After reading your posts for a few weeks now and enjoying your pieces on Economics and other miscellaneous topics, I finally decided to make a contribution to your site. But that's not the point of my email, as I'm unemployed, and not wealthy it was only a modest contribution - sorry.

What is important is the piece that poked me forward to make that contribution, "Poor Diet and The Poor". I'm tired of reading stories in the main stream media espousing the idea that obesity is a disease for many Americans.

The truth is that Americans place a higher relative value on watching television, going to the movies, or a myriad of other tasks rather than spending a bit of time on educating themselves on basic nutrition, and then spending a little time purchasing and cooking nutritious food. I would not be surprised if there is a "For Dummies" book on the topic of nutrition available at my local library sitting on the shelf, its pages dusty, right now. It will be found right next to its orphaned cousin, "House Buying for Dummies"

The notion that we are time-starved is ridiculous given the statistics on the time spent watching television.

Therefore the notion that we must drive everywhere in the face of this much promoted scarcity of time is also ridiculous. The truth is Americans love to drive everywhere and thereby forgo the physiological and psychological benefits of walking.

I am an immigrant. When I arrived in this country at the age of 12 after having spent my childhood years in the border town of Tijuana I asked one question of my father at gazing at the deserted streets: Papa, where are the people?!? You see, in Tijuana most people walk to their nearby errands, to school, to the market, to the movies and so I was used to seeing people on the sidewalks at almost any time of the day - not so here.

The clean, beautifully edged sidewalks going largely unused truly amazed me at that age. They still do.

....and like your self deprecating humour. Bravo.

Read about the subprime... sounds like a cheap cut of beef or a heady math term. I always thought it strange that a person on earth, in order to buy one house has to pay for that same home 3 or 4 times. Who designed that system? Oh ya, Our ubiquitous bankers, landing their usury again and again onto the banks of their water front mansions. Don't get me wrong I love mansions, but why do we have to pay for them?

Why are we as intelligent creatures unable to morph beyond the box of homage to elitism and the media system that invokes there is only so much? The belief system that says in order for the elite to win, we must win or lose to the level that their control dictates.

When are we going to all wake up and act together and change a system that favours a few people at the expense of many? Or are we so unconsciously infatuated with our fear of the enormous power we possess and allow the rulers of serfdom to continue as we vicariously idolize their 400% raise and go on strike to try and get our 17% hike in pay.

No, life is not fair. It is engineered.

Calling all engineers with heart and soul.

Perhaps one day our greed too will elevate its status in awareness, maybe learning to act less greedily...

Imagine a simple solution before these mortgage lenders, to rise to a benificent fiscal leadership: Renegotiate without prejudice... as in initiate a flat rate and at least have money coming in for the outstanding loans and help a lot of clients save their homes? Its almost as if these lenders attached time released gravity to their systems and now it is crashing down. Of course it is.

Their intentions were not using the laws of generosity, perhaps if they used laws of compassion and created systems so all could benefit, we would not be in this mess, or opportunity to create systems that reflect our natural states of homeostasis and joy. A montary system much like Lincoln proposed, certainly not the primitive fiat, fractured bankng so desperately trying to stay alive by secretly implementing a North American Union, trumpeting emotional resucue by the very predators who want to consolidate, and bring you their new Ameros.

I guess our North American Union Group is banking on our complacency to stand by as they crash the market so these elite few can buy back all on pennies on the dollar just as Rothschild did after the Battle of Waterloo making his clan the wealthiest in the world; they still are, and Forbes ain't gonna list them or write about it either.

In the mid 80s I would save a bunch of money maybe 1000 dollars and with that I would buy a round-trip plane ticket, some pakalola and head to Puerto Rico for as long as the cash would last. My last trip there I was running low on dough and I wanted to make it another month. I could have done the American diet and quit smoking the da kine but a surfer buddy gave me this bomb recipe for red beans so I fed myself on red beans and rice and bananas for 6 dollars a week and kept da kining. Sure the dollar bought more back then but six bucks a week for three unlimited meals a day is rad.

"But what about all those fancy pans and appliances you see the TV chefs use? All you really need is one decent knife and a wok or equivalent pan. That's what hundreds of millions of Chinese and other Asian families use to cook an immense variety of dishes." (from the August 31, 2007 entry Poor Diet and The Poor)

well, I mostly use a microwave; a food processor; a rice cooker; a toaster; and a waffle iron-- about $300.00 worth of stuff.

I lost 70 lbs over the last few years (from 240 down to 170).

I now focus on these dieting stratgies:

1: always remember that processed foods require fewer calories to digest so eating an apple rather than apple juice is better for you in many ways.

2: exercise daily to ensure that oxygen penetrates deeply into your muscle tissues ( Scientific American Magazine--"A Pound of Flesh," August 1999--reported that americans have poor oxygen levels compared to europeans) my oxygenated body now has a natural high so I don't have to get high via sugar, carbs and/or caffine-- all things that used to put on weight.

3: plan meals around a glycemic diet;

4: do ab workouts to produce ab muscles that make you feel full.

my experience is that-- now that I'm in shape, I save lots of money since I'm now satisfied with far fewer calories... ;-)

I LOOKED THIS UP: "Pepsi, Coke and Cadbury Schweppes’ had $21 billion in soft drink sales in 2007 (https://tinyurl.com/2sc86m) while exercise equipment sales were $4.7 billion in 2003 (https://tinyurl.com/32wuya)."

(I read the report and those companies also sell water, juices, energy drinks and sport drinks. I think the article noted that 50%+ of sales was soda, but all of these are shockingly bad purchases since, as you know, bottled water comes from the tap... the bottom line: people spend a lot of money on products that they don't need and could redirect it towards great food!)

ALL MY STATS: weight: 240 down to 170; blood pressure: 140/90 downto 115/70; BMI: 34.6 down to 24.4; body fat percentage: 29% down to 14%; VO2 Max: 42; the US average is around 35 according to google.

SOME OTHER TIPS:

5: treat yourself like a baby and start fussing over your exercise, nutricion and learning;

6: walk as much as you can and visit https://walkscore.com

7: focus on positive trends instead of hard set goals;

8: 80/20 is OK, you can cheat as long as you stay honest most of the time;

9: low cost equipment, like a stability ball, dumbbells, weighted bars, a bicycle, a BOSU trainer and yoga stuff, have all worked great

10: higher cost equipment upgrades like a 95xi elliptical, a concept2 rower and a total trainer have been thrilling

11: I liked the book: Releasing Fat by Dr. Strand MD. I didn't order the nutricional supplements;

12: I liked the book: Enter The Zone by Barry Sears.

You are so right about this and I agree with you on so many things. The funny thing is that I have believed this stuff since I was a little kid but of course didn't have the intellect and experience to back it up. I have had so many other chores to do that I have gotten behind on taking care of myself and eating right.

Just today my wife said she liked a place cuz a meal was just six bucks. I love the back to basics foods. I took a class where the instructor had a picture of an african family gathered around burlap bags overflowing with a myraid of beans and rice etc. It was colorful, simple, and earthy.

Then he had another photo of an american family gathered in the kitchen of their tract home surrounded by every processed "food" known to devolving modern man. I'd love to have copies of those to put in my kitchen. I'm about to re-focus on getting the basics into my diet. We aren't taught to cook anymore. I know it's not that hard but there's that learning curve. When I lived in Santa Clara I liked taking walks and going to the Indian and Asian markets. I bought 100 pounds of kabuli chana and still have some of it. I just got two new Kuhn Rikon pressure cookers, got a killer deal on them. Tons of tomatoes we're harvesting right now. I had to move about 10.000 pounds of rock to do it.

Note on your August 30 post: Living in Extraordinary Times (Peak Oil) "All the Canaries Have Stopped Singing" transcript of Interview with Author of "Twilight in the Desert" Matthew Simmons, with Jim Puplava (Financial Sense)

This is a fascinating interview, showing how both sides of the Peak Oil debate are often part of the problem. The cornucopians might be too optimistic (e.g., the USGS estimates of large oil reserves in Greenland), but many of the Peak Oilers sometimes draw conclusions with equally little factual support. This has, I suspect, been a major factor discrediting their warnings -- in addition to their long history of false alarms (e.g., Campbell).

So I am not guilty of what I criticize, here is an example.

"Well, the fact of the matter is the refineries in the United States it would appear their core units are basically on average are about 85 years old. And an 85-year old man is old. A refinery that’s 85 years old should have been rebuilt. And I don’t care how many times you come in and do a turn around and replace the valves in a refinery, until you finally tear the boilers down and rebuild them you have an 85-year old refinery. Which is why now refineries are blowing up so often. "

He says that the average "core unit" of US refineries was built in 1922. Think about that. This is bizarre.

* This implies that many are even older than 85 years, since many are younger than 85 years. In fact, since most are younger than 85 years, some must be far older. Did Lincoln or Washington operate refineries?

* What was US oil consumption in 1922? I'll not bother to look it up, but certainly far far less than today. What did they do with all that unused product refined in 1922? Perhaps that was the source of the SPR!

* This goes to the oft-repeated "no refinery built in the US since late 1970's." Which is true only if one ignores a major capex dynamic since then: small refineries closing, large refineries expanding (brownfield construction). Note that this substantially *decreases* average age of refinery infrastructure.

* Also ignores the past 30 years' massive refinery rebuilding to accommodate higher environmental standards, which to some extent involved replacement of "core units." (this is a smaller factor than the previous one).

Puplava eats this up, without question. That is easy to do; interviews don't allow time for analysis! The lack of questioning this afterwards I find disturbing, esp considering the high readership of Puplava's site. Also, there are 120 google links to this story, all positive. How credulous are Peak Oil believers? What if Simmons had warned of flying zombie monkey invaders from Mars?

Conclusions:

1. This does not imply that our refineries are bright and shiny, wonderful in every way. Just that this sort of unfounded overstatement does not help.

2. This brief statement is one moment in Simmons long history of work in Peak Oil, and not representative of it. Most of his work has been both of high quality and path breaking -- esp his book "Twilight in the Desert".

3. This does not imply that everyone on both sides is guilty of sloppy work. There is much fine work being done by both sides of this debate, the work that will eventually help us navigate Peak Oil -- whenever it comes, hopefully with little economic distress. But too much of the Peak Oil debate is conducted like this, in my opinion. It is too important a subject for such rhetorical gamesmanship.

(second comment:)

I have spent much time on this during the past few years. For an expert's view, I suggest reading the articles I've posted on DNI by Robert Hirsch.

BIO: Biography of Robert Hirsch

Defense and the National Interest (website, source of many documents)

Peaking of World Oil Production--an Overview

My take, not an expert.

1. It's coming. It is more of a process -- a transitional period -- than a specific point in time.

2. There is insufficient data publicly available to reliably forecast the date. Probably no less than 5 years, no more than 15, with high certainty. From zero to 20 with near-certainty. We need information about Middle Eastern and FSU (former Soviet Union) reserves to say more. Trying to be more precise without this data is a waste of time.

3. Talking about Peak Oil is mechanically too difficult. More useful to speak of "Peak Conventional Oil" -- excluding hydrocarbons which require large capital investments to extract, at high extraction costs (both in effect mean that high flows require years of effort, and the output is expensive). This is close, perhaps very close.

4. Preparing for a smooth transition (i.e., little economic pain and disruption) to peak oil will take decades. This is the #1 conclusion of the Hirsch Report, the best work done to date on this subject.

5. Peak Oil has become "hijacked" by people for whom it is a vehicle to promulgate their broader socio-economic agenda, its politicization. Look at sites like ODAC and The Oil Drum, the frequent mention of a wide range of subjects of the doomster-variety (e.g, bad -- never good -- economic news, climate change, agricultural problems). Most of this work is poorly sourced, even more poorly analyzed. This has resulted to some extent in a discrediting of the peak oil adherents. To this extent many of the Peak Oil crowd are part of the problem, not the solution.

6. Neither side of the debate has much interest in research -- data collection and analysis. It's almost a fact-free debate. Fun, entertaining, sterile. A million dollar grant from one of the major foundations or the gov't could greatly advance our understanding of this vital issue. So far as I know, nobody is even attempting to do this.

*** This is the key aspect of the problem. *** Some of these people, like Simmons, have the resources and stature to assemble serious resources for study. But don't.

Both sides like to assemble groups of people -- bigger names, the better -- to loudly pronounce their opinions. Given the large body of knowledge showing that expert guesses are just guesses, this helps not at all.

Well, Bush and Bernanke gave their friends another opportunity to get their money out of the market. The MSM was all a twitter about the help for the housing indigent. Now, this weekend the blogs are talking about the small affect, if any this help will be.

The psychologists write books discussing all manner and forms of denial. They write doctoral theses covering various shades and smells. But it doesn't matter because the herd is so dumb and illiterate they will never understand how dumb and illiterate they are. There are over five million homes for sale, over two million are empty and home builders' stocks went up Friday. Allowing everyone to vote is just as stupid.

How about this: the financial markets crash, a storm or two hits the gulf and Atlantic seaboard and the winter is like the blizzard of 1899. The time in the consumer countries from 1900 to 2005 has been in all regards the best in the history of the world. Of course this presupposes that the best is considered to be consumption glorified and uncontrolled breeding to the tune of 6,600 million and climbing.

The scenario mentioned in paragraph three is very possible, so possible that anyone with a brain shouldn't be able to sleep through the night with out cold sweats.

Again our frustration is being able to see these things as very possible and not be able to do any thing about them.

I didn't even mention the end of cheap oil.

It used to be very common for the Hudson and Mississippi Rivers to freeze. ( google blizzard of 1899)

So, talking with a developer/president of a house building company today (bidding on some work, which we got, yeah, we can eat next week. :-) )

Liability insurance for him as GC: 4,000 to 5,000 per house
Liability insurance for each subcontractor: 1500 to 3000 per house

Water taps: 20,000 per house

Before you even start each house has 40,000 dollars in cost in it

Plus, building the roads, water, sewer, etc, the carrying costs of the loans and of course, the government taking 1/3 of the land for "open space" or other more important values.

Easily 100,000 plus BEFORE any lumber is bought.

Scary huh?

I smelled the housing bubble in 2005 and moved to Huntsville, AL from Wash DC dragging my fearful family all the way. I guess the movie Deliverance and the KKK wad on their minds. Well guess what? It is great and they love it. This southern city is literally Rocket City (NASA, Missile Defense Agency, Army Space and Missile Center and more. I now have a post card perfect backyard overlooking the TN River, 900 ft off the deck. Amazing. Our DC friends just shake their heads in amazement. Although life has always been a blessing, it has really shaped up nicely after reading the works of Dr David Hawkins. The man is a true genius in his ability to make standard religions understandable and believable. He provides just the right context to sort through the myriad of contradictions. The book The Road Less Traveled is also pretty good but not as eye opening.

Your writings are a must read for anyone. Tip of the hat to the Kingsland Report for bringing your site to my attention.

Turning off the TV...Charles- Maybe try the Blockbuster membership that mails you movies for the price of about $18 a month. You can view a different one every night by returning them to a store and checking out replacements free. The ones listed on your computer list will come as well as getting personally selected ones. They offer a free trial as does Netflix. These are worth trying and don't come with hidden fees. People want to be entertained and for less than a dollar a movie is not so much to spend.

My wife and I are frugal in ways that you didn't mention. I got to say that ground beef has long term costs and should be left at the market. I refer to health costs. Chicken is leaner and cheaper. The 10lb bags of leg quarters is cheapest although breast meat for about a buck a pound is even leaner and has less waste. I didn't see any mention of rice! If you don't do rice it is probably because you don't have a rice cooker or a Chinese wife as I do. Rice in a cooker is easy and comes out perfect every time. It also keeps better than flour. Buying it in bulk will save you more. Go garage sale shopping on a Saturday morning by checking craigslist.org (free) Find yourself a rice cooker for a couple bucks. We got our newer replacement cooker on craigslist "free stuff" yes for free (less the gas and time). We furnished our house very nicely with free stuff and garage sale purchases. For groceries you should check out the sales pages that come in the mail or go to their websites and stock up on bargains...

Around our house we accentuate the sales pages with a drum roll and a shared examination to discover this weeks special deals. Bread Machines are wonderful for the smell and taste. I like to do whole wheat bread sometimes with a few tablespoons of spaghetti sauce to make a sun dried tomato like loaf...