Job Nation

February 10th, 2011

The Thing we Greatly Ignored is Come Upon Us

Now that Mike knows I’m storing up grub, he calls me with his “hoarding” questions all the time. Today he was a hippie grocery, and he wanted advice on the right kimchi to buy, in order to use the bacteria for sourdough.

As I have noted before Perry Stone says he had a vision which suggested we will have flood-related food shortages in 2011. I have never known him to make anything up or exaggerate, and he didn’t use his vision as a way to squeeze monetary “seed gifts” out of his viewers, the way about 75% of Spirit-filled TV preachers would have.

Yesterday I saw some interesting news.

1. Russia is cutting off wheat exports because of drought.

2. China now imports wheat because of drought, and they expect the situation to continue through the year.

3. There is a severe corn shortage in the United States, largely due to the idiotic ethanal program, which values politics over human beings. We all knew there was a corn shortage, but it’s getting worse. And of course, animals eat corn, so there go dairy products and meat.

I guess it looks a little funny, talking about floods when crops are failing for lack of rain, but floods have already destroyed much of Australia’s crops, and we are a month or so away from our own planting season, so the opportune time for US flood damage isn’t here yet.

Hey, guess who is the world’s biggest wheat importer. Egypt! Traders expect that country to buy heavily because of the political instability. Uh oh!

I continue to study food storage. It turns out white flour goes funny after 6 months. Even if you freeze it, you only get 8 months. That’s what I’ve read, anyway. Hard to believe. And you can’t freeze it in paper bags. Funny flavors will get inside it.

I guess you can still eat it, however, and beggars can’t be choosers.

I think I’ll vacuum-seal 50 pounds of flour and freeze it. Can’t hurt. It will cost 20 bucks. That’s cheap insurance.

Maybe you can do better if you bake bread and freeze it. Search me.

I have a nice new Kentucky ham in the dining room, along with a big jar of sorghum, some cracklings, and a jar of blackberry jam. I’ll bet I could make excellent biscuits with canned milk. Geez, if there’s a famine, I may put on a ton of weight.

In other end time news, the US suddenly has piles and piles of oil. Sounds crazy, but it appears to be true. A new drilling method has drastically increased production, to the point where it could halve imports by 2015. And North Dakota (home of the Bakken Formation) is producing too much oil to ship.

What? Weren’t we supposed to run out of oil? Someone send Al Gore flowers. He is turning out to be the Salieri of economic and climatic forecasting. And by “Salieri,” I mean the Amadeus version, not the real Salieri, who was supposedly a great guy.

If I recall correctly, we can produce all the Bakken Formation oil we want at a cost of $70 per barrel, which is affordable. So in the United States, oil problems should be self-limiting, regardless of all the hysterical squawking. I wish oil were at $70 now. I could live with $2.75 diesel.

I can’t believe I’m saying that. We used to tremble at the thought of fuel prices that high.

What this all shows me is that God can yank the rug out from under you at any second, without breaking a sweat. We think we know what the future will bring, at least in the short term, but the last decade showed us that sudden changes can be extreme and unexpected, even when they should be obvious.

Consider the Fannie Mae mess. Nobody with any common sense thought real estate values were justified, yet most people were stunned when Barney Frank’s house (or houses) of socialist cards collapsed and threw our economy into turmoil. One month we were all counting our chickens, and the next month, they were on the barbecue.

I think the same thing is happening with our debt situation. We have marched to the edge of the precipice, and there is nothing to prevent us from going over the side in a big hurry.

We’re also seeing strange plagues hitting important crops. The worldwide citrus industry is expected to shrivel because of citrus greening, and that’s just one example. Did you know bananas are in trouble? A fungus is hitting them, and they lack the genetic diversity to develop resistance to it. May not sound like a big deal, but these things add up.

Speaking of God, the Bible says, “Thou Lord, only, makest me dwell in safety.” That’s important to learn and believe. The stuff you have can disappear in a day, regardless of how it looks to you now. Tomorrow you could get a cancer diagnosis. You could be gone in two months. A sinkhole could eat your house. Your spouse could run off with a Craigslist find. Look at Job. Things like that really happen.

I suspect that the problems Perry Stone foresaw will go away for a time. I think we’ll have some problems, and then things will seem to get better. Why? Because I think God is shaking the world. You can’t shake something by pushing it in the same direction all the time. It has to go back and forth. I think he is slapping us with crises and letting us rebound, so that tractable people will wake up and get right with him. Sooner or later, the trend will go much more negative, and by then, the bulk of the people who can be reached will be on solid ground.

Makes sense to me, anyhow.

I think we’ll have food problems this year, but I don’t think it will be necessary to pile up enough food to get us through 2012. I think we are still too early in the birth-pang sequence. I don’t think God is going to leave me here in this godless city with no land around me when the real mess starts raining down. I may deserve that, but I don’t see it happening.

You don’t get what you deserve, according to your deeds. Not if your heart is right. You get what your faith, willingness, and repentance allow. I hope.

If the food predictions turn out to be wrong, at least I’ll be better able to take care of myself, and I’ll know not to pay attention to Perry Stone’s visions. In the end, it’s all good.

7 Responses to “Job Nation”

  1. Elizabeth Says:

    I was wondering when the genetic diversity problem would hit. Most of the market of bananas is Cavendish, and when it’s hit by a fungus, there goes the whole market. Diversity, for me, is the key. I have found seedsavers.org, which is a exchange or purchase of heirloom seeds. I’ve noticed that the older versions of tomatoes, etc., can be found at Home Depot. And as for the funky flour, you can freeze bread; you also can buy 20-25 pounds and I would rotate stock.

  2. greg zywicki Says:

    “You don’t get what you deserve, according to your deeds. Not if your heart is right. You get what your faith, willingness, and repentance allow. I hope.”
    ..
    As far as I can tell, you get what God knows you need to do what He wills.

  3. aelfheld Says:

    “So in the United States, oil problems should be self-limiting, regardless of all the hysterical squawking.”
    . . .
    Don’t count out the Squawker-in-Chief – there’s lot’s more hysteria where that came from.

  4. Ben A. Trujillo Says:

    Steve:

    The flour is easy. Buy wheat and a little hand-turned grain mill. The wheat will keep forever in dry Colorado, you may need to learn storage tricks in a humid climate, but even if you have to freeze it, it’ll keep way longer than six months.

  5. Ruth H Says:

    I worry about you and the many others who are depending on frozen goods. If chaos happens freezers are not going to be working. Do you have a generator? A good supply of gasoline (or maybe propane) to run it. A gas stove to cook on is good. Just sayin’

  6. Steve B Says:

    Honey-bee populations are dying off in big chunks as well, and this actually has very significant impacts on the food industry which relies on them for pollination. Lots of disturbing trends.

  7. Steve H. Says:

    When electric power goes out, we’re all dead; the whole food distribution system depends on it. It will cause incredible problems for everyone. Even people in rural areas will have a very hard time.
    .
    I can’t grow everything I need, and a generator is not going to help keep the freezer running, because it will be impossible to keep it fueled. Gas generators are unreliable and have a short cycle between refuelings, and the constant duty wears them out. Diesel and gas generators last longer, but the cost for a good one is exorbitant, and it’s no long-term solution.
    .
    Most of my supplies will not be frozen, but I’d be stupid not to fill the freezer.
    .

    As for cooking fuel, there is nothing I can do. I can only keep a small supply of things like propane and charcoal. I could keep myself going for a couple of months, but it would be pointless. If I lived in the country I could cut firewood, but that would be pretty difficult here. I suppose that if society collapsed to the point you’re describing, a makeshift fuel industry would arise in a hurry, including delivery.