Montana real estate agent Viola Moss sent us an interesting snippet from The Christian Science Monitor, that illustrates that while most residential real estate is going down in value, some agricultural rural real estate is going up: “Farmland is hot property these days. Nationwide, it is up nearly 9 percent from a year ago. Iowa farmland has increased in value 18 percent. South Dakota’s value has risen 21 percent. The rise reflects rising profits from agriculture. The use of corn to create ethanol has driven up the price of corn and beef cattle that feed on corn. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that farmers will earn a record $95.7 billion this year, 10.3 percent more than last year and 57 percent more than the 10- year average of $61.1 billion. While some wealthy landowners celebrate this, average farmers and young people who want to own their farms are shut out. “There are a whole lot of young people wanting to farm – both children of farm families and young people from cities and suburban towns who want to farm,” says Teresa Opheim, executive director of Practical Farmers of Iowa. “The price of land is making it very, very difficult for them to get started, even to come up with a business plan that’s viable.”
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The DFer mentioned that The Wall Street Journal recently ran another fairly informative article about EMP.
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“Nines” flagged this: Five injured during protest in Iceland over economic meltdown., and Jack B. sent us this piece on the same topic: A near-riot and parliament besieged: Iceland boiling mad at credit crunch. As a whole, Icelanders are fairly peaceable people, so it takes extraordinary times to elicit such an uproar. And here is the latest news, courtesy of Cheryl: Dow Extends Rally, Broader Indices Close Mixed — FDIC’s List of “Problem” Banks Swells to 171 — US Economy Fall Worse than Expected — UK to Suffer Severe Recession — Pre-Budget Report (UK): World Economies Taking Radical Steps Over Threat of Recession — UK Middle Class Tax Hikes Fund Bailouts — Is Britain Going Bankrupt? (Ambrose Evans-Pritchard) — UK: New Mortgage Lending Predicted to Fall Below Zero, Report Warns — Fed Throws New Lifeline to Stressed Households — US Home Prices Continue to Dive — Germany Facing Worst Slump Since 1949 — Russian Analyst Predicts Break-Up of U.S. — Barron’s: Has the Fed Mortgaged its Own Future? — After CitiGroup, is BoA Next? — More Customers Resume Using Old-Fashioned Cash
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Justin suggested this interesting article in this month’s edition of Vanity Fair magazine: “Wall Street Lays Another Egg”
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KAF sent us a link to a set of plans for converting a refrigerator into a meat smoker.