Weather Report: Economics, Food, Developing the Breaking Wave & Psychology

ECONOMICS: “U.S. government takes on big role in mortgage market.” The Seattle Times (via seattle times.nw source.com) quoting Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moodys Economy.com, on the take-over of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by the U.S. Government notes “ Effectively, the federal government has now become the nations mortgage lender…”

This 9/8/08 article also says that the government will own about 80% in each company and will be willing to put up as much as $100 billion of taxpayer money for each company to keep them from going broke. With all this effort and money there’s no guarantee that the housing market will stabilize.

Sorry folks, but it’s just not possible to refrain from passing on a friend’s observation that: “ It appears that it’s raw, Darwinian, dog-eat- dog capitalism for small business while it’s socialism for the big businesses deemed too-big-to-fail.”

FOOD: “UN says eat less meat to curb global warming “ . This 9/7/08 article is found in guardian.co.uk . The article points to comments by Dr. Rajendra Pachauri (an economist and vegetarian), chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , indicating that individuals wanting to make a personal sacrifice to help reduce global warming should give up eating meat one day a week. This should then be extended to reduce meat consumption even further.

Telegraph.co.uk on 9/5/08 posted an article referring to food costs in Britain : “ Huge rise in the price of food “ . This article elaborates on numbers compiled by Verdict research company showing that since January, food prices in Britain have increased in general by more than 8%.

Please refer to PrudentHome’s posting on 9/5/08 under the heading, FOOD-MICRO pointing to the growing home gardening movement in Britain. We noted here that British gardeners ( all eleven million) are being encouraged to develop sustainable food production in order to make them and their country less dependent on outside food sources. Obviously their efforts would also effect personal economic benefits.

DEVELOPING THE BREAKING WAVE: A home gardening renaissance is developing here in the U.S. also and for many of the same reasons as the one in Britain: economic well-being, control of a food supply close to home, food safety, and food security.

Here’s a web site that’s worth your time to visit: www,freedomgardens.org. Energybulletin.net of 9/3/08 was the source for this site and noted in it’s” Freedom Gardens, Press Release” that “many interactive, home grown challenges and campaigns” were available here such as “ The 100 Foot Diet”, “Liberate Your Yard”, Harvest keeper” and “Save Our Seeds”.

PSYCHOLOGY: The Niles Daily Star, On line Edition ( nilesstar.com ) 9/4/08, presented an article: “ “Depression takes its toll”. A counselor with Jerico Counseling Services, Mitchell Hannefius, in commenting on today’s difficult times and peoples responses noted , “ As people get more and more burdens, they either shut down, get explosive, feel trapped or, get the survival instinct type thing where they’re just going to beat it.”

“We’re in a survival period of life as a country,” he added, “And we’re not used to surviving. It’s easy to think we might not make it…but it’s a period of time when we need to roll up our sleeves and put our shovels in the ground.”

Until next time, keep your eyes on the horizon (more often than not, you’ll have your chin up to do it).