Meat Prices in the Land of the Whopper (person, not burger)

This article contained a fascinating data point:

The U.S. per-capita beef supply may drop to 57.6 pounds per year in 2011, the smallest in 59 years, according to Centennial, Colorado-based researcher CattleFax. The supply of pork available to each U.S. consumer will slump to 46.8 pounds annually, the least in 35 years.

Per-capita beef and pork supply (and consumption) is at multi-decade lows?  And Americans are now the size of most pigs at slaughter?  WTF???!!! (I guess Atkins had it right.)

How do you like that...

BTW... those meat consumption numbers are going to keep dropping unless folks start raising livestock at home.  Its a closed system as far as inputs (animal feeds) and then there are the limitations on breeding (especially for beef - a hog will have 2 litters of 8 per year but a cow will usually have but 1 calf per year and farmers NEED to keep the heifers long enough to drop more calves) and economics.

It won't be long before poor folks figure out how how to raise a hog in the yard or alley and chickens on the fire escape fed on food waste that used to go to the dump especially when SNAP (food stamps) is about $750 per month for a family of 4.

And that's a good thing.

"The Costs of War"

I always read Mike Shedlock's excellent blog... but today he outdid himself:

Today he posted an article titled the "Cost of War".... in which he tallies the outrageous expense in blood and treasure that these mindless expeditions have cost our nation... but also goes on to say that it is "time to declare victory and bring the troops home".

I am always thrilled to see my fellow Republicans of the Libertarian persuasion out and out loud.  I believe in supporting a STRONG DEFENSE - not a strong OFFENSE.  It is time to look homeward and to renounce the role of international enforcer and policeman because not only is it the right thing to do, it is also in our best interests.  The U.S. government is going to have to do some enormously unpopular things in the line of cutting social programs... it will simply be politically indefensible to do these things with a military budget consuming 5% of GDP; it might even be indefensible to do what needs to be done with a military budget of 3%.  The folks benefiting from those expenditures need to accept this, and the folks benefiting from the social programs will need to make other arrangements, too.

Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan is worth the life of my son (well, as far as I am concerned). Unfortunately, it is too late for thousands of other American families, and hundred's of thousands of Iraqi and Af-stani families.  I love to wave The Flag, but not for this.  I want to show my support for the American troops serving in Iraq and Af-stan by bringing them home and buying them a beer.

--------------------------------------

So back to  QE2...

Quantitative Easing in general, and QE2 in particular, have this one-really-big-hairy-fly-in-the-ointment:

Oil Prices.

Yes, QE2 can work for a while in forcing up certain asset prices, and; No, it won't work if one of those asset prices is Oil.

Here's the math: Without QE the price of Oil would likely have already fallen to $50 per barrel - or $200 Billion of trade deficit JUST FOR OIL. At $83 per barrel (today's price) that would increase by $133 Billion per year... or a $333,000,000 TRADE DEFICIT JUST FOR OIL, and at $100 per barrel, which is very likely given a "successful" bout of QE, that number would move up to $400 Billion (I guess there is some good news with the decline of oil imports).  In other words, we increase the national debt by $500 Billion of QE2, and $200 Billion leaves our shores the very first year in the form of higher oil prices (yes, I know that's not exactly correct, that there will be some benefit to our exports by demolishing the US$ - let me know how that works out).... but since our economy simply cannot support $100 per barrel oil, the QE of QE2 will have the unintended consequence of giving the economy another black eye, thereby requiring QE3, and QE4, and QE5... particularly since all of the stimulus monies were spent on projects that would demand more consumption of petroleum.

So, here we find ourselves once again relying on a political leadership without the slightest grasp of combinational game theory (chess), opting instead for another kick of the can.  And why? Because our political leaders have abdicated their responsibilities to the Lobbyists (given they do not even read the legislation they vote on) and have convinced the American electorate, among other things, that: something can be had for nothing; that government can make life fair; that government can overcome natural law in all things and make you whole on your expectations; and that you do not have to save, invest, accept any risks, accept any responsibility, you may eat, drink, drug... as much as you like without consequence.... and that if things don't work out according to your satisfaction, well... somebody did this to you (and not the government)... it was the corporations, illegal immigrants, or the Conservatives, or the Jews, or radical Islam, or Wall Street, or the Boy Scouts... I can hear it now... "They did this to you!!" ("it wasn't me.")

QE and the Blame Game

The idea behind QE is that the Fed crowd's out money that would otherwise have been buying Treasuries at auction, forcing that money into other assets in order to raise the prices of those other asset classes.  So far, the strategy has worked beautifully.  Or so it seems.


QE is merely the LAST KICK of the "kick the can down the road" strategy that our government has employed since the Federal Government's actuaries made clear the absolute certainty of what must occur with the government's various social programs.  When I say "social programs" I do not mean ONLY Social Security & Medicare.  I mean Medicaid, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Food Stamps, HEAT, HEAP, and the rest of the alphabet soup now supporting the staggering weight of the American people.


(Yes, the AMERICAN PEOPLE.  Not just poor people, or Black People, or Hispanic People, or Native Americans, or Christians, or Muslims, or Jews... EVERYBODY.  Walmart benefits from SNAP (food stamps) at least as much as those individuals receiving this "benefit" do.  The primary vehicle supporting this ongoing ponzi scheme of social programs is the G^% D*&& F&^%*ing CORPORATIONS. And corporate securities, directly or indirectly (yes, real estate is not a "corporate security"... or is it?  It is funded by the banking system, which is part of the corporate system... and without bank financing, there would be no financial value to real estate (neither barter value nor personal production value are financial value)) make up nearly 100% what we American's define as "wealth"... and as we all know WEALTH = POLITICAL POWER.)


Our Federal Government has painted itself into a terrible corner (or it may have been painted there by phenomenon... or momentum...).  The very programs designed to "ease poverty" (and boy could I have some fun going through the machinations of trying to define that) have succeeded in increasing the number of "poor", and we have reached the terminal apogee of that orbital exponential function... the orbit of the apogee I speak of was expanded by the Zeitgeist onto the balance sheets of every government, corporation, and individual until the total debt within the system could no longer be supported by the production within the system.  And how, exactly, did that come about?


Well, there are the facts that can be supported by thoughtful analysis, and there are the opinions of the biased (and of course WE ARE ALL BIASED, including me... but we overcome that bias through the aforementioned thoughtful analysis).


I assert that it is our Federal Government that is completely dependent upon the Corporate system, a Corporate system which breeds such terrible inequalities in wealth and political power and stratify's our society as to be unsupportable - except that without it all of the social programs that have created this behemoth would dissolve before our eyes with all of that outcome's attendant effects. Think about that for a moment.  (And, please, teenager's of ALL AGES, spare me the lecture about the military budget... it is agreed that the military budget is out of bounds and must be cut deeply... but even a cursory review of the budgets of the various social programs would reveal that the these dwarf even the military's absurd budget.)


The American people have come to blame "the Politicians" when the blame is ours - and ours ALONE. We, and we alone, have tolerated a political process whereby laws are enacted even though NONE OF OUR LAW MAKERS HAVE READ THE LAW THEY ARE VOTING ON.  Ergo, we have left the legislation process in the hands of the "money" - the corporate, union, and special interest lobbyists (I despise the Left's disingenuous attack on the corporate lobbyists... when their special interest groups - feminists/abortionists, NAACP, NEA, et al puke... dominate) - "money" that derives its support from the Corporate System, a Corporate system that the Federal Government is COMPLETELY reliant upon for its continued existence.


"Cluster F**k" only begins to describe the situation.


And then you have the various "True Believers" of the Left and Right trying to make political hay out of this CF and doing everything within their power to perpetuate the ongoing control of the system by the 2H1P. 


In the end, it will be Fascism or Libertarianism.  Getting there could get very rough.  The solution is not Liberalism or Conservatism, choosing Left or Right - they are the problem, and they need to go.

More to come.