ALERT =Mexico flu deaths spur epidemic fears
MEXICO CITY (AP) — A unique strain of swine flu is the suspected killer of dozens of people in Mexico, where authorities closed schools, museums, libraries and theaters in the capital on Friday to try to contain an outbreak that has spurred concerns of a global flu epidemic.
The worrisome new virus — which combines genetic material from pigs, birds and humans in a way researchers have not seen before — also sickened at least eight people in Texas and California, though there have been no deaths in the U.S.
"We are very, very concerned," World Health Organization spokesman Thomas Abraham said. "We have what appears to be a novel virus and it has spread from human to human ... It's all hands on deck at the moment."
The outbreak caused alarm in Mexico, where more than 1,000 people have been sickened. Residents of the capital donned surgical masks and authorities ordered the most sweeping shutdown of public gathering places in a quarter century.
President Felipe Calderon said his government only learned late Thursday, with the help of international laboratories, what kind of virus Mexico is faced with. "We are doing everything necessary," he said after meeting with his Cabinet to coordinate a response. "We understand the seriousness of the problem."
The WHO was convening an expert panel to consider whether to raise the pandemic alert level or issue travel advisories.
It might already be too late to contain the outbreak, a prominent U.S. pandemic flu expert said late Friday.
Given how quickly flu can spread around the globe, if these are the first signs of a pandemic, then there are probably cases incubating around the world already, said Dr. Michael Osterholm at the University of Minnesota.
In Mexico City, "literally hundreds and thousands of travelers come in and out every day," Osterholm said. "You'd have to believe there's been more unrecognized transmission that's occurred."
There is no vaccine that specifically protects against swine flu, and it was unclear how much protection current human flu vaccines might offer. A "seed stock" genetically matched to the new swine flu virus has been created by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, said Dr. Richard Besser, the agency's acting director. If the government decides vaccine production is necessary, manufacturers would need that stock to get started.
Authorities in Mexico urged people to avoid hospitals unless they had a medical emergency, since hospitals are centers of infection. They also said Mexicans should refrain from customary greetings such as shaking hands or kissing cheeks. At Mexico City's international airport, passengers were questioned to try to prevent anyone with flu symptoms from boarding airplanes and spreading the disease.
Epidemiologists are particularly concerned because the only fatalities so far were in young people and adults.
The eight U.S. victims recovered from symptoms that were like those of the regular flu, mostly fever, cough and sore throat, though some also experienced vomiting and diarrhea.
U.S. health officials announced an outbreak notice to travelers, urging caution and frequent handwashing, but stopping short of telling Americans to avoid Mexico.
Mexico's Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova said 68 people have died of flu and the new swine flu strain had been confirmed in 20 of those deaths. At least 1,004 people nationwide were sick from the suspected flu, he said.
The geographical spread of the outbreaks also concerned the WHO — while 13 of the 20 deaths were in Mexico City, the rest were spread across Mexico — four in central San Luis Potosi, two up near the U.S. border in Baja California, and one in southern Oaxaca state.
Scientists have long been concerned that a new flu virus could launch a worldwide pandemic of a killer disease. A new virus could evolve when different flu viruses infect a pig, a person or a bird, mingling their genetic material. The resulting hybrid could spread quickly because people would have no natural defenses against it.
Still, flu experts were concerned but not alarmed about the latest outbreak.
"We've seen swine influenza in humans over the past several years, and in most cases, it's come from direct pig contact. This seems to be different," said Dr. Arnold Monto, a flu expert with the University of Michigan.
"I think we need to be careful and not apprehensive, but certainly paying attention to new developments as they proceed."
The CDC says two flu drugs, Tamiflu and Relenza, seem effective against the new strain. Roche, the maker of Tamiflu, said the company is prepared to immediately deploy a stockpile of the drug if requested.
Both drugs must be taken early, within a few days of the onset of symptoms, to be most effective.
Cordova said Mexico has enough Tamiflu to treat 1 million people, but the medicine will be strictly controlled and handed out only by doctors.
Mexico's government had maintained until late Thursday that there was nothing unusual about the flu cases, although this year's flu season had been worse and longer than past years.
The sudden turnaround by public health officials angered many Mexicans.
"They could have stopped it in time," said Araceli Cruz, 24, a university student who emerged from the subway wearing a surgical mask. "Now they've let it spread to other people."
The city was handing out free surgical masks to passengers on buses and the subway system, which carries 5 million people each day. Government workers were ordered to wear the masks, and authorities urged residents to stay home from work if they felt ill.
Closing schools across Mexico's capital of 20 million kept 6.1 million students home, as well as thousands of university students. All state and city-run cultural activities were suspended, including libraries, state-run theaters, and at least 14 museums. Private athletic clubs closed down and soccer leagues were considering canceling weekend games.
The closures were the first citywide shutdown of public gathering places since thousands died in the devastating 1985 earthquake.
Mexico's response brought to mind other major outbreaks, such as when SARS hit Asia. At its peak in 2003, Beijing shuttered schools, cinemas and restaurants, and thousands of people were quarantined at home.
In March 2008, Hong Kong ordered more than a half-million students to stay home for two weeks because of a flu outbreak. It was the first such closure in Hong Kong since the outbreak of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome.
"It's great they are taking precautions," said Lillian Molina, a teacher at the Montessori's World preschool in Mexico City, who scrubbed down empty classrooms with Clorox, soap and Lysol between fielding calls from worried parents.
U.S. health officials said the outbreak is not yet a reason for alarm in the United States. The five people sickened in California and three in Texas have all recovered.
It's unclear how the eight, who became ill between late March and mid-April, contracted the virus because none were in contact with pigs, which is how people usually catch swine flu. And only a few were in contact with each other.
CDC officials described the virus as having a unique combination of gene segments not seen before in people or pigs. The bug contains human virus, avian virus from North America and pig viruses from North America, Europe and Asia. It may be completely new, or it may have been around for a while and was only detected now through improved testing and surveillance, CDC officials said.
The most notorious flu pandemic is thought to have killed at least 40 million people worldwide in 1918-19. Two other, less deadly flu pandemics struck in 1957 and 1968.
http://frc4u.org/phpbb/index.php?topic=989.0
There is alot of other posts there also, follow the link and read up on it.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
FRC Forums Highlighted Posts
How To Spot Tornadoes
Tornadoes, in my opinion, are the greatest occurence in weather. They hold so much power and come in many different shapes and sizes. In this hub, you will learn (if you don't already) how to spot a tornado or sense whether a tornado when a tornado will hit. This hub will hopefully bring awareness to citizens of how powerful and dangerous tornadoes really are.Tornadoes and How They FormA tornado, as you may suspect, is a giant rotating sphere suspended in the air. But tornadoes are MUCH more than this 3rd grade answer. Tornadoes form in powerful thunderstorms called supercells. Supercells last longer and are more powerful than your regular thunderstorm. The inflow of air into the storm forms a funnel shape in the clouds. The air caught in the funnel spins faster and faster until it starts to suck in more and more air, forming a tornado. Tornadoes will also be likely to occur with cold and hot air mixing together.
Some Ways to Spot a Tornado
1----Green Clouds
If you live in the country, you know of how flat and vegitative the country is. Green clouds are most likely to occur in the country. Green clouds are thought to be green because the reflection of light from the green vegitation reflects onto the clouds; and, as you know, tornadoes are most likely to occur in the country due to the flatness. If you see green clouds, you might want to check into the local weather station to see if severe weather is possible over the course of the day.
See the green color in the cloud?
2----Wall CloudsWall clouds are the clouds associated with tornadoes. Pretty much, tornadoes form and sprout out of the wall cloud. The wall cloud looks just like it sounds; a wall. It is a very low hanging cloud. When you see a wall cloud, it is almost certain a tornado will pop out of one of those suckers!
A Wall Cloud. Watch out for these suckers!Power FlashesSome tornadoes are, as I call them, 'hidden tornadoes'. These tornadoes have the potential to be hidden by blankets of rain. When the tornado is surrounded by heavy rain, it is impossible to see. But here is one tip that you can use to see if that thing you are looking at is a tornado; power flashes. Some people might think power flashes occur when the power in your home flashes. Although this is certainly true, there is another type of 'power flash'. When a tornado is spinning and doing its thing on the ground, power flashes can occur. Power flashes are when the tornado hits a power line(s). When the tornado hits the power line, a large lighting flash will occur. It is very brief, so you have to watch carefully. They sometimes occur almost right after each other so its easier to see.
A tornado hitting a power line causing a power flash
Tornado Safety
The single most important thing in a situation of observing a tornado, hands down, is safety! All of us have heard the expression 'Safety First'! Always be listening for tornado sirens. Sometimes, a tornado occurs so fast, that the siren warnings do not have enough time to warn the citizens. Listen to your local radio station or watch the TV. The weathermen will usually be on TV or radio updating local weather info that is critical to safety. If you do know that a tornado is headed straight for you, you should:
1) Get inside.
2) Find a room, or get into your room, set apart for tornado safety. The room must have no windows or heavy objects that might be dangerous if they do fall over.
3) Cover your whole body with a matress for flying debris. If you start to hear a sound like a freight train, that means the tornado is dangerously close.
4) Once the tornado passes, get out safely and check your surroundings. Your neighbors might need help!
This Post was posted by our resident Storm Spotter EZ
Like Planting Veggies In a BarrelBy Barbara DamroschSpecial to The Washington Post Thursday, April 16, 2009 For those who garden in small spaces, whiskey barrels are the best thing since whiskey. A barrel sawn in half at its waistline makes a sturdy planter about two feet in diameter and 16 to 18 inches tall. There are plenty of pots and planters on the market, elegant enough for the choicest lily, but this homey container never seems to lose its appeal. Its depth makes it ideal for a mini-vegetable garden, with plenty of room for roots. Six half barrels on a terrace provide more growing space than a 3-by-6-foot bed. If your barrel comes without drainage, drill a few half-inch holes in the bottom. Laying a scrap of fiberglass window screening or floating row cover on the bottom will keep the soil from falling through. I fill planters with a mix of one-third garden soil, one-third peat moss and one-third mature compost, plus a dash of lime, greensand and rock phosphate. (For clay soil, use one-quarter each of soil, peat, compost and sand.) If you farm a city balcony, with no good place to mix soil, it's fine to buy the bagged stuff, but add some good-quality compost. Soil for container plants must be fertile and light enough to resist compaction. Planters also need more-frequent watering than beds.Tiny as your barrel garden might seem, you can grow a surprising amount of food in it if you master the art of succession planting. That means starting a new crop every time an old one comes out. Thus, early self-supporting pea vines might be followed by a zucchini plant. When that stops producing, sow or transplant in some Tuscan kale. Interplanting, whereby crops share space and overlap, increases your harvest even more. Grow cut-and-come-again lettuce or mesclun mix around the edge of the barrel, then set a pepper plant in the center after danger of frost has passed. After that, in late summer, plant arugula around the edge to remain in the fall once the pepper has gone. Surround a tomato plant with basil, or eggplant with parsley. Encircle summer Swiss chard with fall carrots. Other excellent pot vegetables include radishes, beets, scallions and chives. A tepee of three bamboo poles will give you a long harvest of pole beans. And don't forget the old trick of potatoes-in-a-barrel. Fill the soil to within four inches of the top and plant four whole, pre-sprouted potatoes two inches below the surface. As the plants grow, fill the soil to the top. Use an early type, such as Red Norland, and you'll get a fine crop of delicious new potatoes. Most garden centers carry half barrels, either the authentic used ones or new ones built in that style. For the real thing, go to http://www.kentuckybarrels.com, a site powered by Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey. It also sells barrel liners for water gardens and dollies for moving soil-filled barrels around. Wake up, wake up, darlin' Corey. They've torn down your still, but there's gold in them thar barrels. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/15/AR2009041501043.html?hpid%3Dsmartliving&sub=AR
This was posted by Tool of His, this past week
Monday, April 13, 2009
FRC Forums highlighted post
This this time i would like to present a series of articles that were posted on Frc Forums this week, all with a comman theme. Water Shortage. As you can see the guys in our forums all all over the situation.
Much of U.S. Could See a Water Shortage « Posted on: April 11, 2009,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another reason for practicing Solomon’s modified and dry garden techniques. Irrigation will simply be too expensive, restricted and maybe even illegal for their privet gardens. 230gr
Much of U.S. Could See a Water Shortage
Oct 26 02:27 PM US/EasternBy BRIAN SKOLOFFAssociated Press WriterWEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - An epic drought in Georgia threatens the water supply for millions. Florida doesn't have nearly enough water for its expected population boom. The Great Lakes are shrinking. Upstate New York's reservoirs have dropped to record lows. And in the West, the Sierra Nevada snowpack is melting faster each year. Across America, the picture is critically clear—the nation's freshwater supplies can no longer quench its thirst. The government projects that at least 36 states will face water shortages within five years because of a combination of rising temperatures, drought, population growth, urban sprawl, waste and excess. "Is it a crisis? If we don't do some decent water planning, it could be," said Jack Hoffbuhr, executive director of the Denver-based American Water Works Association. Water managers will need to take bold steps to keep taps flowing, including conservation, recycling, desalination and stricter controls on development. "We've hit a remarkable moment," said Barry Nelson, a senior policy analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "The last century was the century of water engineering. The next century is going to have to be the century of water efficiency." The price tag for ensuring a reliable water supply could be staggering. Experts estimate that just upgrading pipes to handle new supplies could cost the nation $300 billion over 30 years. "Unfortunately, there's just not going to be any more cheap water," said Randy Brown, Pompano Beach's utilities director. It's not just America's problem—it's global. Australia is in the midst of a 30-year dry spell, and population growth in urban centers of sub-Saharan Africa is straining resources. Asia has 60 percent of the world's population, but only about 30 percent of its freshwater. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations network of scientists, said this year that by 2050 up to 2 billion people worldwide could be facing major water shortages. The U.S. used more than 148 trillion gallons of water in 2000, the latest figures available from the U.S. Geological Survey. That includes residential, commercial, agriculture, manufacturing and every other use—almost 500,000 gallons per person. Coastal states like Florida and California face a water crisis not only from increased demand, but also from rising temperatures that are causing glaciers to melt and sea levels to rise. Higher temperatures mean more water lost to evaporation. And rising seas could push saltwater into underground sources of freshwater. Florida represents perhaps the nation's greatest water irony. A hundred years ago, the state's biggest problem was it had too much water. But decades of dikes, dams and water diversions have turned swamps into cities. Little land is left to store water during wet seasons, and so much of the landscape has been paved over that water can no longer penetrate the ground in some places to recharge aquifers. As a result, the state is forced to flush millions of gallons of excess into the ocean to prevent flooding. Also, the state dumps hundreds of billions of gallons a year of treated wastewater into the Atlantic through pipes—water that could otherwise be used for irrigation. Florida's environmental chief, Michael Sole, is seeking legislative action to get municipalities to reuse the wastewater. "As these communities grow, instead of developing new water with new treatment systems, why not better manage the commodity they already have and produce an environmental benefit at the same time?" Sole said. Florida leads the nation in water reuse by reclaiming some 240 billion gallons annually, but it is not nearly enough, Sole said. Floridians use about 2.4 trillion gallons of water a year. The state projects that by 2025, the population will have increased 34 percent from about 18 million to more than 24 million people, pushing annual demand for water to nearly 3.3 trillion gallons. More than half of the state's expected population boom is projected in a three-county area that includes Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach, where water use is already about 1.5 trillion gallons a year. "We just passed a crossroads. The chief water sources are basically gone," said John Mulliken, director of water supply for the South Florida Water Management District. "We really are at a critical moment in Florida history." In addition to recycling and conservation, technology holds promise. There are more than 1,000 desalination plants in the U.S., many in the Sunbelt, where baby boomers are retiring at a dizzying rate. The Tampa Bay Seawater Desalination Plant is producing about 25 million gallons a day of fresh drinking water, about 10 percent of that area's demand. The $158 million facility is North America's largest plant of its kind. Miami-Dade County is working with the city of Hialeah to build a reverse osmosis plant to remove salt from water in deep brackish wells. Smaller such plants are in operation across the state. Californians use nearly 23 trillion gallons of water a year, much of it coming from Sierra Nevada snowmelt. But climate change is producing less snowpack and causing it to melt prematurely, jeopardizing future supplies. Experts also say the Colorado River, which provides freshwater to seven Western states, will probably provide less water in coming years as global warming shrinks its flow. California, like many other states, is pushing conservation as the cheapest alternative, looking to increase its supply of treated wastewater for irrigation and studying desalination, which the state hopes could eventually provide 20 percent of its freshwater. "The need to reduce water waste and inefficiency is greater now than ever before," said Benjamin Grumbles, assistant administrator for water at the Environmental Protection Agency. "Water efficiency is the wave of the future."
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id ... t=breaking
Tool of His post this one a few weeks ago
Fast-growing Western U.S. cities face water crisis
By Tim Gaynor and Steve Gorman Tim Gaynor And Steve Gorman – Wed Mar 11, 4:54 am
LAS VEGAS/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Desert golf course superintendent Bill Rohret is doing something that 20 years ago would have seemed unthinkable -- ripping up bright, green turf by the acre and replacing it with rocks.
Back then "they came in with bulldozers and dynamite, and they took the desert and turned it into a green oasis," Rohret said, surveying a rock-lined fairway within sight of the Las Vegas strip. "Now ... it's just the reverse."
The Angel Park Golf Club has torn out 65 acres of off-course grass in the last five years, and 15 more will be removed by 2011, to help conserve local supplies of one of the most precious commodities in the parched American West -- fresh water.
But Rohret's efforts have their limits. His and many other golf courses still pride themselves on their pristine greens and fairways and sparkling fountains, requiring huge daily expenditures of water.
Aiming to cut per capita use by about a third in the face of withering drought expected to worsen with global warming, water authorities in the United States' driest major city are paying customers $1.50 per square foot to replace grass lawns with desert landscaping.
Built in the Mojave Desert, Las Vegas leads Western U.S. cities scrambling to slash water consumption, increase recycling and squeeze more from underground aquifers as long-reliable surface water sources dry up.
From handing out fines for leaky sprinklers to charging homeowners high rates for high use, water officials in the U.S. West are chasing down squandered water one gallon at a time.
Nowhere is the sense of crisis more visible than on the outskirts of Las Vegas at Lake Mead, the nation's largest manmade reservoir, fed by the once-mighty Colorado River. A principal source of water for Nevada and Southern California, the lake has dipped to below half its capacity, leaving an ominous, white "bathtub ring" that grows thicker each year.
"We are in the eye of the storm," said Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. "As the realities of climate change began to manifest themselves at the beginning of this century, we had to get serious about it."
For now, policymakers have emphasized the need to curb water use rather than urban growth, though the U.S. recession has put the brakes on commercial and housing development that otherwise would be at odds with the West's water scarcity.
GETTING TOUGH
Warm, dry weather has long made the American West attractive to visitors, but piped-in water has created artificial oases, luring millions to settle in the region. Las Vegas has ranked as one of the fastest-growing major cities.
But scientists say climate change is shriveling the snow pack in California's Sierra Nevada, the state's main source of fresh surface water, and in the Rocky Mountains that feed the Colorado River, whose waters sustain seven states.
Further pressure from farming and urban sprawl is straining underground aquifers, placing a question mark over the future growth of cities from Los Angeles to Tucson, Arizona.
"There is going to have to be a big adjustment in the American Southwest and in California as we come to grips with limits in this century -- not just limited water, but also limited water supply," said James Powell, author of the book "Dead Pool," exploring challenges facing planners in the West.
Reactions among local water authorities differ.
In Phoenix, the United States' fifth-largest city, authorities say sustainable groundwater and ample surface water allocations from the Colorado and Salt rivers meet the city's needs, even factoring in growth through a moderate drought. The city is also recycling waste water and plans to pump some back into the aquifer as a cushion.
Tucson will require new businesses to start collecting rainwater for irrigation in 2010.
California requires developers of large housing projects to prove they have sufficient water.
In Las Vegas, where rain is so infrequent that some residents can remember the days it fell in a given year, front-yard turf has been banned for new homes.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority also has hired "water cops" to fan out into the suburbs to identify violations of mandatory lawn irrigation schedules and wasteful run-off. Repeat offenders get $80 fines.
Major hotel-casinos such as the MGM Mirage and Harrah's Entertainment have adopted "green" building codes, including modifications designed to slash water use by 40 percent.
Those measures are starting to pay off, with daily water use down 15 percent per person in the greater Las Vegas area.
BUYING TIME
In a wake-up call to California, water officials there recently announced that prolonged drought was forcing them to cut Sierra-fed supplies pumped to cities and irrigation districts by 85 percent.
That has led many California cities, topped by Los Angeles, the nation's second-largest, to plan for rationing, including price-enforced household conservation and tough new lawn watering restrictions.
"The level of severity of this drought is something we haven't seen since the early 1970s," Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said in unveiling his city's drought plan, which also would put more water cops on the beat.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last month called on the state's urban users to cut water consumption 20 percent or face mandatory conservation measures.
The California drought, now in its third year, is the state's costliest ever. Complicating matters are sharp restrictions on how much water can be pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in northern California, which furnishes much of the state's irrigation and drinking supplies, to protect endangered fish species.
Moreover, the severe dry spell is leaving the state more vulnerable to wildfires, which last year consumed some several Los Angeles suburbs. The previous year, fires forced a record 500,000 Southern Californians to flee their homes.
PLANNING FOR THE WORST
Conservation will buy time, experts say. But bolder steps are needed in anticipation of longer droughts and renewed urban expansion once the recession ends.
Cities like Los Angeles and San Diego are revisiting an idea once abandoned in the face of staunch political opposition -- recycling purified sewer water for drinking supplies.
Disparaged by critics as "toilet-to-tap," such recycling plans have gained new currency from the success of the year-old Groundwater Replenishing System in Orange County near Los Angeles.
That system distills wastewater through advanced treatment and pumps it into the ground to recharge the area's aquifer, providing drinking supplies for 500,000 people, including residents of Anaheim, home of Disneyland.
Water specialists also see a need to capture more rainfall runoff that otherwise flows out to sea and to change the operation of dams originally built for flood control to maximize their storage capacity.
The situation in Las Vegas has grown so dire that water authorities plan to build a $3 billion pipeline to tap aquifers lying beneath a remote part of Nevada, a project critics call the greatest urban water grab in decades.
Southern Nevada water czar Mulroy says a broader national conversation about water is needed -- but not happening.
"We are talking about investing in public infrastructure, we are looking at building projects, but I get frustrated because we are doing it in complete denial of the climate change conditions that we are facing," she said.
"We are not looking at where the oceans are rising, where the floods are going to occur, where things are going to go from that normal state to something extraordinary."
(Additional reporting by Deena Beasley in Los Angeles, editing by Alan Elsner)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090311/us_nm/us_water_cities
This one was posted by Grog just yesterday
No water in Mexico City
Posted on: April 12, 2009,--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, Apr. 11, 2009
Dry Taps in Mexico City: A Water Crisis Gets Worse
By Ioan Grillo / Mexico City
The reek of unwashed toilets spilled into the street in the neighborhood of unpainted cinder block houses. Out on the main road, hundreds of residents banged plastic buckets and blocked the path of irate drivers while children scoured the surrounding area for government trucks. Finally, the impatient crowd launched into a high-pitched chant, repeating one word at fever pitch: "Water, Water, Water!"
About five million people, or a quarter of the population of Mexico City's urban sprawl, woke up Thursday with dry taps. The drought was caused by the biggest stoppage in the city's main reservoir system in recent years to ration its depleting supplies. Government officials hope this and four other stoppages will keep water flowing until the summer rainy season fills the basins back up. But they warn that the Mexican capital needs to seriously overhaul its water system to stop an unfathomable disaster in the future. (See pictures of the world water crisis.)
It is perhaps unsurprising that the biggest metropolis in the Western hemisphere is confronting problems with its water supply — and becoming an alarming cautionary tale for other megacities. Scientists have been talking for years about how humans are pumping up too much water while ripping apart too many forests, and warning that the vital liquid could become the next commodity nations are fighting over with tanks and bombers. But it is hard for most people to appreciate quite how valuable a simple thing like water is — until the taps turn off. (See pictures of the contentious politics of water in Central Asia.)
Housewife Graciela Martinez, 44, complains that the smell of her bathroom — used by her family of eight — had forced them all outside. "We have got no toilets, I can't wash my children, I can't cook, I can't clean the mess off the floor," Martinez says, trying to find shade from the sweltering sun. "And the worst thing is, we have got almost nothing to drink."
Paradoxically, the thirsty city was once a great lake, where the Aztecs founded their island citadel Tenochtitlan in 1325. When the Spanish conquerors took control they drained much of the water, laying the basis for the vast expansion of the metropolis across the entire Valley of Mexico. However, as the growing population continues to suck water out in wells, Mexico City is sinking down into the old lake bed at a rate of about three inches a year. This downward plunge puts extra pressure on water distribution pipes, which are now so leaky they lose about 40% of liquid before it even reaches homes.
With its own supplies evaporating, Mexico City relies on the Cutzamala system, a network of reservoirs and treatment plants that pump in water from hundreds of miles around. However, this year Cutzamala itself is running dry amid low levels of rainfall in the area. Its main basin is only 47% full, compared to an annual average of 70% for early April. "This could be caused by climate change and deforestation. These are difficult factors to understand and predict," says Felipe Arreguin, under director of the National Water Commission. "We had to have the stoppages now to make sure that some supply can continue until the rain in June." The first two partial stoppages in February and March cut off water to hundreds of thousands. In the April action, the entire Cutzamala system will be shut down for 36 hours, before gradually resuming water pumping over several days.
Martinez is particularly anxious because this means there will be no water in her taps this entire weekend. She is also enraged that the blight is mostly hitting poor neighborhoods like hers. "The rich are still swimming in their pools while we are dying of thirst," she says. Playing up to the class war theme, Mexican newspaper Reforma showed a photo of a woman using a public tap in a poor area next to another woman hosing down her lawn in a rich suburb. (See pictures of crime fighting in Mexico City.)
Ramon Aguirre, director of Mexico City's water department, says the government has tried to distribute supplies as fairly as possible but the Cutzamala system is hooked up to many of the unplanned communities on the city outskirts. The city has, however, sent out of fleets of water trucks, and Mayor Marcelo Ebrard — who built urban beaches and a winter ice rink for the poor — is personally handing out free bottled water. Aguirre says the long-term solution involves teaching people to ration their water much better. "We need to educate people from when they are children that water is valuable and needs to be used wisely," he says.
Few Mexico City residents currently heed such advice. Keen on long showers and washing their cars, homes and clothes well, the average Mexico City resident uses 300 liters of waters per day compared to 180 per day in some European cities, says Arreguin. Furthermore, on Easter Saturdays, residents traditionally have huge water fights, in which everyone from grandparents to young children join in hurling bucket loads over each other. Piet Klop, an investigator at the Washington-based environmental think tank World Resources Institute, says that people will not learn to ration water unless it hits their pockets. "We need to understand that it is a more valuable commodity than oil and prices must reflect that better," Klop says. "Cheap subsidized water is not helping people. It is giving them a bad service." However, radically hiking the prices of any basic commodity would be a tough sell for any politician, especially in a turbulent democracy such as Mexico.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1890623,00.html
Much of U.S. Could See a Water Shortage « Posted on: April 11, 2009,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another reason for practicing Solomon’s modified and dry garden techniques. Irrigation will simply be too expensive, restricted and maybe even illegal for their privet gardens. 230gr
Much of U.S. Could See a Water Shortage
Oct 26 02:27 PM US/EasternBy BRIAN SKOLOFFAssociated Press WriterWEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - An epic drought in Georgia threatens the water supply for millions. Florida doesn't have nearly enough water for its expected population boom. The Great Lakes are shrinking. Upstate New York's reservoirs have dropped to record lows. And in the West, the Sierra Nevada snowpack is melting faster each year. Across America, the picture is critically clear—the nation's freshwater supplies can no longer quench its thirst. The government projects that at least 36 states will face water shortages within five years because of a combination of rising temperatures, drought, population growth, urban sprawl, waste and excess. "Is it a crisis? If we don't do some decent water planning, it could be," said Jack Hoffbuhr, executive director of the Denver-based American Water Works Association. Water managers will need to take bold steps to keep taps flowing, including conservation, recycling, desalination and stricter controls on development. "We've hit a remarkable moment," said Barry Nelson, a senior policy analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "The last century was the century of water engineering. The next century is going to have to be the century of water efficiency." The price tag for ensuring a reliable water supply could be staggering. Experts estimate that just upgrading pipes to handle new supplies could cost the nation $300 billion over 30 years. "Unfortunately, there's just not going to be any more cheap water," said Randy Brown, Pompano Beach's utilities director. It's not just America's problem—it's global. Australia is in the midst of a 30-year dry spell, and population growth in urban centers of sub-Saharan Africa is straining resources. Asia has 60 percent of the world's population, but only about 30 percent of its freshwater. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations network of scientists, said this year that by 2050 up to 2 billion people worldwide could be facing major water shortages. The U.S. used more than 148 trillion gallons of water in 2000, the latest figures available from the U.S. Geological Survey. That includes residential, commercial, agriculture, manufacturing and every other use—almost 500,000 gallons per person. Coastal states like Florida and California face a water crisis not only from increased demand, but also from rising temperatures that are causing glaciers to melt and sea levels to rise. Higher temperatures mean more water lost to evaporation. And rising seas could push saltwater into underground sources of freshwater. Florida represents perhaps the nation's greatest water irony. A hundred years ago, the state's biggest problem was it had too much water. But decades of dikes, dams and water diversions have turned swamps into cities. Little land is left to store water during wet seasons, and so much of the landscape has been paved over that water can no longer penetrate the ground in some places to recharge aquifers. As a result, the state is forced to flush millions of gallons of excess into the ocean to prevent flooding. Also, the state dumps hundreds of billions of gallons a year of treated wastewater into the Atlantic through pipes—water that could otherwise be used for irrigation. Florida's environmental chief, Michael Sole, is seeking legislative action to get municipalities to reuse the wastewater. "As these communities grow, instead of developing new water with new treatment systems, why not better manage the commodity they already have and produce an environmental benefit at the same time?" Sole said. Florida leads the nation in water reuse by reclaiming some 240 billion gallons annually, but it is not nearly enough, Sole said. Floridians use about 2.4 trillion gallons of water a year. The state projects that by 2025, the population will have increased 34 percent from about 18 million to more than 24 million people, pushing annual demand for water to nearly 3.3 trillion gallons. More than half of the state's expected population boom is projected in a three-county area that includes Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach, where water use is already about 1.5 trillion gallons a year. "We just passed a crossroads. The chief water sources are basically gone," said John Mulliken, director of water supply for the South Florida Water Management District. "We really are at a critical moment in Florida history." In addition to recycling and conservation, technology holds promise. There are more than 1,000 desalination plants in the U.S., many in the Sunbelt, where baby boomers are retiring at a dizzying rate. The Tampa Bay Seawater Desalination Plant is producing about 25 million gallons a day of fresh drinking water, about 10 percent of that area's demand. The $158 million facility is North America's largest plant of its kind. Miami-Dade County is working with the city of Hialeah to build a reverse osmosis plant to remove salt from water in deep brackish wells. Smaller such plants are in operation across the state. Californians use nearly 23 trillion gallons of water a year, much of it coming from Sierra Nevada snowmelt. But climate change is producing less snowpack and causing it to melt prematurely, jeopardizing future supplies. Experts also say the Colorado River, which provides freshwater to seven Western states, will probably provide less water in coming years as global warming shrinks its flow. California, like many other states, is pushing conservation as the cheapest alternative, looking to increase its supply of treated wastewater for irrigation and studying desalination, which the state hopes could eventually provide 20 percent of its freshwater. "The need to reduce water waste and inefficiency is greater now than ever before," said Benjamin Grumbles, assistant administrator for water at the Environmental Protection Agency. "Water efficiency is the wave of the future."
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id ... t=breaking
Tool of His post this one a few weeks ago
Fast-growing Western U.S. cities face water crisis
By Tim Gaynor and Steve Gorman Tim Gaynor And Steve Gorman – Wed Mar 11, 4:54 am
LAS VEGAS/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Desert golf course superintendent Bill Rohret is doing something that 20 years ago would have seemed unthinkable -- ripping up bright, green turf by the acre and replacing it with rocks.
Back then "they came in with bulldozers and dynamite, and they took the desert and turned it into a green oasis," Rohret said, surveying a rock-lined fairway within sight of the Las Vegas strip. "Now ... it's just the reverse."
The Angel Park Golf Club has torn out 65 acres of off-course grass in the last five years, and 15 more will be removed by 2011, to help conserve local supplies of one of the most precious commodities in the parched American West -- fresh water.
But Rohret's efforts have their limits. His and many other golf courses still pride themselves on their pristine greens and fairways and sparkling fountains, requiring huge daily expenditures of water.
Aiming to cut per capita use by about a third in the face of withering drought expected to worsen with global warming, water authorities in the United States' driest major city are paying customers $1.50 per square foot to replace grass lawns with desert landscaping.
Built in the Mojave Desert, Las Vegas leads Western U.S. cities scrambling to slash water consumption, increase recycling and squeeze more from underground aquifers as long-reliable surface water sources dry up.
From handing out fines for leaky sprinklers to charging homeowners high rates for high use, water officials in the U.S. West are chasing down squandered water one gallon at a time.
Nowhere is the sense of crisis more visible than on the outskirts of Las Vegas at Lake Mead, the nation's largest manmade reservoir, fed by the once-mighty Colorado River. A principal source of water for Nevada and Southern California, the lake has dipped to below half its capacity, leaving an ominous, white "bathtub ring" that grows thicker each year.
"We are in the eye of the storm," said Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. "As the realities of climate change began to manifest themselves at the beginning of this century, we had to get serious about it."
For now, policymakers have emphasized the need to curb water use rather than urban growth, though the U.S. recession has put the brakes on commercial and housing development that otherwise would be at odds with the West's water scarcity.
GETTING TOUGH
Warm, dry weather has long made the American West attractive to visitors, but piped-in water has created artificial oases, luring millions to settle in the region. Las Vegas has ranked as one of the fastest-growing major cities.
But scientists say climate change is shriveling the snow pack in California's Sierra Nevada, the state's main source of fresh surface water, and in the Rocky Mountains that feed the Colorado River, whose waters sustain seven states.
Further pressure from farming and urban sprawl is straining underground aquifers, placing a question mark over the future growth of cities from Los Angeles to Tucson, Arizona.
"There is going to have to be a big adjustment in the American Southwest and in California as we come to grips with limits in this century -- not just limited water, but also limited water supply," said James Powell, author of the book "Dead Pool," exploring challenges facing planners in the West.
Reactions among local water authorities differ.
In Phoenix, the United States' fifth-largest city, authorities say sustainable groundwater and ample surface water allocations from the Colorado and Salt rivers meet the city's needs, even factoring in growth through a moderate drought. The city is also recycling waste water and plans to pump some back into the aquifer as a cushion.
Tucson will require new businesses to start collecting rainwater for irrigation in 2010.
California requires developers of large housing projects to prove they have sufficient water.
In Las Vegas, where rain is so infrequent that some residents can remember the days it fell in a given year, front-yard turf has been banned for new homes.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority also has hired "water cops" to fan out into the suburbs to identify violations of mandatory lawn irrigation schedules and wasteful run-off. Repeat offenders get $80 fines.
Major hotel-casinos such as the MGM Mirage and Harrah's Entertainment have adopted "green" building codes, including modifications designed to slash water use by 40 percent.
Those measures are starting to pay off, with daily water use down 15 percent per person in the greater Las Vegas area.
BUYING TIME
In a wake-up call to California, water officials there recently announced that prolonged drought was forcing them to cut Sierra-fed supplies pumped to cities and irrigation districts by 85 percent.
That has led many California cities, topped by Los Angeles, the nation's second-largest, to plan for rationing, including price-enforced household conservation and tough new lawn watering restrictions.
"The level of severity of this drought is something we haven't seen since the early 1970s," Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said in unveiling his city's drought plan, which also would put more water cops on the beat.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last month called on the state's urban users to cut water consumption 20 percent or face mandatory conservation measures.
The California drought, now in its third year, is the state's costliest ever. Complicating matters are sharp restrictions on how much water can be pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in northern California, which furnishes much of the state's irrigation and drinking supplies, to protect endangered fish species.
Moreover, the severe dry spell is leaving the state more vulnerable to wildfires, which last year consumed some several Los Angeles suburbs. The previous year, fires forced a record 500,000 Southern Californians to flee their homes.
PLANNING FOR THE WORST
Conservation will buy time, experts say. But bolder steps are needed in anticipation of longer droughts and renewed urban expansion once the recession ends.
Cities like Los Angeles and San Diego are revisiting an idea once abandoned in the face of staunch political opposition -- recycling purified sewer water for drinking supplies.
Disparaged by critics as "toilet-to-tap," such recycling plans have gained new currency from the success of the year-old Groundwater Replenishing System in Orange County near Los Angeles.
That system distills wastewater through advanced treatment and pumps it into the ground to recharge the area's aquifer, providing drinking supplies for 500,000 people, including residents of Anaheim, home of Disneyland.
Water specialists also see a need to capture more rainfall runoff that otherwise flows out to sea and to change the operation of dams originally built for flood control to maximize their storage capacity.
The situation in Las Vegas has grown so dire that water authorities plan to build a $3 billion pipeline to tap aquifers lying beneath a remote part of Nevada, a project critics call the greatest urban water grab in decades.
Southern Nevada water czar Mulroy says a broader national conversation about water is needed -- but not happening.
"We are talking about investing in public infrastructure, we are looking at building projects, but I get frustrated because we are doing it in complete denial of the climate change conditions that we are facing," she said.
"We are not looking at where the oceans are rising, where the floods are going to occur, where things are going to go from that normal state to something extraordinary."
(Additional reporting by Deena Beasley in Los Angeles, editing by Alan Elsner)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090311/us_nm/us_water_cities
This one was posted by Grog just yesterday
No water in Mexico City
Posted on: April 12, 2009,--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, Apr. 11, 2009
Dry Taps in Mexico City: A Water Crisis Gets Worse
By Ioan Grillo / Mexico City
The reek of unwashed toilets spilled into the street in the neighborhood of unpainted cinder block houses. Out on the main road, hundreds of residents banged plastic buckets and blocked the path of irate drivers while children scoured the surrounding area for government trucks. Finally, the impatient crowd launched into a high-pitched chant, repeating one word at fever pitch: "Water, Water, Water!"
About five million people, or a quarter of the population of Mexico City's urban sprawl, woke up Thursday with dry taps. The drought was caused by the biggest stoppage in the city's main reservoir system in recent years to ration its depleting supplies. Government officials hope this and four other stoppages will keep water flowing until the summer rainy season fills the basins back up. But they warn that the Mexican capital needs to seriously overhaul its water system to stop an unfathomable disaster in the future. (See pictures of the world water crisis.)
It is perhaps unsurprising that the biggest metropolis in the Western hemisphere is confronting problems with its water supply — and becoming an alarming cautionary tale for other megacities. Scientists have been talking for years about how humans are pumping up too much water while ripping apart too many forests, and warning that the vital liquid could become the next commodity nations are fighting over with tanks and bombers. But it is hard for most people to appreciate quite how valuable a simple thing like water is — until the taps turn off. (See pictures of the contentious politics of water in Central Asia.)
Housewife Graciela Martinez, 44, complains that the smell of her bathroom — used by her family of eight — had forced them all outside. "We have got no toilets, I can't wash my children, I can't cook, I can't clean the mess off the floor," Martinez says, trying to find shade from the sweltering sun. "And the worst thing is, we have got almost nothing to drink."
Paradoxically, the thirsty city was once a great lake, where the Aztecs founded their island citadel Tenochtitlan in 1325. When the Spanish conquerors took control they drained much of the water, laying the basis for the vast expansion of the metropolis across the entire Valley of Mexico. However, as the growing population continues to suck water out in wells, Mexico City is sinking down into the old lake bed at a rate of about three inches a year. This downward plunge puts extra pressure on water distribution pipes, which are now so leaky they lose about 40% of liquid before it even reaches homes.
With its own supplies evaporating, Mexico City relies on the Cutzamala system, a network of reservoirs and treatment plants that pump in water from hundreds of miles around. However, this year Cutzamala itself is running dry amid low levels of rainfall in the area. Its main basin is only 47% full, compared to an annual average of 70% for early April. "This could be caused by climate change and deforestation. These are difficult factors to understand and predict," says Felipe Arreguin, under director of the National Water Commission. "We had to have the stoppages now to make sure that some supply can continue until the rain in June." The first two partial stoppages in February and March cut off water to hundreds of thousands. In the April action, the entire Cutzamala system will be shut down for 36 hours, before gradually resuming water pumping over several days.
Martinez is particularly anxious because this means there will be no water in her taps this entire weekend. She is also enraged that the blight is mostly hitting poor neighborhoods like hers. "The rich are still swimming in their pools while we are dying of thirst," she says. Playing up to the class war theme, Mexican newspaper Reforma showed a photo of a woman using a public tap in a poor area next to another woman hosing down her lawn in a rich suburb. (See pictures of crime fighting in Mexico City.)
Ramon Aguirre, director of Mexico City's water department, says the government has tried to distribute supplies as fairly as possible but the Cutzamala system is hooked up to many of the unplanned communities on the city outskirts. The city has, however, sent out of fleets of water trucks, and Mayor Marcelo Ebrard — who built urban beaches and a winter ice rink for the poor — is personally handing out free bottled water. Aguirre says the long-term solution involves teaching people to ration their water much better. "We need to educate people from when they are children that water is valuable and needs to be used wisely," he says.
Few Mexico City residents currently heed such advice. Keen on long showers and washing their cars, homes and clothes well, the average Mexico City resident uses 300 liters of waters per day compared to 180 per day in some European cities, says Arreguin. Furthermore, on Easter Saturdays, residents traditionally have huge water fights, in which everyone from grandparents to young children join in hurling bucket loads over each other. Piet Klop, an investigator at the Washington-based environmental think tank World Resources Institute, says that people will not learn to ration water unless it hits their pockets. "We need to understand that it is a more valuable commodity than oil and prices must reflect that better," Klop says. "Cheap subsidized water is not helping people. It is giving them a bad service." However, radically hiking the prices of any basic commodity would be a tough sell for any politician, especially in a turbulent democracy such as Mexico.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1890623,00.html
Sunday, April 5, 2009
FRC Forums highlighted post
Here are two posts supplied by 230gr for this week
How much salt would be appropriate
1. For strictly table and food use, a minimum of 5 lb per person per year is recommended.
2. For preserving meat, maybe, 20 lb per person (with a safety factor). For each100 pounds of meat, dry curing uses 6 pounds salt with more for brining small game and odd pieces. A minimum of 75 lb of meats per person per year is recommended but Americans, currently, consume between 177 to 193 lb of total meats annually.
3. 45 lb weight of green hide requires 15 lb of salt for curing.
4. Animals need salt too, from what I can find a dry cow needs 0.3 lb per day, lactating requires 1.2 lb per day and lactating, under heat stress, 1.5 lb.
5. Salt has a 100 uses, from tooth powder to furnace cement and setting dyes.
6. It is a traditional barter item and cheap (now). Since I live in the Great Lakes Region, a prominent goiter area, I will store iodized salt for table use. It containing 0.01 % of sodium iodide or potassium iodide. Unrefined sea salt contain 98.0 % NaCl (sodium-chloride) and up to 2.0% other minerals salts: Magnesium salts, Calcium salts, Potassium salts, Manganese salts, Phosphorus salts, Iodine salts, all together over 100 minerals. Unfortunately, Sea Salt has usually a very low level of iodine rarely even as high as 0.0071 %, as the processing generally destroys the iodine content.
Table SALT: This comes in two varieties; iodized and non-iodized and there is an ingredient added to it to adsorb moisture so it will stay free flowing in damp weather. This non-caking agent does not dissolve in water and can cause cloudiness in solutions if sufficiently large quantities are used. In canning it won't cause a problem since there is very little per jar. For pickling, though, it would be noticeable. If you are storing salt for this purpose, you should be sure to choose plain pickling salt, or other food grade pure salt such as kosher salt. In the iodized varieties, the iodine can cause discoloration or darkening of pickled foods so be certain not to use it for that purpose. For folks who come from areas that are historically iodine deficient a store of iodized salt for table consumption is of real importance.
CANNING SALT: This is pure salt and nothing but salt. It can usually be found in the canning supplies section of most stores. This is the preferred salt for most food preservation or storage uses. It is generally about the same grain size as table salt.
KOSHER SALT: evaporated from a brine, usually under specific conditions approved by the Orthodox Jewish faith. It contains no additives or added iodine This salt is used in "kashering" meat to make the flesh kosher for eating. This involves first soaking the meat then rubbing it with the salt to draw out the blood which is not-kosher and is subsequently washed off along with the salt. The cleansed meat is then kosher. What makes it of interest for food storage and preservation is that it is generally pure salt suitable for canning, pickling and meat curing. It is of a larger grain size than table or canning salt, and usually rolled to make the grains flaked for easier dissolving. Frequently it is slightly cheaper than canning salt and usually easier to find in urban/suburban
SEA SALT: a broad term that generally refers to unrefined salt derived directly from a living ocean or sea. This type of salt comes in about as many different varieties and from many different places around the world. It is harvested through channeling ocean water into large clay trays and allowing the sun and wind to evaporate it naturally. Manufacturers of sea salt typically do not refine sea salt as much as other kinds of salt, so it still contains traces of other minerals, including iron, magnesium, calcium, potassium, manganese, zinc and iodine. It's not suitable for food preservation, though, because the mineral content it contains (other than the sodium chloride) may cause discoloration of the food.
SOLAR SALT: This is also sometimes confusingly called "sea salt". It is not, however, the same thing as the sea salt found in food stores. Most importantly, it is not food grade. It's main purpose is for use in water softeners. The reason it is called "solar" and sometimes "sea salt" is that it is produced by evaporation of sea water in large ponds in various arid areas of the world. This salt type is not purified and still contains the desiccated remains of whatever aquatic life might have been trapped in it. Those organic remains might react with the proteins in the foods you are attempting to preserve and cause it to spoil.
ROCK SALT: This type of salt comes in large chunky crystals and is intended primarily for use in home ice cream churns to lower the temperature of the ice filled water in which the churn sits. It's also sometimes used in icing down beer kegs or watermelons. It is used in food preservation by some, but none of the brands I have been able to find label it as food grade nor do they specifically mention its use in foods so I would not use it for this purpose.
HALITE: This is the mineral salt that is used on roads to melt snow and ice. It is mined and is not food grade and should not be used in food preservation. This form of salt is also frequently called rock salt, like the rock salt above, but neither are suitable for food use.
Supplying Fats and Oils after EOTWAWKI
An adult should have 2 to 3 ounces of fat in their diet per day to stay healthy. Not a problem in our day of French fries and big backs, but that will not be true in post EOTWAWKI times. Storing It Even the most complete long storage food plans skip over the problematic but essential fats and oils. Not long ago, shortening and some vegetable oils where sold in metal cans and had a shelf life of up to ten years. They are no longer commonly sold in this country. Now they come in tin and card board or plastic and have a much shorter shelf life. In airtight metal or glass container, stored in a cool, dark environment can extend the useable shelf life of these products from 6 months to1 year to perhaps more than 2 or 3 years. It is still problematic. A case of canned butter with a shelf life of 3 years (but said to last 15 to 25 years) will supply the minimum daily fat requirement for an adult for 72 to 110 days. Crisco-type shortening or lard can have its shelf life extended by re-packing it in Mason-type canning jars. Some brands of lard are still packed in all-metal cans, which provides a longer shelf life too. Producing your own Wild Game Hunting is unlikely to supply you with little more than an occasional supplement of protein and even less fat. Most wild game simply lacks sufficient fat. Venison is quite low in fat. Rabbit meat is particularly low in fat. Bear, beaver, and wild pig are much richer. What ever you game you take, harvest what ever fat that there is. Utilize the fat rich organs like the brain, spine, bone marrow, also, internal organs like the kidneys, hearts, livers and intestines are often couched in fat. Even the skins and heads of birds, fish and crayfish can be boiled and the fats and oils consumed. Nuts and Acorns The meats of acorns and, especially, nuts is very high in high quality oils. Those that are too difficult to crack and extract the meat may be smashed and the meat/shell mixture boiled in water. The oils will rise to the top and can be skimmed off. These oils are very susceptible to rancidity and should be used as soon as possible. Dairy If you have the resources in pasture, hay, grain and the room to keep one or more cow, you will have a huge source of butterfat. In Wisconsin that means 2.74 acres of forage (hay) per cow with 2.3 acres of pasture and 1.5 acre minimum of corn. Cows grazing on pasture only were able to produce only 65 percent of expected milk yield, just over 33 pounds of milk per day. Under survival conditions, expect 30 to 40 pounds of milk per day. If you got 40 lb of milk, your one average dairy cow’s daily production represents: 1. 40lb milk per day or 2. 4.1 lbs. of cheese or 3. 1.7 lbs of butter* or 4. 1.3 lb of ghee* or clarified butter, smoke point of 400 °F, is excellent frying oil. *Note: enough to meet the minimum daily fat requirement of 7 adults for one day. Raise dairy goats maybe an option, although a challenge to fence, they do a great job of clearing brush. Goat milk must be run through a separator before you can make butter and they only produce ½ to 1 gallon of milk per day. 1. 8 lb milk per day or 2. 0.8 lbs. of cheese or 3. 0.34 lbs of butter* or 4. 0.26 lb of ghee* *Note: enough to meet the minimum daily fat requirement of 1 or 2 adults for one day Chickens Chickens are a source of fat too, not so much in their carcass, although their fat is flavorful and of good quality but in their eggs. Egg yolks are another source of fat that is rich in all of the fat soluble vitamins, (A, D, E and K) and one of the few foods naturally containing vitamin D. The yolk makes up about 33% of the liquid weight of the egg and a single yolk contains approximately 5 grams of fat. It would take12 eggs to meet the minimum daily fat requirement of 1 adult for one day. Schmaltz (rendered goose fat) Geese are relatively easy to raise and fence, an acre of pasture with shade trees will support 20-40 birds depending on the pasture quality. Goslings can be raised on green feed alone during the pasture period but be fed a finishing ration for 3-4 weeks before processing (except for breeding stock which should not be fattened). Geese are usually sold when they are 5-6 months old at 11-15 pounds. Free ranging birds with access to bugs; grubs, with seeds and vegetable scraps fed in the afternoon to supplement the usual free range layers meal with 16% protein. How much fat can a goose produce? It depends on what and how a goose is fed or force fed. A normal goose with free chaise access to ground corn had body fat of 17.7 to 21% with liver fat of 3.9%. In 1843 Jiebig wrote: ‘When a lean goose weighing 4 pounds, gains, in thirty-six days, during which it has been fed with 24 pounds of maize, 5 pounds in weight and yields 3 pounds of pure fat, this fat = 33%”. A goose stuffed mildly had liver fat of 6.9% with body fat of 37 % but a vigorously stuffed goose also had body fat of 37 % with liver fat of 50%! The stuffing or force-feeding process is where a tube is inserted into the goose’s throat and food is compressed into his stomach it causes the goose’s liver to enlargement up to 10 times its original size. It is, IMO, time consuming, unnatural, unhealthy & cruel. The process of force-feeding for 14-21 days will cause the weight of the liver will increase from an initial weight of about 3 oz to a final weight of between 21 to 36 oz. but the body fat will stay under 40%. For edible fat production, IMO, a free choice fed, finishing feed of ground corn wet mash or soft cooked whole kernel corn for 3 to 4 weeks will produce about 2 ½ lb of Schmaltz (rendered goose fat) and a decent liver from each bird for a minimum daily fat required for 1 adult for13 to20days without the extra labor and cruelty of force-feeding. Vegetable oils There are a number of oil seeds that could be grown here are some: (your yields without proper fertilizer or herbicides and with homemade equipment will be considerably lower. Corn 129 lbs of oil/acre or 18 gal/acre Soybean 335 lb of oil/acre or 48 gal/acre Flax 359 lb of oil/acre or 51 gal/acre pumpkin seed 401 lb of oil/acre or 57 gal/acre sunflowers 714 lb of oil/acre or 102 gal/acre peanuts 795 lb of oil/acre or 113 gal/acre Based on ease of growing, hand harvesting and processing, as well as palatability, I would choose: peanuts, sunflowers, and pumpkin seed in that order. Unfortunately this far north, peanuts are iffy at best but growing black or oil type sunflowers is an option over much of North America. The hulled seed oil content is from 28% in the big seeded confection types to almost 50% in the smaller (think bird seed) oil types. Plus it is a healthy and good tasting cooking oil. Although you can use confectionary types such as MAMMOTH RUSSIAN for oil, don't expect to get more than an ounce and a half from a pound of seed while oilseed produces three or more ounces of oil from a pound of seed The average acre, under survival conditions, sunflower will produce about 50 bushels of seeds (at 28lb of unhulled seed per bushel). Each bushel yields approximately 1 gallon of oil. Hulling or grinding and making a special oil press are required and it is a slow labor intensive process. Grading the seed for size is an important step to take before dehulling. Three sizing boxes: the first with 1/4-inch hardware cloth [wire screen], the second is two layers of 1/4-inch cloth, moved slightly apart to narrow the opening in one direction, and the third is two layers of screen adjusted to make a still-smaller opening. Dehulling can be done with a grain mill where the stones can be opened to 1/8th inch and adjusted to produce whole kernels and hulls split right at the seams. The hulls must then be winnowed from the seed. Oilseed types offer a big advantage; the entire sequence of grading, dehulling and winnowing is avoided. All you need to do is grind the whole, unhulled seed in steel burr mill and grind it to a fine meal, heated it to 170 degrees F. by placing it in a 300-degree F. oven and stirring it every five minutes for 20 minutes, then pressing it while warm. 7 to10 gallons of oil would provide 1 adult’s minimum fat requirements for 1 year. Hogs Before WW2, pigs were an essential part of every farm, being used for home production of lard and pork. Special breeds suitable for producing lard were called "lard-type could be raised to an amazing 70% fat by weight. Lard pigs have become rare today as lard has fallen out of favor. Market hogs from 1950 to 1960 had more than 30 lb of lard produced per animal. From 1965 to date lard production per pig has declined to about 11 lb. To keep feed corn requirements down, pigs are fed kitchen and food scraps, poor quality garden and orchard produce but, especially, good pasture. Three well fenced lots, for rotating, will supply 10 to 15 percent of the total food for a couple of pigs. A typical hog ration fed for period of approximately six months will take the weaned piglet (of about 22 pounds) to the finished hog (of about 200 pounds) stage. Roughly 132 days for195 lbs or 200 days for 325 lbs. From weaning time, a pig should put on about a pound a day. If fed grain entirely, it will eat nearly 900 lb from April to December. But with pasture and surplus produce, vegetables, corn stalks, fruit, skim milk, acorns, and table scraps, even 200 pounds of grain will produce a lean pig if butchered young. However, if we want lard, we can go back to feeding pigs with straight corn and some grass for vitamins and allowing them to get to 330 lb before slaughter rather than as they are now slaughtered younger, when they are 250 lb. Rule of thumb says that for every 3 lb of feed, the pig will gain 1 pound in weight. If you feed the pork straight corn (which is what he likes), the pound he gains will produce a high lard content. Every extra bushel of corn beyond the amount he really needs yields almost 20 pounds of lard. An old sow, while not the best eating, can produce 110 lb of lard. 50 to 70 pounds of lard will supply the minimum daily fat requirement of an adult for 1 year
How much salt would be appropriate
1. For strictly table and food use, a minimum of 5 lb per person per year is recommended.
2. For preserving meat, maybe, 20 lb per person (with a safety factor). For each100 pounds of meat, dry curing uses 6 pounds salt with more for brining small game and odd pieces. A minimum of 75 lb of meats per person per year is recommended but Americans, currently, consume between 177 to 193 lb of total meats annually.
3. 45 lb weight of green hide requires 15 lb of salt for curing.
4. Animals need salt too, from what I can find a dry cow needs 0.3 lb per day, lactating requires 1.2 lb per day and lactating, under heat stress, 1.5 lb.
5. Salt has a 100 uses, from tooth powder to furnace cement and setting dyes.
6. It is a traditional barter item and cheap (now). Since I live in the Great Lakes Region, a prominent goiter area, I will store iodized salt for table use. It containing 0.01 % of sodium iodide or potassium iodide. Unrefined sea salt contain 98.0 % NaCl (sodium-chloride) and up to 2.0% other minerals salts: Magnesium salts, Calcium salts, Potassium salts, Manganese salts, Phosphorus salts, Iodine salts, all together over 100 minerals. Unfortunately, Sea Salt has usually a very low level of iodine rarely even as high as 0.0071 %, as the processing generally destroys the iodine content.
Table SALT: This comes in two varieties; iodized and non-iodized and there is an ingredient added to it to adsorb moisture so it will stay free flowing in damp weather. This non-caking agent does not dissolve in water and can cause cloudiness in solutions if sufficiently large quantities are used. In canning it won't cause a problem since there is very little per jar. For pickling, though, it would be noticeable. If you are storing salt for this purpose, you should be sure to choose plain pickling salt, or other food grade pure salt such as kosher salt. In the iodized varieties, the iodine can cause discoloration or darkening of pickled foods so be certain not to use it for that purpose. For folks who come from areas that are historically iodine deficient a store of iodized salt for table consumption is of real importance.
CANNING SALT: This is pure salt and nothing but salt. It can usually be found in the canning supplies section of most stores. This is the preferred salt for most food preservation or storage uses. It is generally about the same grain size as table salt.
KOSHER SALT: evaporated from a brine, usually under specific conditions approved by the Orthodox Jewish faith. It contains no additives or added iodine This salt is used in "kashering" meat to make the flesh kosher for eating. This involves first soaking the meat then rubbing it with the salt to draw out the blood which is not-kosher and is subsequently washed off along with the salt. The cleansed meat is then kosher. What makes it of interest for food storage and preservation is that it is generally pure salt suitable for canning, pickling and meat curing. It is of a larger grain size than table or canning salt, and usually rolled to make the grains flaked for easier dissolving. Frequently it is slightly cheaper than canning salt and usually easier to find in urban/suburban
SEA SALT: a broad term that generally refers to unrefined salt derived directly from a living ocean or sea. This type of salt comes in about as many different varieties and from many different places around the world. It is harvested through channeling ocean water into large clay trays and allowing the sun and wind to evaporate it naturally. Manufacturers of sea salt typically do not refine sea salt as much as other kinds of salt, so it still contains traces of other minerals, including iron, magnesium, calcium, potassium, manganese, zinc and iodine. It's not suitable for food preservation, though, because the mineral content it contains (other than the sodium chloride) may cause discoloration of the food.
SOLAR SALT: This is also sometimes confusingly called "sea salt". It is not, however, the same thing as the sea salt found in food stores. Most importantly, it is not food grade. It's main purpose is for use in water softeners. The reason it is called "solar" and sometimes "sea salt" is that it is produced by evaporation of sea water in large ponds in various arid areas of the world. This salt type is not purified and still contains the desiccated remains of whatever aquatic life might have been trapped in it. Those organic remains might react with the proteins in the foods you are attempting to preserve and cause it to spoil.
ROCK SALT: This type of salt comes in large chunky crystals and is intended primarily for use in home ice cream churns to lower the temperature of the ice filled water in which the churn sits. It's also sometimes used in icing down beer kegs or watermelons. It is used in food preservation by some, but none of the brands I have been able to find label it as food grade nor do they specifically mention its use in foods so I would not use it for this purpose.
HALITE: This is the mineral salt that is used on roads to melt snow and ice. It is mined and is not food grade and should not be used in food preservation. This form of salt is also frequently called rock salt, like the rock salt above, but neither are suitable for food use.
Supplying Fats and Oils after EOTWAWKI
An adult should have 2 to 3 ounces of fat in their diet per day to stay healthy. Not a problem in our day of French fries and big backs, but that will not be true in post EOTWAWKI times. Storing It Even the most complete long storage food plans skip over the problematic but essential fats and oils. Not long ago, shortening and some vegetable oils where sold in metal cans and had a shelf life of up to ten years. They are no longer commonly sold in this country. Now they come in tin and card board or plastic and have a much shorter shelf life. In airtight metal or glass container, stored in a cool, dark environment can extend the useable shelf life of these products from 6 months to1 year to perhaps more than 2 or 3 years. It is still problematic. A case of canned butter with a shelf life of 3 years (but said to last 15 to 25 years) will supply the minimum daily fat requirement for an adult for 72 to 110 days. Crisco-type shortening or lard can have its shelf life extended by re-packing it in Mason-type canning jars. Some brands of lard are still packed in all-metal cans, which provides a longer shelf life too. Producing your own Wild Game Hunting is unlikely to supply you with little more than an occasional supplement of protein and even less fat. Most wild game simply lacks sufficient fat. Venison is quite low in fat. Rabbit meat is particularly low in fat. Bear, beaver, and wild pig are much richer. What ever you game you take, harvest what ever fat that there is. Utilize the fat rich organs like the brain, spine, bone marrow, also, internal organs like the kidneys, hearts, livers and intestines are often couched in fat. Even the skins and heads of birds, fish and crayfish can be boiled and the fats and oils consumed. Nuts and Acorns The meats of acorns and, especially, nuts is very high in high quality oils. Those that are too difficult to crack and extract the meat may be smashed and the meat/shell mixture boiled in water. The oils will rise to the top and can be skimmed off. These oils are very susceptible to rancidity and should be used as soon as possible. Dairy If you have the resources in pasture, hay, grain and the room to keep one or more cow, you will have a huge source of butterfat. In Wisconsin that means 2.74 acres of forage (hay) per cow with 2.3 acres of pasture and 1.5 acre minimum of corn. Cows grazing on pasture only were able to produce only 65 percent of expected milk yield, just over 33 pounds of milk per day. Under survival conditions, expect 30 to 40 pounds of milk per day. If you got 40 lb of milk, your one average dairy cow’s daily production represents: 1. 40lb milk per day or 2. 4.1 lbs. of cheese or 3. 1.7 lbs of butter* or 4. 1.3 lb of ghee* or clarified butter, smoke point of 400 °F, is excellent frying oil. *Note: enough to meet the minimum daily fat requirement of 7 adults for one day. Raise dairy goats maybe an option, although a challenge to fence, they do a great job of clearing brush. Goat milk must be run through a separator before you can make butter and they only produce ½ to 1 gallon of milk per day. 1. 8 lb milk per day or 2. 0.8 lbs. of cheese or 3. 0.34 lbs of butter* or 4. 0.26 lb of ghee* *Note: enough to meet the minimum daily fat requirement of 1 or 2 adults for one day Chickens Chickens are a source of fat too, not so much in their carcass, although their fat is flavorful and of good quality but in their eggs. Egg yolks are another source of fat that is rich in all of the fat soluble vitamins, (A, D, E and K) and one of the few foods naturally containing vitamin D. The yolk makes up about 33% of the liquid weight of the egg and a single yolk contains approximately 5 grams of fat. It would take12 eggs to meet the minimum daily fat requirement of 1 adult for one day. Schmaltz (rendered goose fat) Geese are relatively easy to raise and fence, an acre of pasture with shade trees will support 20-40 birds depending on the pasture quality. Goslings can be raised on green feed alone during the pasture period but be fed a finishing ration for 3-4 weeks before processing (except for breeding stock which should not be fattened). Geese are usually sold when they are 5-6 months old at 11-15 pounds. Free ranging birds with access to bugs; grubs, with seeds and vegetable scraps fed in the afternoon to supplement the usual free range layers meal with 16% protein. How much fat can a goose produce? It depends on what and how a goose is fed or force fed. A normal goose with free chaise access to ground corn had body fat of 17.7 to 21% with liver fat of 3.9%. In 1843 Jiebig wrote: ‘When a lean goose weighing 4 pounds, gains, in thirty-six days, during which it has been fed with 24 pounds of maize, 5 pounds in weight and yields 3 pounds of pure fat, this fat = 33%”. A goose stuffed mildly had liver fat of 6.9% with body fat of 37 % but a vigorously stuffed goose also had body fat of 37 % with liver fat of 50%! The stuffing or force-feeding process is where a tube is inserted into the goose’s throat and food is compressed into his stomach it causes the goose’s liver to enlargement up to 10 times its original size. It is, IMO, time consuming, unnatural, unhealthy & cruel. The process of force-feeding for 14-21 days will cause the weight of the liver will increase from an initial weight of about 3 oz to a final weight of between 21 to 36 oz. but the body fat will stay under 40%. For edible fat production, IMO, a free choice fed, finishing feed of ground corn wet mash or soft cooked whole kernel corn for 3 to 4 weeks will produce about 2 ½ lb of Schmaltz (rendered goose fat) and a decent liver from each bird for a minimum daily fat required for 1 adult for13 to20days without the extra labor and cruelty of force-feeding. Vegetable oils There are a number of oil seeds that could be grown here are some: (your yields without proper fertilizer or herbicides and with homemade equipment will be considerably lower. Corn 129 lbs of oil/acre or 18 gal/acre Soybean 335 lb of oil/acre or 48 gal/acre Flax 359 lb of oil/acre or 51 gal/acre pumpkin seed 401 lb of oil/acre or 57 gal/acre sunflowers 714 lb of oil/acre or 102 gal/acre peanuts 795 lb of oil/acre or 113 gal/acre Based on ease of growing, hand harvesting and processing, as well as palatability, I would choose: peanuts, sunflowers, and pumpkin seed in that order. Unfortunately this far north, peanuts are iffy at best but growing black or oil type sunflowers is an option over much of North America. The hulled seed oil content is from 28% in the big seeded confection types to almost 50% in the smaller (think bird seed) oil types. Plus it is a healthy and good tasting cooking oil. Although you can use confectionary types such as MAMMOTH RUSSIAN for oil, don't expect to get more than an ounce and a half from a pound of seed while oilseed produces three or more ounces of oil from a pound of seed The average acre, under survival conditions, sunflower will produce about 50 bushels of seeds (at 28lb of unhulled seed per bushel). Each bushel yields approximately 1 gallon of oil. Hulling or grinding and making a special oil press are required and it is a slow labor intensive process. Grading the seed for size is an important step to take before dehulling. Three sizing boxes: the first with 1/4-inch hardware cloth [wire screen], the second is two layers of 1/4-inch cloth, moved slightly apart to narrow the opening in one direction, and the third is two layers of screen adjusted to make a still-smaller opening. Dehulling can be done with a grain mill where the stones can be opened to 1/8th inch and adjusted to produce whole kernels and hulls split right at the seams. The hulls must then be winnowed from the seed. Oilseed types offer a big advantage; the entire sequence of grading, dehulling and winnowing is avoided. All you need to do is grind the whole, unhulled seed in steel burr mill and grind it to a fine meal, heated it to 170 degrees F. by placing it in a 300-degree F. oven and stirring it every five minutes for 20 minutes, then pressing it while warm. 7 to10 gallons of oil would provide 1 adult’s minimum fat requirements for 1 year. Hogs Before WW2, pigs were an essential part of every farm, being used for home production of lard and pork. Special breeds suitable for producing lard were called "lard-type could be raised to an amazing 70% fat by weight. Lard pigs have become rare today as lard has fallen out of favor. Market hogs from 1950 to 1960 had more than 30 lb of lard produced per animal. From 1965 to date lard production per pig has declined to about 11 lb. To keep feed corn requirements down, pigs are fed kitchen and food scraps, poor quality garden and orchard produce but, especially, good pasture. Three well fenced lots, for rotating, will supply 10 to 15 percent of the total food for a couple of pigs. A typical hog ration fed for period of approximately six months will take the weaned piglet (of about 22 pounds) to the finished hog (of about 200 pounds) stage. Roughly 132 days for195 lbs or 200 days for 325 lbs. From weaning time, a pig should put on about a pound a day. If fed grain entirely, it will eat nearly 900 lb from April to December. But with pasture and surplus produce, vegetables, corn stalks, fruit, skim milk, acorns, and table scraps, even 200 pounds of grain will produce a lean pig if butchered young. However, if we want lard, we can go back to feeding pigs with straight corn and some grass for vitamins and allowing them to get to 330 lb before slaughter rather than as they are now slaughtered younger, when they are 250 lb. Rule of thumb says that for every 3 lb of feed, the pig will gain 1 pound in weight. If you feed the pork straight corn (which is what he likes), the pound he gains will produce a high lard content. Every extra bushel of corn beyond the amount he really needs yields almost 20 pounds of lard. An old sow, while not the best eating, can produce 110 lb of lard. 50 to 70 pounds of lard will supply the minimum daily fat requirement of an adult for 1 year
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Here is a highlighted post of the past week
Eeyore started this one,
The "New" Global Currency being pushed and pushed back?
« on: March 27, 2009, 11:18:15 AM »
It is being pushed by:
UN panel touts new global currency reserve system Mar 26 04:09 PM US/Eastern A UN panel of expert economists pressed Thursday for a new global currency reserve scheme to replace the volatile, dollar-based system and for coordinated steps by rich countries to stimulate their economies. "A new Global Reserve System -- what may be viewed as a greatly expanded SDR (Special Drawing Rights), with regular or cyclically adjusted emissions calibrated to the size of reserve accumulations, could contribute to global stability, economic strength and global equity," the panel said. As part of several recommendations to tackle the global financial crisis, the panel also noted recovery would require all developed countries, in the short term, to take "strong, coordinated and effective actions to stimulate their economies." And it stressed the need to "lay the basis for the long-run reforms that will be necessary if we are to have a more stable and more prosperous global economy and avoid future global crises." The commission, led by US economist Joseph Stiglitz, a frequent critic of globalization and unbridled free markets, is primarily aimed at finding solutions for developing countries. On the monetary front, Stiglitz, the 2001 Nobel economics laureate, told a press conference here there was "a growing consensus that there are problems with the dollar reserve system. He noted that such a system was "relatively volatile, deflationary, unstable and (had) inequity associated with it." "Developing countries are lending the United States trillions dollars at almost zero interest rates when they have huge needs themselves," Stiglitz noted. "It's indicative of the nature of the problem. It's a net transfer, in a sense, to the United States, a form of foreign aid." This week, China's central bank chief Zhou Xiaochuan suggested the dollar could be replaced as a reserve currency by an International Monetary Fund (IMF) basket comprising dollars, euros, sterling and yen, saying it would not be easily influenced by individual countries. But the UN panel warned that a two (or three) country reserve system "may be equally unstable." It said a new Global Reserve "is feasible, non-inflationary and could be easily implemented, including in ways which mitigate the difficulties caused by asymmetric adjustment between surplus and deficit countries." Stiglitz said his panel's experts were currently trying "to lay out the conceptual framework of how this might be done." The issue of the world currency reserve is expected to be raised at the April 2 summit of the G20 club of developed and emerging economies. On Wednesday IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said that talks on a new global reserve currency to replace the US dollar were "legitimate" and could take place "in the coming months." But US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner earlier defended the dollar as a key global reserve currency. "I think the dollar remains the world's standard reserve currency, I think that's likely to continue for a long period of time," he said. Among other recommendations, the Stiglitz panel proposed western aid to help developing nations out of the crisis, better market regulation, a reform of central bank practices and of international financial institutions, as well as the creation of a new structure such as a United Nations economic council. It specifically called for immediate, additional funding for developing countries "just to offset the imbalances and inequities created by the massive stimulus and bail-out measures introduced by advanced industrialized countries." It said the funds could come through the issuance of SDRs approved by the IMF board in 1997. SDRs are an international reserve asset, created by the IMF in 1969 to supplement the existing official reserves of member countries and support the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate system. They are allocated to member countries in proportion to their IMF quotas.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.18e9e5692442aa61d7510553b5ffc14e.8b1&show_article=1
And is being pushed by our owners (i mean China, sorry)
China calls for new reserve currencyBy Jamil Anderlini in Beijing Published: March 23 2009 12:16 China’s central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund.In an essay posted on the People’s Bank of China’s website, Zhou Xiaochuan, the central bank’s governor, said the goal would be to create a reserve currency “that is disconnected from individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run, thus removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies”.“This is a clear sign that China, as the largest holder of US dollar financial assets, is concerned about the potential inflationary risk of the US Federal Reserve printing money,” said Qu Hongbin, chief China economist for HSBC.Although Mr Zhou did not mention the US dollar, the essay gave a pointed critique of the current dollar-dominated monetary system.“The outbreak of the [current] crisis and its spillover to the entire world reflected the inherent vulnerabilities and systemic risks in the existing international monetary system,” Mr Zhou wrote.China has little choice but to hold the bulk of its $2,000bn of foreign exchange reserves in US dollars, and this is unlikely to change in the near future.To replace the current system, Mr Zhou suggested expanding the role of special drawing rights, which were introduced by the IMF in 1969 to support the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate regime but became less relevant once that collapsed in the 1970s.Today, the value of SDRs is based on a basket of four currencies – the US dollar, yen, euro and sterling – and they are used largely as a unit of account by the IMF and some other international organisations.China’s proposal would expand the basket of currencies forming the basis of SDR valuation to all major economies and set up a settlement system between SDRs and other currencies so they could be used in international trade and financial transactions.Countries would entrust a portion of their SDR reserves to the IMF to manage collectively on their behalf and SDRs would gradually replace existing reserve currencies.Mr Zhou said the proposal would require “extraordinary political vision and courage” and acknowledged a debt to John Maynard Keynes, who made a similar suggestion in the 1940s."
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7851925a-17a2-11de-8c9d-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1"
China ‘Super Currency’ Call May Signal Dollar Concern March 25 (Bloomberg) -- China’s call for the creation of a new international reserve currency may signal its concern at the dollar’s weakness and ambitions for a leadership role at next week’s Group of 20 summit, economists said. Central bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan this week urged the International Monetary Fund to expand the use of so-called Special Drawing Rights and move toward a “super-sovereign reserve currency.” The dollar weakened after the Federal Reserve said that it would buy Treasuries and the U.S. government outlined plans to buy illiquid bank assets. “China is concerned about the potential for a slide in the dollar as the U.S. attempts to stimulate its economy,” said Mark Williams, a London-based economist at Capital Economics Ltd. The “rare” sight of a Chinese official attempting to reframe an international debate may be “a sign of China becoming more engaged,” he said. ....
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aoTbWSDDY19Y&refer=worldwide
And being pushed back by
March 26, 2009Bachmann bill would ban global currency @ 1:31 pm by Eric Zimmermann Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has introduced legislation that would "bar the dollar from being replace by any foreign currency." A statement from Bachmann's website:
Quote
“Yesterday, during a Financial Services Committee hearing, I asked Secretary Geithner if he would denounce efforts to move towards a global currency and he answered unequivocally that he would," said Bachmann. "And President Obama gave the nation the same assurances. But just a day later, Secretary Geithner has left the option on the table. I want to know which it is. The American people deserve to know." On Monday, Geithner and Bernanke both rejected the idea of a global currency in Congressional testimony. But in remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations yesterday, Geithner indicated he was open to the idea."
http://briefingroom.thehill.com/2009/03/26/bachmann-bill-would-ban-global-currency/
ez repied
Reply #1 on: March 27, 2009, 11:40:40 AM »
Lets say for the sake of argument our government decides to go along with a global currency the UN lays out ... does this then transfer all our gold and silver reserves to the UN
ToolOfHis adds an article
Congresswoman: Hands off dollar! Wants ban on U.S. use of any foreign currency
« Reply #2 on: March 29, 2009, 08:54:15 AM »
Congresswoman: Hands off dollar!Wants ban on U.S. use of any foreign currencyPosted: March 28, 200912:00 am Eastern© 2009 WorldNetDaily A member of Congress is warning the Obama administration to keep its hands off the U.S. dollar's status as the world's international currency. U.S. Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., has introduced a resolution that would bar the U.S. from recognizing any other currency than the dollar as its reserve currency. Her action comes in response to suggestions from China, Russia and the United Nations that another currency be explored. Even U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has admitted he would be open to the idea, although he quickly backtracked when the stock market plunged on his announcement. "During a Financial Services Committee hearing, I asked Secretary Geithner if he would denounce efforts to move towards a global currency and he answered unequivocally that he would," Bachmann said. "And President Obama gave the nation the same assurances. But just a day later, Secretary Geithner has left the option on the table. I want to know which it is. The American people deserve to know." Although Title 31, Sec. 5103 USC prohibits foreign currency from being recognized in the U.S., the president has the power to engage foreign governments in treaties, and the president is principally responsible for the interpretations and implementation of those treaties according to the Constitution, according to the congresswoman. As a result, legislation prohibiting the president and Treasury Department from issuing or agreeing that the U.S. will adopt an international currency would need to come in the form of a Constitutional Amendment differentiating a treaty used to implement an international currency in the U.S. from other types of treaty agreements, she said. "If we give up the dollar as our standard, and co-mingle the value of the dollar with the value of coinage in Zimbabwe, that dilutes our money supply. We lose control over our economy. And economic liberty is inextricably entwined with political liberty. Once you lose your economic freedom, you lose your political freedom," Bachmann told the Glenn Beck program on the Fox News Channel today. Her proposal, H.J.R. 41, isn't complicated: It is titled: "Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to prohibit the president from entering into a treaty or other international agreement that would provide for the United States to adopt as legal tender in the United States a currency issued by an entity other than the United States " Already with several dozen sponsors, it states: Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification:"It would add to the Constitution: The president may not enter into a treaty or other international agreement that would provide for the United States to adopt as legal tender in the United States a currency issued by an entity other than the United States.According to the Wall Street Journal, the latest voice to endorse an "alternative" to the dollar was the head of a U.N. expert panel discussing solutions to the financial crisis. Officials from both Russia and China have spoken out on the idea of a new global currency standard, and a U.N. panel published a report that said a new global reserve system would add to the world's "economic stability and equity." According to a report in the Financial Times, the subject could be on the table at the coming G20 summit of leading and emerging nations in London. Specifically, the U.N. said a new system could "counteract the risk of a rapid fall in the value of the major reserve currency, gutting hard-earned reserve funds."
eeyore replied
« Reply #3 on: March 31, 2009, 10:08:04 AM »
Russia, China cooperate on new currency proposals:Russia and China are coordinating proposals on a new global currency that could replace the US dollar as a reserve currency to prevent a repeat of the global economic crisis, the Kremlin said on Monday. "We have received proposals from our colleagues in China, detailed proposals," President Dmitry Medvedev's top economic adviser Arkady Dvorkovich said. "Our positions are very similar. "We have similar positions on the development of the international financial architecture," he told reporters. Ahead of the Group of 20 summit in London later this week, the Kremlin has published a raft of proposals to overhaul the global economic order, including plans for a supra-national currency that could replace the US dollar. China has come forward with similar ideas. US President Barack Obama has said he does not see why the dollar should be replaced and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the summit would have more immediate issues to discuss. "So far, not everybody is ready for that," acknowledged Dvorkovich. "We will insist on that at all levels." Medvedev has said the international community should have a say when the world's richest countries make decisions with global implications, as in the US financial crisis, sparked by the collapse of the market for subprime or higher risk mortgages. Moscow also understood however, that many countries were not ready to undertake additional "political obligations," said Dvorkovich, expressing hope that major economies would at least be open to consultations on the subject. Dvorkovich said he hoped Russia and other major developing economies would also get an equal say and the attention they deserve during the G20 meeting. "We are hoping that our voice will be heard but I would like to stress that we do not have a desire to pit our voice against that of our partners," he said, referring to developing economies Brazil, India and China who join Russia in what is known collectively as 'BRIC.' "There will be no separate joint (BRIC) communique, nor should there be," Dvorkovich said. "This is the summit of the leaders of the G20 countries." Critics have suggested China and the United States, whose economies are closely intertwined, would likely steal the show by promoting their own agenda and turning the G20 forum into a 'G2' summit. Dvorkovich said the US and China would have ample time to discuss bilateral issues on the summit's sidelines Separately, Dvorkovich said Medvedev would meet Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on April 1, just before the summit. Medvedev was also scheduled to meet US President Barack Obama, China's Hu Jintao and Britain's Brown that day. [http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.7e6cab4fec704a0fdd135ecdac00673b.9c1&show_article=1]A world currency moves nearer after Tim Geithner's slipUS Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner confessed on Wednesday that he had not read the plans by China's central bank governor for a "super-sovereign reserve currency" run by the International Monetary Fund, but nevertheless let slip that Washington was "open" to the idea. Whoops. By Ambrose Evans-PritchardThis is how matters quickly escalate in geo-finance. China's suggestion – backed by Russia, Brazil, and India, and clearly aimed at breaking US dollar hegemony – is making its way onto the agenda of the G20 Summit next week. 'Dollar-dämmerung' no longer looks so far-fetched. China's paper, by Governor Zhou Xiaochuan, is couched in understated language – more a 'thought experiment' than a declaration of monetary war. His ideas could be mistaken for the musings of an academic theorist. Nobody should be fooled by decorum. ....
The "New" Global Currency being pushed and pushed back?
« on: March 27, 2009, 11:18:15 AM »
It is being pushed by:
UN panel touts new global currency reserve system Mar 26 04:09 PM US/Eastern A UN panel of expert economists pressed Thursday for a new global currency reserve scheme to replace the volatile, dollar-based system and for coordinated steps by rich countries to stimulate their economies. "A new Global Reserve System -- what may be viewed as a greatly expanded SDR (Special Drawing Rights), with regular or cyclically adjusted emissions calibrated to the size of reserve accumulations, could contribute to global stability, economic strength and global equity," the panel said. As part of several recommendations to tackle the global financial crisis, the panel also noted recovery would require all developed countries, in the short term, to take "strong, coordinated and effective actions to stimulate their economies." And it stressed the need to "lay the basis for the long-run reforms that will be necessary if we are to have a more stable and more prosperous global economy and avoid future global crises." The commission, led by US economist Joseph Stiglitz, a frequent critic of globalization and unbridled free markets, is primarily aimed at finding solutions for developing countries. On the monetary front, Stiglitz, the 2001 Nobel economics laureate, told a press conference here there was "a growing consensus that there are problems with the dollar reserve system. He noted that such a system was "relatively volatile, deflationary, unstable and (had) inequity associated with it." "Developing countries are lending the United States trillions dollars at almost zero interest rates when they have huge needs themselves," Stiglitz noted. "It's indicative of the nature of the problem. It's a net transfer, in a sense, to the United States, a form of foreign aid." This week, China's central bank chief Zhou Xiaochuan suggested the dollar could be replaced as a reserve currency by an International Monetary Fund (IMF) basket comprising dollars, euros, sterling and yen, saying it would not be easily influenced by individual countries. But the UN panel warned that a two (or three) country reserve system "may be equally unstable." It said a new Global Reserve "is feasible, non-inflationary and could be easily implemented, including in ways which mitigate the difficulties caused by asymmetric adjustment between surplus and deficit countries." Stiglitz said his panel's experts were currently trying "to lay out the conceptual framework of how this might be done." The issue of the world currency reserve is expected to be raised at the April 2 summit of the G20 club of developed and emerging economies. On Wednesday IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said that talks on a new global reserve currency to replace the US dollar were "legitimate" and could take place "in the coming months." But US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner earlier defended the dollar as a key global reserve currency. "I think the dollar remains the world's standard reserve currency, I think that's likely to continue for a long period of time," he said. Among other recommendations, the Stiglitz panel proposed western aid to help developing nations out of the crisis, better market regulation, a reform of central bank practices and of international financial institutions, as well as the creation of a new structure such as a United Nations economic council. It specifically called for immediate, additional funding for developing countries "just to offset the imbalances and inequities created by the massive stimulus and bail-out measures introduced by advanced industrialized countries." It said the funds could come through the issuance of SDRs approved by the IMF board in 1997. SDRs are an international reserve asset, created by the IMF in 1969 to supplement the existing official reserves of member countries and support the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate system. They are allocated to member countries in proportion to their IMF quotas.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.18e9e5692442aa61d7510553b5ffc14e.8b1&show_article=1
And is being pushed by our owners (i mean China, sorry)
China calls for new reserve currencyBy Jamil Anderlini in Beijing Published: March 23 2009 12:16 China’s central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund.In an essay posted on the People’s Bank of China’s website, Zhou Xiaochuan, the central bank’s governor, said the goal would be to create a reserve currency “that is disconnected from individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run, thus removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies”.“This is a clear sign that China, as the largest holder of US dollar financial assets, is concerned about the potential inflationary risk of the US Federal Reserve printing money,” said Qu Hongbin, chief China economist for HSBC.Although Mr Zhou did not mention the US dollar, the essay gave a pointed critique of the current dollar-dominated monetary system.“The outbreak of the [current] crisis and its spillover to the entire world reflected the inherent vulnerabilities and systemic risks in the existing international monetary system,” Mr Zhou wrote.China has little choice but to hold the bulk of its $2,000bn of foreign exchange reserves in US dollars, and this is unlikely to change in the near future.To replace the current system, Mr Zhou suggested expanding the role of special drawing rights, which were introduced by the IMF in 1969 to support the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate regime but became less relevant once that collapsed in the 1970s.Today, the value of SDRs is based on a basket of four currencies – the US dollar, yen, euro and sterling – and they are used largely as a unit of account by the IMF and some other international organisations.China’s proposal would expand the basket of currencies forming the basis of SDR valuation to all major economies and set up a settlement system between SDRs and other currencies so they could be used in international trade and financial transactions.Countries would entrust a portion of their SDR reserves to the IMF to manage collectively on their behalf and SDRs would gradually replace existing reserve currencies.Mr Zhou said the proposal would require “extraordinary political vision and courage” and acknowledged a debt to John Maynard Keynes, who made a similar suggestion in the 1940s."
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7851925a-17a2-11de-8c9d-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1"
China ‘Super Currency’ Call May Signal Dollar Concern March 25 (Bloomberg) -- China’s call for the creation of a new international reserve currency may signal its concern at the dollar’s weakness and ambitions for a leadership role at next week’s Group of 20 summit, economists said. Central bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan this week urged the International Monetary Fund to expand the use of so-called Special Drawing Rights and move toward a “super-sovereign reserve currency.” The dollar weakened after the Federal Reserve said that it would buy Treasuries and the U.S. government outlined plans to buy illiquid bank assets. “China is concerned about the potential for a slide in the dollar as the U.S. attempts to stimulate its economy,” said Mark Williams, a London-based economist at Capital Economics Ltd. The “rare” sight of a Chinese official attempting to reframe an international debate may be “a sign of China becoming more engaged,” he said. ....
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aoTbWSDDY19Y&refer=worldwide
And being pushed back by
March 26, 2009Bachmann bill would ban global currency @ 1:31 pm by Eric Zimmermann Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has introduced legislation that would "bar the dollar from being replace by any foreign currency." A statement from Bachmann's website:
Quote
“Yesterday, during a Financial Services Committee hearing, I asked Secretary Geithner if he would denounce efforts to move towards a global currency and he answered unequivocally that he would," said Bachmann. "And President Obama gave the nation the same assurances. But just a day later, Secretary Geithner has left the option on the table. I want to know which it is. The American people deserve to know." On Monday, Geithner and Bernanke both rejected the idea of a global currency in Congressional testimony. But in remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations yesterday, Geithner indicated he was open to the idea."
http://briefingroom.thehill.com/2009/03/26/bachmann-bill-would-ban-global-currency/
ez repied
Reply #1 on: March 27, 2009, 11:40:40 AM »
Lets say for the sake of argument our government decides to go along with a global currency the UN lays out ... does this then transfer all our gold and silver reserves to the UN
ToolOfHis adds an article
Congresswoman: Hands off dollar! Wants ban on U.S. use of any foreign currency
« Reply #2 on: March 29, 2009, 08:54:15 AM »
Congresswoman: Hands off dollar!Wants ban on U.S. use of any foreign currencyPosted: March 28, 200912:00 am Eastern© 2009 WorldNetDaily A member of Congress is warning the Obama administration to keep its hands off the U.S. dollar's status as the world's international currency. U.S. Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., has introduced a resolution that would bar the U.S. from recognizing any other currency than the dollar as its reserve currency. Her action comes in response to suggestions from China, Russia and the United Nations that another currency be explored. Even U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has admitted he would be open to the idea, although he quickly backtracked when the stock market plunged on his announcement. "During a Financial Services Committee hearing, I asked Secretary Geithner if he would denounce efforts to move towards a global currency and he answered unequivocally that he would," Bachmann said. "And President Obama gave the nation the same assurances. But just a day later, Secretary Geithner has left the option on the table. I want to know which it is. The American people deserve to know." Although Title 31, Sec. 5103 USC prohibits foreign currency from being recognized in the U.S., the president has the power to engage foreign governments in treaties, and the president is principally responsible for the interpretations and implementation of those treaties according to the Constitution, according to the congresswoman. As a result, legislation prohibiting the president and Treasury Department from issuing or agreeing that the U.S. will adopt an international currency would need to come in the form of a Constitutional Amendment differentiating a treaty used to implement an international currency in the U.S. from other types of treaty agreements, she said. "If we give up the dollar as our standard, and co-mingle the value of the dollar with the value of coinage in Zimbabwe, that dilutes our money supply. We lose control over our economy. And economic liberty is inextricably entwined with political liberty. Once you lose your economic freedom, you lose your political freedom," Bachmann told the Glenn Beck program on the Fox News Channel today. Her proposal, H.J.R. 41, isn't complicated: It is titled: "Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to prohibit the president from entering into a treaty or other international agreement that would provide for the United States to adopt as legal tender in the United States a currency issued by an entity other than the United States " Already with several dozen sponsors, it states: Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification:"It would add to the Constitution: The president may not enter into a treaty or other international agreement that would provide for the United States to adopt as legal tender in the United States a currency issued by an entity other than the United States.According to the Wall Street Journal, the latest voice to endorse an "alternative" to the dollar was the head of a U.N. expert panel discussing solutions to the financial crisis. Officials from both Russia and China have spoken out on the idea of a new global currency standard, and a U.N. panel published a report that said a new global reserve system would add to the world's "economic stability and equity." According to a report in the Financial Times, the subject could be on the table at the coming G20 summit of leading and emerging nations in London. Specifically, the U.N. said a new system could "counteract the risk of a rapid fall in the value of the major reserve currency, gutting hard-earned reserve funds."
eeyore replied
« Reply #3 on: March 31, 2009, 10:08:04 AM »
Russia, China cooperate on new currency proposals:Russia and China are coordinating proposals on a new global currency that could replace the US dollar as a reserve currency to prevent a repeat of the global economic crisis, the Kremlin said on Monday. "We have received proposals from our colleagues in China, detailed proposals," President Dmitry Medvedev's top economic adviser Arkady Dvorkovich said. "Our positions are very similar. "We have similar positions on the development of the international financial architecture," he told reporters. Ahead of the Group of 20 summit in London later this week, the Kremlin has published a raft of proposals to overhaul the global economic order, including plans for a supra-national currency that could replace the US dollar. China has come forward with similar ideas. US President Barack Obama has said he does not see why the dollar should be replaced and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the summit would have more immediate issues to discuss. "So far, not everybody is ready for that," acknowledged Dvorkovich. "We will insist on that at all levels." Medvedev has said the international community should have a say when the world's richest countries make decisions with global implications, as in the US financial crisis, sparked by the collapse of the market for subprime or higher risk mortgages. Moscow also understood however, that many countries were not ready to undertake additional "political obligations," said Dvorkovich, expressing hope that major economies would at least be open to consultations on the subject. Dvorkovich said he hoped Russia and other major developing economies would also get an equal say and the attention they deserve during the G20 meeting. "We are hoping that our voice will be heard but I would like to stress that we do not have a desire to pit our voice against that of our partners," he said, referring to developing economies Brazil, India and China who join Russia in what is known collectively as 'BRIC.' "There will be no separate joint (BRIC) communique, nor should there be," Dvorkovich said. "This is the summit of the leaders of the G20 countries." Critics have suggested China and the United States, whose economies are closely intertwined, would likely steal the show by promoting their own agenda and turning the G20 forum into a 'G2' summit. Dvorkovich said the US and China would have ample time to discuss bilateral issues on the summit's sidelines Separately, Dvorkovich said Medvedev would meet Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on April 1, just before the summit. Medvedev was also scheduled to meet US President Barack Obama, China's Hu Jintao and Britain's Brown that day. [http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.7e6cab4fec704a0fdd135ecdac00673b.9c1&show_article=1]A world currency moves nearer after Tim Geithner's slipUS Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner confessed on Wednesday that he had not read the plans by China's central bank governor for a "super-sovereign reserve currency" run by the International Monetary Fund, but nevertheless let slip that Washington was "open" to the idea. Whoops. By Ambrose Evans-PritchardThis is how matters quickly escalate in geo-finance. China's suggestion – backed by Russia, Brazil, and India, and clearly aimed at breaking US dollar hegemony – is making its way onto the agenda of the G20 Summit next week. 'Dollar-dämmerung' no longer looks so far-fetched. China's paper, by Governor Zhou Xiaochuan, is couched in understated language – more a 'thought experiment' than a declaration of monetary war. His ideas could be mistaken for the musings of an academic theorist. Nobody should be fooled by decorum. ....
The rest of the article can be found at
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/5051075/A-world-currency-moves-nearer-after-Tim-Geithners-slip.html
And in another thread along the same lines in the past week, 411man started a thread called
The Drive to Abolish National Currencies
« on: March 29, 2009, 10:46:23 PM »
March 29, 2009 The Drive to Abolish National CurrenciesBy John GriffingOver the past century, a vast movement to liberalize global capital markets has been underway, with the object of increasing capital mobility to the point where sudden shifts in capital flows could have untold consequences, causing exchange rate volatility, disrupting world trade, and creating an artificial need for a common currency. This was seen with the recent implosion of the US housing market and its profound impact on foreign stock exchanges. Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands all initiated bailouts comparable to our own. In effect, the present crisis was created forthe intended solution -- a global currency that would dissolve national sovereignty. This is no longer merely an academic question. World leaders are gathering on our soil next week to urge global investors to abandon the US dollar as the preferred reserve currency in favor of an internationally traded currency unit similar to the Euro. Americans must be ready, or what has already happened in Europe will happen here. But since Americans will not adopt a unitary medium of exchange on a whim, a real or perceived need for the switch is a necessary prerequisite; hence the push to liberalize capital markets by the same individuals promoting global financial integration. It was planned that uncontrolled capital flows would eradicate the influence over national exchange rate policy of even the most potent central banks, and clinch the case for a common monetary policy. In fact, such excuses for the surrender of national sovereignty are already being practiced by the financial elite. In the May/June 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs, the flagship journal of internationalism, Benn Steil, the Director of International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, advocated the end of "monetary nationalism". Steil contends that nationhood is "the source of much of today's instability." Like other academics, Steil sees national currency as a "symbol" of national sovereignty. In reality, it is one of the most important attributes of sovereignty. President of the European Central Bank Wim Duisenberg recently said that "monetary union" must go hand in hand with "political union."In a similar vein, Zanny Minton Beddoes, the Washington Correspondent for The Economist, declared: "Over the past five years, financial turmoil has shattered the semi-fixed exchange-rate regimes that much of the developing world once favored...in the face of massive capital outflows." Beddoes continued, saying, "Countries can either allow their currencies to float or...attempt a currency union. But the muddled middle ground, so popular in the years when capital was less mobile, has been wiped out by technological innovation and policy liberalization." Indeed, the real impetus toward an international monetary regime has been in the latter category: policy-driven liberalization. This is because technological innovation can't open markets. Only policy can do that. Bi-lateral Investment Treaties are perhaps the best example of policy-driven liberalization, as they consist of a pledge to remove preference on national investors, and treat foreign investors equally. Most Bi-lateral Investment Treaties have only been signed in the last decade, growing from nearly 100 in 1995 to over 2,500 Net International Investment Position (NIIP) now stands at -$2 trillion. This means that foreigners own our GDP, and then some. A good portion of the present crisis is the result of Fed metaphorical printing of worthless dollars to "monetize" our nation's federal debt. But creating money out of nothing creates inflation, which displaces jobs, causes bubbles, and makes our creditors' investments less secure. This vicious cycle has existed since the creation of the Federal Reserve and is one of the primary causes of the Great Depression, a fact acknowledged by Chairman Ben Bernanke himself. But the lesson didn't stick. Bernanke has presided over one of the largest money pushing schemes in history, rivaling post-WWI Germany. The last year for which data are available show the Fed printing money at an annual clip of 20 percent. Additionally, as part of President Obama's fiscal bailout, the Federal Reserve is printing $2 trillion in a single year. This is significant in the context of the current move by world leaders to abandon the US Dollar, since over 40 percent of all American stocks, bonds, and securities are owned by foreign investors. Most of the world is currently dependent on exports to the United States. To prop up the world's export dependency, the US must run deficits. The debts are then balanced by selling treasury bonds and other investments to the foreign dependents, mainly China, in an arrangement referred to by economic insiders as the "balance of financial terror." The system is currently stable, but if the trend continues, the nations that benefit from our spending binge may in the long run have more dollars than they want to hold. Eventually, this could result in a massive "flight" from dollar-denominated assets, known as the "doomsday scenario". We've already been warned by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who said, "I would like to call on the United States to honor its words, stay a credible nation and ensure the safety of Chinese assets."In the eighties, former Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Robert Cooper proposed the creation of a "common currency for all the industrial democracies." Cooper mourned that "it is highly doubtful whether the American public...could ever accept that countries with oppressive autocratic regimes" should have a vote on US monetary policy. During the Clinton years, Secretary of the Treasury Lawrence H. Summers got in on the act. Summers contended that the US should emphasize "integration and public action" by "reducing national sovereignty", listing monetary union as one example. In other words, centuries' worth of hard-won independence should be surrendered because a theory of questionable validity dictates it. Summers is now one of President Obama's chief economic advisors. Former Trade Representative and current President of the World Bank Robert Zoellick believes that the present situation requires "concerted global action now, not just to deal with the crisis but to put in place new architecture, new norms and new oversight to ensure that this crisis never happens again." According to Zoellick, the problem "has been a manmade catastrophe and responses to overcome it lie in all our hands." The common currency movement is gaining momentum. China's central bank chief yesterday posted an essay on the People's Bank of China website arguing for an end to "credit-based national currencies". Chairman Alan Greenspan is urging OPEC nations, large holders of American debt, to abandon the Dollar for a regional currency. Behind many a political solution is a manufactured crisis. The engineered capital crisis is no different. In short, our nation's financial elites know all too well that globalization, liberalization, and integration are merely the tools being used to facilitate the consolidation of all political and economic power in the hands of an unaccountable world conglomerate, whose designs are not yet visible. http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/..._national.html
Ozarks_1 replied
"...Most of the world is currently dependent on exports to the United States. To prop up the world's export dependency, the US must run deficits." http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/..._national.html
What a superbly twisted way of phrasing things to make the US spending look good!It would be far more accurate to say that the US is import dependent due to the pampered American consumer's insatiable demand for everything from fresh lettuce and tomatoes in mid-January to the latest in electronic toys ... the most stuff for the least money.
230gr replied
« Reply #2 on: March 30, 2009, 06:49:07 PM »
Americans have heard so often that they need fresh vegetables year round that they think they really do. A few generations ago, we survived quite nicely with out fresh vegetables in the winter or exotic fruits at all.
So what do you think, join us in the forum and you can voice your opinion, so your voice can be heard
http://frc4u.org/phpbb/index.php
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/5051075/A-world-currency-moves-nearer-after-Tim-Geithners-slip.html
And in another thread along the same lines in the past week, 411man started a thread called
The Drive to Abolish National Currencies
« on: March 29, 2009, 10:46:23 PM »
March 29, 2009 The Drive to Abolish National CurrenciesBy John GriffingOver the past century, a vast movement to liberalize global capital markets has been underway, with the object of increasing capital mobility to the point where sudden shifts in capital flows could have untold consequences, causing exchange rate volatility, disrupting world trade, and creating an artificial need for a common currency. This was seen with the recent implosion of the US housing market and its profound impact on foreign stock exchanges. Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands all initiated bailouts comparable to our own. In effect, the present crisis was created forthe intended solution -- a global currency that would dissolve national sovereignty. This is no longer merely an academic question. World leaders are gathering on our soil next week to urge global investors to abandon the US dollar as the preferred reserve currency in favor of an internationally traded currency unit similar to the Euro. Americans must be ready, or what has already happened in Europe will happen here. But since Americans will not adopt a unitary medium of exchange on a whim, a real or perceived need for the switch is a necessary prerequisite; hence the push to liberalize capital markets by the same individuals promoting global financial integration. It was planned that uncontrolled capital flows would eradicate the influence over national exchange rate policy of even the most potent central banks, and clinch the case for a common monetary policy. In fact, such excuses for the surrender of national sovereignty are already being practiced by the financial elite. In the May/June 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs, the flagship journal of internationalism, Benn Steil, the Director of International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, advocated the end of "monetary nationalism". Steil contends that nationhood is "the source of much of today's instability." Like other academics, Steil sees national currency as a "symbol" of national sovereignty. In reality, it is one of the most important attributes of sovereignty. President of the European Central Bank Wim Duisenberg recently said that "monetary union" must go hand in hand with "political union."In a similar vein, Zanny Minton Beddoes, the Washington Correspondent for The Economist, declared: "Over the past five years, financial turmoil has shattered the semi-fixed exchange-rate regimes that much of the developing world once favored...in the face of massive capital outflows." Beddoes continued, saying, "Countries can either allow their currencies to float or...attempt a currency union. But the muddled middle ground, so popular in the years when capital was less mobile, has been wiped out by technological innovation and policy liberalization." Indeed, the real impetus toward an international monetary regime has been in the latter category: policy-driven liberalization. This is because technological innovation can't open markets. Only policy can do that. Bi-lateral Investment Treaties are perhaps the best example of policy-driven liberalization, as they consist of a pledge to remove preference on national investors, and treat foreign investors equally. Most Bi-lateral Investment Treaties have only been signed in the last decade, growing from nearly 100 in 1995 to over 2,500 Net International Investment Position (NIIP) now stands at -$2 trillion. This means that foreigners own our GDP, and then some. A good portion of the present crisis is the result of Fed metaphorical printing of worthless dollars to "monetize" our nation's federal debt. But creating money out of nothing creates inflation, which displaces jobs, causes bubbles, and makes our creditors' investments less secure. This vicious cycle has existed since the creation of the Federal Reserve and is one of the primary causes of the Great Depression, a fact acknowledged by Chairman Ben Bernanke himself. But the lesson didn't stick. Bernanke has presided over one of the largest money pushing schemes in history, rivaling post-WWI Germany. The last year for which data are available show the Fed printing money at an annual clip of 20 percent. Additionally, as part of President Obama's fiscal bailout, the Federal Reserve is printing $2 trillion in a single year. This is significant in the context of the current move by world leaders to abandon the US Dollar, since over 40 percent of all American stocks, bonds, and securities are owned by foreign investors. Most of the world is currently dependent on exports to the United States. To prop up the world's export dependency, the US must run deficits. The debts are then balanced by selling treasury bonds and other investments to the foreign dependents, mainly China, in an arrangement referred to by economic insiders as the "balance of financial terror." The system is currently stable, but if the trend continues, the nations that benefit from our spending binge may in the long run have more dollars than they want to hold. Eventually, this could result in a massive "flight" from dollar-denominated assets, known as the "doomsday scenario". We've already been warned by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who said, "I would like to call on the United States to honor its words, stay a credible nation and ensure the safety of Chinese assets."In the eighties, former Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Robert Cooper proposed the creation of a "common currency for all the industrial democracies." Cooper mourned that "it is highly doubtful whether the American public...could ever accept that countries with oppressive autocratic regimes" should have a vote on US monetary policy. During the Clinton years, Secretary of the Treasury Lawrence H. Summers got in on the act. Summers contended that the US should emphasize "integration and public action" by "reducing national sovereignty", listing monetary union as one example. In other words, centuries' worth of hard-won independence should be surrendered because a theory of questionable validity dictates it. Summers is now one of President Obama's chief economic advisors. Former Trade Representative and current President of the World Bank Robert Zoellick believes that the present situation requires "concerted global action now, not just to deal with the crisis but to put in place new architecture, new norms and new oversight to ensure that this crisis never happens again." According to Zoellick, the problem "has been a manmade catastrophe and responses to overcome it lie in all our hands." The common currency movement is gaining momentum. China's central bank chief yesterday posted an essay on the People's Bank of China website arguing for an end to "credit-based national currencies". Chairman Alan Greenspan is urging OPEC nations, large holders of American debt, to abandon the Dollar for a regional currency. Behind many a political solution is a manufactured crisis. The engineered capital crisis is no different. In short, our nation's financial elites know all too well that globalization, liberalization, and integration are merely the tools being used to facilitate the consolidation of all political and economic power in the hands of an unaccountable world conglomerate, whose designs are not yet visible. http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/..._national.html
Ozarks_1 replied
"...Most of the world is currently dependent on exports to the United States. To prop up the world's export dependency, the US must run deficits." http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/..._national.html
What a superbly twisted way of phrasing things to make the US spending look good!It would be far more accurate to say that the US is import dependent due to the pampered American consumer's insatiable demand for everything from fresh lettuce and tomatoes in mid-January to the latest in electronic toys ... the most stuff for the least money.
230gr replied
« Reply #2 on: March 30, 2009, 06:49:07 PM »
Americans have heard so often that they need fresh vegetables year round that they think they really do. A few generations ago, we survived quite nicely with out fresh vegetables in the winter or exotic fruits at all.
So what do you think, join us in the forum and you can voice your opinion, so your voice can be heard
http://frc4u.org/phpbb/index.php
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