patrick.net

I would like to argue that storing food in premature. But, it always pays to be prudent. However, we are really no where near this.
At this point we need to only pay attention to emplyment numbers. If we start seeing massive job loss, then it is time to lay in supplies.
I am talking numbers like 10% (now at 6.1%).

Log time lurker... first post.

I just wanted to jump in on the food supply issue, since I work of a frozen veggie importer. 99% of our suppliers are outside of the US. I am fairly deep inside the food distribution industry.

At this moment I am seeing zero problems with transportation or distribution. The ports are all open. Trucks are still picking up and delivering open orders. Manufacturing sites are still manufacturing. The foods is still flowing (at least the frozen food is).

The trucks will only stop running when they can no longer put diesel in their tanks. That will happen if enough of the customers can no longer pay them and/or the fuel credit card becomes unusable. So far that has not happened yet.

Most payment terms between trucks and their customers are between 15-30 days, so it is probably a little early to tell if lack of cash/credit is going to cripple transportation. So far all is fine.

Thanks damenace!

Monterey was once one of the biggest sardine producers in the world.

Was.

But I love sardines.

The business talking heads are trying to panick people into buying. Saying you will never see these kind of valuations again.
Hmm.
Limited upside.
Tremendous downside risk.
Who are they kidding?

The Mercury laden tuna? or the mercury free edition?

http://www.fishscam.com/

Fishing tackle is still relatively cheap. Maybe a time to buy shares in tackle companies?

Not investment or fishing advice.

Sardines are best grilled and drizzled with olive oil.

I have seen them fresh in some grocery stores. Otherwise, I like Crown Prince canned sardine.

Which flavor do you prefer?

These guys have relatively cheap prices www.blueflycafe.com Forget Orvis they want too much for their stuff.

Yum! Need to stock up on Crown Prince sardines.

"The Mercury laden tuna? or the mercury free edition?"

Toxic poisoning from "red tide" domoic acid is a far bigger risk. I know that from working at a marine mammal hospital; it travels up the food chain into fish and ultimately seals. On the west coast, mercury poisoning risk is greatest from lake fish where natural mercury is present. There is also some mercury remaining in the SF Bay due to gold ore extraction processes.

Yep, we got dried fruits and nuts.

* How should we secure our food source?
* How should we protect our physical safety?
* How do we thrive?

I am an optimist and would rather go straight to point 3. I would start looking at good companies and wait for valuations to get real. This is not the end of the world. Oil is crashing, gas could be cheaper. This would be good for US & world economy (excluding oil rich economies: who cares anyway about them). I would say to OPEC to not bother meeting and trying to keep prices higher. Nobody cares about oil Period.

This forum has been great in being realistic about downside to economy. I strongly believe stock mkt is adjusting to realities. It's good to buy some insurance to worst case scenario, not prudent to be entirely thinking about worst case scenario.

I hope folks on this forum will not panic and lose out on possible opportunities that might be coming up.

my 0.002 cents

The Four Horsemen of the Housing Apocalypse
One Year (Are we there yet?) Anniversary Edition: updated with references to financial instruments of mass destruction

And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, David Lereah saying, Come and see.
And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had The Exemption; and two hundred fifty thousand dollars was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.
And when he had opened the second seal, I heard Lew Ranieri say, Come and see.
And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him to securitize mortgages, and that they should leverage CDOs: and there was given unto him a great sword called the credit default swap.
And when he had opened the third seal, I heard Robert Shiller say, Come and see. And I beheld, and saw a black horse; and he that sat on him had the Fed funds rate in his hand.
And I heard Alan Greenspan in the midst of the National Association of Realtors say, a measure of abundant liquidity for a penny, and three measures of low risk premiums for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the gold.
And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of Chris Thornberg say, Come and see.
And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Fraud, and Casey Serin followed with him. And power was given unto them over multiple primary residences, to inflate with false appraisals, and with negative amortization, and with no money down, and with low initial rates.

Peter, don’t tell me youre a mustard sauce man…

I do like the mustard sauce. :)

What is happening in gold?

Hey, this may sound crazy, but I would like to here some opinionsI have no credit card debt and no saving outside of an IRA rollover.
I have 30k in available credit on one card. The credit card company will let me write a check and put the 30k in my bank account for 3% fee and I pay 3% interest until Dec 2009. Why would I even consider this? Well I worry what will I do if things get much worse and I have no cash? I have a good job in For Profit Education, so I am as protected by the larger economic disaster as one can be, but still I am worried and trying to work out whether I should pay 6% a year (or less) on 30k just to have the security of knowing it is sitting in the bank. I am also paying as I go for a PhD...I don't need to share how f'ing expensive that is!

Am I crazy to even coonsider this?

Is Campbell's Soup still a good investment?

figalito, forget it.

Peter, I think we're seeing deflationary expectations at work. Gold will drop with everything else. Of course, when the government comes out with their next massive bailout, it will pop back up, while the stocks will be a dead cat.

Not investment advice.
I do not own dead cats.

Is Campbell’s Soup still a good investment?

I bought a whole case of chicken noodle soup.

tend to think were going to have the appearance of deflation followed by a total annihilation of the dollar.

I think it is the other way around: massive reflation efforts, followed by inflation, then deflation.

Peter, I think we’re seeing deflationary expectations at work.

The movements look like something else. It opened high, then dropped slightly when Dow made the first dive. Later, it went down 8%?

how in the world will we ever service our $10T of national debt?

Just depreciate it 1T to 1 (Yugoslavia?) and any one of us can pay off the national debt. Hyperinflation! :)

figalito:

Don't. I worked at MBNA, and they pioneered this "drop it in your account and get arbitrage profits" stuff. Problem was, by maxing your credit line, you pushed yourself automatically into their "risk" category, and when the teaser came off, you'd get nailed for a risky rate (up to 29.95% last I was there si years ago.) Push comes to shove, most people don't have the discipline not to use the money, and then they have you over a barrell. I dealt with the calls from the "Close my card" crowd who realized they'd been paying a jacked rate for months which more than made up for the promo rate. Besides the fees.

You'd be falling for the same schtick that has the Sub-primers in deep doo-doo.

Am I crazy to even consider this?
FWIW, I am in totally different circumstances, but consider myself "cash poor" and am considering drawing on a HELOC (IO at, I think, prime) to buttress an emergency fund. Some 1 year CDs are at 4%, so you'd be paying only 2% to have the cash on hand. Just make sure you don't get hosed on the terms from your CC company if you decide to go that route. NIA.

Oh, and since they got the new Bakruptcy laws passed, if you default, they can garnish. After conning you into $30,000 when you just wanted to change your mailing address.

Slime.

MST,
Did you work in Maine? Just saw a Nightline a couple of weeks ago with a couple who used to work for them talking about all of
MBNA's wonderful business practices.

Ooh, I love herring! Best with boiled potato.

But I can only eat so much herring before getting tired of it.

Rockland "Retention." My wife was in Camden "Activation." She'd load 'em up with the 0%s, six months later I'd take the punitive rates off when they called to complain. MBNA didn't like me much, cause I gave away the farm, and I sucked at conning them into reloading whatever space was left on their cards.

Are they good?

I predict large donations of surplus canned food to the food banks come Christmas.

LOL!! I agree.

If we start seeing massive job loss, then it is time to lay in supplies.
I am talking numbers like 10% (now at 6.1%).

10% is Germany's chronic unemployment number.

Did we have food shortages during the Great Depression? Unemployment was at 25% then.

BTW EBGuy:

Consider this complete confirmation of the Nightline report. My wife worked with Cate Colombo in Camden.

how in the world will we ever service our $10T of national debt?

By working it off. Taxes will increase while government services will decrease. Look for reduced "entitlements," including welfare and military/civil service benefits. Look for a sharp decrease in our overseas bases. We may even see a tax based on savings account balances.

All this effort will just pay off a small portion in the nominal debt. We will thus be under a lower standard of living while a 2-3% long term inflation whithers the actual debt. We are talking about a century.

It is like the fellow who uses credit to acquire sports cars, tony condos, and related bling. He amasses so much debt by the time he is 35 that he will not have a positive net worth until he is 60.

HeadSet,

IMO, availability of food is not going to be a problem. The problem will be whether you can afford food or not. Food has been very inexpensive for a long time and has only recently start to rise in price. The cost of fuel, fertilizers, feed and demand for acreage has been the real reason food has risen so dramatically at the supermarket.

Believe it or not, we are about to see a surplus of food available and that is going to drive the cost down. Oil is down so it will be cheaper to deliver it and there is a glut of some commodities (I only know frozen... not grains, rice, potatoes etc.) available in warehouses across the country. Manufacturers are cutting their production and there is a lot of pressure to turn sitting inventories into cash.

A much more serious problem would be the inability to get food to distribution centers like supermarkets and food service distributors. That could happen when fuel becomes unavailable. Unless there is a worldwide fuel shortage, distribution of food is safe. That is why it is absolutley critical that this nation (and the world) seriously solves the alternative energy puzzle immediately. If there is no fuel our entire food distribution system collapses and you better be living close to good agricultural land or you are going to starve. (Hello Las Vegas and Pheonix)

WOW, Dow! What happened at 3:00 EST?

That's one hell of a PPT!

Believe it or not, we are about to see a surplus of food available and that is going to drive the cost down

I have no trouble believing that. Las Vegas and Phoenix may not have the problems with distance from farmland. It may be that the inefficient truck based delivery will be replaced by rail.

HeadSet,

The US rail system has horribly poor infastructure at the moment. They mostly run on diesel too, BTW.

A 3 day truck trip could end up as a 14 day rail trip. Also, unless your warehouse has a rail connection you need diesel to get from the rail yard to your warehouse.

A significant amount of capital to update our rail system would be a significant improvement.