quote:

Originally posted by MJines:
So Trump’s tariffs are going to result in a $10-14 billion dollar bailout for farmers. After we shot ourselves in one foot with the tariffs, we’ve decided to shoot ourselves in the other foot with bailouts. Brilliant economic policy. Wonder what other groups will be lining up for bailouts as a result of the tariffs.

We can print money, and we do. We cannot print food.
Farm trouble is real trouble, not electoral fantasy.

You could model our economy as a set of vectors in Hilbert space.
It would be a very large set of interacting vectors.
You could model the ideal economy per MAGAs in the same way.

The transition between the two is another set of vectors.
Finding a path between the two that does not enter any disaster spaces is the game.
An advanced AI (which no one possesses) might find one that is tenable, given good models.
Given that, the free market must make adjustments given individuals' dispersed knowledge and wisdom.

MAGAs are trying to take the shortest path between the two, not realizing that the readjustments needed will take time (but realizing that time is of the essence, as there is a midterm election shortly soon).
The dearth of readjustments is probably going to lead to economic discomfort.

I would worry more about the intersection of AI with CRISPR...

That, and the Hilbert space resulting from the substitution of capital assets for wage labor.
We cannot all live on interest and dividends, some of us have to work.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/mone...5b38f525d6c798&ei=18

Some financial genius

Tom,
What do you think of the gold/silver market being crazy high? Where will that go?
I have some of both, bought when I was young and it was (cheap). I dont need the money, so happy to let it sit. I just wonder what I'll do with it later.

Every time I say gold just can’t get any higher…it does.

Gold . . . the chaos currency. Any wonder that prices are high given the fact that the King of Chaos is President.

Gold prices are global.
trump is only president of the world to some of you.

quote:

Originally posted by theback40:
Tom,
What do you think of the gold/silver market being crazy high? Where will that go?
I have some of both, bought when I was young and it was (cheap). I dont need the money, so happy to let it sit. I just wonder what I'll do with it later.

Freda is happy that the Zillow price estimate for our house is almost 3X what we paid 24 years ago. Actually, the house is the same, except for needing a water heater. Not so much that the house price is up as that the value of money is down. The money will likely buy about the same number of gallons of diesel fuel now, as then. Maybe less. I think I remember diesel briefly going for around $1 a gallon or a little more during the Bush Jr years. It is a pretty solid $5 or so, now.

Gold is gold. Only peoples' fervor for it and the extent of industrial demand changes. I think it can be viewed as a store of value, with the caveat that to trade it for money later assumes that someone will have the money and part with it. It's inconvenient to trade it for goods. In a deflationary environment, finding a buyer with money might be problematic. I would be reluctant to buy or sell, today.

Keep in mind that King Phillip of Spain had an inflation problem due to the volume of gold imported from the New World. Too much new money chasing the same volume of goods.

Same for silver, except that it is used more commonly in electronics and probably other industries that I am not aware of. There used to be a trade in bags of pre-1964 coinage, I do not know whether that is still a thing. I was once one of a number of people scammed by a vendor of coinage who reneged on a sale, lost interest after that. He went to jail, only briefly paid restitution after he got out. I will say that he was arrested in the presence of his children, which I felt was an unnecessary trauma for them. If that makes me a bleeding heart, I can live with the moniker.

The crystal ball is full of coastal fog this morning. Barring something like the Hunt brothers' attempt at cornering silver decades ago, both metals' prices should keep going up as the values of currencies go down. The debt problem is world-wide, except for a few countries. Russia is one of the fortunate ones with relatively low debt, as I understand it. I think our news is heavily managed, and I can not independently verify this.

I am in favor of investing in tools of my trade. Stuff will break and need fixed, people will need new stuff made. If you have an income stream that requires no work, someone will want to take it from you (read oil under your garden). If you make your way by working a trade, crooks will look elsewhere and you might live in peace. Maybe.

I should get off this screen now, there are weeds that need pulled and parts that need soldered.
And we are out of bananas again...

Outdoor retailer Orvis closing nearly half of their retail locations, tariffs to blame.

https://www.9news.com/article/...84fc1e7ce4f?tbref=hp

Changes of the MAGA magnitude may need time to avoid shocks to the system, but people seem to be in a hurry to get some of them done before an election comes to derail the project.

In a brief summary, we do not need a new $2 coin, our parents' Mercury Dime is already there. A bag of fifty Mercury Dimes sells for $192 online. A one ounce Hershey bar sold for five cents in 1960, when I was gathering pop bottles to trade in for them. Now the standard bar is 1.55 ounce but sells for $2 (or the same Mercury Dime that would have bought two ounces in 1960).

It costs 3.69 cents to make a new penny, which is mostly zinc now. We trade almost four old ones to make one new one, and the old ones will not be the copper variety, they are worth almost as much as making the new zinc ones.

https://www.coinflation.com/co...ent-Penny-Value.html

According to this web site, the melt value of a copper penny is $0.32, not quite as much as the cost of making a new zinc one.

This is another web site with more data. The big surprise is the cost of the lowly nickel,
$0.1378, nearly three times its face value.

https://www.nbcphiladelphia.co...ns-and-cash/4193546/

I idly wonder if we shouldn't stop making nickels rather than stop making pennies. Five pennies are more bother than carrying a nickel but not much more so. And a dollar bill costs about the same as a penny.

The volume of debt in circulation is such that it would take a very long time to unwind it.
It is not clear to me that we have the time...

On the other hand, President Trump says inflation has been defeated...

https://www.nbcphiladelphia.co...in-too-high/4284104/

I anxiously await lower diesel fuel prices.

. . . wonder how many of those gals and girls are sporting their MAGA hats these days.

Land O'Lakes CEO says American farmers are facing 'devastation'

I see’m at the cattle sales…my gosh cattle are doing well!

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
I see’m at the cattle sales…my gosh cattle are doing well!

Somebody is doing ok, cheap hamburger is $6 a pound at Ralphs, a little better at Costco.
Paper says the population of cattle is at a decades-low ebb. Classic supply/demand.
What are y'all paying for alfalfa hay, per ton? Local, or trucked in from Wyoming?

quote:

Originally posted by TomP:

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
I see’m at the cattle sales…my gosh cattle are doing well!

Somebody is doing ok, cheap hamburger is $6 a pound at Ralphs, a little better at Costco.
Paper says the population of cattle is at a decades-low ebb. Classic supply/demand.
What are y'all paying for alfalfa hay, per ton? Local, or trucked in from Wyoming?

93% lean is $8+ per pound here. Out of a number of stores that sell it, one is heads and shoulders above the rest. Then again we don't eat that much of it.

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
I see’m at the cattle sales…my gosh cattle are doing well!

Hope yer workin on feedin em cheap soybeans along with the grain. Do they still feed flaked corn?

quote:

Originally posted by TomP:

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
I see’m at the cattle sales…my gosh cattle are doing well!

Somebody is doing ok, cheap hamburger is $6 a pound at Ralphs, a little better at Costco.
Paper says the population of cattle is at a decades-low ebb. Classic supply/demand.
What are y'all paying for alfalfa hay, per ton? Local, or trucked in from Wyoming?

Alfalfa costs $275/ton delivered. But, we only feed that to horses. Our range cattle only eat native grass supplemented with cake in the winter — either 23% corn cake or 38% cottonseed cake depending on standing forage left. Cottonseed cake is about $500/ton.

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:

quote:

Originally posted by TomP:

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
I see’m at the cattle sales…my gosh cattle are doing well!

Somebody is doing ok, cheap hamburger is $6 a pound at Ralphs, a little better at Costco.
Paper says the population of cattle is at a decades-low ebb. Classic supply/demand.
What are y'all paying for alfalfa hay, per ton? Local, or trucked in from Wyoming?

Alfalfa costs $275/ton delivered. But, we only feed that to horses. Our range cattle only eat native grass supplemented with cake in the winter — either 23% corn cake or 38% cottonseed cake depending on standing forage left. Cottonseed cake is about $500/ton.

My knowledge is limited, always happy to learn more. Years ago, in a drought time, a Wyoming grower told me he knew people getting $320 a ton plus transport (but that he was selling for somewhat less). He had a half-mile circle irrigated with a wheel, also said antelope ate about $30K of his hay in a summer. There were a lot of them, and we ate a few. There was never any trouble getting permission to hunt there, especially after we helped him wire the panel on a new barn.

Another time we were helping a guy with a flat tire on a hay trailer (he had no tools with him and we did), told us they did not feed horses straight alfalfa hay. His description was that it was "...too hot for them...", and he mixed in other grasses.

What does cake feed look like? That's a new one on me...

quote:

told us they did not feed horses straight alfalfa hay. His description was that it was "...too hot for them...", and he mixed in other grasses.

People on here can debate whether or not I know a damn thing about many things I post about and probably have a fair argument. But, one thing I can emphatically expound on with authority is the dietary intake of horses.

Straight alfalfa hay is one of the very best ways to feed horses. They do extremely well on it and have far less health issues on it than just about any other man provided diet there is. For convalescing horses…it’s all we feed them.

Cake is another name for large diameter pelletized feed. Others call them cubes or range cubes. See here for more details. We have been buying cake from Kerr Feeds for nearly 100 years.

My old veterinarian was raised with plow horses. He told me they were always fine with nothing more than good timothy hay & it's all they ever fed them. He had drafts well into his old age right up to his passing & they were always great looking stuff. The popular opinion was that straight alfalfa was hard on the kidneys. But I'm not the vet, so......

quote:

Originally posted by wymple:
My old veterinarian was raised with plow horses. He told me they were always fine with nothing more than good timothy hay & it's all they ever fed them. He had drafts well into his old age right up to his passing & they were always great looking stuff. The popular opinion was that straight alfalfa was hard on the kidneys. But I'm not the vet, so......

While timothy hay is a quite good forage for horses no doubt…there is absolutely zero validity or scientific reason to/for alfalfa being “hard” on the kidneys. Alfalfa is the apex of forage for horses and serves horses well as a sole diet.

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:

quote:

told us they did not feed horses straight alfalfa hay. His description was that it was "...too hot for them...", and he mixed in other grasses.

People on here can debate whether or not I know a damn thing about many things I post about and probably have a fair argument. But, one thing I can emphatically expound on with authority is the dietary intake of horses.

Straight alfalfa hay is one of the very best ways to feed horses. They do extremely well on it and have far less health issues on it than just about any other man provided diet there is. For convalescing horses…it’s all we feed them.

Cake is another name for large diameter pelletized feed. Others call them cubes or range cubes. See here for more details. We have been buying cake from Kerr Feeds for nearly 100 years.

Cake looks like a big version of chicken feed...

And their logo looks a lot like that for mason jars. Is that related?

My daughter still has a pair of quarter horses & a pony. She feeds mostly alfalfa, doesn't seem to worry about it much. Her horses get better health care than I do....