This is what I’m talking about. There is hope. I had posted an idea (on this forum a while back) that zoos and many many other places should start using pieces of ground/land as gardens to grow food. The food they sell serve could be cheaper and healthier.
an urban “innovation” school, has brought new life to an unused, one-acre athletic field by turning it into an organic garden – and the garden has been such a success in just eight months that the school is able to serve fresh produce from it to students in the cafeteria.
But don’t worry so much about it having to come to that. Jim Rogers is probably doing more than anyone in terms of avoiding a food shortage. He’s speculating, driving up food prices, getting more people to grow food - before the shortage is upon us. I have a new appreciation for speculators. They really seem to help us avoid massive sudden shocks like a sudden food shortage.
“But don’t worry so much about it having to come to that.”
Good point. I never thought of speculators like that before. Very interesting. I don’t think there will be a shortage of food (at least not here in the US…God Willing). But, I do think prices will keep increasing (as gov. keeps devaluing the dollar). And the more people that grow their own food, or do it in a huge community, like at churches, and schools that have organic gardens, the better and cheaper food will get.
Jim Rogers is speculating in commodity futures, I’m guessing. I don’t know how someone would ‘speculate’ in food that actually exists in real life somewhere in stockpile. You buy it and store it somewhere. It’s not “speculation”.
There are essentially no significant strategic food stockpiles in the West. It’s all produced and delivered at the last minute.
Your computer can tell you that you own all the tea in China, come February 16th 201X. Won’t help you if it’s all gone by then, or if there never was any goddam tea and you fell for another of their lies. Ask Gerald Celente about commodities futures.
All speculators are entrepreneurs and all entrepreneurs are speculators, pure and simple. By participating in markets (voluntary exchange) they all seek to arbitrage perceived inter-temporal and inter-spatial price discrepancies of assets (goods, property) and labor. They all get rewarded with profits if their estimates (perceptions) turn out to be correct, and get punished with losses if they are wrong. The two terms are completely synonymous.
Fine, then tell me what the difference is between speculating that you might die if you don’t eat food and speculating that you’ll be delivered goods which don’t exist because you bought a lottery ticket at a casino.
I don’t see your point but I’ll answer your question. The former speculation doesn’t involve participation in a voluntary exchange with anyone (i.e. it’s autistic), the latter does. As with any voluntary exchange, all speculators/entrepreneurs are well advised to consider the reputation of their counter-parties (in terms of their abilty to deliver on the contract) and include that risk in their risk/reward equations.
A business entrepreneur buys lottery tickets every day as he’s is exposed to constant risk that his counterparties (suppliers, workers, lenders, etc.) may not show up and deliver on their contracts with him. The commodity futures speculator too is exposed to the risk that his counterparties may not be able to deliver on their futures contracts. The prices of the contracts should reflect these risks. If it they don’t, then that’s an opportunity for yet another speculator/entrepreneur to arbitrage out this perceived price discrepancy.
You are a speculator that speculates that these futures contracts are trading at much higher prices than they should given the (unrecognized) counterparty risk. You are claiming (betting, speculating) that the market is underpricing counterparty risk. The markets exist to allow you to make your bet and profit from it if you are right, just like every other speculator/entrepreneur out there.