Gulf storms cause refinery interruptions, gas prices to spike

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Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on August 31, 2012 at 12:23pm

It depends on what you call "local."

The midwest could feed Chicago and all the other large, medium, and small midwest cities and still be able to export food for the further-surrounding geographical areas.

But, I agree that Chicago-as-it-is is a blight on the planet.  There is no reason a city this size should ever exist.  

But we are here now.  How do we fix it?   Soylent Green isn't an option...

Clint H said: 

While the "buy local" argument sounds good, it also strikes me as woefully naive. 

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Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on August 31, 2012 at 12:34pm

Didn't work, or the baby was smothered in the crib by the central bankers who wanted to be able enslave yet another nation by printing debt?

The coup of 1787 was highly illegal and immoral.   There is a reason why Hamilton was shot...

Cameron Puetz said:

The expectation of the state building roads long predates the invention of the automobile. Every successful civilization in history has built roads.

 

The inability of the federal government to build roads was viewed as a critical failure of the Articles of Confederation and that's why road building is one of the few powers of the federal government explicitly spelled out in the US Constitution. We tried building a country where the government didn't build roads and it didn't work.

James BlackHeron said:

For the same reason everyone uses the "but who will build the ROADS" argument whenever someone argues against an anti-statist. 

It's the default argument when anyone is supporting state subsidies.    My counter-argument to the ROADS-ROADS-ROADS mantra is that maybe they weren't such a great idea in the FIRST PLACE!

Build nice big wide roads and, sooner rather than later, millions of CARS will come to drive on them.

Build it, and they will come -stop building them, and they will find another, better way, to get around.  

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Permalink Reply by Fran Kondorf on August 31, 2012 at 12:48pm

James, yes- I have heard the phrase before.

We shop local every week by supporting the vendors at various farmer's markets. Am I crazy about spending $5 for a pound of mushrooms? No. But I'd rather hand that $ to the person that grew and harvested that food and brought it to market instead of supporting Big Agra whenever possible.

I was merely pointing out the fact that there's a broader effect to rising fuel costs that hits us all, not just motorists. Not looking for an argument here.

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Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on August 31, 2012 at 2:13pm

So what's the answer short of mass starvation in the Warsaw ghetto, or feeding the surplus population directly into the Soylent Green machine?

Run, Logan -Run!

Clint H said:

"The midwest could feed Chicago and all the other large, medium, and small midwest cities and still be able to export food for the further-surrounding geographical areas."

 

Not so much this year. Take a drive--or a ride, if you prefer--across southern Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska. They won't be feeding much of anybody. I say again, we'd all lose a lot of weight this winter were it not for California tomatoes and Argentine grapes.

 

And they only manage it any year thanks to unsustainable processes dependent on fossil fuels or unrenewable ground water resources. A population as large as we've built depends on an agricultural Rube Goldberg machine of epic proportions run on 300 million-year-old moss and 10,000-year-old glacial melt. That need won't go away until the massive population generated over the last hundred years goes away, even if you never build another road.

 

 

James BlackHeron said:

It depends on what you call "local."

 

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Permalink Reply by Lanterne Rouge on August 31, 2012 at 8:26pm

You balance precariously with this comment. We witnessed the effects of food pricing/availability during the Arab Spring. I don't want anything like that to ever happen here.

clp said:

Come, come folks...much too dramatic.  HBO recently ran a series about Obesity in America.  We're ALL way too FAT!   Just as James has pointed out about the price of gas, we should be paying much more for FOOD too!

James BlackHeron said:

So what's the answer short of mass starvation in the Warsaw ghetto, or feeding the surplus population directly into the Soylent Green machine?

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Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on August 31, 2012 at 9:01pm

I will agree with clp in that only certain types of foods are way too cheap   Crap cereals, bleached grains, soya crap, corn crap.  Real food -the stuff that is healthy for people and are not empty carb calories are way too expensive.    if only the price of the garbage were higher it'd be for the better as people wouldn't buy the cheapest junk food.

We can thank Monsanto and ADM for the garbage food laced with poisons.   Ever wonder how the worlds biggest poison manufacturers are also the worlds biggest food companies?

Jim S said:

You balance precariously with this comment. We witnessed the effects of food pricing/availability during the Arab Spring. I don't want anything like that to ever happen here.

clp said:

Come, come folks...much too dramatic.  HBO recently ran a series about Obesity in America.  We're ALL way too FAT!   Just as James has pointed out about the price of gas, we should be paying much more for FOOD too!

James BlackHeron said:

So what's the answer short of mass starvation in the Warsaw ghetto, or feeding the surplus population directly into the Soylent Green machine?

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