Agriculture / Organic Farming
Showing 3251 - 2 of 2
February 10, 2015
This is partially one of those "backlash" editorials, designed to take a countervailing position in order to stimulate our sense of inquiry. That's what we read editorials for, editors like to believe. In a sense, it harkens back to 20th century memes having to ...
February 10, 2015
In American culture there is one persistent villain portrayed as the enemy of humanity, the perpetrator of deception, and the agent for social corruption and human harm: the businessman. Whether in news commentaries or on the movie screen, the businessman is pr ...
February 09, 2015
We've been writing about this race to the bottom for months now. From our point of view, it seems like a kind of directed history. First, central bankers announce the specter of deflation and then they gradually take steps to combat it. They also announce that ...
February 09, 2015
This article from Martin Armstrong is a timely reminder that cross-border protections are getting stronger not weaker. We've estimated in the past that within two years time it will be significantly more difficult to get funds in and out of the US. Armstrong ha ...
February 09, 2015
If I were still a practicing ob-gyn and one of my patients said she was not going to vaccinate her child, I might try to persuade her to change her mind. But, if I were unsuccessful, I would respect her decision. I certainly would not lobby the government to pa ...
February 08, 2015
I think we just need a little more time for things to gain momentum on the federal level. The National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA) and the Marijuana Industry Group (MIG) both bring an incredible amount of credibility and organization to this effort. Wi ...
February 07, 2015
A recent Reuters editorial asks, "Is Jeb Bush just another 'big government' liberal?" The article then goes on to discuss the differences between the "liberal" and GOP conservatives. This is an interesting analysis but I will try to show that it leaves out a th ...
February 06, 2015
Is this a dance between the EU and Greece, designed to yield tension, headlines and ultimately resolution? Or is it a legitimate unraveling of the EU's program? Once again, the world waits and watches while powerful government officials bargain over national an ...
February 06, 2015
In the other article in this issue, we've analyzed the dialectic now taking hold between Greece and the EU. We pointed out that the EU may be trying to control negotiations as best it can but that these negotiations are disruptive nonetheless and presumably the ...
February 05, 2015
The suit is settled and presumably it's back to business as normal for S&P. The ratings agency stood accused of providing too-rosy ratings in order to gain clients. Of course, S&P was not the only agency to provide ratings that looked overly optimistic after th ...
February 05, 2015
Not long ago, cannabis was generally illegal and you could go to jail for a long time by smoking it. But now with legalization and decriminalization taking place in the US and elsewhere, cannabis is being touted as a government money spinner. In the case of Col ...
February 05, 2015
The political sociologist C. Wright Mills (1916-1962) coined a new term, The Power Elite, through the title of his popular 1956 book. The term described the relationships of power between people who occupied leadership positions in three key segments of society ...
February 04, 2015
The US economy is making a comeback but not for individuals. This article in Al Jazeera, a quasi-mainstream publication, provides us with these insights. The article is written by David Cay Johnston, an award-winning investigative reporter who recently produced ...
February 04, 2015
We recently pointed out in an article – "Grexit: The Footsteps Grow Louder ... Could the EU Blow Apart?" – that Germans might be very unhappy with a rescheduling of Greek debt. But that looks like what is happening. The proximate mechanism is a proposal by ...
February 04, 2015
Americans love their reality TV shows – the drama, the insults, the bullying, the callousness, the damaged relationships delivered through the lens of a surveillance camera – and there's no shortage of such dehumanizing spectacles to be found on or off scre ...
February 03, 2015
This article is in line with what we've forecast in the past regarding regulation and asset expansions. When markets crash, it is easy to create regulations to "address" the perceived problem. In fact, legislators often don't know or understand the problem, but ...
February 03, 2015
Despite both a US and global movement toward legalizing cannabis, or at least decriminalizing medical cannabis, there hasn't been a lot of personalized political conversation. Yet it is often such anecdotal conversations that help create a dialectic to begin wi ...
February 03, 2015
Seventy years ago, during the week of February 4-11, 1945, the most momentous conference of the Second World War was held at Yalta in the Crimea between Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin. Their decisions have affected much of the world ...
February 02, 2015
There are no easy answers here now that the Greek Syriza government has been elected and made it clear (at least so far) that it will not continue down the road that Greece is supposedly – lawfully – bound to travel. A previous administration signed on to a ...
February 02, 2015
The recent verbal confrontation between McCain and members (in particular) of the activist group Code Pink illustrates how the Internet works. We are reminded again why isolation and ridicule of target groups is often counter-productive in the 21st century. McC ...
February 02, 2015
Last September President Obama cited his drone program in Yemen as a successful model of US anti-terrorism strategy. He said that he would employ the Yemen model in his effort to "degrade and ultimately destroy" ISIS in Iraq and Syria. But just a week ago, the ...
February 01, 2015
The biggest issue facing the Western world today is "counterfeit money." Central bankers are doing exactly what mafia dons are thrown in jail for doing, namely creating counterfeit money. They create money out of nothing, which then is multiplied many times ove ...
January 31, 2015
We read on Bloomberg that central bankers ought to get together to create a new Plaza Accord, similar to the one that formally devalued the US dollar back in the mid-1980s relative to a number of countries, most notably Japan. Of course, central bank activities ...
January 30, 2015
One way to look at this move is to see it as a benefit for both publications. That's because there is not a lot of difference between Bloomberg and The Economist when it comes to editorial direction. Bloomberg is in a sense relentlessly authoritarian and so is ...
January 30, 2015
Indian tribes are taking swift steps to involve themselves in cannabis cultivation and marketing. This takes place following regulatory and business advances that have made the Native American entrée increasingly feasible. The Daily Bell previously reported on ...
January 30, 2015
For a century and a half, the idea of secession has been systematically demonized among the American public. The government schools spin fairy tales about the "indivisible Union" and the wise statesmen who fought to preserve it. Decentralization is portrayed as ...
January 30, 2015
The History channel's new miniseries, "Sons of Liberty," will anger the purists and the prudes. But it will delight the swashbuckler in the rest of us. It is a big, bodacious screening with superb production values that covers the lead-up years to the American ...
January 29, 2015
Here is a good example of how top financial execs try to make sure "no crisis goes to waste." In the recent past, especially, we've been explaining how the EU's foundering – along with the euro – was actually part of a larger, hush-hush strategic plan. Carn ...
January 29, 2015
So now there is peak food. From the standpoint of farming and food production, peak food is probably good news. Prices will go up; demand will rise. It will surely become a self-fulfilling prophecy. But is it true? We tend to think at a fundamental level peak f ...
January 29, 2015
A prominent difference between the 19th-century libertarian movement and the contemporary one lies in their attitudes toward working people. These are people who are not primarily interested in reading economic or political theory, but who focus their energies ...
January 28, 2015
We find this analysis questionable, indeed. Our favorite Bloomberg columnist, Noah Smith, has decided that the first 10 years of the century were hell, but apparently the five thereafter registered significant improvements. In other words, things are getting be ...
January 28, 2015
This article at CNN makes the point that organic foods are increasingly preferable because of the amount of herbicides the EPA is allowing in and on food-crops. We are beginning to see a dialectic here between "organic" and "Big Ag" crops. Big Ag uses herbicide ...
January 28, 2015
Roughly 1500 kids are tied up or locked down every day by school officials in the United States. At least 500 students are locked up in some form of solitary confinement every day, whether it be a padded room, a closet or a duffel bag. In many cases, parents ar ...
January 27, 2015
Is the campaign for a North American Union officially underway with this editorial appearing in CNN? Certainly conspiracy theorists might be justified in thinking so. For years, more than a decade, some have suspected that powerful bureaucracies in North Americ ...
January 27, 2015
Over a year ago, we reported that the cannabis industry was poised for a powerful industrial takeoff, and now this article – and others like it – confirm what we believed. This is no aberration. Over the next months and years there will be considerable addi ...
January 27, 2015
The European Central Bank has announced its intention to create out of thin air over one trillion new euros from March 2015 to September 2016. The rationale, the monetary central planners say, is to prevent price deflation and "stimulate" the European economy i ...
January 26, 2015
Every mainstream endorsement can be followed by an alternative point of view, carefully crafted. We call this the dialectic, and sometimes the points of view surprise us with their accuracy. Economics writer Liam Halligan provides us, above, with a counterpoint ...
January 26, 2015
Is this for real? India is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, as well as one of the most populous. If India is the second most trusted nation in the world, then God help the others. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about India: A study conducted by ...
January 26, 2015
This week, events around the country will highlight the importance of parental control of education as part of National School Choice Week. This year's events should attract more attention than prior years because of the growing rebellion against centralized ed ...
January 26, 2015
Not in America or Europe - When the former Goldman Sachs executive who runs the European Central Bank (ECB) announced that he was going to print 720 billion euros annually with which to purchase bad debts from the politically connected big banks, the euro sank ...
January 25, 2015
Economic policy determines the wealth and poverty of nations … The fundamental cause of a nation's economic fate is not to be found in geography, or resource abundance, but in the ideas and institutions that define that system. Private property, freedom of tr ...
January 24, 2015
We've been covering the Economic Forum in Davos from the standpoint of its "mood" ... which is said to be distinctly downbeat this time around. But I want to comment on notable speeches being presented by various august personages. First up is Bill Gates who ac ...
January 23, 2015
The "big brains" gathered in Davos are mostly successful in material terms and powerful from the standpoint of our modern economic system. But in the early 21st century, these attributes may prove ephemeral. And that's probably the reason for the gloom that is ...
January 23, 2015
The drumbeat advocating additional sanctions against Putin and Russia is evident in this Bloomberg "editors" editorial. It is this attitude that will support a continuance of the Ukraine standoff. From what we can tell, the episode was initiated by the West to ...
January 23, 2015
Dictionaries broadly define a safe haven as a place of refuge or sanctuary. I'm using the term to describe a hoped for place of security if a future catastrophe should take place. Possibilities include a major natural disaster, the coming end of the forced petr ...
January 22, 2015
We never believed the Fed would tighten. And we don't. Not really. We've regularly made statements to that effect. If Fed officials do "tighten" – we figure they'll find some other way to loosen. The money printing goes on. And now here come reports to the ef ...
January 22, 2015
A judge is about to rule on the dangers of cannabis and the ruling may well contradict the federal DEA when it comes to sustaining the position that it is as dangerously addictive as heroin. But there is a larger issue here, which is how fedgov arrived at such ...
January 22, 2015
The true and staggering rate of incarceration in America is masked by the unconventional cages that are rarely factored into the head count. Many people are caged in an unconventional manner for trivial and nonviolent offenses such as driving without a license ...
January 22, 2015
No matter what the politicians might say about how great America is, the fact is that the nation seems to be imploding. Consider the following facts: Our government is massively in debt. Currently, the national debt is somewhere in the vicinity of $18 trillion. ...
January 21, 2015
Again we see the adoption of a dialectical position. The mainstream media has been in full cry over the necessity for money printing and central bank bond purchases. Now, comes a BIS former official – apparently someone with considerable clout – who says ex ...
