Ka-Poom Theory Update Two – Preamble: Theory of a Sudden Adjustment - Eric Janszen

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Ka-Poom Theory Update Two – Preamble: Theory of a Sudden Adjustment

... From a more reliable source, land used for grazing and croplands (agriculture) in the United States exceeds 45 percent.

That makes sense intuitively. The true sandy deserts won't graze or grow (awfully dry scrub land will support light grazing), same with the steepest and stoniest mountains. Most of the rest of the US is good for agriculture, except the portion we've paved.

I would believe the lower figure (20%) if they mean "currently in use", rather than "suitable for use".

[Verrocchio]

Re: Ka-Poom Theory Update Two – Preamble: Theory of a Sudden Adjustment

Only about 10 to 15 percent of the land in China is good for agriculture (compared to 1 percent in Saudi Arabia, 50 percent in India, 20 percent in the United States, and 32 percent in France).

The percentage of agricultural land for the US is way off, throwing doubt on the accuracy of the other statistics. From a more reliable source, land used for grazing and croplands (agriculture) in the United States exceeds 45 percent.

Major Uses of Land in the United States, 2002


By Ruben N. Lubowski, Marlow Vesterby, Shawn Bucholtz, Alba Baez, and Michael J. Roberts
Economic Information Bulletin No. (EIB-14) 54 pp, May 2006
This publication presents the results of the latest (2002) inventory of U.S. major land uses, drawing on data from the Census, public land management and conservation agencies, and other sources. The data are synthesized by State to calculate the use of several broad classes and subclasses of agricultural and nonagricultural land over time. The United States has a total land area of nearly 2.3 billion acres. Major uses in 2002 were forest-use land, 651 million acres (28.8 percent); grassland pasture and range land, 587 million acres (25.9 percent); cropland, 442 million acres (19.5 percent); special uses (primarily parks and wildlife areas), 297 million acres (13.1 percent); miscellaneous other uses, 228 million acres (10.1 percent); and urban land, 60 million acres (2.6 percent). National and regional trends in land use are discussed in comparison with earlier major land-use estimates.

[necron99]

Re: Ka-Poom Theory Update Two – Preamble: Theory of a Sudden Adjustment

EJ:

I have the benefit of years of experience as CEO of companies to help. As CEO of a company you have to abstract yourself from the equation. Your role is to look after this entity, this person, the company. You have to be able to decide to do things that may not be beneficial to you personally that are good for the company. In fact every decision you make is made on the basis of what’s the good of the company to the point where you have to willing to go to your board and say, “I’m not the right person to run this company anymore. The company had grown to outstrip my skill set,” if that is your belief. It’s quite unlike any other job in that respect.

Oh dear, it's taken me 45 minutes to stop laughing so hard that I couldn't type. Yes, EJ, that's the theory, but ...[present company excepted] I'm hard pressed to name many modern examples. Although I'm sure there are a few out there somewhere.

Contrast with:

"When I was an activist in the seventies, I thought the main thing wrong with corporate capitalism was its excessive preoccupation with profit. Now I go to companies and say, 'Losing this fight would be enormously more profitable for you than winning it.' Yet they continue to fight. Usually it’s corporate executives protecting their ego.

For example, I worked on a case where activists were demanding a company install a $60 million piece of equipment ... but the law was on the activists’ side. I tried to sell the management on giving the environmental group a different win, ...but less expensive and better for the environment. But the executive I was working with didn’t want to lose any fights. At one point I said, 'If you keep doing this, you’re going to wind up installing the $60 million piece of equipment.' And he said, 'I would rather waste $60 million than hand these sons of bitches victory on a silver platter.'

This sort of thing was surprising to me the first twenty times it happened. Now I find it almost reassuring. The kind of human frailties we come to expect in each other, we ought to expect in CEOs."

-- Peter Sandman, corporate negotiator
.

[metalman]

Re: Ka-Poom Theory Update Two – Preamble: Theory of a Sudden Adjustment

I've seen reports saying that young Chinese today do not work as farmers. Which is quite reasonable, would you expect single childs to work as farmer? They don't even wash their own cups at home! The US isn't the biggest food exporter and China is the biggest food importer for no good reason.

to your point...

AGRICULTURE IN CHINA



Only about 10 to 15 percent of the land in China is good for agriculture (compared to 1 percent in Saudi Arabia, 50 percent in India, 20 percent in the United States, and 32 percent in France). There is 545,960 square kilometers of irrigated land in China. Forty percent of China’s crop land is irrigated, compared to 23 percent in India. The average yield per acre in China is double that of India.

China feeds 22 percent of the world population with only 10 percent of the planet's arable land. Land is heavily utilized for agriculture. Vegetables are planted on road embankments, in traffic triangles and right up the walls of many buildings. Even so since 1949 China has lost one fifth of its arable land.

China is the world’s top consumer of meat and grain. As it becomes more affluent people consume more meat and cooking oil and this has lead to increased demand for soybeans as an oil source and feed for livestock. China also uses more fertilizer that any other country.

David Pierson wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “In contrast to large, highly mechanized American farms, a typical Chinese farm is less than an acre in size and worked by hand. It's a legacy of communist reform, when the state seized control of China's farmland and subdivided it into tiny plots. Although this system has kept rural dwellers employed, it has slowed China's ability to boost their incomes.

The autumn harvest typically accounts for three quarters of total grain production. China has had strong grain harvests from 2005 to 2010. Grain harvests in 2009 were a record 530.82 million tons.China The harvest was about 510 million tons in 2007. Grain production dropped from 512 million tons in 1998 to 430 million tons in 2003 and increased to 470 million tons in 2004 and 484 million tons in 2005 thanks to favorable weather and incentive to farmers. In 1993 China produced 440 million tons of wheat, rice and other grains.

Improved farming policies and technologies have given China a high level of self-sufficiency and growth. But the country's top economic planning body warned that this would be hard to maintain. The lack of farm subsidies and expropriation of farmland for urban construction has crippled agriculture. As more farmers move to the cities, lured by better housing, education and other incentives, maintaining the food supply becomes more tenuous. One Chine agriculture expert told The Guardian, “‘We cannot be complacent. We know supply-and-demand is vulnerable. We have a forced balance now that requires strong intervention by the government. This is a tense balance that can be easily broken.’

http://factsanddetails.com/china.php...=9&subcatid=63

[touchring]

Re: Ka-Poom Theory Update Two – Preamble: Theory of a Sudden Adjustment

Not even close:

[/B]

I've seen reports saying that young Chinese today do not work as farmers. Which is quite reasonable, would you expect single childs to work as farmer? They don't even wash their own cups at home! The US isn't the biggest food exporter and China is the biggest food importer for no good reason.

[touchring]

Re: Ka-Poom Theory Update Two – Preamble: Theory of a Sudden Adjustment

The reality of people dying young in China after a decade of breathing in smog filled air, eating antibiotic and growth hormone and pesticide laden fruits, fish, meats and milk is not a health disaster. China does not have a Western socialist health care system or America halfway Medicare system. There is no cost to state of losing these ‘old’, likely manual labourers, after they have worked their best years. There are no years of expensive drugs to extend life to pay for for 10, 20, 30+ years. No OAP retirement homes to fund. No taxes extracted from its citizens and promises of future payments made that somehow have to be met. Be it good or bad China does not need to bribe its citizens to vote for it by borrowing money and handing it out.

I wanted to reply Techdread on this, but the problem is that pollution makes you sick, unable to breathe properly and unable to work, but you will still live quite long. To prove the point, many smokers live till their 80s and some even to their 90s.

[Chomsky]

Re: Ka-Poom Theory Update Two – Preamble: Theory of a Sudden Adjustment

Perhaps the Chinese population will shrink but isn't China still about 80% rural peasant farmers?

Not even close:

Urbanization in the People's Republic of China increased in speed following the initiation of the reform and opening policy. By the end of 2011, the mainland of the People's Republic of China had a total urban population of 691 million or 51.3% of the total population, rising from 26% in 1990.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_in_China

[bungee]

Re: Ka-Poom Theory Update Two – Preamble: Theory of a Sudden Adjustment

This is a world of relativity. The US is in bad shape, but Europe is worst. Europe is terrible, but China is even worst.

Owing to the decades old single child policy, China is starting to shrink by 2015. Not to mention the looming catastrophic health disaster after a decade of breathing in smog filled air, eating antibiotic and growth hormone and pesticide laden fruits, fish, meats and milk!

Perhaps the Chinese population will shrink but isn't China still about 80% rural peasant farmers? That is an awful lot of people that can be brought into the cities and economic use and benefit from the increase in living standards. However bad you think life is working in a Chinese factory clearly it must be better than being a peasant farmer living off the land and hoping your crops will provide enough food for the year probably with minimal access to even basic healthcare.

I don’t see any way for western counties to avoid their population fall other than the current solution of sucking in more immigrants which only seems to displace their own young from jobs which they end up paying benefits to not work. As mad as paying half your farmers not to plant anything and subsidising the other half to spray the crops with pesticides and fertilisers to grow twice as much.

The reality of people dying young in China after a decade of breathing in smog filled air, eating antibiotic and growth hormone and pesticide laden fruits, fish, meats and milk is not a health disaster. China does not have a Western socialist health care system or America halfway Medicare system. There is no cost to state of losing these ‘old’, likely manual labourers, after they have worked their best years. There are no years of expensive drugs to extend life to pay for for 10, 20, 30+ years. No OAP retirement homes to fund. No taxes extracted from its citizens and promises of future payments made that somehow have to be met. Be it good or bad China does not need to bribe its citizens to vote for it by borrowing money and handing it out.

My way of thinking about countries is to imagine they are people. Do you want to be the person with increasing life expectancy, savings in the bank, world class education but living in a low class neighbourhood that is moving upwards or the person who life expectancy has plateaued and trails others (and is maybe even falling), who’s schools are stuck between creationism or Darwinism and Maths and Science play second to Celebrity and Media, has enormous credit card debts and who neighbourhood is declining?

To me China has the can do will do attitude while the West has the life is comfortable thank you, I don’t need to bother attitude.

[Chris Coles]

Re: Ka-Poom Theory Update Two – Preamble: Theory of a Sudden Adjustment

I really like the electrical fuse analogy, complete with warm wires until wires melt. A very effective analogy to help people understand how an overload can go on and grow, until a limit is reached and the house goes dark.

Personally, it was the images of fallen trees from excessive snow. Last year we had the coldest winter on record; this year we are experiencing summer temperatures mid March. I remain convinced that the weather may become the "trigger" for the wires melting in the house.

[jk]

Re: Ka-Poom Theory Update Two – Preamble: Theory of a Sudden Adjustment

I know it sounds callous, but is that not one of the big problems of western societies namely their citizens not dying early/before retirement.

the cigarette companies made the same argument re social security and medicare when there were hearings on the health costs of tobacco.

[Techdread]

Re: Ka-Poom Theory Update Two – Preamble: Theory of a Sudden Adjustment

This is a world of relativity. The US is in bad shape, but Europe is worst. Europe is terrible, but China is even worst.

Owing to the decades old single child policy, China is starting to shrink by 2015. Not to mention the looming catastrophic health disaster after a decade of breathing in smog filled air, eating antibiotic and growth hormone and pesticide laden fruits, fish, meats and milk!

I know it sounds callous, but is that not one of the big problems of western societies namely their citizens not dying early/before retirement.

[touchring]

Re: Ka-Poom Theory Update Two – Preamble: Theory of a Sudden Adjustment

This is a world of relativity. The US is in bad shape, but Europe is worst. Europe is terrible, but China is even worst.

Owing to the decades old single child policy, China is starting to shrink by 2015. Not to mention the looming catastrophic health disaster after a decade of breathing in smog filled air, eating antibiotic and growth hormone and pesticide laden fruits, fish, meats and milk!

[RTQ]

Re: Ka-Poom Theory Update Two – Preamble: Theory of a Sudden Adjustment

I really like the electrical fuse analogy, complete with warm wires until wires melt. A very effective analogy to help people understand how an overload can go on and grow, until a limit is reached and the house goes dark.

[davidstvz]

Re: Ka-Poom Theory Update Two – Preamble: Theory of a Sudden Adjustment

I saw that as well. Looks like it was corrected to year-2000 price levels

[ddn3f]

Re: Ka-Poom Theory Update Two – Preamble: Theory of a Sudden Adjustment

"I still expect a price correction to reach inflation-adjusted 2006 price levels before the housing correction is over."

Is that correct? Reach inflation-adjusted 2006 price levels?