Thought experiment

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 14 Apr 2014, 00:29

RenewableCandy wrote:The "virtual"-type wealth, you can regard it as a lot of promises to do work. Either those promises are kept and the work gets done (and the resulting damage happens), or those promises are broken (assets are de-valued or debts aren't paid) in which case the work isn't ever done and the economy shrinks.

FRB "money", in other words.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 14 Apr 2014, 07:38

Tarrel wrote: 1. It seems that, on the poorest soil in Northern Scotland, even sheep rearing is uneconomic.

Uneconomic as in compared with rearing meat by feeding on fishmeal and soya grown in the former rainforest. Well, yes, but that's not the point.

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 14 Apr 2014, 09:35

Tarrel wrote:A couple of points to add:

1. It seems that, on the poorest soil in Northern Scotland, even sheep rearing is uneconomic. Many crofters purely raise lambs as feed-stock to send to lowland farms further south for fattening.

2. It appears that, for some producers, even our venison is not cheap enough (despite the glut of deer in the highlands). We normally obtain our venison locally, but the other day I had occasion to pick up some venison burgers from our local supermarket. They were made by Highland Game, based, I think, in Perthshire. Where was the venison sourced from? New Zealand!

There is a difference between uneconomic and being uncompetitive. The economy in Vermont was doing just fine in the 1820's and grain and finished beef and wool was exported to New York and Boston but then the Erie canal and the railroads opened up the corn belt from 'Ohio' to Illinois and the price of those commodities dropped to well below what they could be produced for in Vermont. The cost of growing grain or sheep in Vermont had not gone up and the land was just as productive as it had been ( or pretty much so) but the Vermont farmer could not sell his excess at a profit. In 1817 a bushel of corn brought 62 cents today it is about $5.00 but you have to adjust for inflation. The laborers that dug the Erie canal got paid 50 cents a day plus board and bunk. A farmer used three hours of labor to grow one bushel of wheat and today that same three hours produces one hundred bushels on a third less land per bushel.
Point being that if the large farms today have their cost increased by shortages in fuel and fertilizer then other land that is uncompetitive today maybe brought back into service at a profit.

AndySir · Post by **AndySir** » 14 Apr 2014, 09:52

Just curious where SPAMLAND is. Let's try a few guesses: Albany, New York, East Coast, Buffalo, Kansas, Minnesota

Hmmm... none of the above.

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 14 Apr 2014, 10:05

AndySir wrote:Just curious where SPAMLAND is. Let's try a few guesses: Albany, New York, East Coast, Buffalo, Kansas, Minnesota

Hmmm... none of the above.

Your spam filter did that to the post. The state just west of Pennsylvania "O'H'I'O' .

AndySir · Post by **AndySir** » 14 Apr 2014, 11:11

Ah, I hadn't noticed any culinary preparation rooms being offered from the Buckeye state - that was my confusion.

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 14 Apr 2014, 11:21

I didn't know it got called that. Oh here we go:
State Nickname List

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 14 Apr 2014, 12:13

A nice place but a bit boring to drive across in the summer. About twelve percent of the state is planted to corn and they grew 485 million bushels last year along with 222 million bushels of soybeans. In some areas you can literally leave a town and have thirteen foot tall corn on both sides of the road all the way to the next town with just a break every mile (exactly) for a county road crossroad.
As the state is ninety percent the size of England (45,000sq. mi.) that's a lot of corn.

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 14 Apr 2014, 20:57

Ummm...so why's it named after horse-chestnut trees?.. Is it one of those things like every road or district in the UK that's got "-wood" in its name is named after the wood that was demolished to build it?

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 14 Apr 2014, 21:42

RenewableCandy wrote:Ummm...so why's it named after horse-chestnut trees?.. Is it one of those things like every road or district in the UK that's got "-wood" in its name is named after the wood that was demolished to build it?

Beside the fact that the tree is common there there is a bit of history. http://www.statesymbolsusa.org/Ohio/NicknameOhio.html