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The United States is Broke

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Meril36
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Posted: Thu 20 Mar , 2008 10:02 pm
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I would bet if you toss the chickens a box of crickets now and then and otherwise vary their diet the eggs won't taste much different from free range. That's only my guess, of course -- I've never raised chickens.

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MariaHobbit
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Posted: Fri 21 Mar , 2008 2:33 pm
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Actually, it's the vegetation they eat that ups their beta carotene intake which makes free range eggs have such orange yolks. I'll throw them stuff once in a while and see how that goes.

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Cenedril_Gildinaur
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Posted: Fri 21 Mar , 2008 7:00 pm
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According to a chicken website that I read, throwing them a box of crickets makes for a great show as they chase them around the pen.

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It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

Last edited by Cenedril_Gildinaur on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total


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oldtoby
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Posted: Sat 22 Mar , 2008 1:25 pm
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Dave_LF wrote:
I am planning to plant some blueberry bushes and either cherry or pear trees in addition to the vegetable garden. Anyone have any advice on those? (I live in USDA zone 6, if that means anything to you).
For years my grandparents had a pear tree in their backyard. (this is in West Michigan, you're Wisconsin right?) It never produced a lot of pears, and they were of average size and a little firm, but we used to pick and eat them and they tasted fine. I dont recal that my grandpa ever gave the tree any special care, just watered it whenever he would water the rest of the yard.


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Jude
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Posted: Sun 23 Mar , 2008 3:13 pm
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I don't know if this holds true for your zone, but in my experience raspberry canes give you a huge return on your investment. In fact, if you don't trim them back aggressively, they'll take over your whole property!

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Meril36
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Posted: Sun 23 Mar , 2008 5:03 pm
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Jude wrote:
I don't know if this holds true for your zone, but in my experience raspberry canes give you a huge return on your investment. In fact, if you don't trim them back aggressively, they'll take over your whole property!
The same is true of blackberries. In Oregon where I used to live blackberries have actually become a rather big problem; like Kudzu vine in the South, except that blackberries have the redeeming quality of producing something tasty.

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Trying for profundity only limits depth.

With all the anger in the land, how long before the judgement day? Before we cut the fat ones down to size? Before the barricades arise?

Visit my art gallery at deviantART.


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Dave_LF
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Posted: Mon 24 Mar , 2008 12:45 pm
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Here's an article about the plight of truckers with diesel over $4:
Truckers going broke and threatening strike

I'm torn here between sympathy and the usual annoyance with denial on display. First the sympathy:
Quote:
“Everything in the world is going up (in price), except for what we do. I lose money if I start my truck, and that truck is paid for — free and clear.”
...
“They lose money every day they go out.”
..
“It’s the only thing I know how to do, driving a truck. But I sold my trailer the other day, and I’m not buying another one until something gets done.
...
“Our federal government is subsidizing railroads, airlines, banks and farmers,” he said. “Meanwhile, we’re being taxed to death.”
Now for the other part:
Quote:
“It might be a good thing if the drivers strike. They can’t make payments.
In case you're wondering--I didn't cut out the part of the quote that explain how striking will making gas cheaper. It isn't there. Another trucker at least admits this:
Quote:
Little does not expect his strike to bring down the per-gallon price of gas, nor does he expect to have any effect on the oil companies. “What I would personally like to see is our federal and state governments, until our economy recovers, suspend federal and state fuel taxes,” the 49-year-old said.
Here we see the first element of denial--the idea that the arrangement is only temporary. "You think I could crash at your place for a while? You know, just until I get back on my feet?" And the government is already struggling (and in many cases, failing) to pay for routine highyway maintenance--What would these same people say two years down the road when the lost revenue meant they could no longer get between LA and NY without breaking an axle or two?
Quote:
“The second thing I’d like to see is an oversight committee for truck insurance, which is part of what’s taking us down.
That might actually be a reasonable idea, assuming the insurers aren't losing as much money as you are (which is not a bet I'd take).
Quote:
Everything in this country is trucked.
Aha! Someone's about to say it--if everything is trucked and trucking has become uneconomical, it means we need to change our behavior to adapt to reality, right? Rather than the other way around?
Quote:
Maybe if the oil companies bought all the trucks, things would change.
D'oh.

And let's return to this quote:
Quote:
“Our federal government is subsidizing railroads, airlines, banks and farmers,” he said. “Meanwhile, we’re being taxed to death.”
I don't disagree with the first sentence, but the federal highway system and gas prices that are kept lower than nearly anywhere else in the world is one of the biggest subsidies the US government offers.
Quote:
The fuel is too high, and there’s no reason for it.
And here's someone who appears to be making the transition from denial to anger. And as much as I complain about denial, what do you suppose will happen when people collectively begin to realize that the arrangment isn't temporary, and that the Earth can't be bargained with? How much denial and anger will we have to endure until we move into acceptance and can begin taking constructive action?


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aulini
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Posted: Mon 24 Mar , 2008 10:50 pm
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Hi there. Long time since I last posted here or at Manwe, probably several years. I used to argue quite a lot for the view that economic growth is unsustainable in the long run, and specifically that we will probably see the end of growth pretty soon because of lack of natural resources, particularly because of the global peaking of oil production, and that the consequences will be enormous. After a while I just thought I had said everything I had to say and felt awkward about being consistently the pessimistic doomer while the economy just kept on booming, not to mention having other things to do (kids, work...)

Here in Sweden the economy is still running on healthily and gas prices are not a major concern for most people. The financial crisis in the US is of course in the news on and off, but there is no general crisis awareness. I'm curious if there is a sense in the US among people in general that things could be about to get really bad? Personally I'm convinced that we are at the very beginning of a quite momentous time in history, and I wouldn't be honest if I didn't say I'm very pessimistic about the outcome. To be even more honest, I'll have to confess that I'm also feeling a bit excited and sort of relieved that the disparity between my worldview and the reality as seen on the news is finally starting to close in a little.

Dave_LF, me and my family just bought a house too! Ironically :) I actually tried to postpone the idea and hoped to be able to convince my wife that we should move out to the countryside instead. But in the end, this is where we have our friends and our families and our jobs, and we both love it here. Starting out from scratch somewhere would have been a very hard choice indeed.

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MariaHobbit
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Posted: Tue 25 Mar , 2008 3:55 pm
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C_G wrote:
According to a chicken website that I read, throwing them a box of crickets makes for a great show as they chase them around the pen.
Sometimes when we have chicks in the house it's fun to catch a grasshopper, put it in the box with them and watch them chase each other trying to get it. They get so excited! At least, the dual purpose birds do this. The meat breeds are pretty dull.

homesteadingtoday.com is a good messageboard for info pertaining to... well... homesteading! I go there once in a while.

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Dave_LF
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Posted: Tue 25 Mar , 2008 4:20 pm
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Hi aulini; I'd wondered if you were ever going to show up again. :) I share your confusion over whether to be relieved or depressed over the fact that I'm evidently not crazy (well; that might be going to far).
Quote:
I'm curious if there is a sense in the US among people in general that things could be about to get really bad?
Between gas, the economy, Iraq, and the Bush administration, there is definitely a feeling in the air that things have gone badly wrong somehow. I don't know that I'd say people in general expect "that things could be about to get really bad", though more and more people seem to be reaching that conclusion.


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Cenedril_Gildinaur
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Posted: Tue 25 Mar , 2008 7:52 pm
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Cities grapple with surge in abandoned homes
Quote:
HOMES FOR A $1 EACH

Further east, Syracuse, New York, began selling vacant homes last year for $1 each to non-profit groups who promise to tear them down or renovate them. Last month, Syracuse Mayor Matthew Driscoll extended the deal to private companies.

The aim is to get abandoned homes back on the market in one to two years and back on the tax rolls.

"The foreclosure crunch has now meant that no neighborhood is exempt from having a vacant property pop up," said Kerry Quaglia, executive director of Home Headquarters, a non-profit that demolished about 100 homes and renovated 40 last year.

Some cities such as Cleveland are developing land banks to buy and either demolish or repair distressed properties.

"Because of the foreclosure crisis we are seeing this incredible glut of inexpensive distressed houses being sold at pennies on the dollar," Cleveland city councilman Tony Brancatelli said in a telephone interview.

"The mortgage companies don't want to hold onto them so they are dumping them on the Internet at a rapid rate. People are buying them 15 to a 100 at a time," he added. "One of the most significant parts of the land bank is stopping this cycle of abandonment."

Rhode Island, the nation's smallest state, is planning to fine homeowners 10 percent of a building's value if it remains empty a year after receiving a warning from the city, giving creditors incentive to unload vacant buildings even at a loss rather than to keep them and pay the tax.

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It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

Last edited by Cenedril_Gildinaur on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total


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Dave_LF
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Posted: Wed 26 Mar , 2008 12:15 am
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The Atlantic: Today's suburbs = tomorrow's slums.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/subprime
Quote:
At Windy Ridge, a recently built starter-home development seven miles northwest of Charlotte, North Carolina, 81 of the community’s 132 small, vinyl-sided houses were in foreclosure as of late last year. Vandals have kicked in doors and stripped the copper wire from vacant houses; drug users and homeless people have furtively moved in. In December, after a stray bullet blasted through her son’s bedroom and into her own, Laurie Talbot, who’d moved to Windy Ridge from New York in 2005, told The Charlotte Observer, “I thought I’d bought a home in Pleasantville. I never imagined in my wildest dreams that stuff like this would happen.”
...
Of course, not all suburbs will suffer this fate. Those that are affluent and relatively close to central cities—especially those along rail lines—are likely to remain in high demand. Some, especially those that offer a thriving, walkable urban core, may find that even the large-lot, residential-only neighborhoods around that core increase in value. Single-family homes next to the downtowns of Redmond, Washington; Evanston, Illinois; and Birmingham, Michigan, for example, are likely to hold their values just fine.

On the other hand, many inner suburbs that are on the wrong side of town, and poorly served by public transport, are already suffering what looks like inexorable decline. Low-income people, displaced from gentrifying inner cities, have moved in, and longtime residents, seeking more space and nicer neighborhoods, have moved out.

But much of the future decline is likely to occur on the fringes, in towns far away from the central city, not served by rail transit, and lacking any real core. In other words, some of the worst problems are likely to be seen in some of the country’s more recently developed areas—and not only those inhabited by subprime-mortgage borrowers. Many of these areas will become magnets for poverty, crime, and social dysfunction.
Gee; people like Jim Kunstler have only been predicting this right down to the details for 2 or 3 years now; I half expected to see that he was the author.


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aulini
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Posted: Wed 26 Mar , 2008 9:02 pm
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Wanted to post a link, but I'm not allowed since I have too few postings... :P

Try Googling "Peter Schiff On Kudlow & Company". A clip from back in -06, one guy with as much integrity and foresight as you'll get from a "talking head", and one you just want to punch right in the face.

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Cenedril_Gildinaur
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Posted: Tue 01 Apr , 2008 4:32 pm
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Declared by a British paper - the depression is here.

USA 2008: The Great Depression
Quote:
We knew things were bad on Wall Street, but on Main Street it may be worse. Startling official statistics show that as a new economic recession stalks the United States, a record number of Americans will shortly be depending on food stamps just to feed themselves and their families.

Dismal projections by the Congressional Budget Office in Washington suggest that in the fiscal year starting in October, 28 million people in the US will be using government food stamps to buy essential groceries, the highest level since the food assistance programme was introduced in the 1960s.

The increase – from 26.5 million in 2007 – is due partly to recent efforts to increase public awareness of the programme and also a switch from paper coupons to electronic debit cards. But above all it is the pressures being exerted on ordinary Americans by an economy that is suddenly beset by troubles. Housing foreclosures, accelerating jobs losses and fast-rising prices all add to the squeeze.

Emblematic of the downturn until now has been the parades of houses seized in foreclosure all across the country, and myriad families separated from their homes. But now the crisis is starting to hit the country in its gut. Getting food on the table is a challenge many Americans are finding harder to meet. As a barometer of the country's economic health, food stamp usage may not be perfect, but can certainly tell a story.
Meanwhile the domestic situation really is deteriorating

Some Truckers Plan Strike Over Diesel Costs

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It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

Last edited by Cenedril_Gildinaur on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total


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Dave_LF
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Posted: Mon 28 Apr , 2008 10:51 pm
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Behold the future!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnnOOo6tRs8

(hint: no flying cars). Can we start calling these Bushvilles yet?

ETA: Pittsburg Times: US Government fears insurrection

EATA: And again (you don't have to look very hard to find these anymore): Long URL
Quote:
As capitalism falters, the rich move their money out of the country, violence increases, and politicians promising prosperity are elected. It's happened before, and I fear it's happening again. Trouble brews when we steal from the poor and give to the rich.
(I don't buy his complaints about "capitalism", since it isn't capitalism he's criticizing).


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Lidless
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Posted: Tue 29 Apr , 2008 12:04 am
Als u het leven te ernstig neemt, mist u de betekenis.
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Welcome to the world Of Catch Up!

Suddenly the price of the pathetically-overpriced Financial Instruments (in this case sub-prime mortgages in the US), comes to bite everyone in the ass (just as junk-bonds did before) suffers a major correction.

Oh boy! Over every 20 years or so, people put their blinkers on and assume in the Financial Services Sector that their growth is bigger than the rest of Society. How can the fuck can that be? Really? When will they ever learn that the all is utimately dependant on the the-rest-of-the-world, AKA Real Life than previously thought? Fundamental money in the cycle depends on the System, not their own.

Artificial stretch. 2007/8 was just the current reason for the overstretch. They'll be another reason in 2018/9

Hopefully, the next time the bubble bursts, I’ll be there. I’m expecting early 2018. I'll be able to make much money off it that year or the next. I expected it in the late 80s and late 00's but was too insolvent to take advantage.

I’m so there. Probably in spirit, though. Good luck to those still alive and hale in nineteen years hence still (hopefully that includes Estel, since she'll be looking after me).

Last edited by Lidless on Wed 30 Apr , 2008 6:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Wed 30 Apr , 2008 4:43 am
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Lidless wrote:
Over every 20 years or so, people put their blinkers on and assume in the Financial Services Sector that their growth is bigger than the rest of Society. How can the fuck can that be?
THAT'S WHAT I WANT TO KNOW!!!! So how come you're not running the SEC? Go for it, seriously. I'll vote for you.

(If only members of the American Economic Association could vote for that, the way Academy members vote for the Oscars!)

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Lidless
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Posted: Wed 30 Apr , 2008 6:29 am
Als u het leven te ernstig neemt, mist u de betekenis.
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Jnyusa wrote:
So how come you're not running the SEC?
I'm crap at golf.

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Jnyusa
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Posted: Wed 30 Apr , 2008 10:46 pm
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Lidless wrote:
I'm crap at golf.
And I bet you don't even own a pair of argyle sox. :LMAO:

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Cenedril_Gildinaur
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Posted: Thu 01 May , 2008 1:12 am
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Lidless wrote:
Welcome to the world Of Catch Up!

Suddenly the price of the pathetically-overpriced Financial Instruments (in this case sub-prime mortgages in the US), comes to bite everyone in the ass (just as junk-bonds did before) suffers a major correction.

Oh boy! Over every 20 years or so, people put their blinkers on and assume in the Financial Services Sector that their growth is bigger than the rest of Society. How can the fuck can that be? Really? When will they ever learn that the all is utimately dependant on the the-rest-of-the-world, AKA Real Life than previously thought? Fundamental money in the cycle depends on the System, not their own.

Artificial stretch. 2007/8 was just the current reason for the overstretch. They'll be another reason in 2018/9
The bust in 2018/9 will be worse. That's the due date for Social Security.

_________________

It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

Last edited by Cenedril_Gildinaur on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total


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