food prices

FOOD PRICES


Ah, the continuing chorus of minions clamoring for a change in topics. They remind me of the Supreme Court on pornography. They can’t exactly define it but they will know it when they see it. Gee, how helpful is that? People, I’m not mechanically inclined. My interests are pretty much confined to social studies. If you would all write my articles for me, then we could cover more ground. As it is, I am what I am. I’m glad we got that covered-again. We wouldn’t want the three new readers for the year to be behind the curve, information wise. On a personal note, this is to Sam. Don’t send yet more money. I’m not selling the land because I am broke and need money. I’m selling them as a trade. Just like last year, I sold my Arkansas land and insulated the trailer. This year the temperatures were far colder, but even with just a small added amount of insulation I was a lot more comfortable ( do a search for “ghetto insulation” to find that article ). Selling the other two lots, I want to insulate the hippy bread van. I’m thinking about using thick foam, like in auto upholstery. I still have to research that, prices and R value. If not, I’ll glue rigid board to the metal interior, then fiberglass on interior stick wall. Either way should have great insulation. Perhaps even enough that with nothing but solar I can survive post-propane. I’ll still eventually build underground ( anything under a hundred square feet needs no permit ), but I’m still unsure which lot will be my permanent spot. The van can be moved. I’d love to hear from anyone that cheaply made a super-insulated dwelling ( straw bale is not that cheap after all is said and done ).

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“Wired” magazine just did an article on the UG-99 wheat rust. Of course, being the optimistic, high tech wonderkids that they are, this is little cause for concern since some propeller head will stumble on a new resistant strain. Seriously, I wonder if a big agri-corp was responsible for the reemergence of wheat rust. They would have the most to gain. But, this article isn’t about blight. That can cause food prices to skyrocket. So can hyperinflation and drought and global weather changes and overpopulation and Peak Oil. Odds are, food prices will go up. Forget about sudden collapse right now. That is what your emergency stockpile is for. For now, let’s just assume that we will stay in a slow collapse. In a slow collapse, the kind we’ve been in for forty years with time off for good behavior through half of the nineties when Billy raped the military and SS to balance the budget and Russia was giving away its oil for a one off surplus event. Food prices have been going up for five years, and that is before any of the above bad things happened. Unless you are a mouth breathing moron with wet dreams of green shoots coming out of your ass, you should be counting on food prices to continue to rise.

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Traditionally, in European urban society with a middle class and only mild wars ( before the Industrial Revolution )and before famines, food was about half of your income. It might take awhile to get there, although right now I’m seeing grocery bills almost at thirty percent of my take home. And that is with eating 800 calories a day in whole wheat bread. Of course, some of that is storage food. Not that I’m a good representative sample anyway. Food should once again, in the not too distant future, take up the biggest portion of your income. Now, take a look at your budget. What can you cut? Nothing. The car and gas ( also rising in percentage ) are needed to take you to work. There are no jobs for the spouse, and you are only employed with direct divine intervention. You’ve already cut cable and cell phones. The kids are selling blood and organs. The biggest help for you right now would be if you didn’t have rent or a mortgage. Alas, you never bought any junk land. You never declared bankruptcy ( or whatever is needed to break away from your mortgage ). You kept waiting for a recovery. I kept trying to tell you there wouldn’t be one, you kept ignoring me.

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Buying junk land isn’t so much about simplifying your life or living frugal or being self sufficient as it is about surviving the collapse by optimizing your options economically. Just don’t live so far away from town you trade one problem for another. Without a car or house payment, you can far more easily weather the economic collapse. First comes the economic collapse long before its okay to shoot zombie bikers or California refugees. Or garden bandits for that matter. Even if you live in the city ( assuming you don’t face mobs or fires that will be uncontrollable ), if your house is paid off I would seriously consider staying there. A legal squat is going to be imperative on our way to collapse. Especially if all your meager wages must go to the absolute bare minimums such as food. Your woods, stream and huge garden will not feed you after the bank kicks you out when your mortgage goes unpaid.

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