Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Upside down economics - I more or less agree - I also see farming as increasing in labor and GDP, because inputs will go up, but you still have to eat. Also, the looming recession (I say looming because I expect it to last for a long time) will cause more people to move into farm labor.

I'm curious if farmers see rising inputs (fertilizer, pesticides, fuel) as a reason to go organic. But organic is far more labor intensive, and people will have to be pretty desparate to move from there fat-ass white collar jobs to farm labor.

Nonetheless, the important point is how you view the economy - and in down times it's always better to be producing/selling more essential goods. Whatever essential goods are. I'll tell you what isn't - financial innovation.

I still think this underlies a basic problem - a lot of America is in useless, unnecessary industries: finance, insurance, and real estate - industry that all relies on credit (read: debt). And when that debt can't be paid back...

Glad I'm out of that business (Stages of the Bubble - as an example). And when that bubble is the only means of increasing wealth over the last 5 years - asset inflation on it's own is not good for the economy - it needs an underlying factor - cheap energy, increasing efficiency and productivity.

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