escape from the cube

So my savings went down by $3110 to $20,610, entirely due to our income tax bill. Hopefully we’ll be able to build that back up quickly since I want 30k by the year’s end. When I get that $1500 stimulus check, you can guess where that’s going to go.

Surprisingly, my retirement account rose by $6,662! Wow.

See my updated net worth chart here.

OK, now check out these interesting articles:

• Could the recession be as bad as the great depression? (could this article be fear-mongering)

• Agricultural companies are currently making huge profits, while many people are starving. What is wrong with this picture?

Monsanto last month reported that its net income for the three months up to the end of February this year had more than doubled over the same period in 2007, from $543m (£275m) to $1.12 billion. Its profits increased from $1.44 billion to $2.22 billion.Cargill’s net earnings soared by 86 per cent from $553m to $1.030 billion over the same three months. And Archer Daniels Midland, one of the world’s largest agricultural processors of soy, corn and wheat, increased its net earnings by 42 per cent in the first three months of this year from $363m to $517m. The operating profit of its grains merchandising and handling operations jumped 16-fold from $21m to $341m.

We have a bunch of what I suspect are squash seedlings coming up in our garden. We mixed some compost into the soil, so no doubt the seeds came from there. Many of them need to be moved out of the garden to make room for the plants that we have planned to plant, but we’ve run out of sunny places to put them. Is it wrong if I plant a bunch in a park down the street? It’s huge, underutilized, and mostly taken over with weeds…

You hear so many supposed reasons for the sudden spike in the price of food. They say it’s a drought in Australia, it’s cropland being used for ethanol, it’s rising demand in China. This is for the most part bullshit, IMHO. These may be contributing factors, but I think that there is ONE big factor that dwarfs the rest, and it’s rarely mentioned.

Here is what I think is going on in a nutshell, and it seems like I am not the only one: We had a bailout of investment banks by the Federal Reserve- they loan money to these crooks cheaply at a very low interest rate. Now the crooks have pockets full of cheap money. This in turn enables all the crooks to start investing in commodities (read: rice, grain, etc- and oil too, but that’s another rant) since all of those shady securities are no longer a good investment- the money has to go somewhere, and you know people will pay anything for food because they have to eat! This glut of investment leads to a price spike on said commodities and half the world starves. This is totally what is going on, folks! We should not allow these crooks to get away with this.

Raise interest rates NOW or this will continue with disastrous consequences, not just for our country but the entire world. Food is a basic necessity that people need to live, not just another way for the rich to get richer.

If I sound pissed off about this, it’s because I really am.

This is a refreshing article to read amid all of the bad news about bad choices that many people have recently made. A novel idea: Don’t buy something that you can not pay for- imagine that!

Rather than just go take out loans for an expensive renovation, this family has slowly renovated their home over the course of many years, and paid for every bit of the renovations as they were doing the work- in fact they don’t even own a credit card. In this world where everyone wants what they want, and they want it right now (so they will just borrow the money to buy it!) it was a nice change of pace to read about someone who has the same outlook that my family has.

With a food shortage that is widespread and global, I think that the time has come to reclaim any land that we can to grow our own food. Lawn and grass are really a waste of space if your family is having a hard time paying for food. Edible Estates is a book and a movement that encourages people to plant food in their front yards. This can be seen as subversive, especially in a society where communities have bylaws that dictate everything down to the color that you can paint your house.

Where I grew up gardening, canning, and freezing were a part of life to my grandmother, my mother, and my aunts (note: this was primarily a female pursuit). I never really helped and couldn’t wait to get the hell out of that place. Now, of course, I wish I’d paid more attention to how my grandmother preserved food. It is true that my family NEVER bought vegetables during the winter, except for the occasional head of iceburg lettuce. Our pantry was full of food that Grandmother had canned and every time we visited her, we’d return home with a cooler full of frozen food given to us from her deep freeze- okra (for fried okra, of course), creamed corn (silver queen), “soup base” (tomatoes, okra, corn, onion), collard and turnip greens, butter beans, etc. My grandmother grew up during the depression and lived in a farm in south Alabama with her large family. I remember asking her if they were ever hungry and she said that they weren’t- there were 6 children in her family and they all worked the land - no playdates and soccer practice for them! One thing Grandmother always had was a HUGE garden. I am talking about it taking up her entire side yard. Her front yard was planted with peach trees and blueberry bushes and she had a pet goat that kept the grass cut. We always had a big garden too, but it paled in comparison to Grandmother’s. She’s been dead about 10 years now, but every time I walk near my garden I think about her. I think she’d love the idea of an Edible Estate.

I think this sums up what a lot of people are thinking about taxes this year:

Here it is! Can you believe it’s actually gone up (albeit only slightly) ?

I’m also glad to report that my business has returned to profitability. The profit isn’t huge, but anything is better than a loss at this point!

I’ve noticed that a lot of people seem interested in what life is like after you have no debt. My family has been debt free since 1 year and 3 months ago when we paid off our mortgage.

I have a job that I don’t particularly care for, but I’m staying here for now because it pays very well (and I can save a lot) and has great benefits. I am the breadwinner in my family so if I leave this place (which I plan to do) it will be a drastic change in my family’s life.

To address life after debt: I’ve noticed some subtle differences in myself since we no longer have debt, the main one being that I no longer feel like a slave. Normally when my boss used to tell me do to something dumb, I’d just do it because I was scared of being fired. Now I don’t care- if I think something is dumb, I will just say so, and nine times out of ten my boss agrees! Who knew? I thought he just wanted a yes man, but I was wrong. Now he’s actually hired more underlings that I can delegate tasks to.

I’m also never worried that I can’t buy anything that I happen to want. This doesn’t mean that I do just go out and buy anything that I want- quite the contrary. I think that just knowing that I could if I wanted to is enough. It feels much better to save that money to me than it does to actually spend it. This is where most people need to retrain their thinking: until the feeling that you get from saving is as good as the feeling that you get from spending, you will have a problem.

Freedom from want is what I’m getting at here, and that is the main thing that being debt free has given me. While I know that I won’t be 100% free until I leave this place, knowing that I could just walk out the door any time that I want is enough for now.

This is inspired by this rather funny piece on Real Simple’s web site (I don’t read it- a friend sent me this link). It includes such time honored gems as: ” Instead of the elevator, take the stairs. “, and “Don’t go to the grocery store on an empty stomach.”

So I decided to list 10 pieces of financial advice that have been repeated so often, that I never need or want to hear them again:

1. I’ll start with one from the Real Simple list: Give up buying coffee at Starbuck’s and you’ll save hundreds of dollars per year.
2. Another from real Simple’s list: consolidate errands into one trip instead of many small trips.
3. Taking your lunch to work will save hundreds of dollars per year.
4. Take public transporation instead of driving (where I live this can mean risking your life)
5. Ride a bike instead of driving (a sure way to get your ass beaten and your bike stolen here.)
6. Pay yourself first (need I say more?)
7. Max out your 401(k)
8. Live below your means
9. Use mercury light bulbs instead of incandescent ones
10. Your best asset is your career (especially if you hate it, like I do)

Here’s a great article in Harper’s that I believe neatly sums up the phenomenon of a speculative bubble, and makes the case, that our current economic dillemma is not caused by subprime mortgages- those are just a nasty byproduct. The real issue is a hyperinflation of asset values- in this instance, housing.

Because all asset hyperinflations revert to the mean, we can expect housing prices to decline roughly 38 percent from their peak as they return to something closer to the historical rate of monetary inflation. If the rate of decline stabilizes at between 6 and 7 percent each year, the correction has about six years to go before things stabilize, leaving the FIRE (finance, insurance and real estate) economy in need of $12 trillion. Where will that money be found?

So housing values have a long way to go- and it’s down.

The author states that only another bubble is going to save us from serious economic fallout. His prime candidate: alternative energy.

There is one industry that fits the bill: alternative energy, the development of more energy-efficient products, along with viable alternatives to oil, including wind, solar, and geothermal power, along with the use of nuclear energy to produce sustainable oil substitutes, such as liquefied hydrogen from water.