Re: Car living: how to prepare for the future in the US


Russell.Martin@xxxxxxx wrote:
Kamal R. Prasad wrote:
Straydog wrote:
On Mon, 1 May 2006, Russell.Martin@xxxxxxx wrote:

rrc wrote:
Straydog wrote:
[snip]

Once again you are revealing your ignorance of American
geography. We've been over this before, so your ignorance
is now willful. Large areas are desert and bare rock
mountains that can not be farmed. Parts that can and
are presently being farmed with irrigation are ecological
disasters in the making, or financial disasters when an
extended dorught hits, as has happened periodically in the
past 1000 years (that we know about). As a climatologist

they are ecological disasters because of bad farming techniques -which
can be corrected for the better.

and regional climate center contact for the National Drought
Monitor (look at http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/drmon.gif for
the present drought situation), I'm familiar with this subject.
Have you ever heard of the Anastasi? They were well

Anastasia? No -I didn't.

adapted to an agricultural existence in the Southwest, but
present thinking suggests their civilization was forced into
decline by drought.

As a matter of fact. I happened to read a WSJ article,

Get a real source on the subject. WSJ reporters, like
most, really don't have a clue about many subjects they
are forced to write about. Last month we had a speaker
talking about the abysmal (her word) state of mathematics
reporting in the popular press. Ag reporting is also best
left to someone with expertise. I wonder when the last
time a reporter for WSJ was even on a working farm.
Then you have editors, who according to the speaker
have the last shot at mangling the facts. I suspect WSJ
editors make it to working farms less often than reporters.

that but
for hispanics, most of the US's agricultural land would have been lying
waste.

Some of it would, some of which is an ecological disaster
in progress (check out selenium poisoning of soils; to save
you some work, here's a couple of things that google popped
up with on the topic: http://egj.lib.uidaho.edu/egj07/bauer.htm
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kesterson_wildlife_refuge ).
The largest portion would still be worked as it is now. One
person can, with modern methods, work 700 hectares of row
crops. I know because I talked with a guy who does when
he came here to speak. He works land about 50 miles west
of where I grew up and east of where I went to grad school.
Of course, such methods only work in some types of farming
in some places.

Not that you don't have farmers, but the population is greying

The whole population is greying. How is a population of
old people (as opposed to individual old people, some of
whom are in better shape than I) supposed to work
subsistence farms?


The article meant that the farmland would have been laid waste -on
account of lack of manpower, but for hispanics.

and/or they can get higher paying jobs in cities where 1/2 the
population of the country now resides.

In large (but not total) part because many can't make a living
at the present farm prices. Look, I'm at an ag (among other
things) school. My office is on a floor with a bunch of crop
and soil scientists, and I attend a number of their seminars,
some (and some of the most interesting) of which are given
by working farmers. In addition, I grew up in a small town in
an agricultural state and had relatives (and my wife still has
relatives) who were farmers. My step father just retired from
the agrichemical business a few years ago. I'm saying you
don't know what you're talking about.

Recently, McCain made a
statement

Pleeaase. McCain is a politician. As a group they are
a less reliable source of information than journalists. ;-)

to a union workers' group that picking cabbage/lettuce pays
$50/hr -and these jobs go abegging and even more would have -but for
hispanics.

Hmm, then why are some Hispanics working for minimum
wage when they could be making almost 10 times that
much? Economics says that people ought to be flocking
to those higher wages, or don't you believe in your
elementary economics any more? ;-)


Not all jobs -but some of them probably pay well. It is not necessary
that americans will be flocking to jobs that pay well coz the working
conditions do matter. They have welfare and some other things to help
them out.

I saw a CNN documentary (we get that channel in India) which talked to
an american farmer who said that

-wage paid by him to workers is 8.95/hr and for 9$/day -they get
eat-all-you-want
-if it weren't for hispanics, he would have a problem finding labour as
most americans are migrating to cities for easier jobs
-that the work is v hard & demanding physically and that americans have
gone soft over the years as their economy has progressed
-all of his workers come from mexico in spring and leave by fall -and
they carry a guest worker visa

This is some evidence that you have the farm -but not willing labour to
utilize it. In either case -if americans think that these people are a
burden on their country and at the same time do not wish to exploit
them -it should be pretty easy to cancel all visas and penalize
employers for hiring non-citizens.



Oh, yeah, just wave the magic wand and...poof...we're all prosperous,
self-supporting farmers, healthy, well-fed, and with no worries, no
stress, no problems, and big smiles on our faces. And, the biggest smile
on Kamal's face because it was his idea.


The thing about really good ideas and their proponents is that they are
usually ahead of their time -and consequently mocked upon till the
world wakes up to its genuineness.

And the thing about silly ideas is that they are also
mocked. The trick is to tell the difference.

Yep.

There isn't a chance american labour
can compete with its 3rd world counterparts

Right, not if we a have a global laissez-faire system that
takes the entire world back to Dickensian conditions.


The system or the world around you is not the cause of the problem. The
problem lies with a lack of parity (thanks to the strong dollar policy
of the US govt) and a desire to take life easy by americans. For all
those who think they deserve a better living std or a decent paying job
that allows them to realize their american dream -I would like to know
what ENTITLES them to any of that? As you say it, most of your land is
not arable [and this contradicts any notion of inheriting an ecological
footprint by accidemt]. If your country is as good or as bad as any
other 3rd world country in terms of resources/arable land etc. and the
people of the country do not have special faculties to show incredible
productivity -why would they deserve anything better than people
elsewhere?



-so you better give it a
try if and when your country becomes saddled with a lot more bills.
(Bills bloat the economy, making workers less competitive).

regards
-kamal

Maybe you should try. I get to pick the land, one acre,
no mule (a reference to the 19th century "40 acres and
a mule" for our non-American or poorly read American
lurkers :-) ). Maybe we can get PBS to make a mini-
series out of your attempt. They are presently running
"Texas Ranch House". We could propose "Death Valley
Subsistence Farm". :-) BTW the ranch on "Texas Ranch
House" is 10,000 acres, and it is uncertain whether they
will be able to make a go of it.


Death valley has v low humidity. Most of the agricultural land in India
experiences temperatures similar to death valley. About 600-800 million
people live in rural India and they can consider themselves fortunate
to own an acre of land and a pair of bullocks(no mules used here) -and
that suffices to survive. Something like 4 acres of land -will land
them in the category of the rural rich. If the crop fails -it leads to
a disaster and they commit suicide i.e. the state does not help them
with any type of insurance. If you observe what we manage to do with
agricultural land in India -you will realize it is NOT a silly idea.

regards
-kamal

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