May 26, 2012 -- 2:12AM, fodaoson wrote:

Yes, Small Family food sufficient farms work in some areas. However, there is not enough reasonably arable land to grow food on a small scale.  There is land but it is not productive land. 

And even then, it takes good land management to have a farm that lasts beyond a few seasons.

Otherwise, it's all too easy for a careless farmer or rancher to strip the soil bare of nutrients.

May 29, 2012 -- 6:13PM, catboxer wrote:

The only reason the current depression, which began at the end of 2007 and will turn five years old this coming December, the only reason it's not as bad as the Great Old One of 1929-1939 is because of government payouts to the proles, Social Security and unemployment insurance, mainly. Nearly all of this money is used for life's necessities -- rent, food, fuel, and bills.

Cat .. it may be less painful .. but I'm afraid all those things you listed are actually part of the problem.  They are preventing a true reset. .. and they creating mountains of debt that will hog-tie the economy for decades to come.

I really don't see a good ending to all of this.  At some point, the pain is going to come.  All the Grasshoppers in the crowd are going to scream .. "take more from the ants" .. but the ants will rebel at some point .. and the Grasshoppers are going to feel the pain of their consumer driven lifestyle.

May 29, 2012 -- 9:58PM, catboxer wrote:

Bodean, I will take your ants and grasshoppers analogy seriously if you can explain to me why unemployment insurance and old-age insurance (Social Security) are "part of the problem," which is to say things that contribute to our indebtedness, while continual warfare and F22 stealth fighters which don't fly are not.

Aren't the generals and defense contractors "grasshoppers" too? Be consistent.

And I also don't understand why debt is such a serious problem -- more serious than mass unemployment, when it seems to me that getting people back working again and paying taxes is theonly effective remedy for indebtedness. That and raising the rates paid by hedge fund managers and so forth, so they're paying the same rate of tax as bus drivers and sheet-metal workers.

S.S. and Medicare are part of the problem because the way they are set up returns more benefit to the contributor than they contributed.  This necessitates borrowing Trillions of dollars.

Unemployment Insurance is a nice idea if our Government would have stashed some money away to pay for it .... but alas .. they did not.  They spent it on F22 Stealth Bombers .... and bridges to nowhere .. and on Billions of Climate Change Junk Science .. and ...grants to Special Interests like Solyndra ... and on and on and on and on ....

It all goes back to your S.S. thread ... or somebodies .. can't remember.  In 2033, S.S. will pay 85% of benefit ..... in otherwords .. the grossed up payout is going to come back down to what it should have been all along.

If I've said it once, or a million times ... it stands as truth.  The American Public has become addicted to a Government Subsidized Existence.  The withdrawl for that addiction is going to be really painful.

The true story of ants and grasshoppers.   
An  adults Grasshoppers life span is about 60 days. From egg to adult is a ten month process  Adulthod is in spring summer , incubation is fall winter, only the adult eats. Grasshoppers eat breed, die.

 Ant workers and  male breeders( sperm donors) soldiers( sterile females) have a life span of  30-60 days. Ants are social. Each colony has one living breeding queen that may live for  ten years. She does nothing but lay eggs and is fed by workers Breed males die after breeding.

Everything an ant  does is for the colony not the individual. Ants are true communists