Doc Robinson
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I’m with Ilargi. Europe still has enough “room in the inn” and can be doing much more to prevent these drownings.
Re: Farmland investment
The WSJ reports,
“The market often is opaque and hyperlocal, professional investors say, with deals sealed privately in rural cafes or in small-town auctions, unlike more structured asset classes including residential or commercial real estate. Farmland sales and price data also are far more limited than in other real-estate segments…”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/farmland-investments-take-root-1438661041Some clues:
Most of the U.S. Rented Farmland is Owned by Non-Farmers
WASHINGTON, Aug 31, 2015 –Agricultural producers rented and farmed 353.8 million acres of farmland, according to the results of the 2014 Tenure, Ownership, and Transition of Agricultural Land (TOTAL) survey results released today by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). Of these acres, 80 percent are owned by non-farming landlords…” [including 32 million acres owned by corporations]https://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Newsroom/2015/08_31_2015.php
https://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Newsroom/2015/TOTAL%20Infographic.jpg“…just as (almost certainly) happened to Barack Obama at some stage in his journey.”
A related article and video clip:
“Obama told friends he reneged on progressive promises out of fear of assassination — former CIA analyst”, by Philip Weiss
“Obama has abandoned progressive principles, such as stopping drone attacks and shutting down Guantanamo, because he is afraid of being assassinated, telling friends, “Don’t you remember what happened to Martin Luther King Jr.?” retired CIA analyst Ray McGovern said today…”
https://mondoweiss.net/2013/06/reneged-progressive-promises@ Caith:
Top 10 German Exports to UK
Germany’s exports to the UK amounted to
$105.8 billion or 7% of its overall exports.1. Vehicles: $31.8 billion
2. Machines, engines, pumps: $15.3 billion
3. Pharmaceuticals: $8.1 billion
4. Electronic equipment: $7.8 billion
5. Plastics: $4.2 billion
6. Medical, technical equipment: $3.8 billion
7. Gems, precious metals, coins: $2.3 billion
8. Iron or steel products: $1.8 billion
9. Paper: $1.8 billion
10. Aircraft, spacecraft: $1.8 billionFrom
https://www.worldsrichestcountries.com/top-germany-exports.htmlRegarding food, the supermarket chains Aldi and Lidl are German companies.
@ Raleigh re: “…exports leaving China are from U.S. multinational corporations, and I wonder who gets to claim these as exports – China or the U.S.”
According to this source, Chinese export statistics would even include all the value-added contained in components imported into China and then “re-exported” to the United States:
“The US multinationals allocate their low-end manufacturing segments based on the global value chains in China, making lots of their manufacture and service value-added segments transfer to China directly. When the manufactured goods are re-exported from China to the United States, the total value-added contained is fully brought into China’s exports by the current trade statistics system.”
From page 365 of “Education Management and Management Science”, Dawei Zheng, CRC Press, Jul 7, 2015
[This proceedings volume contains selected papers presented at the 2014 International Conference on Education Management and Management Science (ICEMMS 2014), held August 7-8, 2014, in Tianjin, China.]Ongoing tally of votes, direct from the Greek MInistry of Interior site:
“Seas are rising more than twice as fast as the global average here in the Sundarbans”
“Encroaching”, including the effects of erosion, would make more sense than “rising”.
Quoted from the full article:
“A 2013 study by the Zoological Society of London measured the Sundarbans coastline retreating at about 200 meters (650 feet) a year. The Geological Survey of India says at least 210 square kilometers (81 square miles) of coastline on the Indian side has eroded in the last few decades. At least four islands are underwater and dozens of others have been abandoned due to sea rise and erosion.”
From the aforementioned book, Local Dollars, Local Sense, by Michael Shuman (Chelsea Green, 2012):
“Every job in a locally owned business generates two to four times as much economic development benefit as a job in an equivalent nonlocal business. Local businesses spend more money locally, which helps to pump up what is known as the local spending multiplier.” (p. 18)
Table 1 (on page 19) lists an average “Local Jobs Advantage” of 2.6 resulting from studies done for various cities. Quoting the book again, “The local jobs advantage represents the relative number of jobs (direct and indirect) produced by a given purchase (say $100) from a local business versus the same purchase from a similar nonlocal business.”
Local currencies could take this further, as they generally cannot be spent outside the local area.
Back on topic
Re: The Meaning of Your Life is Other PeopleExcerpt from The Dark Mountain Blog, 28 December 2014,
by Andrea HejlskovTHE SIMPLE LIFE OF SOLIDARITY
After I quit social media my whole way of thinking has changed. As have my reading habits. What kind of author doesn’t read any books? Well, me for one. I read social media instead. I dove right into it, head first. I wanted to read *you*. But somehow it all got corrupted, somehow the deep human need for connection and communication got distorted. We were bought and sold. We were manipulated. Social media has become a weapon and they took away that which could have saved us.
…I might be weird and I might be angry about society (it’s an evil empire, run!) but you know why I write? Why I didn’t just turn my back on everything and engaged with ‘the simple life’, so pure, spiritual and whole?
Because I’m still into you.
I always was. Even Thoreau and Abbey were. We all were. Always.
CHALLENGE OF OUR TIME
I believe this to be the true challenge of our day and age. The age of individualism and egoism is over. We know this. We know we need to connect and communicate to solve the mess that we’re in. On the deepest human level. The collective soul. Aren’t we flock animals? After all? Don’t we realise that lately things have become seriously dangerous and we need to… rise?
What we need to do now is to shape these vague contours, articulate, tentatively, that which have dawned on us.
We. Need. Each. Other.
[quoted from
https://dark-mountain.net/blog/time-is-of-the-essence/%5DHuckleberry said: “…Now most single companies have rarely gotten into trouble until Debt to equity exceeds 4… This is actually Statistics Canada’s graph…Showing Canada’s debt to Assets of 0.2! That would imply a Debt to Equity of 0.25! …so incredibly low.”
That graph with Statistics Canada data is actually from a report titled “Debt and family type in Canada”, and refers to “personal and unincorporated business assets per household.” Apples and oranges?
The related section of this report:
“As well as the day-to-day ability to pay for debts from income, another indicator of financial insecurity is the debt-to-asset ratio. This ratio tracks the degree to which debts are backed by assets. Higher ratios indicate there may be more Canadians who carry debt that is not secured by assets. Although household debt increased between 1990 and 2009, the value of personal and unincorporated business assets per household almost doubled over the same period. As a result, the debt-to-asset ratio remained relatively stable between 1970 and 2007, hovering around 16.7% (Chart 3). However, in 2008 and 2009 the debt-to-asset ratio increased to 19.6%, the highest level in more than 35 years.”https://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008-x/2011001/article/11430-eng.htm
Huckleberry, what happens to these debt-to-asset ratios when real estate values collapse? How is the demand for a company’s products related to the debt levels of the would-be customers? What happens to “most single companies” when their market dries up (regardless of their debt-to-equity ratios)? What’s the effect on a company’s debt-to-equity ratio (and the effect on the economy) when corporate assets, like production facilities, are suddenly non-productive? In your opinion, what’s the range of debt-to-equity ratios in which companies will “get into trouble” (when real market values are considered), during prolonged periods of no growth?
Huckleberry said: “…Now most single companies have rarely gotten into trouble until Debt to equity exceeds 4… This is actually Statistics Canada’s graph…Showing Canada’s debt to Assets of 0.2! That would imply a Debt to Equity of 0.25! …so incredibly low.”
Huckleberry, what happens to most single companies when their market dries up (regardless of their debt-to-equity ratios)?
That graph with Statistics Canada data is actually from a report titled “Debt and family type in Canada”, and refers to “personal and unincorporated business assets per household.” Apples and oranges?
The related section of this report:
“As well as the day-to-day ability to pay for debts from income, another indicator of financial insecurity is the debt-to-asset ratio. This ratio tracks the degree to which debts are backed by assets. Higher ratios indicate there may be more Canadians who carry debt that is not secured by assets. Although household debt increased between 1990 and 2009, the value of personal and unincorporated business assets per household almost doubled over the same period. As a result, the debt-to-asset ratio remained relatively stable between 1970 and 2007, hovering around 16.7% (Chart 3). However, in 2008 and 2009 the debt-to-asset ratio increased to 19.6%, the highest level in more than 35 years.”
https://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008-x/2011001/article/11430-eng.htmHuckleberry, what happens to these debt-to-asset ratios when real estate values collapse? What’s the effect on the economy when corporate assets, like production facilities, are suddenly non-productive? In your opinion, what’s the range of debt-to-equity ratios in which companies will get into trouble (when real market values are considered), during prolonged periods of no growth?
