak fluent dog- They can eat the same thing every day without complaint, they are happy and willing to work and seem to understand nothing in life is free, they are loyal and would fight for my life if threatened, and they are wonderful at keeping secrets!
Ours are considerate enough never to add to the laundry pile, hog the bathroom or beg for their own cell phones. I think we’ll keep them…
For everyone out there, just remember, that food and water is the necessity of life. If you want to control the world populace or even one country. Control the food and water, you have them right were you want them. Genecide in the form of starvation is nothing new to planet earth. Gradually, the masses are waking up, but will it be to late? Just like OWS taking place right now, a little to late by say 3.5 years……!
The Little Red Hen – 2011 Edition
The little red hen called all of her neighbors together and said, ‘If we plant this wheat, we shall have bread to eat. Who will help me plant it?’
‘Not I,’ said the cow.
‘Not I,’ said the duck.
‘Not I,’ said the pig.
‘Not I,’ said the goose.
‘Then I will do it by myself,’ said the little red hen, and so she did. The wheat grew very tall and ripened into golden grain.
‘Who will help me reap my wheat?’ asked the little red hen.
‘Not I,’ said the duck..
‘Out of my classification,’ said the pig.
‘I’d lose my seniority,’ said the cow.
‘I’d lose my unemployment compensation,’ said the goose.
‘Then I will do it by myself,’ said the little red hen, and so she did.
At last it came time to bake the bread.
‘Who will help me bake the bread?’ asked the little red hen.
‘That would be overtime for me,’ said the cow.
‘I’d lose my welfare benefits,’ said the duck.
‘I’m a dropout and never learned how,’ said the pig.
‘If I’m to be the only helper, that’s discrimination,’ said the goose.
‘Then I will do it by myself,’ said the little red hen.
She baked five loaves and held them up for all of her neighbors to see. They wanted some and, in fact, demanded a share. But the little red hen said, ‘No, I shall eat all five loaves.’
‘Excess profits!’ cried the cow. (Nancy Pelosi)
‘Capitalist leech!’ screamed the duck. (Barbara Boxer)
‘I demand equal rights!’ yelled the goose. (Jesse Jackson)
The pig just grunted in disdain. (Harry Reid)
And they all painted ‘Unfair!’ picket signs and marched around and around the little red hen, shouting obscenities.
Then the farmer (Obama) came. He said to the little red hen, ‘You must not be so greedy.’
‘But I earned the bread,’ said the little red hen.
‘Exactly,’ said Barack the farmer. ‘That is what makes our free enterprise system so wonderful. Anyone in the barnyard can earn as much as he wants. But under our modern government regulations, the productive workers must divide the fruits of their labor with those who are lazy and idle.’
And they all lived happily ever after, including the little red hen, who smiled and clucked, ‘I am grateful, for now I truly understand.’
But her neighbors became quite disappointed in her. She never again baked bread because she joined the ‘party’ and got her bread free. And all the Liberals smiled. ‘Fairness’ had been established.
Individual initiative had died, but nobody noticed; perhaps no one cared…so long as there was free bread that ‘the rich’ were paying for.
Capitalism is not bad, it is groups like the Bildergers who meet once a year, in private, to rig the system that is bad.
And before anyone calls that BS, you better check your facts. The Bilderberg (and other) group has been meeting in private to rig the game for over 50 years. It is a fact.
It is like a poker game where 5 of the 7 players are “rigging the system”. Sure the cards will fall, but collusion between the 5 players guarantees the 2 players who are not bilbergbergers can not win.
The system is rigged. When they dropped the rules limiting banks to operating ONLY within one state, and dropped rules limiting media ownership and they dropped rules limiting short selling and they changed rules regarding personbal bancruptsy…. THEY KNEW WHAT WAS COMING….. and they dropped and changed rules upon rules, they dropped good rules… rules which helped keep the system fair.
They were rigging the system, starting about 1990, in anticipation for what we see happening today.
The dynastic banksters and “international” financiers have been rigging the system for many centuries. That is why the calls for MORE “free market” capitalism are analogous to noticing that a little “free market” arsenic didn’t cure the patient’s syphilis, so they clamor to give the dying patient MORE “free market” arsenic.
No, thank you.
Well, first of all you don’t give arsenic for syphilis. Corrosive sublimate of mercury was the traditional cure.
Second, while there have been many nations which suffered under banking malfeasance in the past, up until the Clinton era the USA was NOT one of them. We got close to losing it, but the rational regulation that came out of the Great Depression worked pretty well to prevent excess concentrations of power. In the later 20th century the tradition of buying votes with free Government cheese really got rolling. FDR was the first, but Lyndon Johnson played that system like a violin. Then during Clinton we let CONgress force banks to make trillions of bad loans, in return for which they let the banks slip their leashes, and many of them ran hog wild. They changed the rules to let banks operate nationwide, let them trade for their own accounts against the interest of their customers, allowed unlimited derivatives (notably CDS) trading, installed and then dropped the “mark to market” FASB rule, winked at all sorts of fraudulent MBS selling and rating practices, let them run capital ratios of 3% instead of the rational 25%, legalizing insider trading by CONgresscritters, and so on and so on.
Prior to this, we had a fairly stable and functional “modified free market” banking system. What we have now is nothing like. And free market DID NOT create this mess – the CONgress did it, for selfish political reasons. Restoring the restrained free market would fix things, but the price we will pay will be immense. Inflation, depression, possibly famine,and probably war will all occur before the mad dogs we let loose in the ’80s can be brought back to heel.
There is no need to invent a new “system”. “Systems” are the hobgoblins of small minds. The free market, under well-planned restraints, exercised by men who have no personal interest in the markets, is still the best by far. Simply forcing every CONgresscritter to put all his assets and those of all his family members in a blind trust will make a huge difference.
Old Coach,
Did you read Reckless Endangerment? You’re quite accurate in your understanding of what transpired.
@ Old Coach
Really?
Administration of arsenic in syphilis
W. T. Lockhart and J. R. Atkinson
Can Med Assoc J. 1919 February; 9(2): 129–135.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1523648/
Also @ Old Coach
” …but the rational regulation that came out of the Great Depression worked pretty well …”
In whose estimation?
The banksters’ manipulation of the dollar had so debased the dollar that approximately 95% of the buying power had been inflated away, 1900 dollar compared to 1990 dollar.
That doesn’t meet my definition of “working pretty well.”
*********
As for your claim “And free market DID NOT create this mess – the CONgress did it, for selfish political reasons,” you have made my point for me—a “modified free market” didn’t work. The “market” needs more RESTRAINT, not more freedom. AXIOM: Big money and government always become partners in crimes against humanity.
************
Gotta love this: ” The free market, under well-planned restraints…”
FREE market under RESTRAINT. Go figure.
Other than your appearance of contradiction, how is you “FREE market under RESTRAINT” so much different from my suggestion for RESTRAINED capitalism?
Isn’t “naked” shortselling the practice of selling shares you don’t actually own? I thought that sort of thing amounted to fraud.
Two points:
1: “Capitalism is not bad”!!! Capitalism is not a political system. It flourishes in a environment where the people have freedoms. Capitalism is what people choose to do when they are free to pursue their dreams. You cannot “end” capitalism you can only restrict freedoms.
2: There is nothing wrong with banks operating nationwide or worldwide. Why not? There is nothing wrong with allowing free citizens in a free country to own a media company. In fact the old rules were unconstitutional. Think about what you have actually said; That is that the congress arbitrarily set up laws to limit freedoms and now that some of those “rules” were brought into line with the constitution you want to blame that for our economic problems. Our problems were caused by government intervention/meddling in the economy; they cannot be fixed by more meddling.
Ahem….. that is Distributism… is you don’t mind ?
The games begin in,…,tick tock, tick tock, tick tock…..
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/10/police-punch-woman-protester-in-the-face.html
its shit like this when it get out of hand, one thing the police have not taken into account is there are way more of us, than there are of them..and if this type of abuse keeps on going on, soon enough when one person starts to get a beat down from a cop, 100 people are going to beat down that cop..
its coming, it will be nasty..people are watching this, and when it happens they will only have themselfs to blame..the cops are in this sitaution with us weather they see it or not, soon their pensions will dry up and their union will fuck them..
and one day they will punch or beat the wrong person for the wrong reasons, and their ass will be handed to them by the public that has had enough of this strong arming way of “do what we say or eat my fist”..
what an asshole
No suit on the city..(us the tax payers)
Civil Suit on the cops that pull this shit..
thats what will rein this in
manos, those cows reminded me that good laugh I had when I first read them… immortal!
here are some more
Lithuanian economy: You have 2 cows, EU pays you to not have them, so you sell them for pennies and enjoy EU pay for three years, after that you container dive.
Latvian economy: You have 2 cows, then you do what Lithuanians did, but after you start to container dive, you go to IMF and ask for loan, after that you and your children’s children container dive
Estonian economy: You have 2 cows, and you buy those 4 cows from lithuanian and latvian and you live happily ever after.
Monsanto economy: you have 2 cows with 5 udders each.
Swedish economy: you have 2 reindeer and you don’t care
Norwegian economy: you have 2 cows and both of them work at your oil rig
German economy: you have 2 cows, you give one to Greece to advance their payment on that BMW so that your factory keeps going.
Spanish economy: you have 2 cows, you sell them both and buy yourself a bull, then you kill it in corrida. After moratorium on corridas you go and have a siesta.
Luxembourg economy: you have 2 cows in France
French economy: you have 2 cows and they protest everyday for more fodder and less work
Ukrainian economy: you have 2 cows, one is pro Russian, the other pro west, so you have to have 2 barns in order to keep them separate.
Byelorussian economy: you have 2 cows, Batka takes one, but you are still better off than lithuanian. however, everyone says you’re not.
Kaliningradskaya oblast economy: you have 2 cows, one has AIDS, the other drinks vodka with you and counts the first cow (having trouble with deciding if it’s two or three cows there)
Polish economy: you have 2 cows and you think you have another in Vilnius that surely belongs to you.
Former Yugoslavian economy: you have 2 cows, suddenly you have 10 calves instead and they all are trying to kill each other
Libyan economy: you have 2 cows, no, there goes French bomber, you have no cows
Saudi Arabian economy: you have 2 cows and each drives its own Lamborghini
Iraqi economy: you had 2 cows, now Halliburton owns them and you are sitting in a car packed with C4
Pakistani economy: you have 2 cows, one of them is suspected terrorist, so the drone comes and kills them both
Nepalese economy: you have 2 cows, but they look nothing like cows
Scottish economy: you have 2 cows and both of them cry FREEDOM! every time you try to milk them
Hi Giurza,
A good joke is immortal all over the world.
Let me thank you too.
Be safe.
The same can of coffee I was buying for just under $10 a month ago is now $13.59 in east central Indiana
All by design….inflation is not rising prices…it is too much money in circulation making each dollar worth less thereby causing rising prices….Thanks, Bernanke….
All,
A very simple and effective way to supplement your diet, (when shtf) is with animal protein, snaring target animals in your area can do that.
LNL PROTEKT LLC will be conducting an outdoor snaring seminar in the big thicket area of East Texas in the near future. It will be at an undisclosed location and since we will be filming and possibly demonstrating another of our products, participants are limited and will be required to wear blind folds for the last 30 minutes of the drive up there. We will meet at a yet to be decided locale in the Houston proper area. Email LNL PROTEKT LLC if interested, cost of seminar is free. Wear appropriate clothing, including knee high rubber boots, do not use scented products of any kind. Wash your clothes with no laundrey detergent and hang dry in an area where odors cannot absorb, or buy human scent killing dryer sheets and use dryer. When dry, use a new unscented trash bag and pull out of dryer into the bag not touching the clothing with your hands, tie bag shut and just wear clean washed clothes the day of seminar. You will be given the opportunity to have a private place to change. ABSOLUTLEY NO cell phones or GPS units allowed.
Terry W. Reed
american cannot eat but have a cell phone in every pocket!
My very near-sighted neighbor lady (she’s 84) reads this site every day. She called me in a panic last night-
“Did you hear that Americans were having trouble putting Chinese food on the table?”
“No, I didn’t” I said, “Seems to me there are lots of chinese restaurants around.”
“It’s true,” she insisted, “I just read about it at stuff hits the fan.”
I thought I’d tease her just a bit. “So, just where is this alleged shortage of chinese food occuring? Did the won-ton farmers suffer a crop failure? Have the chow mein ranchers had a disease outbreak? A labor strike at our largest noodle factories?”
“Be serious!” she said, “I saw this at Mac’s dot com site.” (she really talks like that)
I tried not to laugh. “Guess I missed the news, besides I thought the Kansas stir-fry farms were getting more bushels per acre than ever before. Does this have anything to do with Archer Daniels Midland and those genetically modified egg rolls?”
She got kind of testy, but she knew I was kidding, and she has a great sense of humor. Just before she hung up, she literally had me on the floor! She said “I’m just wondering where all this chinese food scarcity is coming from. Oh, never mind, we’ll just go to the drive-up window for tacos instead.” !!!
This is so funny that I had to pass it on!!!
BULLSHIT, food is still very cheap in USA, They can’t afford food but they have an iphone, and 200 channels of cable at home… BOOHOO.
yea its still cheap but its really going up fast. i used to buy 150 dollars of groceries for 75 bucks. its going up. hell just a few items can be over 10 bucks. crazy
The inflation rate in the US is currently 11.4% not 3% as reported by the government.(John Williams economist,shadowstats.com)
I have noticed from store-to-store the price of canned good has gone up. I shop at WINCO which is employee owned and nonunion. The unionized stores are far more expensive than WINCO. I rarely buy anything at the union store – mostly fresh produce. I think at the wholesale level the prices have stabilized or even gone down. However, the middle man (stores) are raising prices to squeeze the last penny out people before they start dropping their prices. There are people no doubt struggling, but there’s plenty of charities around where people can go and get something to eat. There’s no excuse to go hungry except for one’s laziness.
We’re trying to off set the cost of food.
1. Planting fruit trees
2. Installing raised garden beds
3. Bought “The Essential Wild Food Survival Guide” by Linda Runyon
We can’t sustain ourselves yet, but it’s a start. 🙂
I got a great book about this, RWM. It’s called “Surviving the Apocalypse in the Suburbs” and it’s about sustaining a family of four on something like a quarter acre.
While I don’t necessarily go along with everything she teaches, you can’t beat her microfarming tips.:)
Hey Mom, Does anyone hunt; we supplement quite a bit of meat each year this way.
Originally the victory garden in WWII had the purpose of making the public feel that they we’re helping. After the war a study showed that 20% of the fruits and vegetables came from those victory gardens.
Gardens will be coming back and well maintained lawns not so. My great Uncle used top say, “You no grow if you do not eat”.
Daisy,
Thanks. I’ll check Amazon for a copy.
Kevin,
I’m hearing about more people starting their own small gardens. Thanks for the reminder about the victory gardens. Hope our generation can be as great as that one!
Don’t forget to stock up on peanut butter before the increase.
18 jars!!!
We had a bunch already but we bought another case. I was at Sam’s Club on the day I heard about the price increase. They were already out of it. All they had left were the big cans.
22 jars here…but I’ve had them for 2 years or more…because all I hear is how they are gonna rot–hey, preppers, if it gets real bad, I may not care!!!!!!!
I’ve eaten them that old before, they just lose flavor
I would start making a ton of PB cookie dough, freeze and replace with new PB. But that’s just me.
about 12 jars here.. bought it on bogo.. such a deal.
PB has to be the near perfect prepper food, cheap, delicious, nutritious, requires no fridge even after opening and lasts practically forever.
What the heck causes that ?? Honey never goes bad either. If it crystalizes, just put it in a warm/hot pan of water and it turns right back into honey..
Daisy: Crunchy? 🙂
Oh no!
Why do you think Daisy might be crunchy?
POA: How do you think they get that peanut butter into those little chocolate cups?
I’m not crunchy at all – a little cranky sometimes but not crunchy.:D
Smooth PB makes yummier cookies.
Three big cans from Sam’s Club, mostly for granddaughters. The expiration date was sometime in 2013 and I keep the cans in a dark, cool basement storage room, mostly to keep aforesaid grand daughters out of it. I may even break down and buy a case or two of Ravioli and Spaghettios which I wouldn’t normally keep within ten miles of the house. It’s hard to feed younger children and tweens who are picky eaters. I know that convential wisdom says that if you’re starving, you’ll eat anything, but I’m not sure that applies to children. We’ve introduced them to gardening and fresh produce, both from the ground and from trees and bushes and they seem to like it. They’re a little more leery of eggs which I really don’t understand. Today’s kids are the Bambi generation with all the neuroses that implies.
Also, in reference to cooking cabbage, it’s great if you fry it alone in bacon drippings. I’m sure that negates the healthful qualities to some extent, but it’s certainly good!
The Chinese are not eating frozen processed food. An American would starve to death before eating everything that can be ate including Dogs, cats, rats, brains and eyes. If it flies, swims, crawls, grows or wiggles the Chinese will eat it. We have the fattest poor people on the planet.
We have problems. We have hungry people. Look what food they buy. My people during the depression ate beans,tomatoes, pasta and wild brocolli (rabe). Italian peasant food, cheap and in reality good for you. You could make a drum of Pasta Fagoli for $20 and feed a family for 4 / 5 days.
Food cheaper compared to wages in China. I don’t buy it.
Did anyone see the article on Drudge that reported the State of Wisconsin has determined that nothing you grow in/on the land, nor any product such as milk from your own cow or eggs from your own chickens is “intrinsically” your property? It’s illegal to drink raw milk in Ohio, and definitely verboten to sell it which is why they harrass so many of the Amish. We garden and can the crop or dehydrate it which keeps down our grocery bill and I definitely consider it mine!!! Ohio isn’t yet quite as bad as Wisconsin, but neither would be tolerated in the Plains states. We are making more money than we did in 1999, but that’s because my husband was laid off. If our income was adjusted for inflation, we’d be in the “rich” group that BO is always carrying on about, but our wages haven’t grown that much. Food costs here are astronomical and I feel so sorry for friends on social security. The government lies about everything and they’re really hurting. Of course, according to the Fed, there is no inflation, just our imagination, I guess.
Hey Juliet, do you have the link. Clay
Sorry, I don’t have it. It was on 2-3 days ago and Drudge has a section where you can ask for older stories. Sorry!
Claymation,
Hi! I found info on the same topic. here:
Wisconsin Bull
“A Wisconsin judge has ruled that people in that State have no “fundamental right” to consume any food, own or use dairy cows or consume the milk their cows produce, without government permission.”
http://www.personalliberty.com/conservative-politics/civil-liberty/wisconsin-bull/
Thanks Mom! Clay
It’s OK. I snooped around Drudge but did not find it. I did find this neat little link though. It allows everyone to see what their state allows as far as Raw Milk. The Amish Family living right up the road sells Raw Milk, Mostly to a few local families making their own cheese and butter. Peace Clay
http://www.realmilk.com/happening.html
Good luck on closing your account from Shitty Bank or Skank of America.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/
I wonder hoow they legally can do this, anyone have an answer? or is this Bank asking to go down the drain flaming and smoking all the way?
if i was told I couldnt get to my money,,the second i had my hands onn it I would never put it in any other bank
this is bad policy, and should be against the law, I hope someone challenges this and sues the shit out of them
Apparently she didn’t have a good enough firearm-Best withdrawl slip you can have when they won’t take their own slip any longer.
They tell them they can’t be customers and protesters. The catch is they forced to be customers so they can’t be protesters, but since they are protesters they can’t get into the bank. With circular logic like this, you know some lawyer thought that one up. Well when that lawyer is out of a job, he can always run for congress.
When I lived in the US (2003-2009) the thing that shocked me the most, was that the majority of Americans I spoke to believed that the US had the highest standard of living in the world. I learnt to keep my mouth shut after a while, as I’d end up in hostile arguments defending myself.
The truth is, the US hasn’t had a high standard of living for decades. Quality of life and the standard of living was fairly average. This was my view on day one, till I left the US in 2009. I was amazed when I returned to my homeland in 2009. I received double my US income doing the same work I did in the US and I automatically received 4 weeks paid vacation leave. I had access to affordable medical care (without being forced to pay health insurance and one of the kids is still covered by the government with 100% free health care for two more years, even though he was born in the US. He even gets 20 hours a week free childcare while he goes to play group/kindy …… They start em early here. The two older children had to work a bit harder at school catching up to their age group though.
Point is, Americans are NOT receiving the quality of life that others around the world get. And I’m not talking about countries like Zimbabwe or India or Brazil.
I have just recently finished a book on War Brides (WWII) It came as a huge surprise that many brides taken back to the US by American serviceman, left within a couple of years back to their homelands. Many were taken back to homes with dirt floors and no running water. Even back in the late 1940’s the standard of living was not even comparable to bombed out England.
My kids are American through and through but even they think they’ve landed in paradise to what they had back in “their” country of birth!!
Hmmm,from your description of the fatherland I would say it smells like Greece.
To The German,
You may be right about the standard of living in America not being as high as we think it is. Then again, you may be wrong. I’ve traveled a bit myself (Seen 28 countries on 4 continents- mostly for work, a few as a tourist) and I have yet to see a nation with a greater standard of living. Some, particularly in europe, have about the same, but no better.
The stark difference in America and the rest of the world, including our nearest neighbors to the north and south, is the “attidude” of Americans. The mindset here is different than anywhere else I’ve been. And thank God for that! Even with a huge and growing class of lazy malcontents, we, in the US still possess an ideal of self reliance and self determination that is sadly lacking elsewhere. It’s called ‘freedom.’
You mentioned the ‘free’ child care, the ‘free’ health care, the ‘automatic’ 4 weeks of vacation among the benefits of your home country. WHO pays for all your guaranteed freebies? Your government?
Obviously, you don’t have the same world view as a typical American, who would see these things for what they truly are. Many people in America not only resist the lie of the free lunch, we despise it, because that so-called free stuff always comes at the price of lost liberty. Being a european (I’m guessing, based on your posting name) you would be hard pressed to understand the concept. It has not been a part of the european culture for centuries, and in many nations there, it never has been. Best of luck in your home country. And, enjoy your freebies!
You tell a good joke Okie from time to time, but when you speak from the heart you hit the point directly. Free Benefits and entitlements do not equal freedom. How many of these people who receive these in other countries when diagnosed with something serious or life threatening,come to the USA when care their would be free in their “homeland?” I’ll tell ya, as many as can afford to. The grass only appears greener on the other side, and The German needs to stop smoking it! Keep fighting the good fight. Peace Clay
I’ve seen your grass Claymation. You can keep it. I’m happy to report that the grass on my side of the fence is greener and taller. And there is no way I’d EVER return to the US unless dragged there kicking and screaming. Having experienced your side of the fence for a few years, it did nothing but wipe me out financially!! My wife is American, she got sick and no amount of insurance was able to save my hard earned savings from going down the drain trying to save her. American Doctors!! Sheesh. I wouldn’t piss on a single one of them if they were on fire!!! Pack of self indulged greedy arseholes! The only thing they diagnosed successfully was their golfing handicaps. After 3 years of searching it took a small town Doctor 10 minutes in this country to finally diagnose what was wrong. It wasn’t even remotely related to what 16 US Doctors and Specialist guessed it was. Immediate surgery solved the problem and within 3 weeks life was back to normal for her.
So keep you green grass. Keep your wonderful and awesome Doctors. Enjoy your medical insurance industry. Wave your flag and be proud of what you have. And remember, that not everyone on this planet worships what you have.
As for the kids, well, they still have a mum around AND they are all proud of their new passports and Citizenships!!
Interesting.
What was the problem that was so easily fixed?
SmokinOkie, sorry mate. I’m no Euro trash brother. I just picked the name “The German” because of a funny little incident that occurred to me, on how to get people moving, in shitty third world countries with the term “ROLL THE PANZERS”
The 28 countries you travelled to? Your not even half way to catching me up. I’m guessing you’re ex Military and at least two of the countries you travelled to as a tourist were Canada and Mexico.
I’ve been lucky to have lived around the world in several countries in Asia, the Middle East, Oceania, Europe and of course in the US. I’ve worked in very stable environments and in countries where the circumstance’s were anything but safe. So I have a very good understanding and appreciation of what daily life is like in many countries.
As for being hard pressed to understand the meaning of Liberty and Freedoms (because you
assumed me to be European) I have to disagree wholeheartedly with you on this count. Unless you experience the loss of Freedom and Liberty you’ll never have any idea of what you have until you’ve lost it.
There are some fantastic countries on this planet. Where quality of life and standard of living are very high. There is no need for citizens to arm themselves out of fear and where the term ‘open carry’ only means carrying your latte around with no lid.
If you want a better understanding of Liberty and Freedom, I suggest you read a book called The Economic Hitman. Many countries now suffer under the ‘corporate jackboot’ Imposed upon their lives by American based corporations. Their hard gained Liberties, lost to unseen lobbyist in Washington DC..
I’m lucky enough to still live in a country where, Liberty is expected and quality of life is still high. Thankfully, the people continue to reject the American version of ‘Freedom’ The ‘brand’ of Liberty that America offers to the world is soundly rejected as repulsive and of little value. Our founding fathers did not foist a Constitution upon us that locked us into a belief system that doesn’t conform to ‘our’ situation and times today. We live freely and soundly reject the model that is often imposed corporately or at gun point upon many countries.
Best of luck to you too and enjoy ‘your’ version of Liberty and Freedom.
28 Arrested yesterday in NY at a Citi Bank Branch for trying to close their accounts!
Locked inside, arrested, then taken to jail!
http://thetotalcollapse.blogspot.com/2011/10/total-collapse-occupy-wall-street.html
BANK RUNS COMING….
I hope the NYPD is sued into oblivion!
I shop at a military commissary sometimes. The prices have appeared to be in a state of flux the past few years. One week I could buy Skippy peanut butter for $1.59, the following week it would be $2.25, then back to a “normal” price later. Cereals always seem to be bouncing around somewhat significantly nowadays too, up to $1 at a time. Why is this? Retirees complaining about prices or are they trying to keep inflation at bay for the time being? I’m overseas right now; I haven’t really noticed price increases at the local stores. Although, everything is already expensive here because of the 20% VAT.
I eat mice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg-qIUuA2qk
Doesn’t the plastic hurt your mouth?… Just kidding ya! My Grandfather fought in WW2 and he told me once that when he was in Poland he was struck by the lack of small animals, pets and vermin even with all the destruction around him. He mentioned this to a local shopkeeper as he was helping clean out the ruble in his store and he was told ” The make excellent soup!” Clay
Marine Sergeant Stands Up to NYPD to Protect Wall Street Protesters.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/10/veterans-support-wall-street-protests.html
Bush Tax Cuts Cost the Rest of Us $11.6 Million An Hour. Yes, An Hour.
http://nationalpriorities.org/en/blog/2011/10/14/what-the-bush-tax-cuts-cost/
at that rate, I can only afford about 3 milliseconds worth!
I’m not too sure about this survey.
Americans sometimes tend to make things worse than they are. I don’t know that this is the M.O. here, but, we’ve all heard the stories about the food stampers buying steak and fancy stuff.
I think the Chinese answer to the survey would be about rice and nothing else. That they couldn’t buy ANYTHING to eat, or at least enough to not go hungry.
I think the American answer to the question would be that they couldn’t have the quality they wanted.
I tend to see Americans as pretty big whiners when they had to eat pork chops instead of sirloin because they’d have to take a satellite TV package with fewer channels. I’m sorry but its just how I feel. Americans are spoiled.
I’m sure there are those that are ACTUALLY going hungry. What makes me angry is that there are those that are abusing the system and eating better than I am yet there are people who are going hungry at the same time.
You’d never hear me complain about pork chops! Hell, I’ll take some of that rice on the side also. That’s good eatin!
“I’m from the govt and I’m here to straighten out your a**..I heard you’re feeding your children ramen noodles while you watch cable and talk on that cell..well, here’s a bag of milk, cheese, oatmeal, and chef-bay-ar-dee until the groceries are delivered…now, about that
phone, since you’re losing any direct check, better find
a way to pay for that—..and that tv is officially off, unless you have other funds….. Your EBT is revoked/canceled. Groceries will be delivered every month, rent paid along with utilities,and that does not include gas for that Lexus out front…which will more than likely be repoed soon with no welfare coming directly to you…oh, I forgot that part??
Have a nice day”
Why do we can so much, Mommy?
http://scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook/canning-for-zombies.jpg
We’re definitely on the downhill slide, it’s just a matter of time.
The SPCA in China is a grocery store.
In america we have:
cell phones in every pocket (just about)
computers in every home (seems like)
laptops in every commercial on TV
McDonald’s on every corner
A dollar store in every town
Sales adds in every paper
brand new strip malls that were never filled
housing tracks in every community
brand new police cars in ever county
at least one grocery store in every town
a rite aid store around the corner
brand new homes that were never sold
farmer’s markets that sell organic good at higher prices
specialty chocolate shops every where
craft stores all over the place
wine stores
gas stations in every town
restaurants in every town
2 income famlies are the norm
daycare in every town
preschools in every town
road work every spring and summer
christmas shopping starting in sept.
when I see people selling the tires off thier cars to buy food (like they did in the depression) then I will believe americans are struggling to put food on the table.
you have to shop carefully, know where you’re going and what you’re going to buy when you get there, don’t get side tracked by the all garbage in the isles and that other old advertizement, “buy one get one free”. there are a lot of sales and that’s the time to buy. We bought a couple hundred cans of solid white tuna, 10 for ten dollars,that tuna is on sale today, 4 for five dollars. the same with progresso soups,campbells soups, 28 oz cans of diced tomatos. we got over a yrs supply of canned foods at Aldies and Save-a-lot. you can save money if you look around and don’t spend a lot of money on gas driving around looking, get the fliers and buy on sale.Even what is on sale now for 1.25 will be on sale next year for 1.55. we home can also, 70 qt jars of apples,40 qts of apple sauce,90 qts of squash and pumpkin.110 qts of potatos, a couple hundred qt jars of each beef and chicken.. Beets, beans,peas,fruit cocktail ect are still reasonable prices at the above stores, but we stocked up last yr.now we just fill in a little now and then. we’re both light eaters and picky, but the people who will be moving here as times get a little tougher will eat good for a couple yrs.
@ Just me, Wow that’s a lot of canning! Good for you. Have you had any problems canning meat. To be honest I’ve been leery about it. We pressure can veggies, and grandma always canned venison. Whats the longest you find you dare keep and eat meat canned? And where do you find your best value on jars? Clay
never had any problems with canned foods, every now and then, we find one with the seal broke and just flush it, we have never canned meat with the bone in, always deboned the meat except for fish.it all has to be pressure canned.we also can 75-100 qts of different dry beans every couple yrs, pinto,black, kidney,navy,great northern, it makes it easier and faster to make a soup or chile during the winter or for a few yrs,
the good thing about canning is it don’t matter if the freezer stops working or the power is off.
we’ve got canned beef and chicken down there thst is over four yrs old, I dare say that in the forties, I ate some that was over ten yrs old and in the Army,I ate C-rations in the 50s that were packed for WW2.Ham and Lima beans, I think I lived on them for a couple months. If the seal is good and the smell in good, the food is good, you’ll know a bad jar when you see it, you don’t have to open them to know it’s bad.
I get everything at SaveALot and Aldi’s.
Best prices and don’t need a membership card…no offense, but screw coupons..I go to stores that already are at the lowest prices.
Aldi’s tuna..55 cents..
SavALot had 26 oz chicken noodle and tomato for $1..can’t beat that.
I just looked in a local sale flyer.
StarKist Solid White Albacore is 4 for $5.00
Bumble Bee Solid White Albacore in a nice plastic 4 pk is 4 for $6.29
Bumble bee Chunk Light which probably most cats would turn down is .89.
I’ll bet over 50% of the people just go in and grab the 4 pk for 6.29 without even looking around, they’re in too much of a hurry to get over to the isle with the good stuff,doritos,gold fish,oreos,beer, ect.
REPORT: TX Students Made to Recite Mexican Anthem, Pledge of Allegiance…
Source: The Blaze
Europe now has one week to “fix” the crisis
Source: The Daily Crux
Try this site for food prices from various years: http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/pricebasket.html
My wife doesn’t like the food from e-foods direct.
I bought the sample pack, and she says “no more”
Maybe the vegetables in cans would be one way to go about being prepared when SHTF.
Nothing startling about a country full of suckers voting for a pretty boy, programmed and force fed what to say by his puppet masters. Oh, and now they don’t have anything to eat? Shocking! I was sure a community organizer being manipulated by a bunch of psychopathic village idiots would have had all the answers. Don’t come to my door for food losers, see 1600 Pennsylvania avenue in DC for all your hand out needs.
Just want to say to all of you haters of those who according to you inappropriately use foodstamps. When my husband ditched us, we lost everything. Couldn’t find work, no daycare for evenings and weekends and no one hiring. We ended up on foodstamps. I am careful with money and what we eat. At one point I decided to do something fun for my child and make a nice dinner to pretend we were out to a fancy dinner which we could never afford. I bought filet mignon, asparaus (out of season), and red potatoes. Yep, I got the super pissed off eye rolls and looks of disgust from those in line behind me. Screw them. We had nothing else, barely a roof over our head. I did something nice for my child and made her day. Try to remember that when you are complaining about others who seem to be getting a free ride. It’s not always as it appears.
That’s coz of the difference of expectations and food intake between chinese and americans. An american would need 2 quarter-pounders with extra cheese, 2 large fries, a milk shake and a coke just to get thru the next 4 hours. A chinese could last 8 hours work on a tiny $1 hamburger and some water gurgled from the public toilet’s taps.
I don’t think it is that bad.
I work a $12/hr job, my wife stays home, always has– homeschooled our kids– and she shops at Whole Foods and Trader Joes. We drink wine with dinner. We raise chickens for eggs, rabbits and goats for meat and sheep for wool for a business. We built a small home, 2 kids. Life’s as rich as you make it.
I WAS A PRODUCE MANAGER FOR A MAJOR FOOD CHAIN IN ARKANSAS FOR SEVERAL YEARS, IN THE EARLY 2000’S. FOOD PRICES HAVE INCREASE 40% TO 100% SINCE. GOOD LUCK FOLKS.