When I was 15....my dad sat down and learned the art of signing price-contracts for crops. In the spring months....with everyone in the planting stage....the middlemen of corn, wheat, and soybeans got their foot into the front door of major nationwide suppliers to the food industry. So you could contract your crops out at a certain price. If you felt you could deliver 6,000 bushels at an assigned price of $6 a bushel, then you felt pretty comfortable and would gain $36k for your yearly efforts. The problem....as my dad figured....was a bad season....and you were contracted for 6,000 bushels, and you could only deliver 5,500....which meant a lesser price on you for missing the 500 bushels. The peak of this pricing game....was always in March and April....way ahead of the actual crop delivery. A careful guy.....would just wait and settle for what was the price on that day.
Farmers sat there with little knowledge of this game....and often gambled themselves into debt....not grasping the numbers game between the best year and the worst year. Some were simply lucky.
In October of 1975, my dad sized up the upfront contract, and gambled to a fair proportion on a great season, and the market was in high demand in April....so he pre-signed us for a massive year. By October....he had met all of the contract and still had ten percent of his crop left. At sixteen.....I was given my first real seasonal check....for almost $6k. It was the bigtime....as far as I was concerned. At some point in the late 80's....he'd had enough of this "gambling" experience and sold the big producing part of the farm....and settle upon cattle only.
This is a rough experience....for grown men to gamble and hope on a massive crop.....and they might hit bigtime or miss it by a mile. Their entire financial future rests with this method of gambling.
Wednesday, 23 April 2008
Life and Stephen Hawking
This week, at a lecture given in honor of NASA’s fifty years of existence…Stephen Hawking came up and chatted on the search for alien life.
Basically….he gave three general ideas. First there could very well be primitive life out there….in existence. Hawking agrees on the idea that we might be the species that advanced faster than anyone else. The fact that we aren’t picking up distance radio waves….leads him to this conclusion. Second, the search for alien life is kinda like the Columbus voyage….you have no choice….you have to fund it. And third, there is this natural vision of spreading throughout space as a species.
There are several things to ponder….upon reviewing his discussion. For years and decades…our vision of the universe is that we are not the advanced race but a much lesser developed race. When you discussed any concept of alien life….we were always the inferior race. Hawking leads a very bold concept in that we simply developed faster….perhaps as the “accidental species”.
When one ponders this term “accidental species”….we come to several hurdles that have been cleared. The dinosaurs were cleared out….thanks to the meteor hits (at least we currently believe this). If this had not occurred, then man would not have prevailed to the extent that he has.
We move then to the hurdle of strongly developed farming techniques and a species willing to travel to the far reaches of the globe, and accept no limit to our boundaries.
We moved onto the age where knowledge was kept and stored, in the libraries of the age. We have beings sitting there three, four and even five thousand years ago….looking at the stars and developing calendars which took a very bold step in our development. We invented Pi out of nothing.
We overcame the problem of varying languages by learning different languages. We overcame medical problems and plagues by accidentally noticing little things that advanced our species. We overcame flight by mechanical means. We developed the limits of vast data by inventing computers and RAIDs to store the vast data. We overcame creativity limits by allowing a vast group of our society exercising their potential beyond their assigned positions in life. We have people like Columbus who simply lucked out in talking the Queen of Spain into financing a trip…which could have turned down and the discovery of the new world delayed forty to fifty additional years.
We have masters of science who simply were gifted and standing at the right place and time. Werner Von Braun happened to exist at the time of World War II and the space race….so he was allowed to tinker with rockets and build an entire technology out of nothing. Edison had the patience to keep tinkering with light filaments until he finally found one that worked. You had Einstein standing there with people smart enough to just let him think. You had Leonardo De Vinci who simply flourished in an environment where he was free to think. A group of scientists working on a military development project happened along to find internet and develop its bold technology. Any number of life science professionals happened along to find cures and serums for things…mostly by accident.
Yes, by every means of the word….we are an “accidental species”.
So for the past one hundred years as we began to settle on this concept of alien races….we’ve actually had it reversed in nature…..we may be the advanced group which happens to come upon a lesser developed species. Then we shall find the wonderful Star Trek concept of the “Prime Directive” happening to come up in conversation. Do we assist a species in developing faster than we developed or do we simply sit and observe. There are a thousand questions within this sphere of thought. The sad thing is….once we walk upon this trail….there are quick escapes or reverses allowed. We may find ourselves amongst a species who tremble in fear of what we are capable of doing….and feel that a counter-threat is the only way to establish a new relationship.
So Hawking has given food for thought….and this may very well be a feast in some sense of the word. Perhaps the better way of viewing this….is that we merely needed a small buffet and now a king’s feast is served instead. But as a true southerner, we should never retreat from a fine meal….and eat heartedly.
Basically….he gave three general ideas. First there could very well be primitive life out there….in existence. Hawking agrees on the idea that we might be the species that advanced faster than anyone else. The fact that we aren’t picking up distance radio waves….leads him to this conclusion. Second, the search for alien life is kinda like the Columbus voyage….you have no choice….you have to fund it. And third, there is this natural vision of spreading throughout space as a species.
There are several things to ponder….upon reviewing his discussion. For years and decades…our vision of the universe is that we are not the advanced race but a much lesser developed race. When you discussed any concept of alien life….we were always the inferior race. Hawking leads a very bold concept in that we simply developed faster….perhaps as the “accidental species”.
When one ponders this term “accidental species”….we come to several hurdles that have been cleared. The dinosaurs were cleared out….thanks to the meteor hits (at least we currently believe this). If this had not occurred, then man would not have prevailed to the extent that he has.
We move then to the hurdle of strongly developed farming techniques and a species willing to travel to the far reaches of the globe, and accept no limit to our boundaries.
We moved onto the age where knowledge was kept and stored, in the libraries of the age. We have beings sitting there three, four and even five thousand years ago….looking at the stars and developing calendars which took a very bold step in our development. We invented Pi out of nothing.
We overcame the problem of varying languages by learning different languages. We overcame medical problems and plagues by accidentally noticing little things that advanced our species. We overcame flight by mechanical means. We developed the limits of vast data by inventing computers and RAIDs to store the vast data. We overcame creativity limits by allowing a vast group of our society exercising their potential beyond their assigned positions in life. We have people like Columbus who simply lucked out in talking the Queen of Spain into financing a trip…which could have turned down and the discovery of the new world delayed forty to fifty additional years.
We have masters of science who simply were gifted and standing at the right place and time. Werner Von Braun happened to exist at the time of World War II and the space race….so he was allowed to tinker with rockets and build an entire technology out of nothing. Edison had the patience to keep tinkering with light filaments until he finally found one that worked. You had Einstein standing there with people smart enough to just let him think. You had Leonardo De Vinci who simply flourished in an environment where he was free to think. A group of scientists working on a military development project happened along to find internet and develop its bold technology. Any number of life science professionals happened along to find cures and serums for things…mostly by accident.
Yes, by every means of the word….we are an “accidental species”.
So for the past one hundred years as we began to settle on this concept of alien races….we’ve actually had it reversed in nature…..we may be the advanced group which happens to come upon a lesser developed species. Then we shall find the wonderful Star Trek concept of the “Prime Directive” happening to come up in conversation. Do we assist a species in developing faster than we developed or do we simply sit and observe. There are a thousand questions within this sphere of thought. The sad thing is….once we walk upon this trail….there are quick escapes or reverses allowed. We may find ourselves amongst a species who tremble in fear of what we are capable of doing….and feel that a counter-threat is the only way to establish a new relationship.
So Hawking has given food for thought….and this may very well be a feast in some sense of the word. Perhaps the better way of viewing this….is that we merely needed a small buffet and now a king’s feast is served instead. But as a true southerner, we should never retreat from a fine meal….and eat heartedly.
Biofuels Debate in Brazil
So this week…in order to make things just a bit more exciting…the UN came out with a major report saying that the biofuels “rage” is making food scarce throughout the world and driving up prices. We are starving folks to death….as the UN claims.
So, then the Brazilian President stood up and made a pretty cut-and-dry speech on the true picture of crops in the world. Truth as he laid out….is that developing countries are now purchasing more food and improving the diet requirements of the population…something that the UN demanded almost a generation ago. Instead of a meager allowance of 1200 calories a day in some locations as reported in the mid-1980s….we now have a thriving population consuming 2000 to 2400 calories per day. The sad truth is…more calories mean more consumption. While the UN geniuses didn’t grasp in the mid-1980s….was that food supply was eventually going to be stretched.
The interesting part of this conversation is that as more countries continue to develop….the consumption and the requirements for food will increase. The plain honest truth is that we will be forced to grow as much or more food in the future, and the prices will correspond to that requirement. Cheap food….is finished, and the UN may not grasp the reality of this statement.
A lot of Americans now complain about the increasing cost of food over the past six months, but in this case….fuel costs for the truckers and the farmers have risen. Add in a banking crisis and the dollar exchange issues….and the cost of buying a bucket of chicken or a box of Oreo cookies goes up.
Is the price of corn going up? Yes….but then there will be an all-time crop record this year for acres planted in the US. Every farmer and his brother are taking advantage of the pricing scheme currently. The price of wheat….as low as it has been for the past five years. We will likely see a shift of wheat acres to corn acres….as we proceed into the summer.
Are biofuels killing us? With the current requirements…its very doubtful…..and you’d have to figure this logic….if we did an all-time record on bio-fuel production then the price of a barrel of crude would decrease….but you don’t see that. This bit of math logic might make you reconsider how reliable the media is in their analysis or if they are in the fear business.
So, then the Brazilian President stood up and made a pretty cut-and-dry speech on the true picture of crops in the world. Truth as he laid out….is that developing countries are now purchasing more food and improving the diet requirements of the population…something that the UN demanded almost a generation ago. Instead of a meager allowance of 1200 calories a day in some locations as reported in the mid-1980s….we now have a thriving population consuming 2000 to 2400 calories per day. The sad truth is…more calories mean more consumption. While the UN geniuses didn’t grasp in the mid-1980s….was that food supply was eventually going to be stretched.
The interesting part of this conversation is that as more countries continue to develop….the consumption and the requirements for food will increase. The plain honest truth is that we will be forced to grow as much or more food in the future, and the prices will correspond to that requirement. Cheap food….is finished, and the UN may not grasp the reality of this statement.
A lot of Americans now complain about the increasing cost of food over the past six months, but in this case….fuel costs for the truckers and the farmers have risen. Add in a banking crisis and the dollar exchange issues….and the cost of buying a bucket of chicken or a box of Oreo cookies goes up.
Is the price of corn going up? Yes….but then there will be an all-time crop record this year for acres planted in the US. Every farmer and his brother are taking advantage of the pricing scheme currently. The price of wheat….as low as it has been for the past five years. We will likely see a shift of wheat acres to corn acres….as we proceed into the summer.
Are biofuels killing us? With the current requirements…its very doubtful…..and you’d have to figure this logic….if we did an all-time record on bio-fuel production then the price of a barrel of crude would decrease….but you don’t see that. This bit of math logic might make you reconsider how reliable the media is in their analysis or if they are in the fear business.
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