Anyone believe this?

If it could be done in an area where people would feel safe, it seems feasible. I think many flee the city for safer pastures. I just wonder if bulldozing doesn't happen due to red tape making it too costly. Asbestos, lead pipes, lead paint, crumbled infrastructure, etc. Cheaper just to start from a clean slate. What you describe also resembles the 15 minute cities the powers that be say we're all going to be living in someday. The same power that's making fewer but larger farmers. All part of the plan. Get smaller numbers of independent people living in the country. Move them to 15 minute cities while 10 guys farm the nation.
 
Bowsnbucks said:
Killing an industry????? Where was the outcry in the 1980's when Reagan said in a nationally broadcast speech that "..... we're going to change our economy from a manufacturing-based economy to a service-based economy." and the race to move many different industries offshore started - and it continues to this day. What about those millions of jobs??? Who cried for those workers ....... who were told they'd have to re-train for other jobs??? I watched all that happen ..... as it happened. Please don't try to say it's not so. Screwed by one's own party is still screwed. Dems do wrong things too, so it's not a partisan attack. Whichever side puts the screws to American workers is not for most Americans.

As for coal's future - even China is moving away from it. It's simply too damn dirty of a fuel. Every country knows it, and they're moving to cleaner energy sources. Solar and wind can't make up the entire sources for power - this is the industry I've spent 42 years working in - electricity generation, distribution, and control. So I realize that fact. Smaller nuclear power plants that can be / will be site specific, will be the cleanest, zero-carbon-output sources of power going forward. For any of us who have kids & grandkids, I would think that finding cleaner, non-polluting sources of energy is a good thing. Any cleaner sources that cut the amount of greenhouse gases puked into our shared biosphere ought to be welcomed, IMO - just so we don't pass on a toxic, crapped-up world to our heirs. How is cutting back on dirty, polluting energy sources bad???

Lots of good jobs will be / have been created in "greener" technologies. Re-train - as others have been told in past years. BTW - many companies are moving away from dirty energy sources because they can see the future, and it's not with dirty fuels. They didn't make those moves because the government told them to. Investor dollars in those companies voted for a cleaner future in many cases. They looked at what their kids & grandkids might face down the road.
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It actually started prior to Regan. I can remember the huge impact of the oil cartel's and energy crisis(s) of the 70's. Watched lots of offshoring of industry prior to Regan. We lost lots of primary metals production and many other products were being made off shore by then. The company I worked for was importing steel from National Steel in Japan to make roofing in the 70's. Aluminum pot lines on the west coast were being closed down and biz was moving overseas and to Canada, due to lower power costs, and cheaper labor. Less restrictions too.

New York State was full of manufacturing plants that closed up shop. Appliances, microwave ovens, foundries, heavy industry, all closed and relocated. Many old plants were shuttered as I recall from my travels out that way in the 80's and 90's.

The oil crisis of the 70s caused a huge awakening in the USA. But already lots of things were being imported from asian sources. Technology advances increased the rate of off-shoreing.

I think in the 70's and 80's we thought there was no way we could produce more.....and business looked at foreign sources as a means to grow as well as new markets were developing. International investing became all the rage. I was making some pretty good returns on my international fund investments. Hey...if you can't beat 'em...join em.

I lost a couple of good jobs in manufacturing sales due to plant closings, reorganization, and off-shoring. Had to really bob and weave to find new work.
 
Mortenson said:
If it could be done in an area where people would feel safe, it seems feasible. I think many flee the city for safer pastures. I just wonder if bulldozing doesn't happen due to red tape making it too costly. Asbestos, lead pipes, lead paint, crumbled infrastructure, etc. Cheaper just to start from a clean slate. What you describe also resembles the 15 minute cities the powers that be say we're all going to be living in someday. The same power that's making fewer but larger farmers. All part of the plan. Get smaller numbers of independent people living in the country. Move them to 15 minute cities while 10 guys farm the nation.
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Around here in Se Pa., the people who have lived in the country for years are being swamped by huge "development". The locals who go to township meetings to protest mega-development of their rural areas, warehouses, strip malls, and the truck traffic / traffic back-ups are shot down by Chamber of Commerce folks who say laws prevent the hinderance of commerce and development. Local "little people" have no say on zoning - or any possible changes to zoning laws - so they don't seem to have any recourse. It's basically a case of "shut up and go back home." I've patronized and talked to a number of small business owners who live and work in rural areas here, and they're fed up and disgusted with being ignored and overrun by the big companies.

The local rural folks have tried every avenue, to no avail. LOTS of acreage that was great farmland / green countryside are now "developed" with huge warehouses (500,000 sq. ft. to over 1 million sq, ft.), strip malls, gyms, fast food joints, motels, banks (lots of banks - for people to put all (?) of their money in), and concrete / blacktop everywhere. Once quiet, winding country roads are now clogged with tractor-trailers and volumes of other vehicles those roads weren't designed to handle. Who pays for the road expansions??? The locals have their taxes raised to fund the "development." Sound fair??? What are everyone's suggestions to solving those problems??

That's why I mentioned dozing the some of the city areas - doze away the crime spots, build new & safer. Otherwise, the sprawl into the country will happen everywhere.

A clean slate indeed, Mort - and I'm not being crappy with you. I get what you're saying. It's a huge problem here and the rural locals are being steam-rolled.
 
Foggy47 said:
It actually started prior to Regan. I can remember the huge impact of the oil cartel's and energy crisis(s) of the 70's. Watched lots of offshoring of industry prior to Regan. We lost lots of primary metals production and many other products were being made off shore by then. The company I worked for was importing steel from National Steel in Japan to make roofing in the 70's. Aluminum pot lines on the west coast were being closed down and biz was moving overseas and to Canada, due to lower power costs, and cheaper labor. Less restrictions too.

New York State was full of manufacturing plants that closed up shop. Appliances, microwave ovens, foundries, heavy industry, all closed and relocated. Many old plants were shuttered as I recall from my travels out that way in the 80's and 90's.

The oil crisis of the 70s caused a huge awakening in the USA. But already lots of things were being imported from asian sources. Technology advances increased the rate of off-shoreing.

I think in the 70's and 80's we thought there was no way we could produce more.....and business looked at foreign sources as a means to grow as well as new markets were developing. International investing became all the rage. I was making some pretty good returns on my international fund investments. Hey...if you can't beat 'em...join em.

I lost a couple of good jobs in manufacturing sales due to plant closings, reorganization, and off-shoring. Had to really bob and weave to find new work.
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Not saying it never happened before Regan - but the vast majority fled offshore with that policy shift he announced. Just look at all the "free trade" ( read much cheaper labor) agreements that were signed after Reagan made his speech. Before most of those were signed, companies couldn't just walk into another country like they owned it and say, "We're setting up shop here." That's because "American" businesses wanted to turn to entire world into a cheap labor market, where they could shop for the cheapest workers. And who cheer-led that parade offshore??? The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and it's ownership of the Republican Party, which custom-wrote the legislation and made the offshore negotiations to grease the wheels offshore. I know that will rankle many on here - but the facts of who did what are the facts. The moves made by elected politicians are a matter of public record. I'd be pissed if it was the Dems or anyone else who greased the wheels for offshoring. The facts are we lost millions of good-paying jobs to cheap foreign labor. And it's not going to change course anytime soon. Forget Trump - or any other president - "ordering" companies to move back here based on spoken words. He tried that with several companies in term 1, and they left anyway. The big Carrier plant move comes to mind as the one that made big news when it happened.

And now we have AI to eliminate millions more jobs (which the companies that are / will be using it more & more, admit publicly. They make no secret of their plans. Read more financial publications & news.
If anyone's looking for lots of new, good-paying jobs to appear here .......... the steamrollers are in high gear. Only the TOP, tech-savviest engineers will have safe, good-paying jobs. Even then, self-diagnosing - self servicing machinery is already here. Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia responded to a question by an interviewer who asked him what secure career path he would recommend for young people going forward. His answer ........... farming. Rosy picture for millions of people??
 
Bowsnbucks said:
I've often wondered, why don't developers bulldoze such places in any city and build condo's / apartment complexes for the many people who like living in cities - rather than commute an hour or more every day?? Shops, stores, restaurants, offices on the first 2 floors - residences on the upper floors, however many. It's not eliminating AG land or other green spaces. Just re-building areas that were already paved and "developed" in earlier decades. Jobs, housing, sense of community .... lots of people like city / town life. Some of this is happening in & around Philly. Doze the rat-infested crack shacks & build new community-centered areas. Why keep moving out further into AG land / green spaces until those places are gone??? Just a thought.
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It is cheaper to turn 40 acres of open ag land into a housing development than it is to bulldoze 100 houses and remove all that junk from the abandoned houses.

And generally speaking, junky abandoned neighborhoods are surrounded by other undesirable areas, so I’m not sure if there is a lot of demand for housing there. Perhaps in some areas it would be worthwhile though

In our area, it is pretty common to see old farmsteads bulldozed and returned to ag.
 
The problem facing the family farm today is very simple. Nearly every use for farm land enterprise is illegal. What I'm saying is about the only thing you can do with farm land is be a serf to the corn/soy/wheat cartel. Crop farming is horrendously poor when it comes to return on assets. To hope to break even or make $500/ac on $10,000/ac ground (not withstanding the immense capital required to tend to it) is crazy town. This is why the wipeouts are so catastrophic when it goes sour.

There is a big yearning out there for folks to return to the land and start building grass roots food systems again, but there is also an army of regulators out there bigger than the defense department ready to crush anyone that steps out of line and dares to try vertically integrate from grower all the way to retailer. Instead of selling milk into the grid for $1.50 a gallon, maybe a guy wants to retail it himself for $8/gallon because his doesn't give your kids crippling stomach cramps or make make them shit blood. That farmer will have tactical rifles in his face while the thugs seize all his inventory.

If someone wants to turn a fist full of asparagus into a $15 quart jar of pickled asparagus, they're gonna have the rifles pointed at their head. Turn your surplus apples into pies? Do you have a commercially licensed and inspected kitchen? The proper metal detectors? A sprinkler system? Do you have the required exhaust system for your kitchen? To make pie.

Wanna raise some pigs out in your swamp and sell bacon, chops, ground pork by the package? Did you pass your freezer inspection? Do you have a USDA inspector on site for every hour you operate? Want to render that lard to sell? Guns in faces.

*************

Most of these enterprises likely will not make someone independently wealthy, but they can provide enough income to cover the added cost of living the life rural folks want to live. And just maybe, we can have that money make one extra lap around the community before it heads off to New York, China, or South America. It makes no sense when I can see cows all around me, yet an alarming amount of the beef in our stores is from South America. Blows my mind that we cannot have country of origin labeling on our meat products. This is also why I don't buy them. I go straight to a farmer in North Dakota for all of my meat. And he's had to sink a fat million or better into a USDA inspected facility and he's got a food cop on duty every minute he operates.
 
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The dude that sold me garlic this fall was getting $20/lb. He had all the buzz words: local, tie die shirt, smelled like weed and essential oils, not fertilized with human cadaver juice or human sewage, etc. I imagine he was making $6/square foot of land on his garlic. I'd gladly pay that again too. If he had a solid acre of that, and a place to market it, he could gross over $250,000 per acre. Granted, he'd need to leave some for a retailer, cause you can't sell that much one bulb at a time. But still, quarter million dollars per acre leaves a lot of meat on the bone.
 
You need to find a better farmers market. Little ole Asian lady sold me a bunch in Sept for $2 total and still using it up. Course it just garlic. Not advertised as persnickety, organic, designer garlic. It's all about choices.
 
SD51555 said:
The dude that sold me garlic this fall was getting $20/lb. He had all the buzz words: local, tie die shirt, smelled like weed and essential oils, not fertilized with human cadaver juice or human sewage, etc. I imagine he was making $6/square foot of land on his garlic. I'd gladly pay that again too. If he had a solid acre of that, and a place to market it, he could gross over $250,000 per acre. Granted, he'd need to leave some for a retailer, cause you can't sell that much one bulb at a time. But still, quarter million dollars per acre leaves a lot of meat on the bone.
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Wait. We talking about MJ or garlic?
 
rocksnstumps said:
You need to find a better farmers market. Little ole Asian lady sold me a bunch in Sept for $2 total and still using it up. Course it just garlic. Not advertised as persnickety, organic, designer garlic. It's all about choices.
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Depends what it was. There's lots of bulk grid food makes it's way into farmers markets that is sold as "home grown" when it's really GMO garbage from south america or asia. The stuff I got wasn't even pitched as organic, just garlic grown in MN. Real food grown in dirt just tastes different, and that stuff does. The cloves are enormous, it's easy to use because of it, and the flavor is off the charts compared to grid garlic.
 
Not everything is a conspiracy theory. Even at farmers markets lol.

We have a lot of Hmong in this area. Supported by the churches in the 70s and settled here. They farm and garden in small patches around here, an acre or two they lease out in the sticks....where I live. Pass by a few depending on how I drive to town. Their culture is still very self sufficient minded and closer to their roots than any of us white honky dudes or internet hipsters on here.

Agree the home grown local stuff is better. If it's out season and at your local farmers market..... It ain't local. The ones with many varieties of stuff probably didn't grow it all here either even if in season.

PS Amish bakeries have kick ass dense flavor packed bread. And ya, buy if from Grandma types vs the younger crowd.
 
SD is preaching it. I have bought a whole butchered hog form a local farmer for the past 2 years. Have my name on the list again this year. However, I just heard the FDA shut him down for some reason. When I picked up my pig I went with him into the walk in freezer and saw where they butcher the hogs and it was clean and orderly. They basically turned their old milk house into a freeze/butcher shop. The pork was very good too, best chops I ever had. Hopefully he gets it straightened out as I don't buy meat from the Grocery Store in town. They also have beef but I prefer venison but we might get a quarter beef when they re-open.
 
SD51555 said:
Depends what it was. There's lots of bulk grid food makes it's way into farmers markets that is sold as "home grown" when it's really GMO garbage from south america or asia. The stuff I got wasn't even pitched as organic, just garlic grown in MN. Real food grown in dirt just tastes different, and that stuff does. The cloves are enormous, it's easy to use because of it, and the flavor is off the charts compared to grid garlic.
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My mother in law requested some room my garden a couple years ago to plant some garlic. I gave her a corner of some sandy ground that wasn't good for much and I was shocked to see how good that garlic turned out. I think they probably threw a few shovel loads of old pig manure in their row since our pigpen is 10 feet from my garden, but then the seed was just covered with straw and was left alone for a year. I've never seen garlic cloves that large or flavorful. It was like a different plant all together.
 
rocksnstumps said:
Not everything is a conspiracy theory. Even at farmers markets lol.

We have a lot of Hmong in this area. Supported by the churches in the 70s and settled here. They farm and garden in small patches around here, an acre or two they lease out in the sticks....where I live. Pass by a few depending on how I drive to town. Their culture is still very self sufficient minded and closer to their roots than any of us white honky dudes or internet hipsters on here.

Agree the home grown local stuff is better. If it's out season and at your local farmers market..... It ain't local. The ones with many varieties of stuff probably didn't grow it all here either even if in season.

PS Amish bakeries have kick ass dense flavor packed bread. And ya, buy if from Grandma types vs the younger crowd.
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There's no conspiracy. My dad's booth at the MPLS farmers market for years was right next to a dude who had a straight truck full of onions. He only sold 50 pound sacks of onions, and he did not hesitate to tell you that they all came out of california. All I'm saying is, just because it's at a farmers market, doesn't mean it's any different than the stuff you can buy at the grocery store. And there is a difference. I can eat an entire store onion in a dish, no problem. If I did that with a local garden grown onion, it'd be so damn powerful, I couldn't even get the food down.
 
We eat a LOT of wild game at our house, deer/bunnies/pheasant/grouse/waterfowl..and we buy 1/4 of beef from a local country butcher shop every year. Also pick our own fruit, used to garden a bunch will be getting back into it big when I retire in two years.

Back when we raised a lot of hogs I would dig a “dead hole” every year with the skid loader for anything we lost then cover it up with dirt from the new hole.
I used to plant butternut and acorn squash over the old dead holes…the squash grew massive on them.
 
SD, was posting more about the podunk farmers market down the road from me. Not much for trucking in veggies from across the ocean here.

Twinkie Cites farmer market, wouldn't know. But based what happens from that part of the world not surprised things are not as they seem. Peaceful protesting my azz...
 
Saw this today and figured I would post it here because of the conversation about coal earlier this week. Coal usage worldwide is at an all time high clearly led by China and India increases.

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