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>
> New message has been posted in Farm Journal Conferences
>
> Forum: General
> Thread: Poor markets
> Author: Fred Lundgren
> Subject: prices
>
> URL: http://www.farmjournal.com/Forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=1&Message_ID=16449
>
>
> Gentlemen:
>
> I was asked to join your group. I wrote a book on this subject called "The
> Nature Of Wealth". It is a hobby for me. I don't care to argue but I will
> take the time to offer some new blood to the mix.
> The economic distance between the farmer, who is a producer of raw materials,
> and the beep at the consumer's grocery counter is called the trade turn. It
> is the rollover of labor and raw material dollars as products are produced and
> consumed. This trade turn, in the year 1900, was about 1 to 2. That means one
> person was on the land or sea or in the mine with capital and labor for every
> two persons employed elsewhere with capital and labor.
> As technology advanced, this ratio advanced too. In the 1930s it had grown to
> 1 to 3.5. In the 1950s it had grown to 1 to 5. Today, it has grown to 1 to
> 7.4.
> This is a normal or "parity" trade turn. It says that one person should be
> employed in raw materials production, agriculture, forestry, fishery, mining,
> recycling, etc. for every 7.4 persons employed elsewhere.
> When prices fall too low to maintain these ratios, (which increase over time
> consistent with improvements to the state of the art) either excessive capital
> debt or labor exploitation must fill the gap if consumption is to continue.
> Today the actual ratios have moved far away from the ratios dictated by the
> state of the art to about 1 to 20.
> Today, too little value is placed on raw materials at the first point of sale,
> so our economy is forced to make up the shortage with debt and the
> exploitation of the least powerful.
> It is easy to short the price of a farm product that must be produced 365
> days in advance of a one day demand. It is so easy to keep the minimum wage at
> 1/2 of the level needed to keep people off public assistance. Gentlemen,
> supply and demand (in storable commodities) or manual labor is a farce. The
> term shrinks the perimeters of discussion and should never be used as a
> fall-back position by "us", the quasi-intellectuals of the Internet.
> Here is the bottom line! Today, the total public and private debt is a bit
> over 15 trillion. This amount is the accumulated shortage, year by year, of
> the value we have refused to pay ourselves as a society at the first point of
> sale, for natures bounty since 1900.
> All unemployment and under employment can be isolated in the same way. Total
> unemployment each and every year since 1900 has been the difference between
> the numbers of people who should have been employed in raw materials
> production, based on the state of the art ratios and the actual numbers of raw
> materials producers. This is not a matter of debate. This is not theory. This
> is the physics within an economic system. Subject closed!
>
> Sincerely:
>
> Fred Lundgren
>
>
>
>
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