The cow still needs to be milked. We "processed" 8 young roosters sunday, and "neutered" the piglets yesterday... Fencing (I will post some pics tomorrow so that readers can get an idea of just how big a job it is... nearly a MILE of fencing around the property) went on ALL weekend, as well as all of the other chores.
Speaking of "neutering" the piglets... my older son, in his last year of high school and either very, very bright or a gifted test taker and considering a career in medicine, assisted me in the "procedure". Catching the 3 males out of a troop of 9 (and this was before we knew the sex makeup of the litter) was a scream all to itself. With a 350 lbs Ms. Piggy only too willing to rip a hole thru my femoral artery... my son and I chased the piglets, who ran thru the hog fencing with no trouble in an effort to impede our agenda, each time catching only females... until... PAY DIRT! A young boar... and soon to be a young barrow.
Pigs testicles do not hang in a scrotum, they are tucked up in the abdomen, which makes castration dangerous for the animal and traumatic for the homesteader. I had my scalpel, idodine wound care solution, "Blue Spray" (to cover the wounds post-op) and my son to hold the piglet. The site was prepped with Iodine... Slash! Testicle #1 was out! Slash! Testicle # 2 was out! "Spritz! Spritz!" with the "Blue Spray".
So far, the piglets seem to be none the worse. They are eating and running around with their siblings un-conflicted by the loss of their reproductive options... The roosters? The more mature one's are making a nice soup stock as I write this... the younger birds will be rotisseried.
I say all of the above as a response to one of the hottest articles on Wall Street this morning. A number of friends linked the article to me requesting comment. What to say? Paul Farrell is correct... there are NO MACRO solutions... only micro solutions. And what are those micro solutions? That is for each of us to figure out for ourselves.
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The rise in world equity markets this past year has made things less than clear at the policy level. Wealthy Finance types and well paid economist shills just cannot seem to "get it". There ARE NO solutions for the European, Japanese, or American economies. Oil supplies are not going to increase. Many debts are not going to be paid back. No politician is going to ask his or her electorate to make a single compromise or sacrifice. The unknown and unintended consequences of the American and European Left's free lunch has left us HERE. In DEBT. Oh, you are sure to hear that it was GWB, or Reagan, or Nixon (GUFFAW!!)... the Left and the Media here in America are simply taking advantage of American's complete and utter lack of interest in their own history. FDR did this to the U.S., with the help of that other complete nit-wit, John Maynard Keynes. No matter how the Left and the media might try to twist and shout, stamp their feet, bat their eyes... whatever... you can't run away from this one. The Right has plenty to be ashamed of as well... but mostly for being so f***ing stupid in the fights they choose to pick. It was the Right that allowed the national debate to veer off onto such hilariously unimportant issues as Freedom Fries, Gay Marriage, and Flag Burning, et al... You can call your Fries what you wish... you should be able to marry who you wish... our Constituion's protection of free speech was not designed to censure the boy scouts but to protect the obnoxious...
But let's forget all that. Those groups are toast. They are done. Put a fork in them.
I love to read J.H. Kuntsler... you can always count on Jimmy for the entertainment value, not to mention a unique metaphor per post and sloppy kiss for his Leftist constituents... I never miss a post... but, if there is anyone here that keeps in touch with Jim, tell him to take up chess.
This game will not end even at the end of Oil imports into the U.S.; even at the default of S.S./Medicare; even at Dow 3000. Life WILL go on. Well, for some/most folks life will go. How it is goes on is the $64,000 question.
The following is a repost of an article I wrote on July 20, 2008. I thought this would be a good time to reconsider the points:
With the state of the U.S. Budget, U.S.$, and the coming U.S. oil import disaster... We have some political upheavals to look forward to. But which way will the wind blow?
FDR Liberalism is DEAD. There is a dead body walking around, but it is DEAD just the same.
GWB's version of Conservatism (His group, founded by Strauss, hijacked the moniker) is DEAD. The body has already begun to stink.
The minor movements of Feminism and Race Based Preferences are going to wink out of existence without anybody even noticing them. Sorry, Gloria Steinem, fish may not need bicycles, but women will need their families - desperately. Biology is destiny, and thankfully so because Social Security will cease to exist in the lifetime's of most reading this. The new "Social Security" will be the same one we have had for time immemorial - your children. This will be so irrespective of the political sensibilities of aging, childless feminists.
"We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality." Ayn Rand
In the permanent energy crisis, their will be no "Retirement" for the masses. The issue will more likely be what will you do when you are too old to care for your self? (Not that "Retirement", in the late 20th century/early 21st century American definition appears to be such a happy time. I live in South Florida, home to the mother of all retirement populations. I can only share with you my interpretation of of my personal observations... these retired folks do not look terribly happy to me. To my eyes, they appear miserable. Of course these individuals might have been miserable when they were young, so this is hardly empirical.)
So many people are looking to our GOVERNMENT for answers to the oil crisis, the budget crisis, the mortgage crisis, etc... "We should do this. They should do that." I wonder when it will occur to the very folks that think government is/has the answer.... Exactly WHO got us into this fine mess in the first place? And exactly what resources do they suggest the government use to get us out? The U.S. is in DEBT up to its eyeballs. Our citizens actually believe that they are ENTITLED, regardless of how poorly they have led their own lives, to a retirement, of at LEAST 20 years of nonproductive consumption, fully funded for their healthcare and their material needs.
Go ahead! Gain as much weight as you want! Diabetes? Bad back? Erectile dysfunction? Not to worry, the government (our new Lord) will provide. You don't have to wear a condom! Drink and drive, its fun! Smoke! We'll take care of your healthcare bills. Can't work (or just don't feel like it)? No problem, we will send you a disability check. Can't save money? Bad credit? Poor work history? No problem! We'll give you a mortgage with NO MONEY DOWN! And if you can't pay? NO PROBLEM! It wasn't your fault ANYWAY! It was those scum bag speculators... Congress will fund a NEW program to keep you in your home with money they don't have, borrowed from people they have no intention of paying back, and if those pesky lenders want the money back we will simply bomb them into the stone age or devalue the currency and STEAL it from them.
All to fund programs supported politically by people who claim they HATE war!!! Give peace a chance!!! But fund our social programs or "we will g-d damn bomb ya" (George Carlin), or steal the food right out of your mouth. To make ourselves FEEL better about all of this, we will send a couple of young people over to your neck of the woods in Peace Corps garb. (I received an email today from a reader with this quote:)
"Sometimes we are so caught up in
who's right and who's wrong
that we forget
what's right and wrong." - Unknown, but Thanks, Lane!
Folks, we are going to have to get over this, one way or another. Phil Graham is correct. We HAVE become a nation of WHINERS. Where the F$#@@! is John Wayne? The end of the Oil Age is the beginning of the Age of Personal Responsibility.
(Here comes the email railing me about "Corporate Welfare". Brother, I am going to cover the disgusting way that corporations have evolved in another post... but to accuse them of being the BENEFICIARY of the government's largess "is what is known as being STUNNINGLY full of shit" (again George Carlin. I seem to be channeling George today.) Government has steered corporations to what they are today precisely because they are just SO PERFECT a machine for extracting income taxes from the masses, which is then used to create these silly programs and "American Interests" that need to be defended in the first place. Corporations are the funding source for EVERYTHING good and bad in the system. Think about it, the money AIN'T coming from single mothers, hitchhiking hippies, college students, or the Rev. Al Sharpton.)
How is it that the NeoJerks stole the 'Conservative" mantle, and nobody noticed? How is it that the South was controlled by the Racist Democrats during the 1950's and '60s, but now they call themselves Conservative Republicans? How is it that the Northeast, you know, the political descendants of the Authors of the Bill of Rights, went from "Patrician Republican" to "Liberal Democrat"? Are the Republicans the Party of Lincoln or the party of G.W. Bush? Are the Democrats the party of Ralph Nader or George Wallace?
Folks, these are just labels, and the little meaning that they had just got SQUASHED by the new political realities of what is likely to be the Mother of All Recessions perpetrated against a people that have become dependent on government to guide them through their average day.
So what will it be?
San Francisco confiscatory liberalism is DEAD. Bush and Cheney's silly foray into outrageous spending has bankrupted the nation - whatever political movement they represented, call it what you will, is DEAD. Both movements lay bled out at the hands of the Oil Depression.
Will we devolve into a fascist state in which the masses gladly give up what civil rights they have left in order to make a run at the status quo? Or will we accept our responsibilities and keep our individual liberties and fight for the liberties we lost?