Fuel Prices….

[jac]

I am so with you on that Rod.. we try to by British but boy is it hard .. Lynn Miller wrote a great article on the buying local and how it would kickstart a sustainable economy.. what we have right now is not working. It needs a shift of thought by the majority. At the end of the day China has a big enough domestic market for its manufactured goods.. same with Japan and India and all the rest. Problem we have is the “professional” polititians that run things nowadays.. never had a job except politics.. meanwhile I try to make my family less reliant on outside influances like oil..
John

[near horse]

I know we have “strayed” from the original post about fuel prices but I want to add that, I agree John, the whole system of global industry and trade stinks. We ship decent scrap steel to China and get poorly made crap tools in return AND some business (not necessarily based in China but just as likely here in the US or the UK) reaps the profits. We lose the jobs, the industrial power and control AND are presented with pure and simple junk. Somebody makes serious money off this setup and it’s not the poor saps making the crap – they’re getting paid peanuts or, as you say, are kids.

It really is hard to buy some things locally made – food is one thing but when you’re talking about machined goods…. it’s a lot tougher.

BTW – A year ago I went to my 30 yr high school class reunion and most that were there and had been laid off were machinists, pressmen and other manufacturing folks. Those who were doing well were in the consulting and information areas – didn’t seem like they were producing anything at all yet were living very well. Sad.

Funny thing – I was reading on a woodworking site (I’m NOT any type of woodworker, just needed a design for an outfeed table for the tablesaw) and these guys had what they called “HARBOR FREIGHT GEMS”. Harbor Freight is the epitome of Chinese junk tools – and dirt cheap so folks buy their crap. The “gems” were the one or two things that didn’t break right out of the box.

[goodcompanion]

Buy local trends do give a leg up to the handful of small producers out there trying to make a go of it. Myself included. Very grateful for this trend, don’t get me wrong.

But consider: My county, Addison County VT is the statewide leader in sales of locally produced foods within the county. Vermont also leads this trend nationally so I assume that this is about as good as it gets in terms of local foods as a percentage of the overall food sector.

Local foods here represent about 3 % of all food sales. I don’t believe this will rise very much unless local foods become cost-competitive with conventional foods. Now we’re back to the beginning of the thread. This isn’t likely to occur through local producers dropping their prices so the only alternative is for the conventional goods to become much more expensive. And this development would entail great disruption and hardship for much of the 97% who depend on cheap food through the conventional food system, as well as extreme pressure on an inadequate number of local producers who are not prepared to meet demand.

Bottom line, I don’t think market forces are going to relocalize production in the context of the economic system we’re all familiar with. More likely that system will break, and we’ll all be left with pieces of it from which to build something different.

[Marshall]

When talking about buying local that will have some impact on fuel cost as the transportation will be less requiring less fuel. I too have been trying to buyas much locally made or made in USA if possible. Somewhere on another sight someone mentioned a company called PointerBrand that makes jeans and bibs in the US. I emailed then in December and asked if thier American made bibs are made in the US of American fabric or made in the US of foreign made fabric. I still have not recieved an answer. Go figure.

[bivol]

jac, i can’t believe that there are no tractors being assembled in UK! so, it came that far?:(
even in croatia, we produce some small tractors, not to mention IMT in serbia, licensed MF tractors… honestly that surprised me! where do you get your tractors from? those from china are use-and-scrap quality!

back to the fuel prices… i know this may sound strange, but i think that increased fuel prices could actually kick-start local economies – MAYBE!

if shipment becomes expensive, it will pay off to produce locally.

goods are produced using three factors: energy (fuel), labor, and raw materials.
now, historically, if one of these factors is cheap something other will be expensive.
since energy has been very cheap in the past century, more raw materials were being extracted, which made them cheaper, too. but over the years, with rising standard, labot in the west has become more expensive.
in the same time, BECAUSE there is lots of energy, there was enough to start industries in developing countries (nothing against that!) AND to ship millions of tons of goods all across the globe, and cheaply!

now, if that energy wouldn’t be available, people would inevitably have to, due to lack of goods, start producing their own goods locally again.

the standard would fall, but we would once again be producing something!

i have a feeling the whole “global market” idea is already hitting hard in the kidneys of the western economies.

as for china, it would be dangerous to try and draw ther debt as that would endanger their export-driven economy too

as far as 18th cent, in “The Wealth of nations”, Adam Smith advocated for national production and export, and against buying imported stuff! “it’s better to pay two golden coins for domestic product that buy a foreign one for one gold coin”.
Adam Smith is supposedly the founder of modern economics, and his words make common sense! is it possible that the man from 18th century sees things more clearly than all those internet-ed modern economists, so lost in “global competition”, “stock exchange”, “modern development”, and other fancy phrases used to hide the fact that we are losing our economic base – the national production?

whoa, strayed off topic again, sorry!

[near horse]

biovol,

Adam Smith’s comment about not buying imported goods would be considered “protectionist” under today’s rules and sublect to review by the IMF. Although I lean towards his comments, everyone can’t be an exporter or else who are we exporting to? If we become too isolationist and let other countries economies sink or swim, we can end up with a lot of “swimmers” from the failed economies headed to the “lifeboats” of stable economies and jobs – now we can fight an immigration battle (sounds all too familiar, doesn’t it).

I will admit that many of the so-called “swimmers” at the border are in the “water” because we (our govt policy) sank their “lifeboats” – so we shouldn’t be surprised .

The other problem I see with the basic premise that higher fuel prices will make locally grown food more affordable lies in the likelihood that local food producers are (for the most part) not completely independent of the impact of rising fuel costs on other aspects of their lives. Any product that they purchase rather than produce will increase in cost and potentially require them to increase what they charge for their product to maintain the same standard of living or production.

Whew – I’m glad I just operate a pitchfork w/ real s*** on the other end.

[jac]

Bivol it really is that bad… Case New Holland assemble parts imported from other countries , Massey Fergusson are now made in France as the last plant closed a few years ago so no we donts make agricultural tractors in the UK now JCB still make excavators tho:)
John

[bivol]

John, i see. luckily horses and oxen can still be produced locally… not much of a relief though.

Geoff, i’m well aware of his protectionist tendencies, and that any form of protectionism is almost a blasphemy in todays economic doctrine… but that’s just it, a doctrine. and economy isn’t just economy if it dictates faiths of states and nations. then it is something much more, and needs to be taken care of appropriately.

i’m not for hermetically sealed national markets, but there has to be a healthy degree of concern and protection for domestic production. current economic doctrine don’t give a slightest option on protectionism, and i know this much, once you loose your industry, there will be no jobs, and no jobs mean no need for education of people in industry and related. in a couple of decades you will loose all the expert knowledge and capital, and will practically never be able to have the production as before.
it all already happened throughout ex-yugoslavia, factories closed, people fell in apathy, they have no future, no hope for any better life, no need for schooled people if they can’t have jobs, and it’s very hard (in our case impossible) to get out. one can whine, but that’s how it is.
that’s why i’m studying agriculture, that’s the only branch that has some future, because we can’t all be merchants selling chinese goods, and waiters during summer!

domestic production isn’t just about jobs and being able to produce something, it’s also a possibility for the future…

[cousin jack]

@jac 23504 wrote:

Bivol it really is that bad… Case New Holland assemble parts imported from other countries , Massey Fergusson are now made in France as the last plant closed a few years ago so no we donts make agricultural tractors in the UK now JCB still make excavators tho:)
John

But for how long? JCB now have a manufacturing plant in India!

[Rod]

@bivol 23505 wrote:

domestic production isn’t just about jobs and being able to produce something, it’s also a possibility for the future…

Very good point and one often overlooked, their are other values lost when a job is lost.
Add in all the satellite industries and services and you can see that sometimes the sending of a manufacturing business overseas is like ripping the guts out of a community. It’s jobs and at the same time more than just jobs.

[Rod]

@near horse 23500 wrote:

biovol,

Adam Smith’s comment about not buying imported goods would be considered “protectionist” under today’s rules and sublect to review by the IMF.

Too bad if the IMF and World Trade people do not like it. If we refocus on domestic production it’s none of their business anyway. It’s nuts to be bowing down to these groups while we are sinking down the tubes. We, the USA can’t help anybody if we do not stay healthy ourselves and while I am all for helping and I also believe we have to sometimes take a break and get back to health our selves. And don’t forget other countries can produce for their own markets also instead of just focusing on ours. That should be the goal of each with world trade being from excess goods we can not produce at home.

[jac]

Good point on the domestic production Rod. Im not so sure these countries would collapse, surely they would knuckle down and get on with rebuilding their country… Cuba did..
Bivol a lot of the steel workers that were in the industry are retired now and youngsters dont want to get their hands dirty nowadays. Getting skilled workers for agriculture is a real problem now. I didnt know JCB were in India cousin Jack..
John

[Marshall]

So if I am understanding this correctly most agree we need the opposite of a global economy.

[jac]

Marshall this is only my opinion but I think “globalisation” is the downfall of this whole world economy and a crappy idea. We keep being told of “ecomomics of scale”… Well what do we do when a global market place isnt big enough to be economic ?? All we do is move round the world seeking out cheap places to build the things we need and then moan when the country in question wants a bigger slice of the cake.. this has the effect of lowering our spending power so we move to some place else leaving empty factories again. Unfortunately we are running out of places to exploit. How crass is it to have a coffee giant exporting coffee to us in the west when half the country is starving because of the mono culture of coffee leaves no room for actuall food !!
John

[goodcompanion]

@jac 23529 wrote:

Marshall this is only my opinion but I think “globalisation” is the downfall of this whole world economy and a crappy idea. We keep being told of “ecomomics of scale”… Well what do we do when a global market place isnt big enough to be economic ?? All we do is move round the world seeking out cheap places to build the things we need and then moan when the country in question wants a bigger slice of the cake.. this has the effect of lowering our spending power so we move to some place else leaving empty factories again. Unfortunately we are running out of places to exploit. How crass is it to have a coffee giant exporting coffee to us in the west when half the country is starving because of the mono culture of coffee leaves no room for actuall food !!
John

Right on. “Running out of places (and energy sources) to exploit” is the critical problem and the guarantee that the game is nearly over, at least with rules as we now understand them.

Unless you believe that we are on the verge of colonizing some other star system, and subjecting it to our species’ inability to deal with limitations.

[Author]

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