worried

[elcheapo]

Hello all.  Hope you did the right thing or valentines day.....if not.....it's going to be an even longer year than what it is

looking like.

I spent the afternoon reviewing "stuff".....from mad money to the motly fool, to several other places i read.....

then reviewed some ag data......

was at a birthday party/ valintines party last night.....enjoyed visting with people...although some were a few years younger

than myself......

one thing of interest.....talk was, there are no american brewery's of any size anymore....about the only thing left is

samual adams brewing.......bud...nope, not american, coors/ millers, nope, alot of the others, nope, ownership is

now over seas.......

read one view that we will be seeing gas under $1 per gallon.........rememember that.......(i perhaps should say, remember

having hair ?)

looked at some other other numbers, although, pickups are selling better than cars (new), the best market are mini vans,

up by 27%......and yet last year, dodge said it was going to quit making the caravan.....if i was guessing, one of the

best selling units around.

looked at the markets.......nothing no better there......no carry, no weather premium anywhere...except a little in wheat.

after a number of meetings, i'm hearing several ideas on this years wx......seems like some are saying rain this

spring, slow going in, then we turn up the heat and no rain........will these new "drought guard" corns save us ?

i've also been watching the house/ real estate markets in several cities...not because i think it is a pure economic

info, but general interest in those cities for a couple of reasons.....amazing, the house prices are going up and things

are moving.

also looks like some soft stuff in land prices.

ok.........i'll get to the point......i i'm worried........if we get fuel to less than a dollar, may change interest rates to

"negative",  stock market down........just what else can we do to jump start the economy ?  the halmark of the

economic base was fuel prices....it was the oil keeping the economy greased up to work well......we are very cheap now,

and seems, things are not getting better.....how low must we go to make things better ?

interest rates.......so low.......but what is the nail in the coffin........while rates might be almost zero......now we have

credit tighting......the is counter productive.....how does it help the economy if we don't lend it out ?

i'm hearing rumors ag money is getting tight

looked at two biggest package movers, who should be really happy with low fuel prices......ups and fed ex.....their socks

are down !!!

we are exporting our ownership, and our production overseas.....dare i say........DEERE is even there......

we don't even own our beer companies !!!!

there is all this talk about college education, free education, etc......why......we no longer have industry.....we have

paper pushers.  I have a friend that is an economist......he says REAL wealth is "making something".....you have a factory

raw items go in one end, and other the other, value increaded...wealth is created.....today, we are paper pushers,

cubicle people.....tho we are educated, we are not making anything.....thusly, no wealth.

we have put the idea in everyones head, this is not a place to make a success, export everything.....our jobs,

our industry, our ownership....even our crops........what is left ?

just a bunch of robots......

frankly, i don't see if there is a way to fix things......it used to be if we got america working again, building, creating, we

primed the pump........

but today........there is NOTHING

no more factorys, etc.....etc......

i've not been this worried for quite some time.

and it don't look better.

sorry......this valentines day........my "heart" just aint in it this year.

[BA Deere]

The problem is, the United States has carried the rest of the world on our backs.  We`ve been the world`s policeman, we`ve taught the world to farm, we`ve bailed them out of natural disasters, we`ve given foreign aid, we`ve moved our factories overseas to their countries so they can have jobs, we`ve taken their refugees, we`ve borrowed them money and are the world`s willing whipping boy running trade deficits. 

In the 80`s a older farmer set up his son and son inlaw farming and they all 3 went broke.  What he learned was you can set up one kid farming, but two kids break you.  Well, now you`re lucky to not go broke yourself, but that`s what the United States has done in carrying the world on our back..we just can`t do it.   Here`s how basically we are all suposed to "do our parts" and lower our standards of living.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBE0RKbRbl4  

Carrier air conditioners are moving to Mexico, just like Cummins oil filters around here did...I don`t know when we will learn.  The only sane way out is to slap a tariff on these goods when they come back into this country.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/trump-tax-carrier-air-conditioning-units-moving-mexico-055953482.html 

We are addicted to the Keynesian system where "deficits don`t matter"..well you know there is a point where deficits certainly do matter and I think we are finding exactly where that point is.  The Fed will come to the realization that the last card to play is to print our way out of this...it won`t work, that`s why they want to make sure it is their very last option.  But when the day comes that the dollar is cut in half, then grain will get the bump, however things that we import will be crazy high.  It might go on longer than we think before we get to that point.  

[Red Steele]

a couple of observations.

one, ag money is definiately tight...was in a local bank and a farm family was in an adjacent room with a loan officer...all the doors were open so at least 40 people in the bank could hear what was going on....and the loan officer was letting the farmers know that the high priced rents showing on their cash flows were NOT going to work...this is like two weeks before the rents are due.

My guess is that everything was intentional...news travels fast and it was probably all done that way to get the word out. BUt, if that is the case, there is still a lot of shifting and re-aligning to do in the ag rental markets in short order.

Two, I know of several parties that are trying to ditch land bought or refinanced at higher prices and the market will only absorb so much without more down pressure than already exists. Hang on to your hat if you are in those markets.

Three.....the deal about printing our way out of national debt....slim chances of that happening without triggering WW III. THe foreign creditors don't want any further depreciation on their US currency holdings and will respond in short order...we already showed that our military has severe limitations and no one is going to give us a free pass short of us launching nukes to defend the dollar and maybe Trump or some other nationalist is prepared to do that...I doubt it.

Four....Hope you all enjoyed Valentines Day as much as I did...took off half of the day to spend with my kids and lovely wife and even had a rare beer. When it's all said and done, the times you spend with your loved ones trump everything else.

[Blacksandfarmer]

Elcheapo, I'm not a beer drinker but we lots of small breweries popping up all over southern Michigan.