My mentor Dr. Gary North recommended a video slide show over at iTulip,com. Gary’s description: “A Low-Budget, Four-Minute Video Makes the Strongest Case I Have Seen for the Magnitude of This Crisis“
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The folks at Seed For Security (one of our advertisers) have expanded their web page of free self-sufficiency reference articles. BTW, my philosophy on gardening is to concentrate on non-hybrid plants. the “open pollinated” or “heirloom” varieties. Gain experience gardening with those varieties, and practice harvesting and saving seed. “Buy what you plant,and plant what you buy.”
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Reader T.U. wrote to ask: “What’s the big whoop-de-do about derivatives? Isn’t the risk all ‘notional’?” The risk is real. We are talking about hundreds of trillions of dollars in play. Most derivatives contracts end in a neat “zero sum” transaction. But what if one party goes out of business? The counterparty risk is tremendous. For some background, see the article that I wrote about derivatives back in 2006: Derivatives–The Mystery Man Who’ll Break the Global Bank at Monte Carlo.
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On the lighter side, several readers mentioned this recent Dilbert cartoon. (The previous day’s strip is also quite good.) And on the not-so-light side: David Rosenberg, Chief Economist at Merrill Lynch, declares we are in a .depression. (A hat tip to Jim H. for the link to that PDF.) And Laura H. found this Financial Times piece: Nations turn to barter deals to secure food.