The Economy–Debt Doom: “Can they pay it back?” by Colin Campbell at www2.macleans.ca, via lewrockwell.com today, sports this sub-line, “The U.S. is about to go broke and they’ll take us down with them”. Scary but apparently somewhat sensational unless you read on to find that this article very much revolves around the views of Peter Schiff. Here then are some of Mr. Schiff’s views and the articles highlights:

• “Peter Schiff was making the rounds on U.S. cable news shows in 2007, warning about the collapse of the housing market, anchors and fellow guests literally laughed in his face when he launched into his gloomy predictions. That kind of meltdown could never happen, they said. The economy was on rock-solid ground.. In those rosier economic days, Schiff, the president of Darien, Conn.’s Euro Pacific Capital, was repeatedly cast as a successful broker who’d gone off the deep end.”
• “These days, a vindicated Schiff is back on the talk show circuit with an even darker message. The current recession, he argues, is only the beginning of a larger economic restructuring. The American economy has been destroyed by years of reckless spending and borrowing. And now, the U.S. government is so deeply in debt that at some point in the very near future, he says, its lenders–namely China– are going to come to their senses and cut America off. …”When the system collapses –and it inevitably must, he insists–inflation will run wild as the U.S. prints money to support its spending habit. Interest rates will jump and everyone will suffer. The real day of reckoning is still to come.”
• “Late last month, well-known bond guru Bill Gross, founder of Pacific Investment management Co., warned the U.S. could eventually lose its AAA investment grade ranking.”

A PrudentHome Note: Peter Schiff is one of a dozen or so financial and economic players who have been pretty much spot-on regarding the condition of the economy and future national and international economic conditions. It’s our view that this relatively small group (i.e., Jim Rogers, Nouriel Roubini) who have proven their predictive mettle, should  have our attention when they speak to the future. The government and the “blue Sky” business news employees predictions and opinions should be very suspect.

Food–Wheat: survivalblog.com (Jim Rawles’ blog) led us to an interesting site (marketskeptics.com) this 6/21/09 and an article entitled “USDA Deliberately Misleading Investors To Hide Looming Food Shortage” by Eric deCarbonnel. The article’s contents were not all that surprising, that the USDA was “finessing” the wheat production and consumption numbers to suppress grain prices, but what caught our eye as we finished this informative article was a 6/15/09 post entitled “Wheat: Living On The Edge”: … “a batch of entries on the world’s agricultural situation from Nogger’s Blog.” Here are a couple of entries we thought you might find as interesting as we did:

• “So the top six exporting nations that account for over half of world production and 87.%5 of global trade in wheat are set to see their output fall by around 35.5MMT in the year ahead.”
• “…it looks a nailed certainty that Argentina (a world class wheat producer and exporter/PH) won’t even have any wheat to export at all in 2009/10, and will probably be a net importer (despite the fact the USDA currently has them down to export 4MMT next season).”

Interesting, no?

Next time we’ll plan on finishing our post on farmland investment (Part 2) and how this effects the individual family. Until then, keep your eyes on the horizon as the weathers changing fast.

So what we decided to do , was to try to render a kind of thumbnail sketch of some national and international conditions that would provide the prudent family with an additional understanding of the value of a home garden and sustainable home food production. Here goes.

The Economy: We’re all bombarded daily (hourly) with the national financial and credit crisis. Add to this, growing unemployment in what appears to be a crumbling economy that’s running massive deficits at both the state and national levels.

While we now have an economic “stimulus” package that promises a qualified economic resurgence, it comes amid great misgivings on the part many experts both in and out of government. Very little help seems to be going directly to 70% of the economy: the consumer. And it is the consumer that is facing the increasing possibility of joblessness in a matrix of almost certain substantial increases in food (6-9% this year) and fuel (up 20% so far since Christmas).

The rest of the industrialized world has the same set of problems but theirs are on steroids compared to ours, and they generally have less resources to address them.

The less-than-industrialized world is essentially beyond almost any help save charity.

As a world, we are moving into what appears to be a massive recession or depression of uncertain length and severity.

WORLD FOOD: “Catastrophic Fall in Global Food Production” is the article title posted by Energy Bulletin (energybulletin.net) and written by Eric deCarbonnel, Market Oracle this 2/14/09.

Here’s a piece:”…The countries that make up two thirds of the world’s agricultural output are experiencing drought conditions. Whether you watch video of the drought in China, Australia, South America, or the U.S., the scene will be the same: misery, ruined crop, and dying cattle.”

The article goes on to note “…with a 20 to 40 percent decline in world production, already rising food prices are headed significantly higher.”

COPING: From a 2/13 09 talk by author/journalist Dimitri Orlov entitled “Social Collapse Best Practices” (thanks to survivalblog.com of 2/16/09 for this sourcing) comes some valuable insight on family survival during the collapse of the Soviet Union during the mid-1990’s.

Mr. Orlov notes that the people of the USSR supplemented foods available from the government with food they raised in kitchen gardens. While this source of food was never sufficient to live on by itself, it made a great difference in diet and provided the difference between lean times, with very little to eat, and malnutrition. It also helped prevent starvation.

Part 2 of “Got Garden?” will primarily address gardening sources and methods. We hope to present this next week.

Until later this week then, keep your eyes on the horizon.