2012... and Beyond

NASA Goddard Photo

The year 2012 should be interesting.

Many folks have an underlying (or at least partial) belief running through their subconscious mind that Nostradamus' and the Mayan "end of the World" scenarios might happen. However, most of our overt behavior indicates total disbelief not only in Doomsday predictions, but also in accepting the critical food/water/health situation worldwide. (Isn't the media wonderful?) Our changing weather patterns continue to impose hardships on many of our lives and gardens, giving credence to possible violent environmental changes that could be coming to this lovely blue planet we occupy.

Personally, I do not believe the "end of the world" will happen in December 2012. However, the environmental, economical and political changes are not only continuing, but increasing... and it could get right nasty down the road.

There is another prediction out there, proclaimed by many, that the "changes" will usher in a "thousand-year era of Peace". IMO, there is much that needs to be significantly altered before real Peace can happen.

On our food and health aspects for change, it is time for us to increase our awareness and ethical/moral responsibility beyond what the for-profit television and advertising media tell us... because ultimately our health/future Is NOT Up to Someone Else.

GMO's have proliferated simply because we didn't raise any flags in the beginning. It is our own fault. For too many years we have allowed ourselves to believe that others ("medical professionals and government officials?") know best, or at least know what they are doing. We are bombarded hundreds of times a day by subtle advertising messages indicating "they" are more educated and/or informed than we are, so the vast majority have given up individual responsibility for our own health and well-fare. Our self-inflicted ignorance has let the government (and us) buy into corporate hype of all kinds (which interestingly also put money in many, many pockets). 

Thus the many corporate tribes and alphabet government agencies motivated by... (power? greed? or something else??) have given us obesity and disease by catering to and building on a human weakness for convenience, sugar and other junk foods. We have become a nation of addicts... and we are addicted to all kinds of substances. For far too many people [including children], it is sugary beverages and junk foods, while for others it might be an escape into alcohol or drugs. But as with any addiction, we never think with 100% clarity under the influence... and will do almost anything to keep getting our "fix" in spite of what our minds know. 

As a nation, we eat more so called "food" and gain less energy (nutrition) from it all the time. The working mother eating the SAD diet (Standard American Diet) has NO energy left to prepare real food meals when she comes home from work, even if she could buy real food anymore in most places. (She says she doesn't have "time" but in reality, she also doesn't have the "energy".) So instead of having enough energy to prepare a real food meal, she barely has the energy to pick up junk fast food on the way home, or frozen boxed junk food to nuke for dinner for the family. Eating this way, she never gains a storehouse of energy for the next day, and simply repeats the process over and over, becoming more frazzled every day from lack of good nutrition. 

Adele Davis always said a food without nutrients would not support life, and her example was a loaf of factory bread left on the counter (unwrapped) for weeks. It might dry out, but it would not support any bacterial life to decompose it. If it won't even support bacterial life, how could it support life for us?? Recently someone left a McD's cheeseburger on the counter for a whole year, and nothing grew there either. It sustained no bacterial life. (Source)

Change is never easy, but for the most part it can be started in small steps. Two years ago when I changed my food intake drastically to eliminate adulterated foods all at once (including foods with added sweeteners), I thought I would starve to death during the first 2-3 weeks. It took a long time for me to learn to think outside the box and change from what I had been accustomed to eating for years, to finding real foods to eat. Then as I started feeling the increased energy every day from eating real food (and probably eliminating some built-up toxins during that time), I began to understand what sugar and chemical-laden foods do to my body.

Unfortunately over the last year, I have slowly added some adulterated foods back to my diet, and I really see the poor consequences, both in my energy levels... and my weight. The good news is that I never deviated from my commitment to eating only grass-fed meats. I'm doing much better now in avoiding chemical-laden packaged foods (thus no GMO's) but where I am still struggling is to get sugars out of my diet again. The traditional and accepted flush of sweet goodies over the holidays put me right back into sugar addiction, and I really cannot totally blame the food industry... They only make the stuff; it's my hand that lifts the cookie to my mouth. 

Then there are the sweets in other foods... "research and development teams have done studies and conducted taste panels that have found sweet sells. The more we sell sweet stuff the more people come to expect it. Sweet is found in loads of savory items. Sweet tomato sauces, crackers, salad dressings, mustards, coated chicken products, sausages, and more. Many of our fresh products are enhanced with sugar also. Butterball turkey, pumped brined pork loins, stewing hens. Our palates are being distorted by sweet." (Source)
 

Some small but positive steps:

Make a commitment to one family meal every week or two that contains only real foods. Nothing from a chemical-laden package (cookie/cake mix, packaged salad dressings, sweetened yogurt, BBQ sauce, yada, yada), no GMO's. You probably cannot escape the GMO's in the meats from factory meat animals, including chickens and their eggs, unless you can afford pastured meats... but start somewhere. No fake butters, no canola or soy oils (both GMO's), no sugar substitutes, nothing fake. I know many of the regular readers of this blog eat real foods almost exclusively... but perhaps just as many readers do not.

Make the time for a friendly email or telephone call to your local congressional representative saying you'd like to see food labels that state GMO or not, and hopefully even whether routine animal antibiotics in healthy animals were used. Tell them politely that you'd like to know what's actually in your food.

It may take years of persistence, but remember the soil in our yards is the result of eons of weathering effects on rocks that turned them into soil.

Why do we self-destruct?

Or, maybe I should say why do "I" self-destruct?

Ten months, ago in March, I made a radical shift in my meal choices based on some input from my Endocrinologist and further research online. It didn't take long to begin to feel the effects. My energy levels rose, my sleep improved, my skin got a little better-looking (that's saying a lot for 70 years of abuse and wrinkles!), and my overall disposition improved. 

As a by-product of the food intake changes, I also lost body fat, to the tune of about 30 pounds. I was beginning to look like my former body was emerging from its insulating layer! Then for my birthday at the beginning of November, I had some birthday cake... and the back-sliding began. Little by little, sugars and starchy carbs crept back into my diet and now they are rampant.

I suppose on some level I didn't actually want to believe sugar was so addictive, even though I know it intellectually. Oh, I can rationalize some of the carbs back into my diet as due to the time of the year. Potatoes are cheap and abundant, green vegetables aren't. Or, "My food budget is down because my heating costs are up during winter." Or, "The weather outside is nasty, and Comfort Foods feel so good." 

The litany could go on and on... to include the Holidays (and we all know about Holiday Foods!), or being snowed in without power for several days and eating whatever was on hand even if it was wrong. But in the final analysis, it's all the head games we play. "One little slice of cake won't hurt me." 

Did I actually let the childish imp who lives inside me make the decisions of what goes in my mouth? Did I give in because it was the path of the least resistance? Did I allow some remnants of old and false food beliefs I had accumulated over the years thanks to advertising and food/medical PTB (Powers That Be) a space to still hunker down in my belief system?

Probably all of the above, in some fashion. Whatever the reason(s), I am now feeling almost as lousy as I did last March. I'm not sleeping well, my outlook is nigh on to depressing, I have no energy... and I have no one to blame but myself. I alone am responsible for the consequences of my choices and actions. No one put a gun to my head at the grocery store and made me buy those donuts!

I have re-gained about 10 out of the 30 pounds I had lost, which, of course doesn't make me very happy. The change in how I feel is what disturbs me most, and the weight is just a visible reminder. During the nearly 3 months I have been adding carbs back into my diet, I could have regained far more than just 10 pounds if I hadn't also been continuing a lot of the good foods I should be eating anyway.

So I'm facing a tough climb back to my protocol of a diet limited to 50g carbs a day. That will be difficult, or almost impossible, until I have more money in February to replenish my pantry. In the meantime, I have to eat what I have on hand or starve. I have plenty of meats, just not much in the way of probiotics like yogurt, and no eggs or cheese.

If nothing else, this diet departure has shown me exactly how destructive certain foods can be for me. IF I had any doubts about eating starchy carbs, 3 months has proven that I simply cannot! There's a definite parallel with the alcoholic and one tempting drink, to me and one tempting donut.

As a side note, it is NOT calories in and calories out for me. If anything, I was eating more total daily calories before I started adding in carbs. (Increasing carbs at a meal usually meant fewer calories from meats and other foods with good saturated fats.) My activity level (calories out) is pretty consistent over time. When I don't dig in the summer garden, I dig in the winter snow and haul firewood.

Random Thoughts on a Sunday Morning...

Photo courtesy ndwfgg's photostream

Yesterday I went over to North Carolina for a visit, and during the drive I planned a short piece, "Crowding the Line" about drivers who could not seem to stay in their own lane but crossing the center line into mine on the roads. I chose Crowding the Line to describe how I, by being aggressive and crowding my side of the line, caused a lot of them to back off. It's a sad state of affairs when we have to be overtly aggressive just to use what is rightfully ours to use.

Along the roads I noticed the small communities with the most run-down housing also had the most trash thrown along the verge. I wonder if it is the drivers passing through thinking it's okay to trash an already shabby looking area, or if the residents, just by being poor, contribute? Does being poor automatically correlate with being trashy?

I came home and picked a few sugar snaps. There's something so yummy about food straight from vine to mouth in just a scant few minutes!

I also take pleasure in my posted updated weight loss yesterday, 20 pounds over the last 2-3 months. I still have a long way to go to my earlier healthy weight, but I figure this will happen because I am not on a weight-loss diet, just a change in foods I eat. I also noticed (in my monthly budget) that very few dollars are being spent at the local supermarkets. Last month I bought un-homogenized milk, waxed paper, a few lemons and limes, kitty litter... and not much else. I can't begin to say how much I've saved by NOT purchasing sodas, chips, snack foods... anything 'prepared'. My big food budget hit was $160 for grass-fed meat for the freezer, and a few dollars for eggs. All my produce came from my garden, and cheese and goat milk for yogurt came from a local goat farm.

Speaking of waxed paper... I found if I re-wrap cheese from the plastic film it is sold in, and into waxed paper, it breathes and doesn't mold as quickly!

This morning there's a piece in the NYT about the Boom in Doom (it wasn't titled that, though). It was about bracing for life after oil. The 'boom' part probably true, as I have noticed I am more inclined lately to pick up extras when shopping, things I cannot grow or make like toilet paper... and reviewing my small heirloom seed stash. I have tried for 30+ years to be prepared for natural weather disruptions of power and food supplies. Each year I add to my home-canned foods in the pantry, and rotate what I use over the winters.

I also add a few hand tools every year. For instance, 5-6 years ago I found a small country hardware store that had some new washboards. They were inexpensive, and I bought one... although I must say I hope I never have to use it for all my laundry! (I also don't know what happened to it in my move here. I may need to buy another one.) They work best in a big galvanized tub, which I do not have... yet.

Yesterday at a yard sale I bought an old brace and bit in good working order for $5. I have an old one, but the knob on the top broke off.  I have a few bits of various sizes I have scrounged over the years, and should look for more at yard sales... and get a good set of files to sharpen them (mine are scattered). Files are indispensable if you have tools, power or not. Same for knives... no kitchen should have dull knives; they are more dangerous than sharp knives.

Going out of town...

Photo from photofarmer's photostream

I'll be gone for 3 days, and I only have 2 small posts in the pipeline to follow this one. Sigh.

I have an appointment with the Endocrine Clinic at the Univ. of Virginia up in Charlottesville, and hopefully I can get on the right track to some solutions. Every doctor for 50 years always says he/she thinks I have a thyroid problem; they run tests and then say my thyroid is fine. Nonetheless, I still have many of the classical low thyroid symptoms of hair loss, dry scaly skin, low energy... I have another appointment the following day at the dental clinic.

Two years ago my local family doctor started treating me with a low dosage thyroid med based on new research, and there was definite improvement. However, she dropped her private practice due to an ailing son, and my other doctor (liver specialist) doesn't think there is a problem, so no scripts. I'm hoping the Endocrine specialists will figure it out, even though I HATE taking drugs.

It will be nice to have some free time Thursday afternoon to explore Charlottesville, and shop for grocery items I cannot find locally.

It's about a 5 hour drive each way for me, and snow is in the forecast but little accumulation... thankfully. I take the back roads (2 lane divided highway) except for a stint of about 75 miles on the interstate, and it's usually a lovely drive.

I can hardly wait to make that trip in summer when peaches are ready!

Aluminum Industry Jobs

Recycled Aluminum Dragon Photo from austinvan's photostream

In 2009, the Pittsburgh aluminum producer Alcoa eliminated thousands of jobs and curbed production as the recession dried up demand.

The Houston Chronicle reports that the Alcoa CEO (Klaus Kleinfield) earned $11.2 million in his first full year as CEO, according to preliminary figures released in a regulatory filing. His Performance Bonus doubled to $3.8 million as he cut costs to counter the effect of a deteriorating business environment.

I wonder how many lost jobs are represented by his Bonus, never mind his salary?

Gardening Group Woes

Most of you know I've been an active member of the gardening site Dave's Garden for many years, beginning back in the days when it was a free site and had fewer than 1200 members. Many of you who read this blog are also members. Over the years it grew and grew; last count I saw was approaching half a million combined paid subscribers and free limited memberships.

Dave sold the website about 2 years ago, yet managed to retain full control of everything but the headaches. Now the website has been sold again and his new responsibilities are nil, other than being like any other paid subscriber.

My guess is that the list of paying subscribers will dwindle over time, the friendliness and individualism disappear, and the blatant ads increase. After all, don't websites exist just to make money?? That's really too bad. What made Dave's Garden so attractive from the beginning was the community that formed strong bonds. Many of my own friendships have developed from that community, and as a whole, that community is extremely generous and helpful, far beyond what you would expect from people who have never met.

I could cite time after time when they have pulled together in a spontaneous effort, whether just to replenish a garden that was vandalized, to offer shelter and support to Katrina victims, to raise money to buy tech equipment for a blind member, to send daily cyber hugs to a member with a terminal illness, or to send a digital camera and computer to someone in India. I could probably drive across this entire country and back, finding a bed and a meal with a member every place I stopped. Incredible generosity having to do with the people, not the organization.

Like every organization, it isn't all a bed of roses. There has always been an exclusive inner clique but for the most part everyone is generally accepted. Rightfully, troublemakers have been quickly dispatched... but so have some fine members who merely disagreed with management in some way.

I shall be sad to see it crumble because so far it is still the best site to get information and help... whether you are a newbie gardener or an advanced horticulturalist.

Mini Mountains

I finally made it into town today to pick up a prescription, and found the town looking a lot different after our big snow. Wish I had taken my camera. There are mini-mountains of snow piled up everywhere, and the ones in the strip center parking lot are about twice as tall as the top of most pickup cabs. Unfortunately, it's all dirty, yucky gray snow, not pretty at all.

The main street downtown was closed off while they were transferring the snow piles into dump trucks to move elsewhere, leaving the on-street parking once again available. The business section of downtown is just 4 blocks long if you include the full block with the courthouse, so snow removal is not as large as job as a bigger town would have.

I stopped at the jewelry store, hoping they could order the minute hand I'm missing from my dress watch. The store was jammed... I forgot about last minute Christmas shopping! The older woman who tried to help me spoke very little English, so it was a bust. I tried asking her how she ended up in this little burg in moving from Bogata, Columbia, but her English was no better than my Spanish. The language initially surprised me because the whole family (in the store) was blond/blue eyed, not Latin-looking at all.

Back home, I let my fingers do the keyboard walking on Google for a minute hand. Problem is that this watch is vintage and collectible (although not that old, I bought it new in 1971), and I want an original hand so there's no devaluation. I just emailed a place in Rhode Island that may have original parts.

The minute hand became loose in the case after I had it cleaned 15+ years ago, and I opened the case to stick it back on the pin. Well, I managed to drop the tiny hand in the carpeting and never found it, so the watch has been in my drawer for years now. I'd really like to wear it occasionally; I'd even sell it if I could get half what it's worth, but that won't happen in today's market.

Chickees and the Everglades

While I was thinking about my father when writing about Veteran's Day recently, I remembered bits of the few times he was home on leave during WWII.

On one of those visits when I was about 2-1/2, my dad took me out the Tamiami Trail to 40-Mile Bend in the Everglades, to a Seminole village where one of his friends lived. The road from Miami went due west straight as an arrow for 40 miles and then a bend in the road changed the direction directly towards Naples on the west coast. Some trading villages built up near the bend, and it adopted the name for identification.

My dad's friend was one of the grandsons of Osceola, and regretfully I no longer remember his first name. He had gone to high school with my dad, and he was a football hero. What I remember is that he played football barefoot!

The Seminole villages are small clusters of chickees built of upright bald cypress posts with a raised floor and a palmetto thatched roof. One of the chickees is always the Council House, usually round and on the highest portion of the camp. It is where the Council of Elders and Warriors met. Women and children were not specifically forbidden, but by tradition were not seen in the Council House.

My dad lost track of my whereabouts (the small villages were very safe) and when he found me, I had crawled up the short ladder to the floor of the Council House. The Chief had me on his knee and was entertaining me!

Chickees have fascinated me ever since. There is always one larger chickee used as the cook house, and each family has their own personal chickee for living quarters. Chickees have side curtains that can be hung in rainy and wet weather, and stored when not needed.

The chickees are built several feet above the potentially swampy land which covers about 9 million acres of the Everglades. It is mostly sawgrass (early on it was called the River of Grass) and just a few inches of rain/water enabled canoes and flat bottomed boats to traverse the area.
Dotting the landscape are hammocks, which are pieces of firm ground like islands a few inches to several feet above the water. Some hammocks are as small as a footstep, while many are an acre or more and support thick forests.

It's all very different now, and not just because of exponential growth. The Army Corps of Engineers had no idea what they were doing to the shallow flow of water in the 'glades by building essentially a barrier (road) across the 'glades, and still didn't know many years later when they built the parallel Alligator Alley a few miles farther north.

In the last several years I have read of several proposals (and some actual projects) to restore the natural waterways in central and south Florida. Marjory Stoneman Douglass wrote The Everglades: River of Grass in 1947, which redefined the popular conception of the Everglades as a treasured river instead of a worthless swamp.

Douglas was an interesting woman; born in 1890, she came to Miami at an early age to work for the Miami Herald but soon became a popular free lance writer, working nearly to the end of her 108 years for the restoration of the Everglades. The River of Grass has been said to have the impact of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.

Saturday Wanderings...

No, I'm not wandering... just my mind! Actually I would love to have enough gas to wander around these hills for the day, but that's not possible this month.

My 'extra' money for the month went for sheetrock, and 2 x 4's so I could finally finish the doorway and wall I put up to close off my end of the house. I got around to starting on it yesterday, not nearly finishing all I thought I could do in one day.

Did you know sheetrock gets heavier as you age? It must weigh almost twice as much as it did when I was 60! I actually think fiberglass insulation itches more, too. The harder part, building and sheetrocking the door jamb 90º to the wall, will happen today. Fortunately, my wall is narrow enough that there will be very little mudding and sanding to do, mostly just the drywall screws.

Buying the trim for both sides of the door jamb was a real sticker shock. Real wood moulding was priced out of the question, so for about $1 a foot, I bought what looks like pressed and molded paper with a primer coat on one side. It's properly called "Medium Density Fiberboard" or MDF. I guess I'll have to drag out my pancake air compressor and finish nail gun to put it up.... I'm not sure the stuff would hold a real nail.

There's a wonderful door casing I would love to have used, called Howe Casing. Some of the big box stores carry it in MDF, but none local to me. Howe casing in real wood would probably run more than $3 a foot. It generally comes in 8' lengths and I'd need 5 pieces at a cost of around $150 for 1 door. Yikes.



Somewhere out in the barn I have a box full of very decorative antique bronze door knobs (similar to the ones pictured above but most of mine with escutcheon plates are nicer) and mortise locksets I've been carrying around about 40 years. I always thought I'd install them on the last house I ever planned to occupy. When I first lived in Baltimore in the 1960's, the old row houses were falling down and there were a couple of salvage yards nearby, in an area you didn't want to be in after dark. That was long before renovation was fashionable, and I was able to buy knobs, escutcheon plates and locks here and there, even at yard sales. There's probably a small fortune in that box!

I also have an old brass teller's cage window (think of the small banks in old Western movies), with a small hinged area across the bottom to allow passage of large sacks of coins or bills. I used to have a brass and beveled glass bank president's office door, but it weighed over 300 pounds and I grew tired of moving it.

I suppose it's time to think of selling some of that stuff... sigh.

I'm a Cat Person

Oh, I like dogs okay, but I'm really a cat person! I have 2 cats... my big tabby cat is just like me, old, cranky and chunky. And I really do mean she's cranky. That's her in the photo above, demanding I build a fire for Her Highness. She's about 15 or 16 now; she showed up on my porch as a flea-covered tiny kitten years ago. I named her after a character in the book deJour, who turned out to be a Terrorist. NEVER name a cat after a terrorist!

Then, I have this young, svelt, part-Siamese I got from the Shelter about 2 years ago. She's my big game (in her mind) hunter, and presents me with her trophies... that is, when she's not stretched out warm and comfy inside after her expeditions.


I love both my cats, but neither plays enough to amuse me anymore. So this link really made me laugh... it builds up as you watch the video. Enjoy!

http://www.wimp.com/inefficientdrinker

Are We Building up to War?

Photo Creative Commons License by dunechaser

We all know the economy is in deep trouble, and most of us remember from our history lessons that wars make money. Not everybody makes money, of course... and not everybody wins. But the folks who have the deep pockets and hidden control of the public decision-makers always increase their fortunes, regardless of which side they back.

Historically not everybody dies, either. If there is another global war, that may no longer hold true, given the technology available today. You no longer have to even 'see' your target, just the button to push.

There are several underlying currents hinted about in the news media over the last few weeks, mostly since the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh. None are overt enough to conclusively point to groundwork for a global war, but just enough to warrant closer observation.

Wars are always fought for a "Cause" believed by the populace to be just, whether the cause is religious, or political in nature. The underlying force is always to gain (or keep) power and control, whether it's control of the people, or the oil.

In the heyday of the British Empire it was control of Trade, which translated into money. The US War for Independence happened basically because England controlled our imports. They refused to let us purchase goods from any other country (which they could not tax), and they essentially blockaded our ports. That of course begat Privateers who sailed to the Islands for trade goods, or to New Orleans, where French and Spanish goods could be bought and smuggled in back at home. Ultimately, we gained the wherewithall to make our own goods and trade them globally.

The United States has nothing to trade anymore; we don't make anything. We are now truly a service country, having outsourced almost all manufacturing of goods, and in the last several years we have even outsourced service in the IT sector. What we have left to protect is the image of global power we have had based on the USD as the premier world currency.

The Seduction of Gold on Two Fronts

I've written a few things lately about this precious metal we call gold, mostly from a financial value viewpoint.

Lately I've been thinking about this lovely malleable metal in terms of adornment. I lived in Miami during and after the first influx of Cuban Refugees in the early 1960's. It wasn't until they had been amongst us a year or two that I frequented some common areas. One thing I remember is all the heavy gold chains and ID bracelets the men wore and it wasn't 14KT either.

The only jewelry I could afford as a young adult was silver, and I soon learned I couldn't wear it without my body reacting to it. I began to wish I had some gold jewelry, other than small gold studs in my ears. When I divorced my first husband, I immediately bought myself a heavy gold nugget ring which I wear to this day, and a Museum Movado watch with an 18KT gold case. Eventually I bought a few more select pieces that I wore with my corporate drag.

Now I dress comfortably in jeans and hiking boots, and seldom wear any of the jewelry except my nugget ring, and a couple of small gold chains. I've given some of it to nieces, but even they dress down these days. However, the allure of gold still remains deep within me.

As to the value of gold jewelry... would I trade what few pieces I have left for food in a real crisis? I really don't know since I have never been in that kind of situation. I do regret some pieces I hocked, or sold, to pay rent. I was friends in the 1960's with a Hungarian man who came to the US as a refugee in WWII. He would buy any kind of gold jewelry at yard sales, auctions, etc. I remember him describing people in the war-torn areas of Europe who wore coats with gold jewelry sewn inside. They were always able to trade for food with it. I guess once you have seen it happen, you know it can happen again.

On the financial/market value side of gold... if you have been watching the market, gold is up further in value, well over $1,000 now. The IMF has announced they want to sell 403 tonnes of gold, which is about 1/8 of their gold holdings. 403 tonnes has a market value of close to $13 Billion.

Unconfirmed via Reuters reports say China is interested in buying it, if the price is right. They said $13 billion is small beans to the Chinese, who have more than $2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves. The Chinese report having 1,045 tonnes of gold already, accumulated slowly over the last 10 or so years. I wonder how much the US still has?

Last year in a moment of panic about the banks, a neighbor withdrew $25,000 from her savings and installed a home safe. I suggested she buy gold with it; gold was $928 then. That would have bought around 27 ounces of gold, worth about $2500 more today. Her savings were paying a pittance, even the CD's. After about 60 days, she put it back in the bank.

What's going on with me...

Actually not much, at least online. I have been mostly absent for several days while I was taking a short course offered by the Virginia Dept. of Wildlife and Inland Fisheries.

Technically the course is on Hunter Safety, and I wanted to take it because I live in a heavily wooded mountainous area now over-populated by deer. That means hunters will be out in force when the various seasons open, and I wanted to know the rules about hunting near people and public roads for my own protection.

To my delight, the course covers a lot of conservation efforts in my state, and emphasis in the safety course is placed on conservation and protected species.

The tax on hunting and fishing licenses, guns, ammunition, archery and related items goes into a separate fund used for conservation and recreation. By a federal law, each state gets a share based mainly on population, amount of land and number of licenses, and must use some of it for conservation. In my state it's almost 50%.

That money pays the biologists, game wardens, stocking and wildlife re-population efforts (including fish hatcheries), disease control (i.e. rabies in wild animals), hunter safety education, and other such endeavors. The rest of that specific tax money collected is used for things like public boat ramps, woodland trails, forest roads, parks and other recreational areas.

I had no idea that those things were paid for specifically out of the tax monies charged on guns and hunting/fishing licenses. I must say I was also impressed at the game wardens' responsibilities to protect all forms of illegal hunting, and the kind/gender of game you can take. They have strict laws about how many of what gender, and when, to protect and keep the wildlife population from becoming extinct.

The fines for illegal game are incredibly high; taking something like a turkey during mating season can cost someone $2500. All game has to be immediately tagged with a chit that comes with your license, and anyone found with something like a deer without a tag can also face jail time, even if it is a deer you accidentally hit driving down the road. Failure to call the authorities in a case of hitting a deer makes you just as responsible as someone illegally hunting.

The course certainly changed my attitude about hunters, although there are always bad apples in any bunch.

RIP Mary Travers

Wednesday September 16, Mary Travers, the powerful female voice of Peter, Paul and Mary passed away at the age of 72, from complications associated with a bone marrow transplant she had several years ago after being diagnosed with leukemia.

The group's enduring songs of the 1960's protest movements brought urgency to the politics of the time, participating in voting-rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama and performing at political rallies all over this country.

I remember well songs like "If I had a Hammer", "Leaving on a Jet Plane", and "Puff, the Magic Dragon". At the time, I was a part-owner of a 30' sailing vessel of the Dragon class, and of course we named our boat Puff!

Her passing really marks the end of an era for me, now only remembered on recorded pieces of plastic.

Spitting Contest

Have y'all been noticing the spitting contest that's going on? It goes like this...

The Chinese haven't been too happy with how the US government has been handling the mess on banking and investment firms going belly-up... and since the Chinese have a substantial stake in US dollars, they are worried about more losses.

They say they were deliberately encouraged (and mal-informed) by some firms to invest in derivatives. So, the Chinese recently announced they would allow some Chinese government-owned firms to default on derivatives. Spit one.

Then the US government issued a 35% tariff on Chinese tires, effective with a 2 weeks notice. Spit two.

Now the Chinese have spit back, threatening to cut off imports of American chicken.

I wonder how we will spit back? I did notice gold shot up dramatically on Wednesday.

The Gold Coin with Charisma and Lawsuits

When President Roosevelt seized all the US gold coins in the 1933, the US mints had just produced about half a million 1933 $20 gold pieces, called a ‘double eagle’. They were never released by the government but melted down instead, although a few did make it outside the federal vaults.

Two of the coins were given to the Smithsonian, and one went into King Farouk of Egypt’s coin collection. That coin eventually came to the hands of a British dealer and the US government seized it. Finally an agreement with the government was reached and in 2002 it was sold at auction for $7.6 million.

In 2004, 10 more of them were found in an old forgotten family safe deposit box by the family of a Mr. Switt. When the family took them to the US Mint for authentication, the government seized them, claiming they were stolen goods. Mr. Switt had been a gold dealer and the family insists he would have acquired the coins legitimately before the ban, most likely through a gold-for-gold exchange process used by the Mint in those days.

The Secret Service, which polices currency crimes, has argued that all of the double eagles that escaped government control passed through the hands of Mr. Switt (grandfather of the current owner) working with a corrupt cashier at the Mint. A Mint spokesman declined to comment on the case because of the litigation.

The family has sued the government for their return, and a District Court judge recently ruled that the government must prove they were stolen.

With the right timing and a good market, Mr. Fenton (the dealer who sold the Farouk coin) said, they could bring $4 million to $6 million each, because there are many people who would want to own one.

“This coin,” Mr. Fenton said, “has got so much charisma.”

Selling an Idea

Sometime back in my career days, I was in a workshop and this example about selling an idea came up. The tale (back in the days of the Cold War) goes like this:

The Russians and the Americans met at a bargaining table. The Russians put their demands on the table, and the Americans became indignant saying, "No Way"... and walked out.

A year later they met again, and the Russians put the same demands on the table. The Americans refused them, and left.

Six months later, they met yet again. The Russians put the same demands on the table, and after some consultations, the Americans agreed to think about it.

The point? When we first hear something that seems unacceptable, we dismiss it. When we keep hearing it over and over, we become more used to the idea. Eventually we come to believe it.

Keep that thought in mind as you hear glowing reports on the news; carefully re-check the reality around you for comparison. Are houses selling in your neighborhood? Are folks finding jobs again? Are your banks lending?

Silver and Gold

Photo: Creative Commons License by Muffet

Continuing with my thoughts on money, currency, and gold… I thought I’d write about silver a bit. In my earlier post on Gold Value, Investing and Risks, I mentioned USD ‘silver certficates’ which preceded the USD federal reserve notes.

There are still a few of those silver certificates around, in the hands of collectors. They were withdrawn from general circulation in the mid-1960’s as I recall. That was about the time the price of silver went up and the value of the silver in our coins became more than the face value of the coins, so the US Mints stopped making silver coins. I read somewhere that when silver was $16/ounce, the silver value of our then-silver dime was over $1 in value by weight of the silver.

People began saving their silver coins as the newer alloyed coins were minted. When many folks were preparing for Y2K, it was advised to look for silver coins in case our economy collapsed. Those old silver coins usually have no value to a coin collector except for the silver value. Those coins are called ‘junk silver’, and even today an occasional silver coin will show up in circulating change. (I once found an old US half-dime in some change; they were minted from 1792-1873. I had it in my jewelry box with some buffalo nickels and my baby sister bought ice-cream from the ice-cream truck with them.)

My grandfather always carried 2 silver dollars in his pocket. One was minted the year he was born, and the other was minted the year my grandmother was born. I got them when he died, but when all my jewelry was stolen a few years later, the coins were in the box. I bought one replacement, his birth year (1882) several years ago, in just ordinary circulating condition, and I paid something like $20 for it. Probably cost about that to replace it today as that year Morgan Silver dollars were plentiful except the ones with the "CC" mint mark.

Silver has fluctuated a lot in USD value over my adult years, from around $2 to almost $23 a troy ounce. Today as I write this, it is $16.62.

The US Mint issued Kennedy half-dollars in the mid-1960’s that had an inner core of 79% copper and 21% silver, and clad with an outer layer of 80% silver/20% copper. They were the last US Mint coins containing any silver; their total silver content was 40%. Our current half dollar coin has a metal value of about 8¢.

Pennies from 1909-1982 were 95% copper (except for the 1943 steel WWII penny), and worth almost 2¢ in copper today. Pennies since 1982 are 97.5% zinc and worth about half a cent in metal value. The few folks who do small metal castings (like sand castings) can melt pennies along with some aluminum cans and some copper wire for a very inexpensive homemade alloy that has a low melt point for casting small parts.

If you want to see the historical (and current) price of silver, check here.

One thing does concern me a bit… should a catastrophic event occur, would our government confiscate our silver and gold coins they way the Patriot Act says they can (including confiscation of food stores and other items) in much the same way Roosevelt confiscated gold in 1933?

Of course, you could invest in gold foil-covered chocolate 'coins' like the photo above... you can always eat them!

Are we getting too technical with rules?

In Tampa last week, Steve Valdez tried to cash his wife's check (to him) at her bank, and was denied.

Why? The bank (Bank of America) requires a thumbprint if you don't also have an account at that bank. Mr. Valdez was born armless and uses prosthetic arms, hence has no fingerprints.

The bank refused to cash the check.

Do These Dots Connect?

I've spent several days reading and trying to understand the Derivatives Market, and I still barely have a clue. I do not begin to qualify as any kind of financial analyst, but I do read. And, some things stand out in recent news making me wonder if there is any connection between them?

First, we all know China holds a huge stake in the USA. I don't know how much of a stake, and I'm not sure I want to know.

Then last week China made this blip on the Financial Market radar: “BEIJING, Aug 29 (Reuters) - Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) may unilaterally terminate derivative contracts with six foreign banks that provide over-the-counter commodity hedging services, a leading financial magazine said.

China's SOE regulator, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), had told the financial institutions that SOEs reserved the right to default on contracts, Caijing magazine quoted an unnamed industry source as saying, "On September 1, 2009 Reuters said that the Banks, not the commodities would be at risk if China followed through."

Then, in several other unrelated reports:

1. Sep 3 HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Hong Kong is pulling ALL its physical gold holdings from depositories in London, transferring them to a high-security depository newly built at Hong Kong's airport, in a move that won praise from local (Chinese) traders Thursday.

2. China pushes silver and gold investment to the masses.

3. The IMF (International Monetary Fund) said last Wednesday China has agreed to purchase approximately $50 billion worth of bonds denominated in Special Drawing Rights (SDR's, the IMF's own currency), a fundraising effort that is part of a broader push to bolster the IMF's resources.

Many analysts had expected China would sell some of its more than US$2 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves to buy the IMF bonds, in order to reduce its exposure to the U.S. dollar. But according to the agreement posted on the IMF Web site, China will use its own currency, the RMB, called the renminbi.

"The addition of the SDR-denominated bonds to China's assets should help the nation painlessly diversify its foreign-exchange reserves, the world's largest. U.S. dollar assets now account for a good portion of their reserves, but because China's positions are so large it would be difficult for it to switch out of the dollar and into something else without causing market turmoil."

In a research note, Barclays Capital economist Wensheng Peng said the currency used for China's payment will eventually come back into China, as the funds are lent out to member nations who then convert them to major currencies such as the dollar.

4. ChinaDaily ran this story: The national flag of the People's Republic of China (PRC) will be hoisted at the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on September 20, 2009.

Chinese associations in the United States had applied to hold a ceremony in front of the US President’s residence to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of PRC.

Chen Ronghua, chairman of Fujian Association of the United States, told reporters that their application was approved not only because of the sound Sino-US relations but also because China is a responsible country.
"Many Americans admire China due to the success of last year’s Beijing Olympics," said Chen.

More than 1,000 people will attend the ceremony and the performances held after it, according to Zhao Luqun, who will direct the performances. Zhao said the performances will demonstrate the friendship, magnanimous spirit and kindness of modern Chinese people.

5. That brings me to the IMF itself, the World Bank, and other IFI (International Financial Institutions). These groups control the world's finances. All the loans are made with strings attached, and usually as political as monetary. They controlled all the world's money, until recently... and now, still "mostly" although there are other movements rising on the wind that may affect each of us.

Understanding the history and global reaches of monetary policies a bit better just might help each of us individually, and I will cover some of it in another post.

But for now, I would buy gold (if I had any money!). Not investments in gold funds, but real gold (coins, mini-bars) to have in your own possession. It is a valid, world-wide medium of exchange. The Wall Street Journal reports gold just increased another 2.3% as the USD continues to drop.