Journal zogger's Journal: enjoy your eating hobby 2
because it's a good thing eating isn't necessary.
Now I have pointed out several times over the last year and a half or so here and on Technocrat about the dire situation US ag is in, the above is a reference to a perspective outside of my resources here, but it is echoing everything I have been saying, from them shipping entire production runs of ag chemicals to china to playing with the lending and interest rates and letting the speculators get away with manipulating (and skimming from) huge price swings in commodities all the way to the institution of the buying cartels that set a lot of the wholesale prices that farmers receive two to six steps below, because it is just freeking hard to move big quantities of what-have-you. I am not talking about little toy local one acre hobby farms that can move their stuff at the local swap meet, I mean the farming that actually goes to feed people in bulk, as in hundreds of millions of people..that farming.
A few weeks ago the second largest poultry packer went chapter 11, busted, the other handful are real dang close. Our packer put us on six week turnaround between flocks, instead of one week..that's 5 weeks downtime compounded by around 6 times a year now to still cover expenses and stay in business and working.... huh? That's a majority of the year forced sitting *idle* just to maybe stay in the game. And they got *no choice*, I am not blaming them they are in the best shape of all the packers AFAIK, they are forced by reality upstream and it all goes back to what goes on all the time at wall street and how the rest of the planet-for some unfathomable reason- must be held in economic thralldom to support a few uberrich dudes and their "industry" there, the guys who have seized control of the entire US economic structure. Even Bloomberg can't find out where all the loot is going, they are pushing a freedom of information act to find out. Many clues here...
This isn't just getting old, it has turned into a national security issue IMO. We can't get the prices and the traders destroyed rational pricing with grains crops and with the huge fuel runup this summer when they got tired of swapping around toxic toilet paper mortgage contracts and switched to gambling in real important tangibles (they sit back and need the bailout for that packaged hedged derivative nonsense they stuck each other with).
I know we are working in the red now because we can't get even a *break even* price. Let alone a single penny profit. We are the largest and most modern and most efficient producer in this area I am in, so just think about that, most farmers are in a worse pickle. Anyway, enjoy the link, and I am not fooling, look to your long term food supply, *get some basics covered now as in expand your pantry*, be planning a big garden next year, join and participate in a food co-op, whatever works for you, because it ain't gonna be business as usual for much longer. Food is not a luxury like the must have newest designer edition iPod. Consider this a rational headsup and warning. I don't code, I do this, I pay attention to this, so this is what I have to "share", I pass on what I find out and my analysis of it for my little community service "open source information" action, I hope some of you folks find it useful enough.
From my ignorance... (Score:2)
What prevents these "major farmers" from protecting themselves with commodities futures contracts? Seems to me they'd be the most knowledgeable players in the game...
Re: (Score:1)
They do some, and with crop insurance, but did you read about how the insurance payments have been delayed for half a year for huge numbers of people there trying to recover from the floods? And you need big upfront seasonal loans to do all of that, and that "loaning" part has gotten a lot messier lately. And individually, they can't compete with multi billion dollar companies using supercomputers to engineer big speculation moves. They are all still *bets* after all. That big poultry concern I mentioned, t